I thought that article cited Ito, the venture capitial fellow, and his business guild, where he does exactly that.

In fact, here we go, from page two ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769...wsweek/page/2/ ):

Emphasis mine, to underline how it's not the author, but the quoted CEO who makes the quote you laugh at.

Anyone ever play on Sullon Zek? Sure, the game imbalances dictated that 60% of all players chose the evil team, but what would have happened if good and neutral had actually been viable? I'd love to see a game that pulled off good and evil.

Guys, the Castronova article is very very bad, and a WoW board isn't going to be a place where we could have a meaningful dialogue about it even if it merited meaningful dialogue, which it doesn't. It was pretty soundly refuted and he took his ball and went home (although he still thinks his main assertions were correct) a loooong time ago.

No need to one-sidedly beat a very very dead horse.

EDIT: Post is not IRT #28.

Just a really short list of the good and bad of each race (AFAIK)

Horde:
Orcs
Good: Just looking to start their own society and respect warfare, I don't think they worship it.
Bad: Bloody history and they definately have their share of blood thirsty figures.

Undead:
Good: Um... kinda hard. They have priests? More seriously maybe they're trying to start a new life(unlife?) after being seriously wronged.
Bad: They want everyone to succumb to a horrible plague and suffer their fate.

Trolls:
Good: Respect their environment and want to preserve their way of life.
Bad: They hate everyone with the exception of the orcs.

Tauren:
Good: They're tree-hugging hippies.
Bad: They're tree-hugging hippies.
Actually I think they seem to be the "neutral" race. They just kinda got caught up in everything by trying to help out Thrall.

Alliance:
Humans
Good: Just normal people trying to live the best way they can
Bad: They're oppresive towards and look down on other races (ie. Horde races)

Dwarves
Good: Hardworking, industrious, and helpful to their neighbors.
Bad: Um, I think they have some sort of goal of conquest of something. That or they just strip mine everything.

Gnomes
Good: I really can't think of anything good about gnomes except that they look really awesome on cat mounts. Maybe they're just very clever and work to better their lives through technology.
Bad: They're bitter over the loss of their homeland and are bent on revenge.

Night Elves
Good: Respect nature (Tree huggers) and place great value on life.
Bad: They're mad stuck up, look down on the other races (ie. all non-Elf) and I think they're after control of the world through the tree or something.

I really tried to put some thought into it, but that's the best I can think of. I think the trolls are very clearly "evil", but I also think that humans are the same in their own way. The factions definately make this game interesting.

As for a portent? I know I spend a lot more time playing WoW than I did any other recreational activity, and while that's definately a negative on the other hand I don't get into trouble and it saves me oodles of money that I might spend on a variety of other things. I also use it as a way to keep in touch with friends which is kind of nice (Through chat and Vent).

The Forsaken pretty much have no way of procreating besides committing mass murder. The only way they can actually survive is slaughtering anything that lives!

Orcs are the Klingons of Star Trek: Next Generation. Honor is king. They lack a long history (considering they're divorced their homeland and history through the evil workings of demons), so not so much tradition as new tradition. They get along with the Federation (er, Alliance), even if they have lots of rogue elements that cause problems.

I think the Forsaken, as a faction, are evil. I hate the "Horde = evil" horse as much as everyone else, but Sylvanis is out to eradicate all life and most unlife on Azeroth. She's just made a temporary alliance out of necessity with the rest of the Horde proper to do it. Some Forsaken aren't toting the party line, and it's funny to think that the Good Forsaken are the minority element, as opposed to the rest of the Horde having evil as the minority (the various elements of Neeru's hencemen, for example).

I've always thought of the trolls as being too primative for notions like "good" and "evil." Other species are simply lower on the food chain, it's neither good nor evil to eat a cow, why any different to butcher a dwarf?

The Darkspear, though, have bound themselves up in Thrall's law, so in as much as it's a useful label, they're "good" in that they have no interest in the rampant slaughtering of all before them.

I think they're the stand out good guys of the Horde. They have no tainted past (orcs), no secret goals (Forsaken), and no moral ambiguity (trolls). They sense disturbances in the Force - er, Azeroth, and do what they must to make it right. They help out who they feel to be a bunch of upstanding, honorable folk - that is, Thrall's Horde.

There's no secret faction of Tauren plotting the demise of anyone. If anything, they have secret conspiracies to plant trees.

Is there a single evil conspiracy in WoW lore whose leaders aren't human, dragon, or demon?

I think pound for pound I've killed more evil humans than any other species.

Their industry borders on greed - where Taurens respect and steward the earth, dwarves are the strip miners of WoW. While it's not evil per se, it is destructive and disruptive and, factoring in the Emerald Dream, it's a bit more morally significant than one might attach to similar actions in real life.

I think the Night Elves are the true neutral of the Alliance. They had/have no interest in anything other than their own, and it's only as a consequence to other engagements that they're even a part of "modern" Azerothian politics and goings-ons.

I would venture to say that 90% of us are playing characters that are not the very first character we created when we started the game.

In fact I woud postulate that we would have at least 2 or 3 alts with levels ranging from 30 to 60.

Fact is after the first guy we created, chances are we rolled another character so that we could do quests on the other side or simply because we want what we think to be better racials.

You're absolutely right, and I can't think why they might've slipped my mind except, you know, they just don't come across very Tauren like beyond physiology. Not defending being wrong, just reasoning how it came to be.

But... they lock up spriters, hold a hostage, and generally do things it's difficult to imagine anyone from Thunder Bluff carrying on similar-like. Sounds more like a cell of the Shadow Council.

Gnomes seem pretty much embody the old "High Intelligence, Low Wisdom" D&D parables. Our city is under attack, let's IRRADIATE it.

They're like super intelligent children building lincoln log forts with real guns and not really understanding the consequences. The lore is divided, with them being older/wizened in War2/3 and then also implying that they typically don't live very long, definitely not long enough to form meaningful cause/effect relationships with their actions. Their rivalry with the goblins is fairly amusing as well.

Some memorable gnome moments: the lvl 50 warlock quest, Finkle and the Beast, etc

Points is lore about specific races do not become realised until you start playing the game, or unless you started played the Warcraft series from back in the 1990s. Even so lore is not fixed and subjected to change as they see fit; such as now we get strange things like Blood Elf paladins and Draenei shamans all in the name of faction balance.

And to simply describe a certain race as "evil" because of a few quests or a few individuals is tantamount to saying all Muslims are bad because a few out of millions of them caused 911. I bet people who think that are holding grudges against the Germans born after 1945 for crimes before they were born.

I always thought of the Gnomes as the racial embodiment of the typical absent-minded inventor. Sort of like the fictional Leonard of Quirm.