Daily Gaia Make Believe Press | November 5, 2010

Mass Poaching, Multiple Jacks Spotted in zOMG

By EXISTENTIAL EXISTENCE

“It’s insane,” one user cries in a panic as a mass of avatars rush around her. She is in the process of using Solar, the pixel image freezing in mid-air every .5 seconds. I can see her type something, but the words don’t appear in chat until 1 minute later. “The lag is really really bad. Gosh. DEFIB PLZ!!”

One minute she is alive and struggling to use her rings, the next, she is dazed in a sea of other dazed users.

She is just one of 78 causalities in the hour’s hunt for Jack. However, her death and hopeful revival is not due to negligence or inexperience out on the field - it is due to lag. Gaians from all over the world are on the hunt for the elusive Jack. Over-poaching of this powerful holiday NPC that visits a few weeks in the year has led to a huge strain on the alternate dimensions within the zOMG world.

In order to kill Jack off quickly, multiple users force-invite other users through the Recrewt trail. This trail is the most quick and efficient way to invite users to the same dimension. Within minutes, the area surrounding Jack increases from only a handful of users, to a mass mob that could match an angry Baw fest.

However, although outnumbered, this does not mean that Jack always loses. After Jack’s carcass is picked, some hunters are left empty handed by the havoc wrecked upon multiple rips in the time-frame continuum. Even in death, Jack’s prowess wrecks evil feelings among the masses, as frustrated hunters cry in disappointment at glitched grants, and the horrible, horrible lag.

It unsurprising then, that sometimes Jack can be heard to scream “Noooooooo! You will be defeated!” during his last moments of pixel life. Truly, is he ever defeated?

He will always be trolling in Towns, demanding 100 pieces of candy for every trick-or-treat event item - torturing users with his inane demands and gaudy fashion sense. It is with a sigh of relief that our zOMG interviewee states: "Thank goodness he only comes once a year."