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15 Minutes of Fame: When WoW meets real-world religion
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Gaming plus religion or politics is a potentially volatile conversational destination -- and this week, we're going there. Meet the Rev. Jonathan Fisk, pastor of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Pa. Over the years, 15 Minutes of Fame has been through more than a couple of aborted conversations with pastors about the intersection of real-world religion and the World of Warcraft. Whether the questions get a little too pointed, or the potential for reaction from the pews gets a little too hot ... Whatever the case, the interviews don't make it through to print. Until now. Hats off to Fisk for what's turned out to be a tour de force of an interview examining one man and one denomination's insights on the convergence of gaming, pop culture and WoW. One note before we get started: While we welcome your comments on this obviously sensitive subject, please remember that personal attacks and name-calling, anti-religion tirades and other trollish asshattery in the comments will not be tolerated. Keep your comments constructive and pertinent to the interview, please, or we'll be obliged to remove them.
Breakfast Topic: Are there atheists in Azeroth?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Atheism is a rejection in the belief of deities. In the real world, that is easy enough to understand. There are many religions practiced on Earth, and most of them (if not all) worship at least one deity. This could be a god or goddess that is associated with a certain characteristic or trait, or it could be a creator, one divine being that shaped everything that is everything from nothing. Whatever your beliefs are, atheism is simply a rejection that any of that happened or exists. But what happens when we push reality into fiction and bring this thought into the game world that we all log in to? Can atheism really exist in Azeroth? We know that there are gods and goddesses that have roles in WoW. A few of them have even been seen in game, like Hakkar or Yogg-Saron. But there are many that have yet to make an appearance, like Elune or the other Old Gods that we've yet to uncover.
Questions about God? There's an app for (and against) that
Many iPhone users have become accustomed to using their devices to settle arguments. Arguing over the best route to take for your weekend getaway? Pull out the Maps app or one of the many iPhone GPS apps. Found someone who doesn't believe that Inigo Montoya and Jason Gideon are played by the same actor? Fire up the IMDB app. Disagreement over when Star Wars was released (or re-released)? Head over to Wikipedia.com or one of the many Wikipedia apps. It's one thing to argue over facts and dates, but can iPhone apps help settle arguments about the existence of God? A recent NY Times article showed that some folks on both sides of the question are making an effort. On the side of religious skeptics are applications like Bible Thumper, the Atheist Pocket Debater, and mAtheist. For those who are certain they can convert others to faith, if only they find the right argument, there are apps such as Doubt Busters, God Tools, or Jesus Evangelism Tool by Mobile Jesus. (As an aside, I think developers of these sorts of apps may want to avoid the word "tool" in the title, or they're just asking for people to twist the meaning.) Read on for more...
The Mog Log: The people have spoken!
Actually, it's more like the people never stopped speaking. Because there's been quite a bit to talk about over the past few weeks, most of it circling around the enormous bursts of information coming out of the Final Fantasy XIV testing process. We've gotten our first few looks at what the game might look like, and compared to the lockstep class-and-level progression of Final Fantasy XI it's like the game's being developed by a whole other company. Or like it's some mixture of all the best parts of the games of yesteryear, which might not be that far from the truth. If you haven't been in the mood to talk about the new hotness, of course, there's been plenty of other things to chat about, specifically the huge March update in Final Fantasy XI that added all sorts of new widgets. (An update I was lucky enough to take a tour of, if you missed it.) So jump on past the cut for the most interesting, though-provoking, or just most noteworthy threads over the past month around the web, as determined by reader mail and whatever caught my eye before my clicking hand got tired.
Video walkthrough: Bible Navigator X (Xbox 360)
We guess the "X" stands for "it's on the Xbox 360," because there wasn't a single can of Mountain Dew or a dirt-biking bear to be seen in Bible Navigator X. Instead, there's lots of text, and some stuff about God and his homeboys. There is some neat functionality, though -- the searching was easy enough and navigating the Bible was a fairly painless experience here. Ultimately, we failed to find any reason why somebody would go this route over just buying a regular Bible. Besides, statistically speaking, you probably already have one in your home, even if you don't exactly know where it is right now. Also: Who was the person who came up with these themes? If there's anything that's going to teach the kids to respect the bible, it's a version with virtual stains all over it, amirite? Bonus! The first person to leave a comment on this post will get a free Bible Navigator X code. Keep an eye on your inbox! Official rules apply.
