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Far be it from me to speculate on how things are going over at Massively, but this recent post about the horrors of (*gasp*) killing adorable virtual creatures for XP and money has me cracking up:
At least with humanoids, there's provable intent to cause harm. With animals, you're just treading on their territory, and you should leave. I'm under no illusions about where my meat comes from, but this isn't about survival. Gaming or not, this is poaching.What's next? Refusing to invite rogues and druids to groups for wearing leather? Boycotting the Ironforge meat vendor? Releasing your hunter's pet back into the wild while singing "Born Free"?
...A warrior should practice his combat skills on opponents who behave like he does, not on creatures with their own innocent agendas.
Honestly, I've got no problem with real life vegetarians, but I think some people need "it's just a game" tattooed to their mousing hand to remind them before they go and type something absurd.
17 comments:
It's an interesting notion from an RP standpoint, but yeah...you've got to be kidding me.
Some things do bother people, though. I tried to get my girlfriend to play WoW a while ago. She gave in, and played for two or three levels, but the moment she heard the "yelp!" of a wolf or something dying, she turned off completely. It seriously disturbed her.
Agreed. If they really care that much about virtual skinning, then they can turn their attention to virtual murlocs for all I care. It's not like there's going to be any virtual shortage of boars or anything.
The author honestly expects game makers to endorse the wholesale slaughter of sentient humans rather than animals? I hope this is a joke.
Really. I hope it's a joke. Because saying something like "Gaming or not, this is poaching" is indicative of a level of general cluelessness that makes me wonder how the author can function in society. This is NOT poaching. It is, in fact, GAMING. This is Jack Thompson-esque reasoning at it's finest.
Mercot, I actually had a huge problem with the wolves to start with, too, since they basically made the same sound my childhood dog used to make when he was in pain.
I got over it, but I remember lots of cringing in the dwarven starter areas.
I seem to recall somebody who wanted to get to 70 entirely from the roleplaying standpoint that their character was an animal-rights activist. They were not going to eat any meat, drink any Ice Cold Milk, do any quests that involved killing animals, wear any leather, etc.
I don't know how far they got, but I thought it was an interesting idea. Of course, it was all in character.
Pike - I would feel totally different if it were a discussion of roleplay. I'd also feel out of my element, but that's another story. :)
@GMW: There's some reasoning in that but also plenty of BS! ;) It can be upsetting, especially for more sensitive people, to kill animals, especially those that will only try to defend themselves and not run straight at you (yellow mobs in WoW terms).
On the BullS*it side, it's almost as if (s)he's implying that killing humanoids is "better" than killing animals! In game terms, they're equally DUMB! It's not like a humanoid has more change of survival than an animal in WoW! In fact, if anything, many animals can be tougher to kill than same level humanoids!
@Pike: I can understand that guy and it's a nice try to get some "different" content out of the game, just missed the "Milk" part: after all, last I knew, you don't "kill" the milk out of the cows...
Also, he'll run into problems on many instances! :)
Typo in my previous comment: "has more change of survival" obviously means "has more *chance* of survival"... :)
Animal Rights Activist and Fantasy Genre don't really mix well.
If I met them and they came at me with their animals rights crap I'd call them a bloody handed murderer and genocidal maniac.
[roleplay]I'ma troll mage.
They all looks like tinder to me.[/roleplay]
I thought this post was going to be about "whales", as in slang. As in those people you swindle into paying 380g for Beast Slaying enchants.
Or people you port to (capital city) from Shatt... and charge them 5g for it...
*single tear*
In EQ2, there is an instance where you kill everyone in the zone and I've yet to find anyone who knows the rational as to why, other than a vague "they are gypsies/thieves."
There used to be a named croc that you spawned by kicking a cat into the water, which brought the critter to the surface. There was a minor uproar about cruelty, and the cat was replaced with a bucket of fish.
I never understood it. It's okay to kill every person in this cave with no justification but the cat, jesus, don't kick the cat. That's different.
*shakes head*
The author is also not taking into account the reason some of the quests are there, I know quite a few (killing prowlers and bears near Eastvale in Elwynn) its because they are causing problems for citizens either they're overpopulated and killing other animals or they're attacking people, innocent indeed, Bellgrub in Redridge, Princess (elwynn again), its the same in real life too thats why we have different hunting seasons for animals to control their population. Stuff like this leads me to wonder where all the "Elune is a false god" people are, surely they saw the folly of arguing their point against it why can't these idiots see it?
I have a guildie who refuses to do any of the tusk collecting quests in Nagrand because she thinks it's evil to joke about poaching.
I honestly thought she was joking at first, but she's pretty angry about the quests and thinks it's awful of Blizzard to include them.
I, too, fall on the side of feeling a little distaste on the grinding/poaching aspect of the game. Specifically the Yetis.
I'm a Yeti Hugger!!!!
Actually I do cringe whenever I fight wolves in games.
Though it's funny killing humans in games doesn't bother me :) Probably because they don't give humans realistic sounds when you kill them. If they added real screams and crying, people would be just as disturbed. But they don't nor in movies either. But when the dog is in trouble que the slow-mo and the dramatic music.
Pike a guy in my guild who is a vegetarian in real life did that. Not to prove anything just for RP he has other characters that eat meat. It actually gets hard to level cooking due to the lack of recipes and also all most of the best buff food involves meat.
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Try being a pacifist rogue or undead priest...
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