One Shots: Sleep-deprived corgis

Extra Life, a fundraising marathon by gamers to help sick kids, recently concluded, and several MMOs featured events to support the effort. Reader Paul was part of one of these events in RIFT, although it quickly took a turn for the surreal.

"This picture is from the corgi run that took place in the last hour of Trion's event," he wrote. "Basically we were all turned into corgis (and occasionally sheep too), and we took a mini-tour around the world of Telara. Sadly my computer was not able to render everyone there, and many more people were present than my picture shows. I enjoyed myself a lot during all 25 hours and would recommend that people don't hesitate to take part in next years."

Now it's sleepy-time for Paul, but that doesn't mean that you can't stay up a few extra minutes to see what lies behind the curtain of secrecy in this week's column!

Kids. What are you going to do with them -- completely sweep them under the rug? Many MMOs do, but as reader Chris pointed out with this submission, some of the children are making their way back from the developer oblivion where they languish.

"This was taken in Lord of the Ring Online's Wold, north of Floodwend if memory serves," Chris wrote in. "Since Rise of Isengard, Turbine has added children to the world. For many years showing children in MMOs was absolutely verboten, out of concern that underage NPCs could be killed through an exploit. (In Asheron's Call, we used to joke that all the kids were perpetually off to the left of your camera.) Here, some Rohirrim youth have built a treehouse with a swing. The bit that made me chuckle was the 'Keep Out' sign they nailed up over the door -- a re-use of a goblin-esque scary face from Bilbo's Haunted Burrow."

Do you like the color yellow? It's a striking color that gets a lot of play when the sun's out or bees are swarming all over your freshly stung corpse. Now, do you like it enough to be clad in it head-to-toe?

Reader Wistful and his cabal in The Secret World were down with their yellow bad selves and gathered for a group shot that would be forever etched on my retinae. "Here is a picture of a few of us pies lined up along the cliff top looking smart and ready for action in our cabal yellow! Big love and Hugs to fellow Cabal Leader Teeny. I'm still loving those wings, honey; the barmaid is history (am I forgiven yet?)! We were helping some new cabal members gear up and gain some AP/SP Issue 8."

Let's head back to the past with a funny visual from reader Tony, who captured several Ogres getting really, really friendly with each other on EverQuest server Tallon Zek's launch day. Out of all of the One Shots that we've seen submitted over the years, I'd love to see this picture made into a t-shirt the most. Ogre love: It cannot be denied.

For this week's screenshot challenge, I want to see unusual angles! Take a picture from an angle or perspective that's different from the norm and then wing it my way. Please, no kaleidoscope shots.

Want to be featured in a future edition of One Shots? Send your favorite MMO screenshots to oneshots@massively.com, and don't forget to include your name, the name of the game, and a description of the scene. Large, colorful, UI-free shots that tell a story and really show off the game make for the best images. Look ma, we brought back One Shots!