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View Full Version : WoW Plague Referenced by Epidemiologists

Sykus
10-05-2005, 03:02 PM
Epidemiologists concerned about the reactions of the general populace in the face of an pandemic outbreak of bird flu have considered partnering with Blizzard to collect some data about how their players reacted in the face of WoW's recent plague.

A recent outbreak of a "plague" in a popular online game has scientists considering how the virtual world may provide clues to what people would do in real-world pandemics. In the role-playing game World of Warcraft, a "corrupted blood" spell killed characters and affected players in unexpected ways.
The full story can be heard here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4946772), although the audio won't be posted until 7:30 EST

This is remarkable for a couple of reasons: first of all, because they are doing this at all; the idea is pretty cool. Second of all, because this story was on mainstream news radio! NPR never ceases to amaze me.
MacDuff
10-05-2005, 03:51 PM
That's a really cool idea, but what conclusions can they make? There's basically zero consequences for death in WoW. The fear of a pretend plague affecting your pretend person does not equal the fear of real actual death from a real actual plague.
HotCoffeeDude
10-05-2005, 04:00 PM
Uh, yeah. I think most people (like me) actually logged on to see what it was like even after hearing about what it did. I don't think I'm going to be going down to the mall to see if I can catch bird flu.
Hieremias
10-05-2005, 04:10 PM
What would I do during a real-world epidemic? Simple. I'd hearthstone to my local auction house, cough all over everybody so they'd get sick, then dance around singing "AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!" while people died.
Rommel
10-05-2005, 05:03 PM
Well, to be fair the plague was spread intentionally by magical characters. It does way too much damage for someone to not heal it immediattely. In real life, mages cannot teleport to the major points of commerce in the world in a few minutes.
Klade
10-05-2005, 05:12 PM
In real life, mages cannot teleport to the major points of commerce in the world in a few minutes.

Bah since when?
Orphiuchus
10-05-2005, 05:34 PM
Well, to be fair the plague was spread intentionally by magical characters. It does way too much damage for someone to not heal it immediattely. In real life, mages cannot teleport to the major points of commerce in the world in a few minutes.


Osama is a level 47 shadow preist. Well, cleric, but the stats are all about the same.
Morrolan
10-05-2005, 05:39 PM
This is stupid. It's cool that games are getting non-negative press and all, but this is just stupid. This post pretty much sums it up:
What would I do during a real-world epidemic? Simple. I'd hearthstone to my local auction house, cough all over everybody so they'd get sick, then dance around singing "AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!" while people died.
Rommel
10-05-2005, 05:45 PM
I'd hearthstone to my local auction house, cough all over everybody so they'd get sick, then dance around singing "AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!" while people died.

That's the part I find the most believable.
Heretic Machine
10-05-2005, 05:47 PM
This is STUPID! You can draw no useful information about real world plauges and people's reactions to them from this. This is just some guy who happens to play WoW, trying to turn his hobby into his work. Never a good idea.
Royal Fool
10-05-2005, 06:43 PM
If I see a person on the street with some green fog around him and blood spraying from his body all over stuff.. I'd most likely say "LOL ENJOY YOUR AIDS" and jump around. Even if I knew it wasn't AIDS at all, but a disease brought to civilization from an ancient troll god.

Yeah.
Sloth
10-05-2005, 07:31 PM
yeah its cool , but as already said the reaction in WoW is no where near the reaction you'd get in face of a real killer virus.
Abash Alarmist
10-05-2005, 08:19 PM
What would you like it to do? Have it so that your character is perma dead from some asshole's intentional spreading of the disease, similar to HIV and AIDS? Yeah, real smart.
Demize99
10-05-2005, 08:22 PM
This is just some guy who happens to play WoW, trying to turn his hobby into his work. Never a good idea.

Crap and here I am about to enter the gaming industry. Why couldn't you have told me this earlier?!!!!
Magnanimous Gnome
10-05-2005, 08:48 PM
I still find it funny that some people were saying that this plague made World of Warcraft "more realistic."


Maybe next they will use Grand Theft Auto to do research on what the average driver does when she or he sees a hooker crossing the street. Or maybe they'll take Half-Life and research what humanity would do in the face of an alien invasion. :rolleyes:
Heretic Machine
10-05-2005, 11:21 PM
Crap and here I am about to enter the gaming industry. Why couldn't you have told me this earlier?!!!!

You and every other gamer who has ever graduated from High School with dreams of a CS degree in their eyes.
OldeWolf
10-06-2005, 08:40 AM
Heres something you guys failed to keep in mind. In this kind of research, they're examing the reaction of a population in face of such nature as what happened in WOW. It's merely a data gathering situation so they can "better understand how people (could) react" to situations like this. It doesn't mean that this kind of research is the "explain-all" type research. Not even close to it. It's merely another aspect of human's curiosity when it comes to behaviors in variety of settings including games like this.