Pharyngula

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 27, 2009 12:00 AM

i have no idea what happened in that conversation.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 27, 2009 12:10 AM

Some of us go to the gym everyday and play sports and still don't get any

Skip the gym. Learn to cook. Seducing with food is much more fun than those blasted weight machines.

Posted by: Anri | September 27, 2009 12:39 AM

Hey!

What about other MMORPGs, hmm?

As a 5 year veteran of City of Heroes/City of Villains, I am just as geeky as the rest of you!

Really!

(Actually, my SO and I often play together. I dunno about WoW, but I know lots of married/involved couples on CoH.)

Anyway, to all of you that play the Big WoW, or other such properties, game on!

Posted by: mtgap.wordpress.com | September 27, 2009 12:45 AM

Now I wish I had thought of that.

Posted by: Wisunka | September 27, 2009 12:50 AM

WOW you caught me! I was flying between Dragronblight and Coldarra working on getting my rep up so I can get a red dragon when I came over to check on what was up here. And here is the post about WOW. LOLROF! Wisunka is my level 80 Tauran hunter.

I love your blog, it keeps me laughing. I don't mind people who practice what they preach, except that seems to exclude 99.9% of them...and the creationists are right up there with the flat-earthers in the idiot department. Keep poking them, it's amusing to watch them squirm as they try to make their myths fit real science.

Meanwhile...FOR THE HORDE!

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | September 27, 2009 12:57 AM

Skip the gym. Learn to cook.
Says the guy with virtually no body fat at all.

I said skip the gym, not exercise. I walk a LOT.
And I've definitely seduced men with my food.

Posted by: AH | September 27, 2009 1:05 AM

Yes... I've been doing that... my troll priest is almost level 79 and I just finished the Wrathgate quests on her. (innocence)

I am a female though, and I would be totally into LAN parties.

Posted by: Astos | September 27, 2009 1:08 AM

By the way, not all Pharyngula readers are hordies, you know! I'm a night elf rogue. FOR TYRANDE! FOR THE ALLIANCE!

Posted by: morsdei.wordpress.com | September 27, 2009 1:11 AM

I'm tempted to set up an account just to use an obscure biological term as a name; "Omomyid" and "Crotaline" come to mind.

Posted by: Rjaye | September 27, 2009 1:22 AM

Ooooh, "Crotaline" sounds naughty! Do it, Morsdei!

Posted by: Astos | September 27, 2009 1:34 AM

@AH:
It's not addicting at all.
I've played every day for the past 3 yeard and never became addicted.
Also, I can stop playing anytime. I just don't want to.

Posted by: skeptical scientist | September 27, 2009 2:02 AM

It's not addicting at all. I got bored of it before my free trial was up.

Posted by: Pascalle | September 27, 2009 2:13 AM

I'm kinda neutral in my names, a cow druid named tulips, a cow hunter named daffodils and an undead warlock named Crais (after the bad guy in farscape).

I do believe we got a horde char named Sagan on my server (Doomhammer EU)

Posted by: Aquaria | September 27, 2009 2:51 AM

I'm married to one of those guys! Mr. Aquaria is into Alternity. And Ravenloft. And Mystara. And...

I don't mind if he plays WoW and Starcraft and Diablo until his fingers bleed. I'm rather tolerant of how he can distinguish between various Star Wars spacecraft and regalia. I endure his manias of reading nothing but Jim Butcher, George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and FIre) or Robert Jordan periodically. I live with his watching endless shonen anime, and the more fan service, the better, if it makes him happy. When we can afford it, I'm okay with animecons, comic cons, collectible toy shopping, and Renaissance festivals. And I never, ever tease him about that foray into Pokemon gaming.

But I draw the line at LARP and Warhammer. He knows I'll divorce him if he goes there.

I could live with those before I could live with him playing golf, though.

Posted by: DLC | September 27, 2009 4:49 AM

I don't have a character named Pharyngula... sounds like a Troll name to me.

Posted by: kristjan-wager.myopenid.com | September 27, 2009 5:23 AM

I like WoW. No, not the game, but the fact that I can look down on someone as being nerds.

