WoW Outbreak Studied by Pandemic Researchers

[Mara]

Scientists studying the possibiliy of pandemic disease have turned to an unusual test group: World of Warcraft players. As reported by Reuters, researchers Nina Fefferman and Eric Lofgren of Princeton University are looking into the September, 2005 outbreak of Corrupted Blood within WoW.

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/21/wow-outbreak-studied-by-pandemic-researchers/

:read:

[yummyzebra]

Experts agree the world is overdue for a pandemic of some sort of disease.

Yes, its about time! :crazy: Hmm... they're almost saying they're looking forward to 1 to make their jobs seem more worthwhile or something?!

I wonder if all the WOW players will mind being guinea pigs for their research.

Well, when the next pandemic breaks out all we need is a host of shamans spamming disease cleansing totem and we’ll be ok…

:lol: All the world's diseases solved courtesy of computer gamers!

[Jimlo]

I don't really see how they can use a bug that happened a while ago in a computer game can related and provide insight to real life situations. That "outbreak" was caused intentionally because it was funny to see how many people you could kill.


:lol: All the world's diseases solved courtesy of computer gamers!

:p:

[Bruenor]

This makes me laugh... a lot. Good post Mara.

:lol:

[Stiler]

I don't really see how they can use a bug that happened a while ago in a computer game can related and provide insight to real life situations. That "outbreak" was caused intentionally because it was funny to see how many people you could kill.




:p:

Umm, the point is to study what people do/how they react and the rate of spread, etc. Hence why they studied it and can make use of an mmo environment and the players.

[Ojnod]

Umm, the point is to study what people do/how they react and the rate of spread, etc. Hence why they studied it and can make use of an mmo environment and the players.

I think it is totally different. In an MMO (especially one like WoW with no death penalty) you walk 2 minutes to your body and rez, nobody worries about dieing or getting anything bad. Also the people infecting other people are more of the "lol look how I pwned that lvl 10 hunter" mentality and not a more realistic "oh man I have some bad disease I should quarantine myself" mentality. Unless it is some kind of zombie outbreak I don't think this really would relate.

[yummyzebra]

I think it is totally different. In an MMO (especially one like WoW with no death penalty) you walk 2 minutes to your body and rez, nobody worries about dieing or getting anything bad. Also the people infecting other people are more of the "lol look how I pwned that lvl 10 hunter" mentality and not a more realistic "oh man I have some bad disease I should quarantine myself" mentality. Unless it is some kind of zombie outbreak I don't think this really would relate.

Exactly, trying to contain an outbreak is about how best to keep the affected people contained, with a real outbreak people panic and try to get out of the affected area so that they dont get infected (when they possibly already are!)

This is completely different because the people in question arent worried about if they die and are in fact trying to infect more people.