Of Monsters,
Or specifically, monsterous beasts found within the digital realms of MMORPG\'s and their effects upon \'user\' psychology. Firstly and foremostly, appearance is more important than substance. Not necessarily in the flashyness of the graphics, but rather the meaning conveyed. Next, the significance of destroying the monster, and of being destroyed by the monsters and beasts of the realm, upon the player character.
This subject may seem to you to be overplayed, or perhaps or little note, but I say to you: forget not the example of Everquest. This particular Digital Realm conveyed a sense of smallness and meaness of spirit through the shapes associated with monsters. These \'monsters\' were often common animals, which we think of as weak and defensless, needing protection; or of mythical evils but of perverted form; and again various races, whose children are the first targets of the \'heroic\' conquest. Upon contemplation, I find that killing small rodents and other furry creatures lends itself to a dimunution of my heroic powers - I am reduced to fighting the stuff of garbage dumps, not legends. Nay, they go one step further, and make us eat them, or their remains. Who among you has not eaten a \'Chunk of Meat\' gleaned from the freshley ravaged carcass of some poor bear cub. Did you think nothing of its mother? Of the impact on the ecosystem? Is it not our duty as heroes to protect the future of our people by preserving their strength? And is not this strength derived from the diversity of life and resources such creatures provide us. It could be said we needed the meat. Why then, did you cut but one piece? You threw the rest away, you left the hide, or mangled it in the removal, and did not with the marrow in the bones. Surely such waste of a precious life cannot be condoned. It is unmanly to prey upon the young of any creature, for in so doing you steal from the mother and from your own posterity in depriving them of this food, which you toss upon the ground to rot. What then of rats? What of it? It is the business of the curs of the street to eat these vermin; the various cats and dogs surely derive their very sustanence from this source, yet from a most bizarre reason, we heroes persist in the mass extermination of these creatures. It is a waste of time. There will always be more. No good comes from entangling oneself with creatures that rummage in the sewers. Is this not how leprous sores appear on the poor of the village?
I\'ll finish this later - Montenegro
