Chocolate Hammer

Last week, I began my tale of epic rodent vendure*. I had stumbled upon an idea, a sort of on-the-side pastime that might prove amusing for a while. This week, I’ll talk about how bit by bit, this one-off experiment became nearly my sole in-game occupation.

At first, I would only throw out my squirrel macro, answering questions that anyone had (“1 gold? Are you serious?”), deflecting concerns (“Are you insane?”) and accepting suggestions (“Get a life.”). It wasn’t very engaging, but it was novel, so I did it anyway. I employed a little bit of humor, mostly because it provided some variety, but in those early few hours I was more or less straightforward, businesslike. Very quickly, this gave way to a somewhat more lighthearted approach—I was selling mechanical squirrels to a bunch of grizzled warriors, after all. And when I began using this approach, I began to realize that something was happening that hadn’t really happened for the past three godforsaken levels: I was really, truly having fun. The more I idly bantered on the chats, the more I found that selling overpriced squirrels was both more challenging and more entertaining than the other pursuits in the game.

As I’ve labored to demonstrate in the last post, World of Warcraft is based on repetition. You kill ten raptors, then you kill ten ogres, then you make ten hats, then you make ten loaves of bread. After a while, all the different monsters you kill start to look the same, all the things you craft start to look the same. After a little while longer, it gets harder to tell the difference between a monster and a particularly stubborn baked good.

The squirrel selling was always fresh, always new. The customers, the hecklers, the banter…all of it was different every time I logged on, which (the first two days being a weekend) was pretty often. Even when I sold nothing at all, the experience was worthwhile. In a nutshell, the mechanical squirrel simulator was the addiction that the basket-weaving monster-murdering simulator never was to me.

And so, I stepped the operation up a notch.

I adopted a sort of persona—not really roleplaying, more bantering in a certain mildly-insane used-car-salesman fashion. Very quickly, a set of traits began to emerge: Rutskarn was snarky, slippery, would do anything short of outright lying to make a sale, hated communists and ranted interminably about the degradation of the traveling salesman. Over time, I’d add little details to the character, running jokes for the regulars—for example, that all his squirrels were made as huggy-wuggy and loveable as possible (because those squirrels that did not meet huggy-wuggy standards were melted down into scrap before the eyes of the others as an example), that he had once eaten a mechanical squirrel (during the 154346th Siege of Tarren Mill, he’d run out of food, and was forced to eat his own handiwork…poor Rusty. And Scraps. And Ratchet, and Copperhead, and Bolty, and…he was hungry, okay?), that he was physically incapable of using numbers to represent letters. I’d just sit in town for an hour at a time, slipping into a kind of comedic improvisation, playing off the comments of the hecklers and the bored while cranking out a slow, but steady, profit.

I attracted a surprising amount of criticism. Although I’d say at least 2 out of every 3 players were either amused or indifferent, the rest were irritated for reasons I still can’t really fathom. There weren’t many other people using the chats in my various haunts, so I wasn’t impeding anyone else’s activities. I wasn’t scamming anyone—I was extremely up front about how worthless my product was. I could be ignored both mechanically, by adding my name to an ignore list, or practically, by simply not glancing at the little box in the bottom-right screen.

For the sake of posterity, here’s a lovely conversation between myself and a lovely lad named Halistiron.

The pitch I was using at the time read something like this:

They’re rare, quirky, and as useful as a chocolate hammer! Hand-made fresh mechanical squirrels for sale—only one (1) gold! Please send tell for details.

Halistiron made his first appearance when he asked what the “chocolate hammer” referred to in my pitch was. I told him that it was a symbol of something useless, something completely without worth or merit. He was silent for a few minutes, then came back in:
(text represented by bracketed names are chat messages)

[Halistiron] they arent rare either lol

Whether or not mechanical squirrels were rare is a matter for debate. There were some on the market, for sure, but before I started selling them I honestly never saw anyone walking around with one. I responded in the only way I could.

[Rutskarn] Sure they are…
[Halistiron] dude i get the recipe like form every other drop, they are common
[Rutskarn] But seriously, when was the last time you saw anyone with a mechanical squirrel companion?
[Halistiron] i have one
[Rutskarn] You, sir, have only concrete personal experience.
[Rutskarn] Whereas, I have nebulous statistics, possibly of my own design.
[Rutskarn] Clearly, I win.
[Halistiron] i make them all the time, idiot
[Theydra]: lol
[Narohap]: lol
[Rutskarn] Aha! But who is the idiot, then, the squirrel maker or the man who sells squirrels? To people? Using possibly fake statistics?
[Rutskarn] THAT is a philosophical conundrum.
[Rutskarn] Stick that in your corn-pipe, squirrel hater.
[Halistiron] would you shut up already?
[Rutskarn] Aha! No.
[Rutskarn] No, I will not.
[Halistiron] god i hope i never meet you
[Tsilence] lol
[Theydra] ok, Rut, you’re losing them with the intelligent vocabulary
[Rutskarn] Alright, you seem like a nice kid.
[Rutskarn] I’ll let you in on the best-kept secret of WoW:
[Rutskarn] The squelch function.
[Rutskarn] Seriously.
[Rutskarn] Use it.
[Rutskarn] Your problems just…fade away.
[Rutskarn] This solution can be applied equally to honest purveyors of mechanized rodents and entire chat sections.
[Rutskarn] Say, for example, the Orgrimmar chat, which can be charitably compared to a cesspit with sharks swimming in it.
[Halistiron] god shut up
[Rutskarn] Hally—can I call you Hally?—I am beginning to get the sense that you don’t like me.
[Rutskarn] This insinuation hurts like a knife.
[Rutskarn] Made of chocolate.
[Halistiron] hali you idiot and yes i dont like you
[Theydra] I like this show, it’s entertaining.
[Tsilence] mmmm chocolate knife
[Rutskarn] Thank you, thank you.
[Rutskarn] Show your support by pledging—er, buying a squirrel.
[Rutskarn] Or a tote bag.
[Rutskarn] Remember: I can’t do it without trolls or mouth-breathers like Hally.
[Theydra] sorry, saving my g for that all-important mount
[Rutskarn] Understandable! Although, I would suggest that a saddle could be furnished for a mechanical squirrel…
[Rutskarn] You’d be quite unique.
[Theydra] lol

For a few bitter, terrible moments, I was afraid I’d lost Halistiron forever.  Indeed, it seemed to all present that poor ol’ Hally had left forever, never to enlighten us all with his folksy wisdom ever again. Thankfully, this was not the case.