Vicar gives his blessing to cellphones and laptops (but not to their most common uses)
Not to be outdone by the Catholic Church with its iPod wielding Bishops and text messaging Pontiffs, the Rev. Canon David Parrott blessed mobile phones and laptop computers today at the St. Lawrence Jewry Church in London. The service, he said, was to "remind the capital's busy office workers that God's grace can reach them in many ways." Except through novelty bud earphones -- those clearly belong to the devil himself.
Christian bloggers protesting fake EA protest
After staging a protest/publicity stunt outside of E3 last week against upcoming EA game Dante's Inferno, the company is catching heat from Christian bloggers. InsideCatholic says on its website, "It's been clear for a while now that the entertainment industry views Christians on the whole as priggish, thin-skinned fun-killers," further wondering if "anyone at EA even read the Inferno." Catholic Video Gamers fires an even more direct shot at EA's Dante's Inferno, saying, "Instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off." Wait, isn't Christianity all about forgiving? Oh well! Hopefully EA will think twice next time it decides to fake a protest and instead choose protesters without any major religious affiliation. [Via GameSpot]
Faith Fighter shut down over Islamic protest
Yesterday, the media suddenly and unexpectedly went temporarily insane following UK Metro's coverage of Faith Fighter, a year-old Flash title that pits various deities against one another in Immortal Kombat. The backlash to the title from religious leaders was about as feverish as you might expect -- in fact, following protests from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the title's Italian developer Molleindustria pulled the game from its site.The page where the site was once hosted now holds a message from the game's developers, blaming the Metro UK article for dredging up controversy and inciting protests over a game that has been "played by millions of players on the Internet" and "been exhibited in several artistic venues around the world." Of course, as Molleindustria was quick to point out, its pulling of the game is merely a symbolic gesture -- it's pretty tough to completely remove things from the internet.[Via GamePolitics]
Year-old religious fighting game angering the religious
Metro.co.uk has dug up some religious outrage over an aging, online game called Faith Fighter. The Flash-based title, released in January 2008, allows players to control various deities battling for ... "intolerance" of one another. In the "censored" version of the game, Muhammad's face is covered by a black circle. The Metro piece gives voice to certain representatives of various religions who are offended by the game, which does pre-load with this (perhaps sarcastic) disclaimer:"This game is not intended to be offensive towards any religion in particular. Its aim is to push the gamers to reflect on how the religions and sacred representations are often instrumentally used to fuel or justify conflicts between nations and people ... If you feel that such a depiction [of Muhammad] would be offensive ... don't play the game at all."Interestingly, Adult Swim's Bible Fight is essentially based on the same concept and has been playable since May 2, 2007. Granted, that game only picks on Judeo-Christian icons. Still, if we were a religious group expressing outrage (hint, hint), we'd at least direct our disgust at a mega-corporation (see The Church of England vs. Sony), you know, uh, to recoup some damages. Seriously, how do you expect little old Molleindustria.org to respond to the Faith Fighter backlash? Our best guess: a sequel starring new challenger Haile Selassie I.[Via GamePolitics]
Is World of Warcraft a religion?
Just when you thought you had heard it all, MMO gamers are now being called religious zealots. According to Theo Zijderveld, a grad student at the University of Colorado, gamers who experience online worlds "like World of Warcraft and Second Life" are doing so to transcend their physical bodies and "realize a new identity in cyberspace". This is not exactly news to us, but it's the connection to religion that becomes interesting.In his 72-page Master's thesis entitled Cyberpilgrims, Zijderveld cites the four dimensions of religion for his cause: community, ethics, culture and emotion. "The community dimension is present in World of Warcraft as well as in Second Life. People are using their avatar online meet other avatars of real people. Avilion is clearly a community of people with the same interest in the fantasy world. The social markers are clear; the rules of how to dress and how to behave are very explicit. Avatars who do not fit in this picture are (sometimes actively) excluded by the community or by the moderators." At least now your family can't nag you for not going to church enough.
