What It Means To Be Forsaken And What Not To Do.

David Bowers over at WoW Insider posted a nifty introductory article on RPing an Undead. Reading it got me thinking about my history and current choices when it comes to roleplaying in WoW. It's safe to say that the only race which captures my interest beyond aesthetics in WoW is The Forsaken. It's a mixture of their (our?) painful history bringing about a powerful thirst for revenge as well as a desire for the destruction of all living things that really tugs at my heartstrings.

There are some that say Undead are the Horde version of Night Elves. What that implies is that people who take little interest in lore and just want a character that "looks cool" or fits into some typical fantasy archetype (although you'll encounter a lot less Undead erotic roleplaying than Night Elf). I won't sit here and deny that The Forsaken does draw in a certain type of person that tends to annoy the crap out of me. The people I'm talking about tend to be freshly out of puberty who select this race for a couple for either the hair, the fact that they are "lol zombies", and the "rocking out" dance.

First off this hair is out of control. The fact the spiked hair seems to be modeled after a member of a horrible band like Mudvayne makes it even worse. I mean come on, we're undead, soulless rotting shells of our former humanity (actually kind of like Mudvayne). I'm not sure if people realize it or not but haircuts like this and the mohawk take a lot of effort and upkeep to stay looking foolish. It's just not the kind of thing a member of The Forsaken should be concerned with. Every time I see an Undead with either one of these hairstyles I instantly dismiss them as being those kids that hang out at the mall being obnoxious and begging their parents for money to buy more stupid clothing from Hot Topic.

Then we have the "lol zombies" factor. In the past few years there has been a surge of zombie fandom. I recognize that there have been some great horror movies, of which I'm a fan, and the concept of becoming re-animated after death is pretty interesting. However having the detailed history of origins of The Forsaken reduced to someone walking around saying "braaaaaaains" gets on my nerves. I'm not the RP/lore police by any means. You can play however you wish, but that means I can also criticize you as I wish. Maybe it's that it was funny the first fifty times I saw someone doing it like four years ago and now it's more worn out that any Chuck Norris joke you can think of (are those even jokes?).

Finally I come to that horrible dance. I need to clarify that I'm speaking about the male Undead dance. The one where you hop around like an idiot throwing up the horns more often than Ronnie James Dio. The female dance is actually kind of pretty and seems to fit with the characters just fine. The male dance though is just out of place within the lore and setting. Overall it just adds to this general image that is available and annoying when creating an Undead character. I mean as Forsaken we've been recently freed from the grasp of the Lich King, we're bound to a curse which prevents us from enjoying the world as we did our entire lives, and our lands are corrupted and we've been forced to move into the sewers of our former city. Sounds like a perfect time to act like a spazz and hop around head banging... or not.

Although after looking at it... Dio does kind of look like an Undead Priest:

All I'm really saying is that The Forsaken (in my opinion) have one of the most interesting storylines in the WoW universe. We even have a leader that people take actual pride in (have you ever seen how tenaciously people from all Horde races will rush to defend The Dark Lady), and a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the game as a character who doesn't really fit with The Alliance or The Horde. Please take advantage of these things, for all of us, I don't want to see another mohawk.