Are MMORPGs evil? The answer may surprise you.
With the recent articles about torture in World of Warcraft(read here) I have decided to investigate what other vices MMORPGs indulge themselves in. If MMORPGs can stoop so low as to have you torture a fellow virtual human being, than I doubt there is no low that the developers will have us sink to. Probably for their own nefarious plot of "world-takeover" proportions. I haven't got any proof yet, so until then I can only show what proof I DO have.
MMORPGs ARE evil.
First I'll start off with one of the more tamer vices, Drinking. I don't mean drinking water or kool-aid, which is all well and good, but liquor! Beer, ale, whiskey, and other intoxicating drinks are everywhere! Especially Ironforge, the city of the Dwarves in World of Warcraft. Apparently this entire "race" of people are nothing but drunks. Why would Blizzard design a game for our children that has an ENTIRE race of potential AA members? They even joke about it with the little quip..
/silly "I don't have a drinking problem. I drink, I fall down, No problem!"
THEN these games actually SHOW your character drinking and the effects of intoxication. The screen gets blurry, and your character starts to weave back and forth. Even your characters speech becomes slurred to where you can't ever understand what someone is saying. This is completely and utterly unacceptable. Yet I wish this was the largest problem I had with my experiences in games like WoW, EQ, EQ2, WAR, and a whole large list of vile, evil, malicious games!
If a whole race of midget drunks didn't throw you off and ban your children from ever touching a "PC" again, this may ban your child from even saying the words "Exp". The entire game revolves around one fact. To get anywhere, to "level" up or whatever, is you have to KILL other people! These games encourage violence. It teaches them positive psychological reinforcement that if you kill someone you can take their clothes and their money. It doesn't have to be people either. My son, Billy, was smashing a squirrel in the face with his "staff of jordan" saying that he could sell the squirrel's teeth to a "merchant" for a couple of bucks. I'm scared to walk my little fluffy wuffy Mittens down the road, afraid someone will maul him for his paws or whatever body part is lucrative that week.
There are other subjects too, like racism. These games were MADE to PROMOTE racism! What are our children to think when they are playing a game that tells them " You must kill all the Night elves you see because their Alliance! "? You are encouraged to kill other people JUST because of race. How can video game companies get away with such obviously misguided and twisted views and encourage our children to think the same? I know that immediately after writing this warning letter I'm going to write to my congressmen about all this. You shouldn't kill gnomes just because they are short! or Night elves because their eyes glow differently than a Blood elf's.
So please, keep your children away from these games! The more they play it, the more likely they will start thinking since your a human, your filthy alliance, and you have to die. Then they will take your clothing and money, and sell your ears to some "merchant"! These games, and ALL games, are evil. If there were no video games we wouldn't have violence! Before television we were a perfect society!
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Just saying. Most people will think you're serious.
I get your general frustration, but I think even the guy that brought up the torture bit wasn't on a tilt of fire, brimstone and bannination. He definitely brings up a valid point of how ideas are expressed in the medium of gaming, specifically in the MMO genre. Reading some of the debate between that guy and another DToider (I'm sorry, I forgot who!), he poses some interesting questions about choice and expressing intent through deliberate design.
fascinating stuff really. Searching for WoW in the c-blogs field should probably bubble it up for you, if you're interested.
Tubatic - Oh I know he wasn't on a tilt of fire. The WoW bit comes from the fact I write an MMO site, so I based my article around possible things some zealous "parent" could find to rant about MMOs. You are right about it being a very interesting read, I wrote an article about him actually for NegativeGamer and this very subject*The wow torture one, not my satire*.
Thanks for your input thou =)
I did the quest, and once i got the information from him i wanted to see if you could kill him from torturing him to much. Well you can't! So how realistic is it? Not very.
B) go lethal weapon 3 on his ass with a car battery and a wet sponge, "Hit em` Endo!"
That made my day, thanks Mentok =).