Deathsong's Dirge The Tragic Tale of Deathsong's Demise How the World of Warcraft's Genuine One-Of-A-Kind Azgalorian Horde Female Champion Mage of the Battlefields was put to the death by Corporate Disregard of the Basic Rules Of Good Business and Good Customer Service. Have you ever put your heart and soul into a character? Have you ever played a MMORPG? Have you known the pain and heartache of dedicating hours and hours of your valuable time building a character up to level 60 only to have the very essence of your character arbitrarily destroyed at the meaningless whim of a Blizzard programmer? Well I have.... I began playing WOW less than two weeks after the game went live. I started out with a Tauren Shaman and enjoyed playing her, but to me she was "just" a toon. Then one day in Sillithus I witnessed a dainty, elegantly attired human female mage taking out Whirling Dervishes without breaking a sweat--the exact same Whirling beasties that were draining nearly all of my big old lumbering tauren's life and mana! It was a pivotal moment in WOW history! (Or at least in my little corner of the Azgalor.) I immediately logged out and rolled the best looking undead female mage I could manage given the limitations imposed by rotting flesh and gaping bones. But all in all it worked out ok and I was, if not totally thrilled, at least content with my firey little glass cannon...DEATHSONG. My Guild fussed and fumed- -after all WOW was in its earliest stages and level 60s were a bit few and far between in those days. They were not particularly thrilled that I had taken my Tauren Shaman--TERESYTA--up to level 58 and then cast her aside to concentrate on leveling a mage. About the time Deathsong turned 20, three things happened...I figured out that Blink was a pretty poor substitute for Ghost Wolf, and that Deathsong was kinda ugly, no matter how much you dressed her up. And boy did I ever dress her up! I spent a fortune at the auction house buying gowns and gloves and capes...oh my! (This was back in the days before you could try on something "before" you bought it.) But no matter how much I spent she still had ugly yellow eyes and straggly yellow hair. So, discouraged with my mage and wanting to please my Guild, I returned to my big old lumbering cow and leveled her to 60.... It wasn't long before I discovered something else. I didn't care if Deathsong was ugly, I still enjoyed playing her a lot more than my 60 Shaman. So, once again I deserted Teresyta and went back to playing my little glass cannon. Then about level 24 a miracle occurred. Deathsong acquired a hat...a wonderful, magical, mystical marvelous hat! It was called the Watcher's Cap and it was tall and pointy and broad brimmed like a witches hat...and it even perfectly matched her favorite hunter green gown and cape and gloves. But the most miraculous thing about that hat was that it transformed Deathsong from downright ugly into almost as beautiful as any of those high-toned alliance babes! Suddenly, the scraggly yellow hair was gone, and the ugly yellow eyes had been replaced by adorable dead black shoebutton eyes--or empty black eyesockets.... I never really figured out which, I just knew they were cute. Deathsong and I were in Undead heaven! And so it went, as long as she was wearing the right hat, my Deathsong was adorable. I spent more and more at the auction house searching for more and more miraculous hats--and dozens of matching gowns and accessories-- until finally she had three miraculous hats. One green, one blue and one purple. The black shoe button eyes, elegant gowns, matching accessories, long flowing capes, and pointy witch hats became Deathsong's signature look...so much so that when she couldn't acquire a magical transforming hat higher than level 38, she wore that one for 22 levels.

My adorable, witchy looking, firey little glass cannon became famous in Azgalor, practically living for PVP, passionately clinging to Warsong Gulch throughout her late twenties and thirties, holding tight at level 49 for almost 6 weeks so she wouldn't have to give up Arathi Basin, and even reaching exalted in Alterac Valley by level 57, climbing consistently in rank and ranking as she went.... And then another wonderous thing happened. Deathsong and I discovered that if she could just make Champion, she could have a brand new hat and still be pretty and color coordinated! (Remember, at level 60, she was still wearing that same level 38 hat.) Well back to the battlegrounds she went, with one goal in mind...make Champion and get a high level coordinated outfit that included a miraculous transforming hat! Forget rank. Nevermind ranking. The real goal here was to have a pretty Horde character in a coordinated outfit with kickass stats...and by gosh we made it! Deathsong not only made Champion, but in PVP she ranked about 138 on the entire server...and that ain't half bad when you consider the fact that the woman behind the toon was a gray haired little old lady. Anyway, Deathsong and I were content. We had reached our goal. We no longer had to play obsessively, we could actually just relax and enjoy the game and play for fun. I can't tell you how many younglings I adopted and ran through lower level instances so they could level faster. Deathsong and I were online "Mommy" to about a half a dozen kids from all over the country. They couldn't believe this nice lady played WoW...and desperately wished their own Moms would play too. And then one day something weird happened that spelled the beginning of the end. As Deathsong was running through the main drag at Orgrimmar this other toon stopped her and said, "Wow anime." which she took as a compliment at the time...but now I have to wonder, who that toon was and what horrible forces that chance meeting set in motion. Right after that, during the very next patch Deathsong's beautiful black shoebutton eyes disappeared to be replaced by the same flaming yellow ugly ones that most all of the other Undead have. Deathsong and I were both devastated. She was no longer pretty or unique, or special, she was just another ugly Undead Horde mage, and all the elegant gowns and the pointy hats in the world couldn't fix her. I tried explaining it to a GM and asked if there was anyway we could get her eyes back the way they were, he callously, but politely said that it was bug and it had been fixed and there was nothing we could do about it. Deathsong and I tried to keep playing after that, but it just wasn't the same, and then to add insult to injury, the infamous patch had occurred during a busy work week and Deathsong's rank had slipped just below Champion, and she couldn't upgrade her hat and shoulders with the new ones that were released with the patch. Everything that meant anything to her had been snatched cruelly away. So now, lost in a neverending maelstrom of depression, with little or no will to play Deathsong's rank continued to plunge, and she fell out of the top 2,000 PVP characters on the realm for the first time in nearly a year. Being undead is tough enough without having your identity coldly, cruelly, callously and arbitrarily stolen from you by an uncaring corporate entity and a heartless technocrat. That is no way to treat a good customer or an honored warrior. Eventually, I just gave up and walked away, but I'll always fondly remember my beautiful little Deathsong with the shoebutton black eyes. For up to the minute World of Warcraft information I do have my WOW blog still up and running and it's filled with up to date information on gamer, gaming and, of course, WOW. CryMoreNoob Competitive Strategies For Horde In Alterac Valley