Not really, working as a programmer, reading loads of science fiction/fantasy, and being a former RPG player, kinda makes it hard to dismiss others as nerds.

At least I can still look down at furries. And creationists of course. And anti-waxers.... Libertarians as well, I guess. Oh, and Lomborg obviously.

Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | September 27, 2009 8:04 AM

Oh, please. I'm not some pathetic nerd, spending his Saturday knights killing monsters on WoW. I'm living life! Specifically, Second Life.

@kristjan-wager: At least I can still look down at furries

Dawww. *ears droop even more than usual*

I'm not even gonna ask what an "anti-waxer" is.

Posted by: Sili | September 27, 2009 9:35 AM

Meh. I exercise too little, I only cook grudgingly, and my personality is ... well, you should know by now.

Also, I whine a lot.

Posted by: echidna | September 27, 2009 9:50 AM

Graphics are nice, but nothing beats nethack for gameplay design with variety.

The Nethack tournament at http://nethack.devnull.net is coming up: it runs for a month starting at midnight on Halloween.

It's not multiplayer, either. I'll accept my nerd credentials now, thank you.

Posted by: kristjan-wager.myopenid.com | September 27, 2009 10:32 AM

I'm not even gonna ask what an "anti-waxer" is.

Bunny, it was a typo - I obviously meant anti-vaxer (anti-vaccinationists). Sorry about that.

And don't worry, I don't really look down on furries - why would I? Whatever floats your boat. The other groups I mentioned, on the other hand, I despise.

Posted by: Walton | September 27, 2009 10:50 AM

I'm not even gonna ask what an "anti-waxer" is.

Someone who opposes the painful removal of superfluous body hair?

All in all, I guess my nerd quotient is fairly puny compared to many Pharyngulites; I've never played WoW, or indeed any online roleplaying game at all. My gaming days ended a while ago, and were mostly restricted to Age of Empires and SimCity.

That said, I do spend much of my free time in front of the computer*, and I am an ex-Wikipedia admin, so I do get some nerd points.

*(Though I also spend some of it in the gym... minus 30 nerd points for me.)

Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | September 27, 2009 11:32 AM

I was just being silly, Kristjan. ^^

Posted by: gyeong-hwa | September 27, 2009 12:31 PM

I think I am the only one here who hasn't played an MMORPG ever. (To be sure, I have played online.) So I guess no nerd points for me?

Well, like Walton, I was a wikipedia editor.

Posted by: Kristjan Wager | September 27, 2009 12:38 PM

Well, like Walton, I was a wikipedia editor.

Ah, but in how many languages? I'm only an editor on the Danish and the English wikipedia, but I have across people who edit four or more wikipedias. Serious nerd-cred.

Posted by: Walton | September 27, 2009 1:04 PM

Ah, but in how many languages? I'm only an editor on the Danish and the English wikipedia, but I have across people who edit four or more wikipedias.

Well, I translated some articles on British politicians for the Spanish Wikipedia (my Spanish was better in those days).

And nerdy boys are just plain hot.

I wish this opinion were more widespread among the world's female population. :-)

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | September 27, 2009 2:16 PM

I am pleased to report that I had to google "LAN party."

*skips away happily, feeling less nerdy*

*until the realization that I'm just a really old nerd*

Posted by: Nerdette | September 27, 2009 2:55 PM

According to the Warcraft Lore, the Gnomes are basically both atheists and scientists.

Actually, the best scientist award would probably go to the Blue Dragonflight. Sadly, WoW has taken a turn for the "light" - war against the Blue Dragonflight, only the "light" can save, etc. Oh, and now Tauren paladins and priests. Yeah, I'm canceling my subscription once the next expansion comes about. Too much religion creeping into the game.

But, as always, FOR THE HORDE!

Posted by: ursulamajor | September 27, 2009 3:29 PM

Forgot to mention, we're going HORDE! Already have one from here...he (winner) got the Pharyngula name.