Faith and World of Warcraft at Colorado University
Buckle your seatbelts on this one -- if you aren't concerned with the bigger picture behind a virtual world like Azeroth and would rather hear about dragons fighting each other or the latest class changes, best look elsewhere on the site. But a student at Colorado University has a theory about World of Warcraft that might sound a little out there: he believes the game is a new religion.Not necessarily in the sense that you should skip church to raid (though lots of people probably do that anyway). But in the sense that it meets a sociologist's definition of religion: it provides community, ethics, culture, and emotion. And it's hard to argue with that: we're living proof of the community around the game, there's definitely plenty of culture and emotion, and... ethics? CU student Theo Zijderveld is proposing that even if the game itself doesn't promote ethical behavior, the push is there -- we're rewarded for doing the right thing, and often punished for doing wrong. Work with others in a group, get better loot. Camp someone's corpse, and their guildie or alt shows up to camp you.Intriguing idea, even if it does sound like something cooked up for a college student's thesis (which is in fact what it is). It's certainly not a religion in that there is no higher power involved (unless you believe that Ghostcrawler is in fact a god) -- obviously, we all believe that everything in Azeroth was made by men and women, or at least hard-working Gnomes. But as for what playing World of Warcraft creates in us and makes us feel, those results and ideas are very close in many ways to what organized religion does. Quite a theory.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Druid
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the nineteenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Nature is a system of life energy in constant flow, peaceful one moment and turbulent the next. All living things draw their life from it, and depend upon its balance for their existence. Druids are the protectors of this balance, who harness the energies it contains and try to live their lives according to its laws and principles. In this way, they become intimate members of the natural system, embodying the very force that they seek to protect. The druid is not merely a spellcaster who draws on nature to do cool stuff -- he is nature, in himself, completely one with it in every way. The world is his body, and he is an inseparable part of the whole. It can be rather hard for those of us living in the concrete jungles of modern city life to get a feeling for what nature really is, or what it feels like to be a part of it. Perhaps if you have ever ventured off the paved highway into the distant reaches of the world, you will know the feeling of connection to the greatness of the natural world in which the human race evolved, long, long ago in a state of mind far, far away from billboards and electronic devices, pop culture and prime-time TV programming. It may no longer be possible for human beings to simply return to its ancient state, nor would that necessarily be a good thing. Today, people look out at the world outside the closed-off bubble of material civilization and wonder their new relationship with the ancient balance of nature could be.To play a druid in WoW as a class in a game is one thing, but to try and get inside the druid worldview and understand what they might be thinking is something else. To start, it would help to look inside ourselves and see what sort of connection to nature exists there. Is there a balance? What would balance look like? How would it feel to be in complete harmony with the natural world? What would it be like to channel all the power of nature through your body or indeed feel the world itself as an extension of your body?
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Priest
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the seventeenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Priests in the World of Warcraft are a single class that incorporates a wide variety of characters. They are best known for casting spells that call forth the power of the Holy Light, but the priest using these spells in the game mechanics doesn't necessarily have much connection to the Light as such -- rather they have a connection with their own religion which grants them similar effects to those of the Light.When WoW was being developed, Blizzard realized that night elves and trolls, for instance, would not follow the Light in the same way humans and dwarves do, so they tried to represent a bit of this diversity through race-specific spells. It didn't work out, though -- some were too powerful, while others weren't worth reading about, much less putting on one's action bar. The end result was that they made some of these spells universally available to all priests, and completely removed the rest. Here the lore had to surrender to the game mechanics in order to provide the best game balance.In roleplaying, however, there is a lot of room for players of different races to behave differently, and draw their powers from totally different sources. Greater Heal, for instance, could come either from the Light or the power of Elune. A Shadowfiend could either be a spawn of the Forgotten Shadow, or a dark trollish voodoo spirit. If you are roleplaying a priest, the only thing that really matters is that your character have some sort of faith or profound belief, which could serve as the source of their divine magical power. A priest's magic revolves around his or her strong beliefs and ideas -- but what those beliefs are is entirely up to you.
Passion of the Christ making expected Blu-ray debut in February 2009
We already saw that Sound & Vision felt that Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ should be loosed on Blu-ray, and lo and behold, here we have confirmation that it will indeed be going Blu. On February 17th of next year, the film will be released in a "Definitive Edition" that offers up a 2.4:1 1080p video presentation and a 5.1-channel DTS-HD Master Audio track. As predicted, the audio will be in Aramaic for both the theatrical cut and the uncut version. This edition will also include "several new extras not found on the previous DVD edition including a pair of featurettes and four audio commentaries," and the exhaustive list is hosted up in the read link below. Per usual, the MSRP on this one sits at $34.99.
And the Lord said unto Sony, '01101000 01100...'
With pointy hats and staffs stowed in a coat-check of pure gold, Catholic bishops have decreed the use of mass, digital communications to spread the word of the bible in as many languages as possible. In a statement just issued to the flock, the bishops said:"The voice of the Divine Word must resonate over the radio, on Internet channels with virtual distribution (and by) CDs, DVDs and iPods, and on television and cinema screens." The implied message here is very clear: God hates the Blu-ray.
