Rutskarn

So here's the time I turned a WoW server into my own personal mechanical squirrel peddling territory. Back when I was 17 I got a copy of the game for my birthday. I didn't end up digging the questing mechanics for the same reason I don't do illuminated manuscripts: it takes forever, it's tedious, some guy hiding in a cloister somewhere is already a thousand times better than you are, and at the end of the day all your accomplishments end up in a file somewhere. I did a raid just about one time and one time only, and through a stroke of luck, ended up getting a schematic to make mechanical squirrels. They're pets. They follow you around and look kinda cute. You make them out of copper and malachite, and like everything else in WoW's busted-ass inverse colonialist economy they cost way more to make than they do to buy. But I wanted to sell them, because that sounded like more fun than farming human lives for wool, so I went into business anyway. The key was, I didn't use the auction house, which would have got me bus fare--I hawked them in the general chat as a sleazy traveling salesman for an explicit 400% markup. What made my squirrels worth it? Patriotic spirit, proprietary engineering processes that meant they WOULDN'T burgle the player's stash and sell it to gold farmers during holiday weekends, the special instructions that came with each unit (I'd mail them a letter with stuff like "1.) Do not light on fire" "3.) Do not feed after midnight or at any time" "5.) Do not play cards with the squirrel, it is an inveterate cheater") and the prestige of owning a Rutskarn Original. When I got cheated by one crooked customer, a brouhaha broke out over Trade chat that didn't end until I was paid a hefty reparation. It got to the point where even engineers twice my level were special ordering them, plus a couple for their alts. I got richer hawking overpriced vanity squirrels than I'd ever gotten playing the game legitimately. Eventually I parleyed my financial success and recognition into a guild, Chocolate Hammer (the name was taken from my one of my early pitches which described them as being exactly that useful). I only quit when after a few months of trying, I was unable to obtain a schematic for any other kinds of mechanical beasts to pick things up. One question I was always stuck with: should I have been on an RP server? On the one hand, I was absolutely playing a character. On the other hand, that wasn't a diagetic character, it was a persona I played the game through. I guess it raises the questions of what an RP server is really for. Is it there to provide an immersive roleplaying environment? Or is it there to segregate people like me from GenPop? Anyway, happy birthday, Ross! I've been following your work pretty much since the beginning, and it's always been worth waiting for. Keep it up!