I have to admit. I wasn’t expecting it. Then again, who would have been?
There I was, wandering around Telon completing random quests, saving the world – when who should show up?
Slappy The Cool.
Upon his arrival, everyone, players and npc alike – broke into some sort of odd dance move and you could hear the sounds of music being played from some magical boom box that you couldn’t quite see. At the time, I figured it was a fluke or a GM playing around with us. I was standing right beside a heavily populated quest npc and I thought nothing of it. But as I continued my quests around Telon I’d see Slappy a few more times. Each time the npc and players would break into dance and get their groove on in a small circle surrounding Slappy.
I almost cried laughing every single time, it was that hilarious to watch. Minding my own business, my brain filled with hobgoblin and death when — OH! I LOVE THIS SONG! It’s time to get jiggy.
So where does Slappy come from? Well, last night I didn’t want to level my adventuring too high. Kanad was not on yet, and there’s no real mentoring system in Vangard though you can turn off experience. I didn’t want to work on quests and potentially out level (or have to re-do the quests later). So I decided it would be a great night to work on the diplomacy chains.
The Isle of Dawn is great for diplomacy. They had the basic introduction quests that every starter town has, and then the story moved on from there. Unlike the starter towns – it actually gives you two carrying cases for your diplomacy junk fairly early on. Anyone who’s ever done diplomacy before understands how valuable this is. It also gives you a lot of gear with some pretty good diplomacy presence on it – another huge plus.
So I wandered around for a bit, rallying the veterans, interrogation the hobgoblins, and gathering pieces from npc to build a flag that would help raise the moral of the troops who were fighting those hobgoblins. Mid way through one of the chains – I was sent to talk to a hobgoblin Seer, in the middle of a camp of level 9 mobs (and remember, I’m only a level 6 adventurer, so it was scary!) who should I see standing right by some totem pole type structure? None other then Slappy The Cool, of course. I hailed one of the npc by him and did the diplomacy quest they offered – and was rewarded the whistle that calls Slappy. It has a five minute recast timer, good thing or else I’d be using that whistle to get jiggy with it all the time.
As always happens I lost track of time doing my diplomacy quests, and my diplomacy level is now actually higher then my adventure level. I love the way the Isle of Dawn lets you move the city levers with civic diplomacy so that you actually get a pretty good feel for the game and how it can affect Telon. Of course diplomacy was not integrated very nicely into the game as a whole, but it’s still one of those spheres that I just love doing. With the stories, gear sets, and random bits if information you can get (blackmail, etc) as well as just getting junk to sell, not to mention putting up buffs that benefit crafters and adventurers alike – I think it’s a wonderful aspect to the game.
Slappy just made it all that much more cool.
stargrace 