What are the positive aspects of MMOs?

• As a Christian, there a tons of ministry opportunities in these games! I’ve even blogged in the past about some of the ministry opportunities I’ve had in Guild Wars. It is an incredible way to meet unsaved people and share the gospel. I’ve lost count of how many opportunities I’ve had to talk with people about tough real-life situations and share the difference Christ could make in their lives. One person I know is even actively involved in church now because of it.
• It provides a great sense of release, especially during stressful times in life.
• Highly entertaining.
• Community is valued and interaction therein is required for success.
• It requires reading, strategy, critical thinking and puzzle solving. (Compare to movies and TV, which are both very passive forms of entertainment.)
• It provides a mental and emotional escape from reality that we all need from time to time. (Again, TV and movies also provide this escape.)

What are the negative aspects of MMOs?

• It provides a mental and emotional escape from reality, which is very dangerous in excess.
• They have the potential to become all-consuming, replacing everything else and becoming the #1 priority in our lives.
• In rare cases, reality and fantasy become confused.
• It’s easy to spend more time developing a virtual character than our own personal character.
• Self-worth may become wrapped in the identity of a virtual world rather than in our real world.
• There may be a lot of foul language by other players in the game. (Usually chat can be turned off.)
• People who do not have a strong personal identity, healthy relationships, sense of purpose and appropriate ways of exerting power in the real world will instead form them in a virtual world, usually with harmful results on real-life self-identity and social interaction.

People who do not have a strong personal identity, healthy relationships, sense of purpose and appropriate ways of exerting power in the real world will instead form them in a virtual world, usually with harmful results on real-life self-identity and social interaction.

Real-Life story of the negative affects of World of Warcraft and MMOs
Here’s a story from a guy who was at the “top of World of Warcraft greatness.” He was a council member on what is now one of the oldest guilds in the world, the type of position coveted by many of the 7 million people who play the game today, but which only a few ever get. What follows in his story is a cautionary tale about the pull an escape from reality can have and why he ultimately quit the game altogether.

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

Why is World of Warcraft so addictive?

When Paul Sams, the COO of Blizzard (the company that makes WoW), was asked why people play World of Warcraft, his answer was a bit depressing: “How often in your everyday world do you get to feel heroic?” he said. “How often do you get to step into a world and do something big and meaningful? People need an escape from ordinary life. It’s just something people need.”

What’s implicit in this statement is that our normal lives just aren’t good enough. Our life in WoW and other MMOs seem fundamentally better than our real lives.

But not only do we feel like we’re accomplishing something meaningful and significant, there’s a huge community attraction that’s praised by almost everyone I talk to about why they play WoW.

Thirty-year-old Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates writes about his former WoW addiction and says this:

What I came to understand was that WoW was not necessarily an escape, but a surrogate for a community that is harder and harder to find in the real world. I lived further from my parents and siblings than my parents had. I wasn’t raised in the church. In my 20s, I built a shocking amount of community around illicit substances and bars. But with age and a child, that was no longer as attractive or even possible. Into that void, I brought WoW, which instantly connected me with the world—not just mine, but others I could never have imagined or found on my own…. [Now that I’ve quit playing WoW] I miss my guild, Gnomeland Security, a loose cross-section of military guys, history majors, high school students, writers and singers. They were the place where everyone knew my name.

Community might be the number one aspect of MMOs that keeps players coming back for more — to earn a reputation and be accepted by other people.

Through many weeks of brainstorming and even analyzing some of my own attractions to the MMO game, Guild Wars, here’s a list of why I think the MMO gaming genre can become so addictive:

