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Anders Breivik played WoW? =O
Topic Started: Apr 18 2012, 11:15 AM (445 Views)
Aurora
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http://kotaku.com/anders-behring-breivik/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/9207691/Anders-Behring-Breivik-spent-a-year-playing-World-of-Warcraft-role-playing-game-online.html

They describe him as playing a warrior although elsewhere a mage and druid on silvermoon. Might all be his. Apparently he spent an entire year at 25 playing WoW PvE fulltime, wonder how much an effect something like that can have on a person.

Strange googling some of those characters and some of the old posts he used to make, just sounds like anyone else you'd meet in the game.
http://woweuarchive.yg.com/thread.html?topicId=8864886674&sid=1&pageNo=3
Him posting as the mage Conservatism. I notice from Armory both his mage and druid are now 85, so I guess he's been playing up to quite recently.

Naturally won't be good news for WoW with this kind of association, although the mainstream media are usually hilarious when it comes to handling video game stories. Apparently one German news outlet has already described WoW as a "brutal shooter game".
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Liam
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Linking video games to any sort of violence has always been a complete joke. Films & TV Show never come under the same kind of criticism even though they can be further up the scale on a violent front.

Quote:
 
The game was brought up by the Prosecution, in an attempt to characterize Brehvik as an anti-social, troubled man struggling with a series of failures in his life.


Really. Anti-social....Playing World of Warcraft.....which is a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. This is why I refuse to take any bad related video game news seriously.
Edited by Liam, Apr 18 2012, 12:09 PM.
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Bobbygondo
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I just view it as wow 10 million players, if you pick 10 million random people the odds are pretty high one is a potentiol psychopath
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Aurora
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Bobbygondo
Apr 18 2012, 01:11 PM
I just view it as wow 10 million players, if you pick 10 million random people the odds are pretty high one is a potentiol psychopath
Its not just that he was a WoW player though, he was a specific type of WoW player. A hardcore, high progression seeking sort. He played with a couple of top guilds in Silvermoon, which is one of the and if not the most progressive Alliance realm in Europe. Its referred that he played WoW "full time" for a year which shows the kind of dedication he was giving to it.

Its an interesting topic on how that level of complete immersion in an MMO (or any escapism) can affect a person or detach them from society although the prosecution don't seem to understand the significance of what they're presenting. They brought up his in game title "Justicar" seemingly believing it was something customisable he made himself as a status symbol to his beliefs. They also claimed he "trained to be a warrior" in WoW which I assume is a poor choice of words in light of the class system they probably didn't research much into considering he mained a mage.

I think there's nothing whatsoever relevant in the content of WoW that might have been a psychological factor in all this (its not violence inciting or training in arms), but the aspect of isolation, detachment from society and the kind of dedication/time he put into this game might be of interest. WoW does have a track record for giving people a platform for that kind of thing.
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Liam
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Quote:
 
Today Oslo Court, in Norway, also heard that Breivik trained on computer war game Call of Duty for the slaughter in Utoya - and suggested in court yesterday even his GRANDMOTHER could have done it.

The right-wing extremist took a year’s sabbatical in 2006 to hone his shooting skills using the violent online fantasy in readiness for his rampage.

He started on the dragon-slaying challenge World of Warcraft - played globally by 10.3million fans - under the name Justicar Andersnordic.

White supremacist Breivik, 33, then progressed to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a life-like combat game in which players execute the enemy.

The assassin even stayed-in on New Year's Eve 2010 to play, despite describing himself as someone who loves to party hard.
Edited by Liam, Apr 19 2012, 02:43 PM.
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Ikebana
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I thought most people new he played WOW I was told by a friend of mine who lives in Oslo.
Didn't know the specifics but I was awhere.

:D Ikebana
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