Think Greek. Think Trojans. Yessir, turns out that the Trojan war, as recounted in the Iliad, can be understood through the lens of a MMORPG… check out the latest from The Escapist:

…Think of the Achaean warriors (the ones we usually call “the Greeks”) at Troy, and the Trojan warriors (led by Hector) themselves, as toons at the level cap. The most important gameplay mechanic for the Achaeans and the Trojans is called aristeia. Call it “prowess” if you want, but it really means “best-ness.” In this context, Aristeia is a kind of mini-game all its own. The internal evidence of the Iliad suggests that this mini-game is actually the ur-genre of the epic tradition, the earliest and most basic development of oral bardic convention that ended up giving us the written fossil we know as the enormous, 24-book masterpiece called the Iliad….

…Once again demonstrating that a Classical education is all you really need to understand everything…

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.