Behind the Curtain: Religion as a game mechanic
Should we have more religion in MMOs?I'm not talking about the Priests and Paladins we see in World of Warcraft, Everquest 2 and probably lots of other games I haven't played. Religion for character classes like these is more often than not a game mechanic, something which is used to explain the source of their powers. Divine Magic is a term which is frequently used to explain a player or character's ability to cast spells. It's a catch-all term, attributing magical and mystical abilities to ill-defined deities and otherwordly beings watching over the game-world. Usually benevolent, these beings empower their followers, enabling them to carry out miraculous feats. Probably deliberately, religion has remained generally fuzzy and ill-defined in MMOs. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Religious debate in the real world is a sure-fire way to incite some flames, and it's no wonder that games developers have been keen to shy away from it thus far.
Behind the Curtain: Religion as a game mechanic pt. 2
If developers chose to extend similar mechanics to affect players, you might find yourself being penalised for being in possession of 'forbidden' materials, whatever they may be. Mechanics might be in place to reflect how devout your character was, meaning you were actively prevented from taking certain actions at a certain time, reflecting any holidays or religious observations your character made. Imagine a Paladin who was actually prevented from ganking lowbies because it was contrary to his faith? Shocker. More blue-sky thinking, I know. Putting aside for now the idea of fake religions, what about allowing real-life religions into games?
Scattered Shots: On Roleplaying a Hunter
Welcome to Scattered Shots, a weekly column on all things Hunter related, now written by Daniel Whitcomb. I may have mentioned this before elsewhere, but often times it's hard to speak authoritatively on any class in Beta, because no matter what the changes and the new imba combos and whatnot are right now, they will likely change drastically the next time a new build comes into play. This isn't to say that it's impossible to write about them, but often times whatever words you write will be obsolete, or at least inaccurate, by the time you sit down to write next week's column. For example, last week I wrote about traps. I mentioned that Freezing Traps no longer break immediately on damage. Well, now they do again. As Ghostcrawler tells it, they couldn't find a way to make pets automatically ignore a frozen target, so they called the whole thing off. Now, honestly, that seems a bit like chopping off your hand to take care of a mosquito bite on your pinky finger, but hey. On the plus side, she also said that they'll put it back in once they figure out how to reign in pets (I recommend using the passive button on the pet bar, myself). But who knows when that will be? So I thought I'd take a trip down a path that's more solid this week, and speak a bit about roleplaying your Hunter. These are a few archetypes I looked at when roleplaying my various Hunters, with various tips on roleplaying them and reflections on how they fit in to various factions and alliances around the game. As always, of course, general roleplay rules apply: Don't be a jerk, don't godmode or Mary-sue it, and don't let roleplaying get in the way of your fun or your group's success.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a tauren
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the sixth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. The first cultural influence you'll probably think of when you see the tauren and walk around in their villages is "Native American." That's fine as far as it goes, but you should remember that they're mainly based on the stereotypical image of what Native Americans are rather than their actual reality. I'm hardly an expert on Native Americans, however, so rather than try and speak for these differences, I'm just going to put the whole issue aside and take tauren as tauren rather than parallels to any human culture. Besides, aside from certain aspects of architecture, music, clothing, and mythology, the tauren are really their own species. They are quite general enough to remind us of all kinds of different cultures around the world, many of whom cherish the earth, revere their ancestors, and try to live in harmony with the world. Some people say that the tauren are the noblest and most peaceful of the races in World of Warcraft, but for most of their history, they have been at war with the vicious centaur -- though not by choice. The centaur have always been very hostile towards tauren, driving them out of their ancestral homelands, slaughtering them and even cannibalizing them whenever possible. In a way, the centaur seem like four-legged versions of the nastier trolls who never joined the Horde. When Thrall came to Kalimdor and encountered the tauren in the midst of their struggle against the centaur, it marked the beginning of one of the greatest changes in tauren history.
With persistent worlds comes persistent racism
The promise of what virtual spaces can bring us is significant -- erasing geographic limitations on interaction with others while fostering an exchange of cultures, beliefs, and languages. To this high-minded end, millions of dollars have been spent and many thousands of hours of work have been invested into creating rich graphical settings coupled with immersive environmental soundscapes. Crisp digital communication at its finest, right?Much like the promise of the the eradication of artificial barriers to meaningful communication through the Internet, virtual worlds and online spaces in general have fallen short of expectations. It's generally not the fault of the companies or the service providers though. The fault lies with us, the users.