Posted by: Azkyroth | September 27, 2009 4:06 PM

This amuses me, because while I've never played WoW and don't intend to, my (mildly developmentally severely emotional-abuse-disabled) roommate spends as much as 12 hours a day on it. I would show him this post, but he would take it personally and get offended and self-righteous. And mention again that I "think something that's really insulting, and isn't true" [...prying...] "...that I'm...you know...a 'Vee'..." (Enough said.)

(If he would do a little "grinding" around the house he would be far more live-withable; if he keeps blowing off his share of chores his share of rent is going to increase dramatically).

Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | September 27, 2009 4:20 PM

Too much religion creeping into the game.

Could you please expand on this? I mean, there's little in WoW that isn't driven by religion already, what with the multitude of deities, demons, undead, and other magic-based characters. So I'm having trouble understanding where you see religion "creeping in". Seems like that boat has long left the harbor.

Posted by: Kagehi | September 27, 2009 4:55 PM

Hmm. As a Kerra (cat like race), in a city full of both the more normal humans, elves, etc., but also frog people, lizards, and a scattering of others (many betrayers of the other city), I find it rather ironic that Lucan is the name of the leader of the **evil** city in Everquest 2, now misnamed, like most insane asylums get named *nice* names, Freeport. It used to be an ally, before the breaking of the moon of Luclin, and the shattering of the surface of Norrath. Now, every necromancer, defiler, thug and thief makes its home there. lol

Most of the EQ2 people that tried WoW and came back have said, "Hate the game. Its too damn easy to play!"

Seriously though NB Whip, there was a poll back during the elections that showed that like 95%, or something like that, of the Alliance where right wing McCain/Palin supporters, while the Horde was firmly Democrat. That should say it all right there, without them having to "cater" to such people, by introducing an even bigger shift towards the absurd.

Still, in EQ2 we have The Shadow Odyssey, which is similar. In the back story, before the breaking, a race of dragons got mixed up in the whole thing, trying to conquer the world, and directly resulting in the catastrophe. Both sides, when the gods all disappeared, and the dragons where, mostly, killed off, sort of just started picking up the pieces, and, I suppose, blaming each other for what happened. Recently its looking like the real culprits are back, in the form of some sort of extra dimensional creatures, which got pissed off by people building transportation portals between different places, or something. Many of them look like classical demons, and they have been known to "possess" creatures, turning them hostile. But, unless there is some unknown god behind it...

And, given the fact that they are attacking not just the EQ2 version of the Alliance, but their version of the Horde, whose members often have gods like the god of diseases, the god of hate, etc...

Hardly a surprise the EQ2's rival would be introducing a similar theme, since EQ2 has been feeding bits of this story line in for almost two years now.

Posted by: Nerdette | September 27, 2009 6:02 PM

So I'm having trouble understanding where you see religion "creeping in". Seems like that boat has long left the harbor.

I mean the heavy emphasis on the light in this expansion compared to others. It didn't really catch my attention (eh, just another theme for the game) until a quest in Icecrown. A soldier for the Argent Crusade is dying of plague, and you are asked to save his soul by going to various magical leaders. The druids fail to save him, the leader of the Red Dragonflight (the dragonflight of Life) fails to save him, but, lo and behold, the beings of Light succeed!

Then there is the Argent Crusade itself. That one daily quest requesting you to perform last rites on the slaughtered villagers of a nearby indigenous town? I'm all for religion existing where it should in a fantasy world, but how much the game is reflecting reality disturbs me.

Posted by: Azkyroth | September 27, 2009 6:16 PM

I know there are people who play the game who really get into the "lore". I don't. It's contrived, boring, and silly

And derivative, since half of it was "borrowed" from D&D.

Posted by: Liberal | September 27, 2009 6:40 PM

"When I play, it's just to melt faces off and blow stuff up."

Full of "win", as they say.

I'm a Paladin myself on the Alliance side. My wife and daughter also play. We joined up with The Friendly Pharyngula on Kael'thas. See you there... but not till you finish your book! :)

Posted by: Nerdette | September 27, 2009 7:45 PM

It's just a myth arc, and I don't think most people follow the storyline, or even read the quests.