• You can be the best in the world at something.
• Because you are the best, you become valued and needed by your guild and others in the game.
• You are able to earn the admiration and respect of other players and thus make a name for yourself.
• There is a high level of aggression, which feeds a constant flow of adrenaline.
• You have complete ownership over building your character into whoever/whatever you want him/her/it to be (unlike other games that only give you a selection of characters to choose from, like sports games). You develop the character’s strengths and weaknesses, craft armor, build weapons, learn skills, perfect those skills, and, in some cases, even develop their unique personalities. It makes you feel that you have a unique identity, that you’re different and special from everyone else in a crowded world.
• There is a rewarding and satisfactory feeling of conquering and achieving something difficult.
• Interest in the paranormal and supernatural and controlling aspects of them for your advantage is very intriguing to teenagers and young adults. (Christianity even plays off this sometimes, too, doesn’t it?)
• Death is never the end or “game over,” it’s only a development of character or an annoyance, which feeds an internalized feeling of invincibility.
• The only laws/limitations are the laws of physics and sometimes even they can be overcome.
• Fantasy is always attractive. Everyone has fantasies and imaginations to explore and carry out.
• Relationships between real-life people abound and thrive in these online communities.
• All the women are beautiful and all the men are handsome.
• There are no families, only guilds and clans (of real-life people) that adopt members based on skill level, achievements and common goals. Thus, there is again pressure to excel and surpass everyone else.
• The feeling that you’re actually making a difference as the enemy is defeated/eliminated/forced to submit.
• There is no sleep, no need to rest, only the need to be better and stronger.
• There is no mourning, only revenge.
• Strategy and critical thinking are required to outwit and ultimately defeat your opponent. Victory does not always belong to the strongest — it often goes to the smartest and most knowledgeable. (A very attractive aspect for the little guys in real life who are often picked on or feel physically inferior.)

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

What are MMO games?
According to Wikipedia, “A massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG is a multiplayer computer role-playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet.”

In my own words, MMOs are unique to all other game genres because they are totally based on community. Literally hundreds of thousands of players interact together in real-time in a virtual world. They form little groups and fight battles together, search for treasure and valuable items, and sometimes even intentionally serve as a nuisance to other players. Sub-communities called “clans” or “guilds” are formed as people commit to fight alongside each other, help each other and work toward common goals together. In a clan everyone is (usually) important because everyone brings unique characters with specific skills and abilities that are necessary for defeating the opponents, whether that be a virtual monster in a quest/mission or a fight against people in another guild. Because these guilds consist of characters played by real people, behind the scenes you’ll find a lot of the same drama that often take place in real-life communities (called “e-drama” in the gaming community).

Here’s an example of an in-game look at Guild Wars. (Click the image to see it full-size.) All the people you see standing around represent other real-life people sitting in front of their computer playing in the virtual world at the same time I am. I can privately or publicly interact with any of these people. In the example of this picture, everyone is dancing together to celebrate the end of a successful beta testing event. (See the one guy even doing an in-air cartwheel!)

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

A couple months ago a question showed up in my Inbox (paraphrased):

“What is the game, World of Warcraft? I am in contact with a parent who has a son who is “addicted” to it (4 to 5 hours daily). How can I understand and place this game in a Christian context?”

World of Warcraft (known in the gaming community as “WoW”) and other Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) can be a source of confusion for those who are unfamiliar with the gaming genre, especially for Christians who are sensitive about the spiritual overtones of hexes, spells and enchantments. Over the next several days I’ll attempt to answer some common questions concerning World of Warcraft and MMOs in general, including:

• What are MMO games?
• What is World of Warcraft?
• Why are MMOs addictive?
• Are there any positive aspects of MMOs?
• What are the negative aspects of MMOs?
• What is an appropriate amount of time to spend playing WoW?
• What about the curses and hexes involved? Is this demonic warfare and does it desensitize players to true evil in the world?
• Is this whole place an area that demonic strongholds can affect a person’s life in reality?
• Should a Christian play World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs?

If you have other additional questions you’d like to see included in this series, please feel free to contact me.

I should mention that I personally do not play World of Warcraft due to the $15/month subscription fee and the intensive amount of time required to accomplish anything significant, but I do play quite a bit of Guild Wars, a game that falls into the same genre as WoW. The two games are very similar in many ways, but my purpose here is not to compare and contrast the two games. Rather, I’d like to address the MMO genre in a Christian context.

[ Read other “World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians” in this series ]

[tags]World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, MMORPG, MMO, spirituality[/tags]

For years now I’ve been integrating two things I love: ministry and video games. As movie sales decrease and video game sales increase, this looks more and more like a field of interest for youth ministry and evangelism.

Back during the Halo and Halo 2 craze my youth group often brought all our Xboxes and TVs together for good ol’ times of system link mayhem. It was a great way for us all to bond (both guys and girls) and create a lot of evangelistic opportunities for connecting with students who wouldn’t normally come to church. Although we still occasionally have Halo LAN parties at my current church, the Halo craze has kinda worn off now. However, I’m still going strong in ministry and video games.

Last February I started playing in the beta events of Guild Wars and started a guild that I’ve been committed to ever since. Little did I know that this would yield excellent outreach opportunities for me, opportunities significant enough to prompt me to recently turn down a try-out invitation from the guild ranked #4 in the world right now.

