i petit u

Happy Wednesday, blog readers.

Having recently updating you as to some happenings at the office, I thought this week I'd try showing you some things that happen over a the course of a normal week during the oceanmaster shifts that are part of my job.

Working an oceanmaster shift, as many of you have no doubt guessed, isn't all zipping around in a gold rocket car for hours on end. You get asked a lot of repetitive questions, you deal with bad things such as thefts, and you meet a big range of pirates, from scammers and thieves to friendly souls who want to say hello. Naturally the good and interesting outweigh the bad, and I've met some of the friendliest pirates, from a lass on Viridian who sends me virtual food whenever I'm on duty there, to some pirates on Malachite who made me a little shrine out of crates and bedrolls. (They then tried to trap me in it and make me their pet oceanmaster, but I won't hold that against them.)

Starting with last Wednesday, I specifically kept an eye out for petitions or situations that I thought you all reading here might find entertaining. These are all genuine situations or petitions, though the names of pirates, people, crews, etc. have been edited out.

Petitions we get that stand out from the usual fare of questions range from the strangely obvious:
  "in the manual for navagation it says you need to be an officer in a crew to control a boat but be able to control it what if your not in a crew or you are just a pirate or lower will you"

To the bizarre: (special oceanmaster tip : use punctuation and format!)
  "ok it was this day that j**** call my mom crazy and shes said not to tell my mom, she said if i promised i said yes and i cross my finger them i told her i was going to tell my mom and i was but i didint couse i forgat so she decided to do revange and she have alot of things with her first pirate j**** she told me she pay some people for they could give her all my item to her other pirte o**** ."

(Petition subject: "Please dont!!!")
  "i believe that my friend,****c, sent a pettition about ****** ******(crew), he was acting very rude and my friend stood up for him please dont kill my crew i love it very much please dont!!"

To the WAT:
  "what is the in steronterns to Trusher hule?"

More commonly, I get really friendly petitions asking me to come visit, or to come check out somebody's house, or even invitations to pillages and sea monster hunts. I'm usually too busy answering other petitions or dealing with thefts or scams to give more than a polite decline and a thank you, but when I get the chance, I try to chat with people, sometimes with the oddest results:

  ***z tells you, "Wanna go to Atlantis with me? =P"
  You told ***z, "What kind of vacation invitation is that?!"
  You told ***z, "Who makes faces when asking somebody to the beautiful waters of Atlantis?"
  ***z tells you, "My face is stuck that way. =P"
  ***z tells you, "It was a tragic childhood accident. T_T =P"
  You told ***z, "I can just imagine your future. 'Will you marry me? =p'"
  You told ***z, "'I cannot live without you. =P'"
  ***z tells you, "Why must you mock me so? T_T =P"
  ***z tells you, "You've hurt me deeply today. I don't think I'll ever get over it. =P"

People tend to flock around an OM when we stand on the docks or in a building. I'm not sure what the appeal is, but they do ask very nice questions, and seem to really like discussing what it's like to be an oceanmaster:

  P***** says, "u know wat sucks.. u have to use proper grammer."
  I***** says, "i could never accustom to proper grammer"
  H***** says, "me either"

One of the things I like best about being an oceanmaster is recoloring familiars and renaming them for people. I like to plonk down a big vat of dye for recolors and use a big eraser for renames. And it leaves the most awesome vessel/house logs if I retrieve the familiar from a wardrobe:

July 17, 2008 4:09 PM  Hypnos has left a Snuggles.
July 17, 2008 4:08 PM  Hypnos has taken a Arsonist.

Finally, one thing about being an oceanmaster is getting e-mails and letters from folks around the world who would like to bring the fun they get from the game to other languages. A young man created a very cute blog in Hebrew and he's very eager that I hurry up and share it with other people through this blog. Enjoy!