beatnuki

Among Fortnight's adventures tonight, he has discovered, using his crafty little noggin and grasp of physics (a grasp he came by with a combination of Engineering expertise and a propensity for walking off the edges of tall constructs both artificial and natural), how to paraglide short distances.

Engineering gizmos are wonderful things alone, but when combined they create a veritable arsenal of splendour! Indeed, by combining one gadget with another and then combining said combination with the laws of physics, well, Fortnight was able to make a tremendously fun discovery.

PARAGLIDING! Woo!



It's easy. Here's Fortnight's Three Step Programme To Azerothian Paragliding; Useful For Amusing And Befuddling Passersby, Evading Capture, Silent Aerial Infiltration From Angles Inconvenient For Regular Downwards Gravity-Assisted Locomotion (AKA Falling), And General Inducement Of Smugness Upon Both Take-Off And Successful Landing.







If all this technobabble is a bit much for you, let me explain. What basically happens is, Fortnight finds himself standing on the top of something tall. It could be a balcony, it could be a cliff (there are MANY cliffs in Northrend), or it could even be a rather small drop, easily surviveable with no damage at all but with a lot of ground to cover below (and paragliding is much faster than walking, especially with a rocketpowered takeoff).

Fortnight is showing a tremendously overzealous desire to jump off cliffs lately. I can't help but think it's bad for him. Nevertheless, with his new exciting hobby, the dangers of dropping off precipices is lessened greatly.

Firstly, you line yourself up nicely so you've got a short run-up to the edge of the cliff.

Then, you break into a run. Not a Sprint, though that may be something we can experiment with later; just a run.

After a few paces of regular running, activate the Nitro Boosters in your boots. This will radically increase your forwards propulsion, but then again that's the general idea of strapping rockets to your boots, right?

The imperative bit is TIMING THE JUMP. If you jump too early, you just land on the cliff edge, still running, and stumble over it. Jump too late, and, well, by then you've already ran off the edge and are flailing your legs in the air, still trailing rocketflames.

As soon as you're airborne, good jump or no, you've got to activate the Flexweave Underlay. This will activate the cloak-to-prarachute conversion system and slow your descent greatly, as parachutes are wont to do. It's likely you'll STILL having sparking fiery heels as the last bursts of the Nitros propel you forwards.

Lo and behold! You're gliding!



Unhelpfully enough, this picture does nothing to illustrate the kind of forwards motion you achieve. You're surging forwards pretty swiftly, maintaining the speed of the Nitros long after they've burned out as you soar through the air. It's a glorious feeling!

One potential problem that I've fortunately not encountered yet is that of... vertical surfaces. I mean, paragliding straight into a wall is not likely to be much fun. So don't try it.

Far more pressing an issue is the matter of timing. The Flexweave Underlay parachuting device only maintains the parachute for ten seconds; fail to hit ground by that time and it'll vanish and you'll plummet the rest of the way. Complicating matters is the fact that if you're moving forwards in a glide, you're moving DOWNWARDS a lot less than you would be on a straight jump or even just walking off a cliff and activating the chute and plunging down vertically. Covering huge distances horizontally is cool, but because you're not drifting towards the ground QUITE so fast, it can spell potential disaster.

You see the tower in the picture up there?



It's Wyrmrest Temple. It's a tremendously tall structure; you see those stairs at the base? Fortnight's as tall as about two of those steps, maybe three. The columns at the very top shield a small enclave where the dragons meet and talk (in their humanoid forms); it's VERY high up.

And, of course, today Fortnight tried to paraglide off it.

Naturally, he rocketjumped to see how far he could glide from the tower.

After ten seconds, he'd flown an impressive distance and was having a wonderful view of Dragonblight, Unfortunately, he was still very high up; the forward distance had come at the cost of his downwards distance, remember? Physics!

It didn't end well for Fortnight.



Still... death has its perks.