A Gamer’s Guide to Voting

Electoral College, votes, partisans…what the hell are they going on about?  As today is *the* day, and I just thought of this when I woke up to CNN on TV, I figured a short and humorous guide to Election Day with in-game terms would be a nice post.

 
How does the election work?

There are two teams in this political battle, Red and Blue.   Each side chooses one Boss level mob and one healer/buffer mob that they think will have the best chance to pwn the other team’s choice.  This year the Red team chose McCain and Palin, while the Blue team chose Obama and Biden.

After these pairs are chosen, each team publicly announces their spawn with a global shout called “The Nomination” and from this point on the two pair’s first goal is to ding faster than the other one.  The only way to do this, is to do random five-mans and the occasional 10-man raids with people they have never met to grind out Reputation.  If the people they group with like how they perform, they get added to their friends list and possibly even send them some gold as a sign of their appreciation.

As the pairs quest and raid on their mission, they occasionally run an arena 2v2 against the other team and debuff the opposing pair by using Taunts, Mocking Blows, and even the occasional Cheap Shots.  These match ups are not for actual arena points, just practice battles.  Some friends of the winning side might troll the losers on the forums, but this just boils down to a flame war that ends up getting locked, and does not adversely affect the outcome of the election.

 
Election Night

This is a Special Event that only occurs once every four years, and only lasts one day.  This is what the two teams have been training for.  The ultimate goal is to win by numbers, but not necessarily by popularity.  (Much like those elitist snobs that raid 24/7.  They are all jerks and know it, and no one wants to be around them, but in the end they get the job done and have epics and their huge epeens to stroke to compensate for their lack of anatomy and significant other in real life) 

The entire game is turned into a massive Capture and Hold style battleground.  During the time leading up to The Election Day event, the two teams were hopping flight path to flight path to cover the entire area and interact with as many players as possible.  If they used their skills and talents correctly before today (almost all Boss Nominee mobs are Subtlety and Balanced spec’d.  Minus the previous Bush/Cheney duo, who were Destruction and Marksmen spec’d, respectively…), then all the people that they have interacted with will help them during the battle.  This of course leads to a massive RvR scenario and both sides clash against each other in a glorious way that only Tolkien could describe.

As the two Boss mobs and buffers give Battle Shouts and Orders on the field, their minions dutifully do their part to aid them to victory.   While this battle is being waged, in order to keep things as orderly as possible, a group of battle commanders (Electoral College) oversee the combat and after some time has passed give the go ahead and light a signal flare to mark which side has one the individual battle.  Late game rushes can still occur to claim lost objectives, but this is not very common.

Once the majority of lands is claimed and the night grows long, The Election event ends.  The Election Harolds (anyone on CNN) proclaim the victor, and the winning side all get a week-long buff to their Morale and Vitality.  The losers get a blow to their ego, and have to pay for their durability loss.  The special event is complete, and the winner will take control of the capital city (and it’s loot) in January.

 

Note: Don’t take this too seriously, this was all in good fun and something I did to keep the mood light (as politics can quickly turn a conversation hostile).  Best of luck to both McCain and Obama, and hopefully you can relax after the election ends…at least until one of you get voted in anyway ^_^