WOW online epidemic delights scientists
p2pnet news | Games:- In much the same way Second Life seems to be offering terrorists virtual online training grounds, the outbreak of the Corrupted Blood plague on World of Warcraft is giving scientists a close-up look at how serious disease might widespread.
The “virulent, contagious disease” was introduced by Blizzard as an “extra challenge to high-level players” in 2005, says Zee News.
“Hakkar the Soulflayer, the Blood God of the Gurubashi Trolls, is a malevolent and destructive deity that controls the Gurubashi Empire’s fallen capital of Zul’Gurub,” says the WOWiki.
And it caught the attention of scientists Nina Fefferman and Eric Lofgren, culminating in a report published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Things “went horribly wrong” as the Hakar code, “managed to infect other beasties all the way down to players’ pets – who then turned rogue in a plot line that would have made Stephen King proud,” says SPOnG and the virtual epidemic, “has been hailed a significant step forward in understanding how a deadly virus could break out,” declares Times Online, going on:
A new villain, a winged serpent called Hakkar, originally designed as a challenge for only the strongest characters, started transmitting its ‘corrupted blood’ virus down the ranks until it affected almost every area and every player in the game.
The scientists were able to monitor how quickly the disease spread and where to, while assessing the players’ individual responses to the outbreak. The particular features of the game, such as the many hours players around the world dedicate to it and the emotional investment they put into their online alter egos, offer scientists a tantalisingly close match to real social conditions.
“By using these games as an untapped experimental framework, we may be able to gain deeper insight into the incredible complexity of infectious disease epidemiology in social groups,” wrote Fefferman, of Tufts University, Boston, and Lofgren, of Rutgers University, New Jersey in Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Also See:
online training grounds – Terrorists like Second Life, August 1, 2007
SPOnG – World Of Warcraft Bug Helps Track Real Life Disease, August 21, 2007
Times Online – How a computer game glitch could help to fight off global pandemic, August 21, 2007
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August 22nd, 2007 at 7:58 am
Will the game still be fun the more it becomes like dangerous real life?
This Mumbo Gumbo comic raises the question:
http://www.itgumbo.com/mumbogumbo/2007/08/virtual_world_becoming_more_li.php