Aye, I'm one of those weird people that enjoy the RP (in moderation) despite not being an actual RPer. I like the stories and how detailed they can make the lore. I'm sure I wouldn't notice how much emphasis they are placing on the light if I didn't grow up surrounded by the sort of thing in reality.

I enjoy nickpicking about details. Like those giant mushrooms in Zangermarsh? Yeah, I went on about how Draenor might be planet at a stage similar to mid-life Earth with giant fungus and insects. I have a friend that loves dissecting the names of various Horde NPCs. It's just another aspect of the game to think about where the developers might have gotten their ideas. /shrug I guess I'm just a nerd :)

Posted by: frozen_midwest | September 27, 2009 9:26 PM

Guess I have to turn in my nerd membership card - never played World of Warcraft or any of the other online games mentioned so far. The only online game I do play is an obscure one called Kingdom of Loathing...

Posted by: ivo | September 27, 2009 10:29 PM

Phro, Raguti:

[...]heavy metal. Which is really the nerdiest music you can listen to this side of nerdcore, I mean, have you heard Blind Guardian!? Even death metal is nerdy

Errr... never heard of prog? Metal is pretty nerdy, but nothing compared to prog.

That's why my favourite genre is prog metal: Dream Theater, Angra, Cynic,...

Actually, Dream Theater is the mainstream face of this very nerdy music (they even had a radio-friendly hit once), so perhaps it doesn't count?

Posted by: llewelly | September 28, 2009 12:06 AM

Actually, I spent my Saturday harvesting 25-35' lodgepole pines, for tipi poles. I don't play WoW.

Posted by: chronos-tachyon.net | September 28, 2009 1:06 AM

@57: Considering that the Light is basically a Secular Humanism expy being promoted by friendly space aliens (that readily admit they are not gods) who grant testable magic powers to people who pledge themselves to the cause... I don't really find the Light too obnoxious as a religion-analogue. In particular, the Argent Dawn folks mostly have their head screwed on and, while they may surround themselves with the trappings of religion, they don't strike me as being particularly worse than coffee hour with the local Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Mind you, we are talking about a fantasy universe where magic powers not only exist, but are scientifically provable and put to use on a day-to-day basis. Really, the biggest difference between a mage and a priest is that the mage wants to scientifically explore magic in an academic environment, while the priest wants to put it to practical use by helping people. The fact that they use different types of magic, sourced from different magical beings -- the Titans via Malygos on one hand, the Naaru on the other -- is almost a footnote.

Posted by: eryoshimura | September 28, 2009 7:05 AM

And now, with the creation of my mage on Aegwynn, there are 16 Pharyngulas wandering around WoW! I logged in yesterday and a guildie laughed and said, "Pharyngula, huh? Do you read PZ?" :) Apparently his friend went to the creation museum with you!

Posted by: chronos-tachyon.net | September 28, 2009 11:51 AM

@Nerdette: Another mitigating factor here is that the Warcraft series started off with the Humans practicing a monotheistic religion (including explicit mentions of "God"), and as the series progressed it was transformed into a non-specific "The Light", which lost the explicit theology and replaced it with a coherent moral philosophy called the Three Virtues (Respect, Tenacity, and Compassion, taught in that order to prevent zealotry). The Three Virtues look fairly reasonable, if overly simplistic, from a Secular Humanist standpoint.

The overall direction is clearly pointing away from monotheistic religion, I presume for reasons of international marketing. The earlier games in the Warcraft series didn't get a lot of play outside the US, but World of Warcraft is huge in Europe (increasingly non-religious) and Asia (where monotheism is a minor player against Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, and others).

Posted by: Die Anyway | September 28, 2009 2:15 PM

I created a mage character in the Alliance and tried to name it FlyingSpaghettiMonster or some other FSM combinations but they were all taken. I think I ended up with something like SharkChaser but I abandoned the character when real life kept me too busy to play and real bills kept me from spending money on frivolity.

