Plapla is my hero.

[snarp]

(Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.)

Really interesting post involving World of Warcraft in China. I wish I could read the Chinese message board entries…

Background for people too smart to play WoW:

1) World of Warcraft is (roughly) about a war between two rival factions, the “good” Alliance (humans, dwarves, etc.) and the “bad” Horde (orcs, undead, etc.). There are five races within each faction, and each race has a leader. As of the latest update to the game, you get an “Achievement” - an award that everyone can see - if you’re Horde and you kill all the Alliance leaders, and vice versa.

2) In the American and European versions of the game, the Alliance and Horde populations on each server tend to be pretty close to equal, and the “war” part of the whole thing is kind of downplayed - you can opt out of fighting other players (though you still get attacked by non-player-characters of the opposing faction). Apparently, things are somewhat different in China.

3) The reference to the “tomb-like graphics” refers to those gravestones on the floor. The screenshot is taken in the Dwarven throne room, and there are no tombstones in it in the American/European/probably also Taiwanese and Korean versions of WoW.

When a player dies and then resurrects herself in American/European/probably also Taiwanese and Korean WoW, a skeleton is left on the ground where her body was. The Chinese government found the skeletons too scary, and made Blizzard replace them with tombstones. The graves nearest the throne most likely all belong to Plapla, who has clearly died there many, many times. Most of them, however, belong to the Horde.