The Science of Warcraft?

There is a great episode of the Venture Brothers which Byron Orphious and Doctor Venture have a contest putting Science and Magic Head to Head, the concept of human souls being the same as memory stored on a hard drive, reanimated corpses being no different than clones, and conjured fire similar to a lit match. That episode gets me thinking about Warcraft’s “Magic”. In the game of Warcraft full of magic, one thing usually doesn’t come to mind: Science. There are floating hunks of land with waterfalls springing from nowhere, and an entire city-sanctuary floating above a crystalline forest, but the laws of physics, biology and chemistry still poke their heads in the game. Sure we can’t expect the entire World of Warcraft to be based on magic. Most of us all grow up learning how the real universe functions based on the laws of physics, and that surely would permeate into game design, with any holes filled in by “Magic”. So I thought I’d look into a few ingame things that may or may not have some basis in the reality of physics/chemistry/biology.

Density of materials and tensile strengths play a role in how armor mitigates damage. We all see plate ingame with the highest armor ingame, but that comes down to mass and density of materials. I guess I should go to the Gap and ask for a pair of pants Item Level 264 and see how the sales person reacts. Um yes Hi, I am looking for your finest high level undergarments, I favor stats such as stamina and agility please, yes thank you.

While portals, summoning stones and even the entrance to the Burning Crusades looks entirely cloaked in magic, its still rooted in science. Portals are just wormholes, and wormholes do exist in reality. When forces act on two planes of space to connect them together, you can create a wormhole. Take a balloon, blow it up and look at the outside as if it were the face of some planet. If you take two fingers and push them together from opposite sides of the balloon you can see the effect demonstrated. While this isn’t a true wormhole you can see two planes of space separated by distance brought together by some force. Your fingers resemble either gravity or some magnetic link between two points. Traveling around the balloon would take far longer than just skipping between your two touching fingers. The Warcraft “Portals” are all based on this physical principle, while using magic as the force that connects the two planes.

Even my beloved shaman, cloaked in magic can’t escape normal laws of physics. My Lightning Bolts, Chain Lightning and Shields can all be linked to harnessing free atmospheric electrons and emitting them in a focused beam. Sure my wool socks make me a shaman IRL on a tiny scale when I run over and spark the cat. One of these days Ill oneshot him… The spell Water Walking can be linked to standing on the small force of surface tension of water molecules, similar to how a water spider can hover above the surface of a still pond.