[Halistiron] has anyone here bought a f***ing squirrel from him? Anyone??
[Salianna] lol you need to get out more (editor’s note: to be fair, I think this was directed at my sales pitch)
[Rutskarn] I’ve sold 9 squirrels so far, at decent profit.
[Rutskarn] Since, oh, yesterday.
[Rutskarn] Hally, I’m wounded to see that you persist in this banter. I thought we were friends?
[Rutskarn] (Psst—I think maybe it’s past Hally’s naptime)
[Stealthdemon] I bought 4 squirrels just a few minutes ago (editor’s note: this is, obviously, a joke on his part)
[Halistiron] omfg are you mature
[Rutskarn] Why, yes, unlike certain squirrel-haters.
[Halistiron] i don’t hate squirrels, just you
[Rutskarn] And don’t you see how that behavior hurts the children?
[Halistiron] you are a child?
[Rutskarn] No, OUR children.
[Rutskarn] Figuratively.
[Halistiron] good. i hope it scarrs any relative you have
[Rutskarn] What I mean is, don’t you see how, by lashing out at the squirrel purveyors, you’re only hurting yourself?
[Tslilence] lol
[Rutskarn] Hally? You there, buddy? We’re not finished connecting!
[Rutskarn] Hally?
[Rutskarn] (I think the baby’s asleep)
[Salianna] i think he has you on ignore =P
[Rutskarn] See how easy that was?
[Tsilence] pwned lol
[Rutskarn] Why didn’t he just do that before?
[Theydra] that would have been too easy
[Rutskarn] Hey, I can say whatever I want now!
[Rutskarn] HALLY! You’re a slightly cranky person who could stand to occasionally be more polite!
[Rutskarn] HA!

There were more hecklers, and I got better at dealing with them as they increased in number. It got to the point were deflecting these individuals was one of the most fun parts of the process.

From a fiscal point of view, the squirrel trade wasn’t so bad either. As I mentioned above, I had sold 10 squirrels before I’d been in the trade for two days. I made a 33% profit on each squirrel, for a total of about 3 gold’s return. Considering that at that point, I had about 10 gold, that wasn’t exactly chump change. Not as much as I could have made grinding mad mobz, but for me, about a thousand times more entertaining.

My first turning point came when I got an order from a chap known as Aleun. It was after a long session of bantering on the chats (which were frankly far better at advertising my product than any text macro), and he had contacted me, stating that he was entertained by the ramblings of a mad squirrel vendor and wanted to purchase a squirrel. However, he had only heard the ranting in passing as he flew over towards another area, so hand delivery was a trifle inconvenient. He suggested I mail the squirrel to him Cash on Delivery.

For the uninitiated, COD mailing in World of Warcraft involves writing a letter to another player using a sort of email system, enclosing some item or items, and attaching an amount if the player wants to claim the items. I agreed to COD the squirrel, and he offered to pay 5 gold for it—a pretty damn hefty tip.

I went to the mailbox, enclosed the squirrel, and set it to 5 gold. I was about to deliver it when I glanced up at the empty space where I could attach a message. Somehow, just sending the squirrel didn’t seem…right. Clearly, he hadn’t bought it because of the product, he’d bought it because of the show. For a 5 gold tip, he deserved a bit more show.

I wrote the following in the message box:

Thank you for purchasing a Rutskarn Industries mechanical squirrel box! For optimal squirrel enjoyment, please to be following the following instructions.

1.) Do not light the squirrel on fire.
2.) Do not place the squirrel in your mouth.
3.) Do not strap high explosives to the squirrel.
4.) Do not strap high explosives to the squirrel and then place him in your mouth.
5.) Do not gun down the squirrel’s parents in a dark alley in front of his very eyes, triggering his descent into the dark vigilante Squirrelman.

I mailed it.

An hour later, I got the 5 gold automatically routed from the successful delivery.

An hour and one minute later, I got another letter from Aleun. The message was simple—“Awesome instructions.” What was a little more striking was the 100 gold attached to it.

100 gold. Ninety-nine plus one gold. A 10,000% tip. A friggin’ ridiculous sum of money, in short.

To give a bit of context, this was like E-Baying your toaster to some guy who offers to pay extra because your description was kinda funny. You throw in a page of your favorite dead baby jokes, and he mails you a brown paper envelope containing 500$ and a year’s supply of Reese’s Peanut-Butter Cups.

Needless to say, I immediately resolved to give the instructions to every customer.

Next week: Having decided that mere commercial firepower was insufficient, I decide to opt for leadership…and found the first iteration of Chocolate Hammer.

*I use this work to describe the process of selling something, derived from the verb “to vend”. I’ve been using this word to refer to my activities for the past 6 months, as an alternative to “selling” or “purveyance”. An exotic spice, to keep the usual salt and pepper from becoming bland and familiar. Unfortunately, it turns out that instead of ginger or paprika, I was sprinkling my linguistic fare with shredded corkboard and packing peanuts. Just this week, I learned that “vendure” was not, in fact, a word at all.