15 Minutes of Fame: Star Trek's Nog talks with WoW.com, part 2
What are you personally looking forward to most in Cataclysm?
Rated battlegrounds -- more than anything, rated battlegrounds. I don't want to have to do something in order to be competitive with other people, meaning I don't mind working hard, but I want to work hard at what I enjoy. Think of it as a track and field race with nine lanes. I want to be able to be in lane 7 while the other's guy's in lane 4 and be able to compete with him, but in my lane. So if I want to do battlegrounds, and that's all I want to do, I want to be able to be just as strong as the guy in 4 who's raiding. Now, will we have different things about us that may be stronger or weaker? Maybe he's got stronger thighs and I've got stronger calves. But I want to be able to run with him. That's what I want.
The rated battlegrounds gives that to me, because I didn't want to have to do arenas just to get the top PvP gear. And I don't mind if somebody wants to come in to a battleground with all their PvE gear. Maybe they've got higher stats than me, but they don't have the resilience, so I've got the defense and it balances out. I don't mind that. I'd rather choose what I want to do but be able to at least hold my own. I don't mind losing; I just want to have a fight.
That's what I get so frustrated at rogues about. I don't mind losing. I just want to be able to not sit there from 100 to zero slumped over smashing my keyboard and then throwing my drink across the room. But I don't do that. (laughs) I'm just kidding.
So here's the question we know all our readers are going to be wondering: Is Nog the Ferengi going to be creating a goblin?
I've got five 80s, so obviously I've spent a lot of time leveling, and three of them are maxed out in battleground gear. At the moment, my son always asks me, "You know, I can't believe you leveled your shaman to 48 and now he's just sitting there. What a waste." And I also have like a level 19 warrior and stuff like that. My goal was to get my top five toons all PvPed out before Cataclysm hit. When Cataclysm hits, then I might level my warrior or my druid.
But you know, it gets exhausting, leveling. It gets very tedious. So to level five ... and two of them are Conqueror ... I think I play too much, and as a matter of fact, after this conversation, I'm thinking I gotta stop playing for a while. (laughs) Maybe that's why I'm not getting acting jobs. I think I need to figure something else out. Maybe Sam Raimi will give me a call for the movie and put me up and make me a goblin. If I played a Ferengi, maybe he'll go, "Well, he can wear the makeup; let's put him in a goblin outfit."
Hey, I think we'd all be for that.
Well, I'd be for it. I would love to be in that movie. You had another actress who was all into that movie, Michele Morrow in 15 Minutes of Fame, and I'm like, "Aw, man, I would love to be in that movie!"
I wanted to be in the Dragonlance movie. I actually optioned the script at one time, but I couldn't get anything. This was before Lord of the Rings came out, and Tracy Hickman wrote a really cool script called "Witchweaver" that I optioned. I tried to get people to see it happen. I said, "When Lord of the Rings comes out, fantasy is going to be on the map." But nobody would believe me. The people that I went to just said, "Nah, we're not interested." And of course, what happened? Lord of the Rings came out, and it was a huge hit, and now we've got fantasy movies all over the place. And I'm just like "AHHH!" I wasn't George Clooney; I'm not big enough.
So a goblin ... Believe it or not, I would love to go through the Alliance side, because I've never done that. So I'll probably try to level both of them, a worgen and a goblin, but I'll do it very, very slowly.
Are you going to reserve the name Nog?
I don't know. I'll think about it. I haven't wanted to name any of my characters after any of the Star Trek things because I've always tried to keep it separate. It was really fun to be in the guild that I'm in when the Star Trek movie came out, and so many people were like, "Aw, man, I can't wait to go see that Star Trek movie! Aw, that was awesome!" And I'm just sitting here kind of chuckling to myself. None of these people have any idea that I was in Star Trek.
I kind of enjoy that anonymity sometimes. People treat you more honestly. When people know that you're on a TV show, they don't always treat you the same. I would rather people tell me, "You're being an idiot," or "Don't act like that," or "You're not coming to the raid tonight," versus all of a sudden I get treated like, "Oh! Oh! Oh! Yeah, you can come!" If they want me to come, it's because they know me and they like me, not because I was Nog on Deep Space Nine. So that's most of the reason I've kept my anonymity, because I want people to accept me at face value, not because I was on a TV show. And later, if they wanna hear about it, fine, because we'll already have built up a relationship, so it doesn't really change as much.
... But you never know, I might go ahead and do the goblin thing.
And in the meantime ...
I'm really looking forward to StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, so I'm looking forward to a little less WoW time when those games come out.
But Cataclysm will bring you back?
(That, and) the relationships that form in game, even though you never meet people. I have made friends in this game, namely Kyo and Damnable (another guildie who has become a good friend) and rekindled a friendship with a person I went to high school with, Kiliea. I think it is quite amazing that you can connect with people in this game like that, make friends, nurture old friendships, etc. It is one of the most positive things about that game. We even had an in-game funeral for a guildie who passed away. You do not hear about these things much in the real world when people talk about video games, but there are a lot of positive things that can come from a game like this. I'm sure many people have stories about relationships that develop in WoW and other MMORPGs.
After this interview, I'm sure you'll have a few more friends to /salute. Thanks for the interview, Aron. We'll see you on the battlefield!
Meet Aron in person at this fall's WoW.com's meetup at BlizzCon 2010.
Star Trek Online fans: Watch for a special player event in the works with Aron and our sister publication, Massively -- more details, coming soon at Massively!
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