Since I’ve been playing with some of the same guys for almost a year, we’ve obviously had some time to get to know each other. Of course, my job as a youth pastor sparks many questions and is a great conversation starter on issues relating to God and society. What excites me most about this, though, is that I have earned their respect enough for them to come to me with issues relating to real life. Many nights I have stayed on our voice chat server talking with guild-mates (both teenagers and parents) about conflicts at home, job pressures, how to deal with divorce in the family, marriage problems, school and dating stress, and other real life issues. They usually are the ones initiating the conversation now with something like, “Hey, can you pray for me? I have something going on…” As a result of these discussions, one guild-mate is now actively looking for a good church to start attending! I’m doing everything I can to help him get settled.

It’s such a great feeling to be able to do two things I love most at the same time: making irrelevant pixels change on a monitor of fake characters while ministering to real people with issues that are very relevant to their lives. Life can’t get much better than that.

It’s been a while since I last updated. A lot’s been going on, but here’s the Cliff Notes version:

Youth group lock-in
The youth group lock-in last weekend took a lot of time to prepare and coordinate, but overall it was a success even though I’m still recovering from the lack of sleep. The video of the event is available if anyone wants to see. Sometime soon I’ll add all my lock-in materials to my free resources page in case anyone else can make use of them.

Bird died
When I returned to my apartment on Saturday morning after the lock-in, I found one of my birds on the floor of the cage with a limp leg. It eventually started twitching pretty badly and by the end of the day he was dead. I have no idea what happened, but at least the other bird is doing fine and seems to enjoy spending more time with people now.

Increased ministry hours
As most of you know, I started working at my current church while I finished up my education at Dallas Seminary. The position was offered as part-time, which was fine with me because of school hours. Shortly before school ended, I picked up another part-time job doing IT Administration for a company in Dallas since the church could not afford to increase my hours at the time. Well, apparently someone recently donated a sum of money to the church specifically for the purpose of increasing my hours from part-time to three-quarters time (20 hours per week to 30 hours per week), so I now have increased hours for youth ministry. My IT position will remain the same for now, but I’ll be shuffling my time around in order to be available for students after school more often.

Relationship growing with Dana
Dana and I continue to grow together and appreciate each other more and more. She lives less than a mile away, which has allowed us to see each other every day since her student teaching started. We weren’t quite sure at first how that would affect our relationship, but now we both agree that we’ve enjoyed the time spent together and appreciate living so close to each other. I’m looking forward to seeing how God continues to grow us and challenge us as we become the best individuals we can for each other.

Leadership lessons from Guild Wars
Most people will probably laugh at me for this, but seriously, I’ve probably learned more about leadership this year from playing Guild Wars than almost anything else. Being the leader of a guild that plays with people on different levels who come and go has certainly challenged me to lead by holding to a vision and accomplishing the goals therein by making decisions that are sometimes difficult to make. I don’t expect anyone else understand this, but just trust me, I’ve learned a lot and already see it making a positive impact on my real-life leadership over the youth ministry at church. Sounds corny maybe, but oh well. Maybe one day I’ll make a list of everything I’ve learned so far about leadership from the game Guild Wars and how it affects ministry.

You know it’s been a good night at youth group when you walk away with a sore throat and wonder why it’s only an hour and a half long. We started out with some human bowling on skateboards, something I’ve never tried before. We set up 10 2-liter bottles filled with water at the end of an “ally” set off with orange cones. The concept is pretty simple: be the team with the most points at the end of 10 frames. Sit a team member on the skateboard and then launch ‘em down the “ally” into the “pins.” I don’t think there’s one girl who went down that ally without screaming. The girls beat the guys by 4 points. Of course when the game is over what better thing to do with the water-filled 2-liter bottles than start throwing them into the air to watch ‘em explode on impact. Most of us got kinda wet. When we went inside and met up in the youth room a student named Bianca and I played a little joke on the group, which was pretty funny. I also felt like the lesson went pretty well. Most of the students who were gone for the summer have returned, so we had our normal Wednesday night group of 20-some kids again. Good times. Afterwards I started talking with a girl about creation/evolution, which she’s really interested in. So I gave her some books from my office library to borrow that address the issue from a Christian perspective. She seemed pretty eager to read ‘em, which is cool. I felt bad, though, because I know there’s another student that wanted to talk with me a little more privately about something, but by the time I finished with the evolution/creation girl that other student was already on their way out the door with their parent. God’s in control, though, so I guess it’s something He wants the student to work through by themselves for the time-being. These kids are in His hands, not mine. I just like to hear what’s going on with them and how I might be of help.

