By now, we’ve probably all seen the character models that Blizzard, at long last, released this month showcasing the female worgen. They’re still lacking hairstyles, but regardless those models, I must say, look quite sharp.

So, why did it take so long for Blizzard to release any information on what the female model looks like? Well, certainly part of that has to do with building up anticipation for Cataclysm, but I suspect part of it also has to deal with the fact that they’re dealing with a subject that has been largely ignored in popular culture.

Werewolves have been terrorizing people in folklore with their super-human size and strength, not to mention fangs and claws, for hundreds of years. The phenomenon of their transformation from man to wolf still remains pervasive in pop culture today — but that’s just the issue at hand. The transformation usually is from man to wolf, yet rarely woman to wolf.

Let’s poke at some of these pop culture references, take a look at a thesis for the reasoning of why this is and talk a bit more about Blizzard’s role behind the cut.

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There has always been a lot of competition between the eastern world and western world ever since the great Opium Wars in the 1800s. It takes place in our culture, technology, and, now, our MMORPGs. It has always stricken me as odd that our world has been divided into this us vs. them mentality and even now as we play our World of Warcrafts and Lineages we can’t help but get sucked into the eternal debate all over again. So which side is right?

If you were to take a look at our current MMORPG gaming scheme right now you’d notice there are already a vast amount of differences in not only how eastern and western MMORPGs play, but also how they are managed. Eastern MMOs tend to be more focused on a leveling scheme that makes you hunt monsters for extended periods of time, where as western MMOs tend to be more quest oriented where, instead of “grinding”, you complete this quest and that quest for the bulk of your experience. In addition to these play-styles, you will also find a good majority of eastern MMOs to be free and contain an “item shop” where players can pay to give their avatars some extra pizzazz, although a notable exclusion to this rule would be the Lineage series of games which charges $14.99 per month to play. Western MMOs tend to be completely pay2play. In fact the only western MMOs I can think of that differ from this rule are, arguably, not real MMORPGs, such as, Hellgate: London and Guild Wars. These are stark contrasts that usually carry over into forum debates about which is better, but really, why all the hassle? Here are some prime examples of eastern and western MMORPGs:

Eastern:

1. Lineage 2
2. Sword of the New World: Grenado Espada
3. Mu Online
4. RF Online
5. Archlord

Western:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Dark Age of Camelot
3. Tabula Rasa
4. Lord of the Rings Online
5. Everquest 2

MMORPGs are, for better or worse, yet another battleground for the east vs. west debate, and it will continue to be until the whole world finally gets over itself and just learns to stop caring about it. Amongst cars, policies, art, films, animations, and consumer electronics there now sits MMORPGs, the latest victim in a long drawn out battle.