world-of-warcraft-and-philosophy
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The best of WoW.com: January 6-13, 2010
It's been a busy week over at WoW.com and in the WoW world. We've heard from our sources late last week that the internal friends and family alpha will be beginning for the next World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. And while this has lots of people excited, chances are you probably will never get in -- unless you know someone. There were also lots of other interesting stories this past week, from the WoW movie being pushed up thanks to Spider-Man's demise, to security holes and care packages, to papercrafts that prove none of us have any real artistic talent. The best of WoW.com for the week is after the break.
Author of World of Warcraft and Philosophy interviewed
World of Warcraft and Philosophy got released a little while back -- it's a book by Luke Cuddy and John Nordlinger that examines WoW-related topics like roleplaying and the Corrupted Blood plague, and ties them into philsophical ideas and thinking. TechFlash has now posted an interview with Nordlinger, and it's a good read as well. Nordlinger says that one reason they chose to talk about World of Warcraft in this way is that it's so incredibly big -- when you have 12 million (give or take a few at this point) people playing a game with a GDP larger than some smaller nations, you're going to touch on all sorts of interesting ethical, moral, and other philosophical ideas. He says the book has been pretty popular, and a few universities are currently considering teaching courses based on the material, not only because it's interesting, but thinking about the game in this way helps improve abstract thinking in general. And perhaps most interesting, he says that reading the book could help players better make ethical and moral decisions in the game. Just ninja-ing the mount from an Onyxia raid might not mean much to you, but when you look at the bigger picture, and what those actions mean for ethics in general, Nordlinger says the book might help players "make more aware decisions, if not different decisions." Of course, in practice, trying to explain higher philosophy to ninjas might not have the desired effect, but it does seem true that exploring the higher meanings of this game and the intents of the people playing it might put a little more meaning into the pixels as well.
World of Warcraft and Philosophy now on sale
Is your raid leader Machiavellian? Is it a categorical imperative to torture that Beryl Sorceror? What would Nietzsche have thought of Leeroy Jenkins? Good questions! And now we can find out. Following in the footsteps of books dealing with philosophies in other popular game titles like Legend of Zelda, Luke Cuddy and John Nordlinger recently released World of Warcraft and Philosophy. The book deals with topics like ethics, economics, gender identity, metaphysics, and more, written by philosophers and gamers alike from around the globe. Heck, even role-playing and cybering are the subject of discussion, along with the Infected Blood plague and lots of other well-known WoW topics. The reviews seem to indicate that the book's a brisk, fun read, but who knows what the game's twelve-million-strong audience will actually like or appreciate. After all, to paraphrase Yeats, Azerothians are babes in philosophy and so prefer faction-fighting to the labor of its unfamiliar thought. Those who do want to stack their Int, though, can pick up the book at Amazon or other bookstores now.