To transition to the mundane, I’m coordinating a Guild Wars tournament between 8 guilds. So far it’s all coming together nicely. It’ll be a lot of fun, I’m sure…. Just thought I’d throw that news in there too.

My free time lately has been taken up with two things: apartment hunting and Guild Wars. The lease at my current apartment is up at the end of this month and since my roommate is getting married in October, I’m now searching for a cheap 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment near the church in Carrollton. Last year I used an apartment hunter to find the place I’m in now, which is so much easier than searching around and making all the phone calls yourself. He’s referred me to a couple places by the church I’ve been checking out the past two weeks. The place I’d prefer to live in is pretty nice and is right next door to the church. I could ride my bike back and forth and only use the car for grocery shopping, driving to Dean’s on Mon, Wed, and Fri, and stuff like that. It would be the perfect choice except the monthly rent is at my maximum budget limit. There’s another place a little further away that’s about $50 cheaper each month, but it’s smaller, not as nice, and would require that I still drive to the church (although only a couple minutes each direction). The washer and dryer connections are in a closet out on the patio, which is kinda weird. I’m not sure what I think about that. They also can’t accommodate my refrigerator, so I’d either have to get rid of it for find someplace to store it. Being a bachelor means I could stick it in a corner of the apartment, but it’s not that big to begin with. I have to make a decision on a place no later than next week, though, so I have to decide if the extra money each month is worth the convenience of living next door to the church. $40 isn’t a huge amount, but over the course of a 12 month lease, that’s $600. If you have any input on my decision, feel free to post a comment to this post!

Of course there’s always Guild Wars. I’ve decked out two characters so far: a protection monk and an elementalist/necromancer. My guild has been becoming more active lately, which is a lot of fun. Tuesday night we battled another guild twice and whooped on ‘em both times. One profession, Mesmers, are very frustrating for my monk character to play against. They suck up all your energy, drain your health, and interrupt your skills, sometimes even disabling them, rendering me pretty useless to the rest of the team. So last night I decided to create a mesmer and tried being the character all opponents hate: it was a lot of fun!! It’s a completely different strategy than my other character’s professions. I can see how it takes a good mesmer lots of time and strategizing to develop a devistating build. I’m gonna give it a shot myself and see how it works out.

On Tuesday I crunched the budget numbers for the Youth Specialities National Youth Workers Convention in November down in Nashville. I also skimmed through the schedule of all the speakers and workshops. Oh man, it’s gonna be so awesome! I can’t wait to go!! It’s gonna be such a great time of not only specialized youth ministry training, but of spiritual renewal and rejuvenation. I’m planning on taking about 4 other adult youth leaders from church with me, so it’ll be a great time for all of us together. More information on the convention is here.

Earlier today I posted on www.schmoyerfamily.com about becoming a contributor at www.everysquareinch.com, a site dedicated to articles relating to Christians’ involvement with the world and culture. I’ll refer you to my family’s site to read more about it, so I’ll suffice it to say that my first article is posted today if anyone wants to read it.

Youth group is going well. I was hoping to have more breathing room than I did between the end of the missions trip and the start of the school year, but oh well. The youth leaders and I met last evening to finalize dates for trainings, small groups start-up, and other stuff. Everything is underway and going well, I just need to enforce my principle of leaving work at the church. There’s always more to do. I haven’t brought any home with me yet, which is good, but it’s tempting sometimes, especially since I enjoy doing it, ya know? But I know I need to pace myself and not burn out with too much work in the beginning.

Oh, I’m getting a raise at Dean International, too. I start paying back seminary loans this month and will no longer have a roommate to split bills with, so I approached the guy who contracts me about a raise and it looks like it’s gonna go through. I already have the raise for whenever I work on their struggling websites and the overall raise is pending the company CEO/owner’s approval.

Last weekend I went up to Texarkana to give Dana back her stuff and to get mine back. I ended up hanging out for a while, which was cool. We were able to talk and be normal again. It’s good to be able to be friends now and comfortable around each other.

This coming weekend I’m going down to Houston to spend Friday evening and Saturday with David and Adrienne. Apparently they’re both pretty bored already, so my entertainment is on the way… whatever that is. It should be fun regardless.

That’s enough of a book for today. I may not post often, Adrienne, but I think I make up for it when I finally do.