Hence the Scryer faction in Shatt was formed. A few of the dedicated Blood Elfs learned the way of the light from the Naruu and became Paladins. Thats the story for the most part.

I may have butchered parts of it and I’m not sure how those Blood Elfs got back to Silvermoon at the start of BC. That may be explained in the starting area but since I never played a Blood Elf past lvl 8 I couldn’t tell you.

In terms of RP, I’d love to make my Paladin alt just a little more interesting. It would be awesome to forsake the light and gain different abilities as a result. It’s the type of thing that I could imagine being tied into talent specs in other games.

Also, according to the lore, I never really understand why Blood Elfs can worship the light and be Paladins? What’s the story behind that?

I think it is also nice how a lot of the armor from raids in WotLK have a more dark quality to them (even if the same model is reused 5 million times) but then the actual pally tier 7 gear is as pallyranger as you can get.

@Beej That’s true, I never thought it. I imagine Blizzard is slightly scared of the religous backlash. I remember reading about schools in the US banning Pokemon for being evil. Crazy! Imagine how they would react to playing a character who follows a fictional religion…

@Pyschochild LOL, yeah that’s very true MMORPGs tend to have pretty unimagintive Gods. I’d love to see some really complex gods and religions that actually make you think about if you want to serve them or not… not just because they give you cool powers.

@Openedge AoC would be ripe for a diety system. Gods are so prevalent in the lore of the universe, I’m surprised there was nothing to do with them in the game.

@Whatsmymain Thanks for the info! Very interesting. I didn’t know that about the Old Gods in WoW. The ‘Light’ is an interesting concept but a little cliché. I’d love to able to roleplay a ‘fallen’ Paladin in WoW for instance.

The Naruu are the closest to dieties for paladins and priests but ultimately they are just beings of Light. Again Light being completely subjective.

I find it interesting that the races the players play were molded by both good and evil forces. Such as the curse of the flesh from the Old Gods or the destruction of the well of eternity due to Sargeras (one of the titans) trying to come through a portal. That even lead to the creation of the naga as well as the Blood Elfs. Also indirectly leading to the Forsaken (Sylvannas was a blood elf originally)

No one being in the game is supremely powerful and the face of Azeroth shows the wear of these powers trying to become supreme.

Good post mate

Later

In Meridian 59, the name of the spell schools are the names of the gods that sacrificed themselves to protect the lands. So, Shal’ille was the goddess of healing and protection, so she’s the school with all the healing abilities.

The thing I don’t like about gods in games is that it often leads to kind of silly writing. Hammer on the keyboard, pepper in a few vowels if needed, pick a “cool” aspect (like disease, or war, or evil, or fire!) and you have a god. Set up some petty rivalries and you have a typical MMO pantheon. I’ll admit, M59 is just as guilty of this and of apostrophe abuse in some names! Developers should do better than high school D&D geeks did!

I think part of the reason that Blizzard has avoided gods in their MMO is because of political correctness. Priests and Paladins and Druids and cults all have their gods, but they are downplayed. I wonder if, to an extent at least, Blizzard is afraid of the anti-religious backlash they might get if they were to allow characters to actually interact with a deity like EQII because of parents letting children play. EQII isn’t nearly as mainstream as WoW is, so it doesn’t have to deal with that as much.

I live in the Bible Belt, and I can’t imagine the backlash something like that would have in my community. The fundamentalists would cry foul because they would say that the game was teaching children to worship false gods and the devil. I don’t know about other places, but every time a new Harry Potter novel or movie comes out, I hear way more than I would like about it being the downfall of society. Ugh, I hate to think about that being interactive.

Lost Souls MUD has a class, the ELF (Erisian Liberation Front) Guerilla, where you invoke the gods to aid you in various ways. You have to build favor with them by sacrificing things they want, gain skills in ritual, language, etc., and you have to invoke them in the right way. If you don’t do it correctly, you’re likely to end up dead (or worse… chaos is unpredictable!) You can’t invoke the same god too often in too short a period of time, or you’ll draw his attention and possibly piss him off. So you’re going about the business of questing and killing, using your powers and hoping they don’t backfire, always knowing the each time you invoke Hastur, he might just decide to insta-kill you.

I’d love to see a class like that in an MMO, where you have to watch your step and keep your gods happy, or at least hope they don’t notice you too much, or the consequences get ugly.