It’s Science
James Wallis explains the physics of World of Warcraft, and how Blizzard nerfed gravity:
This means, if Azeroth really is a spherical planetoid with a diameter of 12 kms, that the planet must have an average density of roughly 5850 grammes per cubic centimetre. That makes its average density more than 500 times greater than lead. (I am indebted to Dave Morris for his assistance with these calculations.)
The extreme density of Azeroth would explain why it is impossible to pick up many objects from the ground, including ones that you have just dropped. As soon as a discarded object hits the earth we theorize that it picks up a thin coating of superheavy dirt, making it impossible to lift. Living creatures avoid the effects of this dirt sticking to their extremities by having evolved frictionless pads on the soles of their feet. This observable phenomenon, endemic to Azeroth, is known to virtual-world scientists and animators as “foot slide”.
After which commenters the Scientific Community proceed to expose Wallis’ whimsical analysis hard science to general asshattery scientific scrutiny.
(Part 2 here.)
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hi, I thought you might enjoy ‘fun with the minimap’
http://homepage.mac.com/prym/
I used an ‘extracted’ minimap to establish a distance scale for Azeroth and used it to measure velocity, and, interestingly enough the acceleration due to gravity. Also, using g and the view of Azeroth from Shadowmoon Valley in Outland I performed some elementary calculations of the size of Azeroth (R = 10.25 km) and its density (4.43×10^6 kg / m^3)
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4822672480&postId=61356263956&sid=1#212
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Many thanks for the link but it’s Wallis, not Wallice.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Fixed, sorry.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Much appreciated.