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Posts with tag Religion

Excerpts from the Book of Gears: The mysticism, mayhem, and madness of mechanics


It is often said that the Gnomes are the least spiritual of the races of Azeroth. The wonders of their world are mechanical in nature, technical in design, and largely owed entirely to their own hands. Gnomes have little chance to become healers of any stripe, and some say this is due in part to their willing isolation from the world of the spiritual and the touch of the divine.

But there exists in many other races the desire to connect to the source of all creation. To reach out and touch the infinite. To some Engineers, a function of their artifice is to access the forces which power all of creation, and, once there, to perhaps make just a few minor adjustments, maybe tighten up a gear or two. The cataclysmic danger of any Engineer able to do any such thing does not, as a rule, occur to such Engineers. Those who might naysay such grand designs as heresy, madness, or more commonly A Really Bad Idea For Too Many Reasons to List are not generally included in conversations on the topic. Engineers, perhaps Gnomish Engineers in particular, are not easily dissuaded from a task they have set themselves. In light of this, they do not often invite others who might try. It seems a waste of energy all around.

It is the spiritual side of Engineering we will discuss today, using notes provided by Chief Engineer Geargrinder.

Continue reading Excerpts from the Book of Gears: The mysticism, mayhem, and madness of mechanics

Shifting Perspectives: The human druids

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.

Druids weren't always night elves and tauren, you know. Well, in World of Warcraft they were, but centuries before the first snowflakes started to form in the clouds of Blizzard's creative minds, the authentic human druids actually walked around casting regrowth, shapeshifting, and spamming moonfire.

Or did they? How much of the class that we know and love in WoW is actually based on the real life druids of old? How did the word "druid" come to refer to our fantasy fighters rather than some ancient wise men in robes?

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: The human druids

Considering a real simulated reality

Those of you who are regular readers might have figured out by now that I'm very interested in the relationship between the real and the virtual world, but the latest post at Terra Nova goes far beyond any simple reasoning I've ever done. Basically, they sum up some speculation being performed by academics that says that just like we Earthlings have created our own virtual worlds (in Azeroth and elsewhere), it's somewhat, maybe possible that we ourselves actually live in someone else's virtual world.

Wow. To me, that's so far off the beaten path that who knows where to begin with it-- you've got religion in there somewhere, as well as the old question of our existence itself. But supposing that were true (and it's almost too big a jump for even me to make, except for the fact that even if it is true, we'll likely never know it), what would you do if you were living in a virtual world? Would you act differently? Would you be a griefer? Or would you play the game, play by the rules, and help yourself and others not only "win," but have fun too? It seems a little loony (because who wants to admit that their world is someone else's toy?), but it's a fascinating thought experiment that should help you examine both how you're living your life and how you want to live it-- what would you do if you were an NPC in a virtual world?

Of course, things get even stranger, because we don't just create virtual worlds-- we play in them. Azeroth isn't just full of NPCs-- it's full of us, walking around, killing things, and generally taking (and taking over) whatever we want. If our world really is someone else's, does that mean they're here too?

Know Your Lore: Gods and monsters

Azeroth differs from the real world in many, many ways. For example, outside the game, you will rarely find that your wages for completing jobs come in leather form, unless you work in adult entertainment. You will also find it difficult to fit an elephant, a stack of ore, and five large swords into a small brown sack. And in Azeroth, you won't go to pick up a quest only to be told that the Mag'har have decided to go with a more qualified adventurer, nor will your flying mount get repossessed by the bank. But there's one thing Earth and Azeroth have in common: A lot of the violence and conflict is caused by religious differences.

Since Azeroth has no handy televangelism networks or airport pamphleteers, most players don't know too much about the religions and gods of the Warcraft universe. So Know Your Lore has prepared a guide to the major religions, their worshippers, their enemies, and other important information. Read on, lest ye be smited by boils!

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Gods and monsters

Azeroth Interrupted: A plea for tolerance

Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.

This past week, I was browsing the WoW European forums and came across a post about the Evil Children of Goldshire. For those of you who don't know, there are some children that sometimes appear on the second floor of the house outside of Goldshire. They are arranged in a pentagram and there is a 666 on the fireplace. Also, some eerie music plays when you are in the room with them. Someone complained about this kind of content being unnecessary to the game and the rest of the posts devolved into flaming him for his religious beliefs.

Coincidentally, a similar incident happened this past week in a knit-along that I am participating in. A brief explanation for muggle readers: a knit-along is a list group or other online communication tool where people follow a pattern at the same time and discuss their progress, etc. It is kind of like MMO knitting. This particular knit-along is the Mystery Stole 3, where we don't know what the item is going to look like until we finish it and we don't know what the theme is -- this designer always has a theme or backstory behind her designs. But, of course, people like to guess ahead of time and one of the guesses was that it was demonic in nature. So someone in the list group of 7000+ people complained that if that were the case, she didn't want to continue on something that was against her religion and then a similar flamestorm to the WoW post occurred.

What it all boils down to is that we all don't want to be offended in our refuge from the issues we have to deal with in real life. WoW is an escape and when we get offended and/or personally attacked, then our escape becomes another source of stress instead. The best thing to do, of course, is not to bring up religion at all, since it is an extremely volatile topic. But it happens and I'd like to break it down in detail to help both sides tolerate each other and possibly reduce the occurrence of these religious flamewars. Yes, I am sometimes unrealistically optimistic.

Continue reading Azeroth Interrupted: A plea for tolerance

World of Godcraft

Let all the heathens spout about the evils of video games; we true believers know the real story: games are nothing less than the path to salvation. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the enlightened folks over at Landover Baptist Church, as they guide you through Winning Souls To Christ in the World of Warcraft.

If you've never experienced the pure joy(*) of Landover Baptist, then this is your lucky day, dear reader. And remember to love thy Orc brother...







(* yes, it's all a joke...calm down, already...geez)


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