A bit of advice from the older generation to the younger though...
when you get older, you are going to look back at the hours (days, weeks, months?) you spent playing MMORPGs and wish you had done something real with your life.

Well, that's been my experience anyway. YMMV, but think about it.

Posted by: chronos-tachyon.net | September 29, 2009 12:12 AM

As a long-time Hordie, hopefully I can shed some light on the Horde mentality.

First, you have to look at the Alliance options.

* You have the Humans of Stormwind, with their arrogant and unethical behavior (e.g. the fiasco leading to the creation of the Defias) and outright pig-headed obliviousness (Lady Katrana Prestor being a member of the royal court for a long time, despite not-very-secretly being the black dragon Onyxia), none of which is helped by the fact that they're thrilled to have their jerkass of a king back on the throne.

* You have the Dwarves, who aren't particularly offensive in the abstract but get outright maniacal when someone requests that they obtain a permit before conducting an archaeological dig on someone else's land. They're also a bit stereotyped and boring: ever met a Dwarf who didn't drink?

* You have the Gnomes, who from an RP perspective are fairly reasonable... except that then you have to deal with the players. "[Female Gnome Warlock with Bubblegum-Pink Hair] giggles maniacally as she melts your face off, then dances on your broken corpse."

* You have the Draenei, who aren't bad but sometimes feel like Space Mormons.

* You have the Night Elves, who are also fairly reasonable from an RP perspective (albeit with a bit of an eco-terrorist streak) but suffer from the people who play them: "Naughty Night Elf Dance! 10 gold at the Auberdine inn!" They're very pretty and new-agey, which attracts precisely the wrong players to RP them properly. Not as bad as the Gnomes, but still.

In contrast, the Horde has a lot to offer:

* First and foremost, the Tauren: calm and deliberate, highly ethical, in touch with environmental concerns but not technophobic. They have their religion, true, but they look to the Earth Mother as a source of inspiration without getting preachy about it, and the ancestral spirits they commune with can be scientifically demonstrated to exist.

* The Blood Elves: a society in upheaval with sharp lines of dissent regarding the actions of their leadership. The "evil" faction (Paladins, ironically) has suffered a massive ego blow as their trusted Great Leader has now betrayed them, while the "good" faction (principally Hunters and others less concerned with power) are now trying to calm their people down from the blind, retributive rage that led their people to follow Kael'thas in the first place. Massive RP potential.

* The Orcs: having been corrupted by demons (physically-real, magical but non-supernatural beings) and subsequently escaped that corruption, they're now trying to reclaim their cultural past (not dissimilar to that of the Taurens) while not dwelling too much on what's happened to them and always looking toward the future. Their biggest downside is that, aside from Thrall and a few others, their view of the future tends to be too short-sighted and involves quite a bit of melee combat, which is probably inevitable after having lost their sense of history (with so few left who personally remember it) and mostly knowing only the two wars against the Humans.

* The Trolls of the Darkspear Tribe: acutely aware of their surroundings and context, valuing cunning and planning, they're in the process of gradually extracting themselves from a greater society that values power at any cost -- because they've realized that such power is fleeting at best and corrupting at worst. Despite the animist spirit worship and the still-underdeveloped sense of ethics, expect them to become Secular Humanists in 50 years or so, especially if they spend more time around the Tauren.

* The Forsaken Undead: the closest thing the Horde has to a truly "evil" faction, but nonetheless full of varying perspectives. Emotionally scarred by the experience of dying in the Scourge's plague and fighting to regain their individual minds, and hurt by the fact that their still-living kin are trying to eradicate them and steal their homes, many have lost their sense of perspective as they focus on turning their anger into a weapon of revenge. But nonetheless there are still Forsaken happy just to be (un)alive, and those few tend to have an overwhelmingly libertarian individualist streak when it comes to philosophy and politics. They don't speak out about Sylvanas because it would be unwise in the current political climate, but they disapprove of her actions and refuse to aid her apothecaries in carrying them out.

Posted by: Azkyroth | September 29, 2009 9:11 PM

No, no. Statistical models represent.