Interest check: Server First - Warcraft NPC Improv

Tim Traini · Post by **Tim Traini** » March 20th, 2011, 11:42 pm

When you play World of Warcraft, you don't read the quest text. You just hit Accept and kill ten spiders or free ten slaves and pick up your new shiny breastplate and move on to the next quest hub. When a giant bomb was dropped on a bunch of teenager night elves in Stonetalon, did you flinch, or shed a tear? No, you tapped your foot and wondered when this scripted event would end so you could get the breadcrumb quest to Desolace.

But when you turned in that quest, that orc may have said "Strength and Honor", but what he wanted to say was "I miss my family back in Orgrimmar." Not everyone grew up an adventurer. Not everyone wants to stand around all day at the flight roost and hand out hippogryff after hippogryff to some worgen named Petsdotcom, but King Varian Wrynn decreed that was your job upon pain of death, and you have to work next to the flight trainer who is just a right jerk of a dwarf.

Server First (name not set in stone in the slightest) is an idea I've been knocking around in my head for a few weeks. It can be simple montage, but the catch is the main players in a scene are NPCs in Azeroth. We all know that the comedy is in the relationship, and it doesn't matter where your are, what you are doing, or if you're a giant bear-chicken.

What I'm looking for are improvisers who have a base familiarity with World of Warcraft lore from all of the expansions. You don't have to have to know every single exploit of the Bloodsail Buccaneers, but say if someone walks on stage and complains they didn't get a new red bandana when Vanessa took charge, you have a scene about two members of the Defias saying how they feel about the regime change from one Van Cleef to another in Westfall. The audience may not know all of the background but they'll still see the relationship. And it doesn't have to be on the bottom trash mob level, scenes with say Malfurion and Ysera are perfectly fine too.

Side support to add to flavor to a scene could be adventurers coming up and buying supplies or turning quests in, or opposing faction members stabbing them in the back, or even the tension of a dual faction/neutral city like Fuselight, Gadgetzan, or Dalaran. You can still use time dashes to do a bad moment in a goblin's childhood, or in an Alliance scene do a cut to the opposing Horde NPCs on the other side making the same realization/joke. Just spitballing ways how the concept can apply to scenes.

I'm trying to find out if anyone else would be interested in such an idea (it's just me and Jeremy (Logan) at the moment), and if once we get enough interested people to have a meeting and see what we can brainstorm. Is this a good idea? What do we need to change to make it one? Have you eaten a Hot Pocket in the last month? I have!

So, if you want to get in on this, post here or message me with contact info so I can rope everyone in. Or, if you like, you can post here with your feedback/suggestions on such an idea. I don't know! I've never done this before. I certainly didn't copy and paste this from elsewhere, this sentence is new!

Spots · Post by **Spots** » March 21st, 2011, 3:34 am

While I don't play (the only reference I could make/get is "Leroy Jenkins"), I imagine that Wowprov would be vastly popular... might even gain an online following if documented.

shando · Post by **shando** » March 25th, 2011, 9:22 am

You might wanna talk to Lubu. Gnap!'s Guilds of Steel was highly influenced by WoW.

Dan · Post by **Dan** » March 28th, 2011, 12:09 pm

I put my vote in for Spots' idea of "Wowprov" as the name of this rather than "Server first"; "Wowprov" lets you know at a glance exactly what you're in for (and it's catchy!)

Tim Traini · Post by **Tim Traini** » March 28th, 2011, 1:35 pm

I'm not really concerned about the name until there's an actual troupe first. While yes, troupe name is the first thing you put down on a submission form, you can't leave the rest blank, cause that's where I'm at.

JLOgan · Post by **JLOgan** » March 28th, 2011, 5:53 pm

I'm in! Oh wait, you already mentioned me...

MasterCylinder · Post by **MasterCylinder** » March 29th, 2011, 12:45 am

I haven't played WoW in years (kind of refuse in order to have "free time") but I might be interested in this depending on how it ends up developing.

+1

Tim Traini · Post by **Tim Traini** » April 3rd, 2011, 10:43 pm

So I was explaining this idea to Dave Zimmerman and he had a great idea, which would make it easier for the audience and for improvisers who don't know much about WoW: Bring in a map of Azeroth, have an audience member point to a location, give a brief history lesson, then start the scene. That way someone who isn't up to date has enough to work with. Something like three short mono scenes could work for a show with different locations.

I was thinking if there was someone in the audience who plays to ask where their hearthstone is set to. But this map idea is just fantastic and makes it way more accessible now.