World of NudeCraft

In the final 15 minutes of Blizzard's server stress test for its upcoming World of Warcraft, a group of about two dozen doomed-to-erasure player characters gathered in the crossroads of Goldshire, a suburb of imperial capital Stormwind.

A friend and I stripped to our shorts and had a nude duel, my rock solid dwarven fists eventually falling to his aerobic rogueishness. The fight ellicited some laughter and soon other stripped lingerers were bearing arms and helping the effort to declothe the mob. Pacifist Nudists and Naked Brawlers quickly joined together for a drunken dance party (seen, in one of its less homoerotic sections, above). Naturally, suggestions of streaking to Stormwind began to circulate in the exhibition of skin. Around half the participants ended up reliving their co-elf days in a mad dash to the capital city. Of course, everyone had their own idea of what to do next and the crowd dispersed with only a matter of seconds to reorganize.

NudeCraft is an idea I have for brief, massive gatherings of player characters in World of Warcraft (and other games) for "spontaneous" action similar to real world events like
Critical Mass (an exodus of bicycles). How amazing would a few hundred characters standing on the bridge to Stormwind using the "jump" feature to do the wave be? Or a long streaking procession sprinting across the Burning Steppes (Warcraft's equivalent of Mordor from Lord of the Rings) past uber-characters desperately trying to survive dragon attacks? An endless cycle of cliff divers along the sea shore?

Despite being Massively Multiplayer, the environment of ORPGs is often one of simply being a better individual than others, the American dream. The goal with a NudeCraft effort would be to let people of all classes and levels be a tiny part of some great, bizarre, momentous social force. Each section regardless of hours logged or cunning exploitation is equalized for a moment. Maybe it's communism, but it's the joyous part of communism. For just a few minutes, we could revel in that joy and then return to the unending quest for a level 60 Mage with a white picket fence.

Timewise, organized events would be just long enough to reach their peak and dissipate; players would be asked to put their clothes back on and head off to their usual haunts at the conclusion. This way, to the non-participating world, the instances remain random and incredible. The occasions are not about meeting people and developing life-long relationships; they're simply about being part of something huge and unexpected.

I'm not sure if such events or organizations already exist or have existed in MMORPG worlds but would be curious to learn more about them.