Mercurius
Legend
Forked from: D&D Intiative...Master Tools 2008?
Hi Fifth Element. Let me clarify something and then (briefly) explicate my view on this. First of all, I did not insult anyone except for the World of Warcraft itself, which is not a person therefore not insulted (or so I hope!). If I had implied that players of WoW were deliberately "killing imagination" it would have been an insult (of sorts). What I was saying, or at least meant to imply, is that World of Warcraft--and games like it--actually kill, or at least atrophy, imagination.
Now obviously there is an implication that could be read into this, that players of WoW have less imagination than non-players. This is something I wouldn't even try to prove, even if I wanted to (which I don't). But I don't think it is a stretch to conjecture that the imaginative faculties of someone before hours and hours of play are greater than after, if only subtly. Long-term play is more of a concern, and can be highly detrimental to one's imagination.
And I firmly believe this. Why? One major reason is that simply by virtue of such games feeding you imagery, you don't have to create any of your own, and therefore (gradually) lose that capacity. "Use it or lose it", as the saying goes. And I was specifically relating them to mhensley's comment that none of his co-workers play tabletop RPGs, only WoW. To me it is "sad" that they play the imagination-poor WoW instead of the imagination-rich Dungeons & Dragons.
As I see it, there is a qualitative difference between tabletop RPGs (such as D&D) and computer RPGs (such as WoW) and it largely has to do with imagination, although socialization is another major factor. One actually encourages and develops imagination while the other discourages and, in my view, actually hinders it. Now imagination is something that I feel is of such importance to the quality of human existence that I think it is a big deal that so many people are in effect addicted to something that actually atrophies it. Actually, our culture is full of such methods of "imagination atrophy", that we're all prone to it to varying degrees (WoW isn't even the main culprit, that would be television).
Now I am not saying that any amount of World of Warcraft (or TV) will harm one's imagination. I'm a believer of "(almost) anything in moderation." But such activities tend to be rather difficult to moderate, if not prone to outright addiction. And considering the heavy usage of a significant portion of World of Warcraft players, and the largely unquestioned prevalence of TV watching, I'd call this a huge cultural problem.
mhensley said:Yeah, everyone I work with plays WoW instead.
Mercurius said:
Fifth Element said:
Hi Fifth Element. Let me clarify something and then (briefly) explicate my view on this. First of all, I did not insult anyone except for the World of Warcraft itself, which is not a person therefore not insulted (or so I hope!). If I had implied that players of WoW were deliberately "killing imagination" it would have been an insult (of sorts). What I was saying, or at least meant to imply, is that World of Warcraft--and games like it--actually kill, or at least atrophy, imagination.
Now obviously there is an implication that could be read into this, that players of WoW have less imagination than non-players. This is something I wouldn't even try to prove, even if I wanted to (which I don't). But I don't think it is a stretch to conjecture that the imaginative faculties of someone before hours and hours of play are greater than after, if only subtly. Long-term play is more of a concern, and can be highly detrimental to one's imagination.
And I firmly believe this. Why? One major reason is that simply by virtue of such games feeding you imagery, you don't have to create any of your own, and therefore (gradually) lose that capacity. "Use it or lose it", as the saying goes. And I was specifically relating them to mhensley's comment that none of his co-workers play tabletop RPGs, only WoW. To me it is "sad" that they play the imagination-poor WoW instead of the imagination-rich Dungeons & Dragons.
As I see it, there is a qualitative difference between tabletop RPGs (such as D&D) and computer RPGs (such as WoW) and it largely has to do with imagination, although socialization is another major factor. One actually encourages and develops imagination while the other discourages and, in my view, actually hinders it. Now imagination is something that I feel is of such importance to the quality of human existence that I think it is a big deal that so many people are in effect addicted to something that actually atrophies it. Actually, our culture is full of such methods of "imagination atrophy", that we're all prone to it to varying degrees (WoW isn't even the main culprit, that would be television).
Now I am not saying that any amount of World of Warcraft (or TV) will harm one's imagination. I'm a believer of "(almost) anything in moderation." But such activities tend to be rather difficult to moderate, if not prone to outright addiction. And considering the heavy usage of a significant portion of World of Warcraft players, and the largely unquestioned prevalence of TV watching, I'd call this a huge cultural problem.
