My last five hours in WoW

The other day I came by an old 20-questions-interview made by Matticus. He put the following question to Phaelia from Resto4life:

Let’s hypothetically assume Blizzard goes out of business and decides to shut down their servers and WoW for good. You have 5 hours before the server shutdown is permanent. What would you do in 5 hours?

Actually this type of question often is used to help you to find out what’s most important to you in real life. Usually you’re supposed to imagine you’ve got a certain amount of time left to live – be it a month or a year. How would you best use the time you have left? Sometimes the question is put in another manner: what would you like people to say about you holding a speech at your funeral? Thinking this way many people realize that having a successful career may not be so crucial after all, not compared to relations with friends and family.

Using this model of a question in a WoW context is a great idea and I couldn’t resist starting to think about how I would have answered the question. What aspects of the game do I appreciate most of all and what kind of last memory would I like to keep in my heart the day I’ll have to leave Azeroth forever? Limiting the time to five hours makes it quite hard to make up your mind – you really have to use the time wisely.

So what have I come up with so far? Well I think I’d want to grab nine of my best friends in the game and have a last run in Karazhan or possibly Zul Aman. Sticking to ten people I’d be sure to enjoy some of the best sides of raiding – the smooth cooperation, like a well-working machine, the comradeship, the laughter in the vent, the playfulness and brightness. I do love 25 man raiding but considering the short time available I’d rather play safe and stick to the small format to make sure it would be a success.

After clearing a last raid instance, I’d however go for a little wipe feast! Yes! I’d like to stick my little curious gnome face into Black Temple or Sunwell. OK, we’d wipe at trash mobs, but at least I would like to open the door and have a look and see whatever I can of it from the hallway.

Whatever time was left – maybe half an hour or an hour – I think I’d spend having some kind of party with guildies, friends – and maybe some strangers as well. We would have some awesome fireworks, light fires everywhere, do silly dances, eat chocolate cakes to grant us happiness, hug and blow kisses to each other, crying and laughing, sharing stories and memories from the game.

And what about the very end? At first I imagined I’d find a beautiful, stunning way to let Larísa die. To let her throw herself out of some high spot, let her fall and fall through the world, like Alice falling into the Wonderland. And then let her fade away, the world turning all gray. She would wander into the land of shadows and forever be a ghost in the deserted Blizzard Space.

But now I’ve changed my mind. I would rather take off Larísa all of her armory and fancy weapons and just dress her in her white wedding dress.

Her feet would be bare, her hands empty. I want her to be plain and innocent, the way she entered Azeroth long time ago.

Then I’d put her in a cheerful place – somewhere were sun’s shining, the grass is green and the water’s clear crystal blue. Perhaps in Nagrand, perhaps in a field in Goldshire. I’d bring her a nice pet for company. Perhaps Snowshoe the rabbit. He’s not exclusive, but he’s damn nice to pat.

And when the server finally would close I could comfort myself at the thought that Larísa would keep on playing merrily in the fields, even without me logging on.

My five last hours in the game. How would you spend yours?