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World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians: What are MMOs?

World of Warcraft FAQs for ChristiansWhat are MMO games?
According to Wikipedia, “A massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet.”

In my own words, MMOs are unique to all other game genres because they are totally based on community. Literally hundreds of thousands of players interact together in real-time in a virtual world. They form little groups and fight battles together, search for treasure and valuable items, and sometimes even intentionally serve as a nuisance to other players. Sub-communities called “clans” or “guilds” are formed as people commit to fight alongside each other, help each other and work toward common goals together. In a clan everyone is (usually) important because everyone brings unique characters with specific skills and abilities that are necessary for defeating the opponents, whether that be a virtual monster in a quest/mission or a fight against people in another guild. Because these guilds consist of characters played by real people, behind the scenes you’ll find a lot of the same drama that often take place in real-life communities (called “e-drama” in the gaming community).

Here’s an example of an in-game look at Guild Wars. (Click the image to see it full-size.) All the people you see standing around represent other real-life people sitting in front of their computer playing in the virtual world at the same time I am. I can privately or publicly interact with any of these people. In the example of this picture, everyone is dancing together to celebrate the end of a successful beta testing event. (See the one guy even doing an in-air cartwheel!)

Guild Wars community

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]


Posted on January 19, 2007

One response to “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians: What are MMOs?”

  1. wowSatan says:

    are you people nuts or something its a game, nothing more you loons need to take some meds to counter the brainwashed junk youve fed yourself over the years over everything from d and d to well harry potter. look out i’ll cast a spell on you, just let me click this button, see, dum dums, nothing, its a game get a grip. what next the evils of super mario brothers, look at there is a magic mushroom. oh, nooooooo….

    tell you what there is more messed up stuff in revelations than warcraft. and you guys are loon enough to pray for people to die and go to hell for playing this game and that is not what being christian is all about. btw i am a christian, i see nothing wrong with it.

    and no i am not part of a cult, or “evil” denominations that loons like you are so agianst, so get a grip, grow up and enjoy life a little. even jesus said lighten up sometimes things arent so bad. there is no evil in rpgs other than they suck up all your time and harry potter is just a book.

    for pete sake people lighten up and get a grip and do what we real christians do, live the way of the lord, aka, giving, forgiving, loving our fellow man. this is the kind of nonsense that the rich fatcat preachers on tv do. oh yes, i went there jack van imp and their ilk are sucking money out of our parents and grandparents pockets living in multimillion dollar homes and driving expensive cars begging for more dough while the very people they say they love are going without money just to make ends meet, all the while saying it is bad to want to succeed, in other words it is ok for them to have money but not us. get a grip guys and quit being snowballed by this hyperbolie junk.

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