I've just read an absolutely great interview with a guy who goes by the nickname of Xzin in World of Warcraft. I don't play World of Warcraft myself, having played Ultima Online for a very long time, but the article still interested me greatly due to it's PvP nature.

I am a huge fan of MMORPG PvP, unfortunately Ultima Online got  incredibly boring and none of the recent expansions interested me in any single way, shape or form. I quit ages ago and made a tidy sum selling my character on E-bay. Anyway let's move on..

Now I have to admit I know very little about World of Warcraft and thus even less about it's PvP system. I promise that one day I might just try, just to see what the hype is about. Currently I don't really have the time and I'm in a large doubt what MMORPG to play next.. (Feel free to mail me suggestions.)  Still, what Xzin is doing just displays such a level of commitment and creativity that I think it is great. He probably gets flamed every hour and I can imagine how he gets reported to GMs every 2 minutes. (Been there, done that. You get reported just for winning nowadays in an MMORPG... People seem unable to accept defeat gracefully.)

What Xzin has done, is to inter-connect 5 computers and their hardware. He is using wireless keyboards and mice to simultaneously control 5 characters. As far as I understand he is using 1 undead priest and 4 undead mages. This allows him to very efficiently focus his attacks on players, and any solo players would die very quickly. (Not many people survive a 5 vs 1 and when the 5 in question are extremely focussed in their attacks, you are doomed.)

The priest in his setup allows him to effectively heal all of the members of his party - resulting in an extremely effective setup. I'd absolutely love to see this in action, but even if I would play World of Warcraft, I would be a complete noob and it would ultimately lead to my demise. Not that I am bothered as, from what I have read recently, World of Warcraft has carebear PvP where you don't really lose anything if you die. 

Perhaps I will give it a go somewhere in 2007, unless I find something else more interesting. I tend to play MMORPGs together with my good friend Despair and my lovely significant other Zyle as we are tuned to each other when it comes to PvP. Would hate to play any MMORPG on my own, so having at least one of them willing to follow me to a new adventure would be a prime requisite!

The full interview with Xzin about his remarkable playstyle.