“Spinal cords. Fresh & healthy. We can’t clone’em, too complex. But man, if you get us a good source…” (And other Faustian bargains.)
“Spinal cords. Fresh & healthy. We can’t clone’em, too complex. But man, if you get us a good source…” (And other Faustian bargains.)
Continual fallout from the original Terra Nova post on Horde/Evil. Liz Lawley at Many2Many:
“When I was playing online on Monday, Joi Ito said that he thought World of Warcraft was becoming the “new golf” for the technology set. I think there’s some truth in that, but it brings with it all kinds of additional social pressures and complexities, of which avatar racial choices are only the beginning. I think there’s some fertile ground for research in that boundary area, the crossover between the real and game worlds, and the extent to which they influence each other.”
Consider also that this conversation happened while online with World of Warcraft. Consider that I’ve once considered playing WoW for business networking reasons. (Now consider the impact Warcraft on your business life if your new business partner was short on mana when your tank really needed a heal.)
Oy, golf.
“And yet even the undead have room for more diverse motivations.”—comment by Yrro on the “Horde is Evil” thread.
Also check out Arcady’s thoughts on “racism in fantasy”, specifically looking at WoW and D&D.
“The game world [of World of Warcraft] benefits from the ambiguity. What it lacks, unfortunately, is a way for players to make meaningful moral choices.” — Lydia Leong’s comment on Terra Nova, “The Horde is Evil”.
While I think that the Horde is not accurately “evil” (not moreso than the Alliance), there’s still a good point about the moral consequences of simply playing “evil” acts without taking some responsibility for what’s going on. There can be a mature gaming allowing for depiction of “evil” choices, but only within a framework that allows players to adequately separate themselves from what’s going on, and also be reflective about what’s happening. In other words, you need to play the rise of Darth Vader as the fall of a flawed hero into moral wrong, and not as a fun opportunity for griefing Alderaan.