Researchers Want To Test How The Plague Would Spread In World Of Warcraft
from the all-for-the-sake-of-research dept
There are all sorts of questions about how the government would respond in the event of a serious outbreak of a dangerous virus or a plague. Certainly, various gov't agencies have plans and procedures in place, but it's difficult to account for all the different possibilities and how something might spread. However, some researchers have an idea for how they might get a better idea and perhaps get some training in at the same time: use online video games like "World of Warcraft" and see what happens when some players are infected with a contagious plague. The researchers note that "World of Warcraft" had its own plague a few years ago, which gave them the original idea to approach Blizzard to work out some sort of deal to do this kind of research. They hope that by seeing how real people react, with virtual characters whom they've invested a lot of time in, they'll get a better idea of how people react to certain situations such as quarantines. Whether or not it actually will work, it certainly seems like a creative solution to get a better understanding of some potential scenarios, prior to an actual emergency situation.
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Filed Under: plagues, world of warcraft
Companies: blizzard
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Hmmm...
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Real Life Experiments
These fake wanted posters of a college student are circulating in Japan, and thousands of stalkers are following his every move. They have randomly accused him of molesting a minor, harrassing his neighbors, planting computer viruses, jerking off in public, etc.
http://monkeyuploader.dyndns.org/Offering/mnkyup4267.jpg
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Re: Real Life Experiments
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Consider a number of things:
People can simply logoff a video game if they are unhappy or annoyed with something. Also, regardless of whatever situation they are in, the vast majority realize it's only a game, there's no real issue of life and death involved.
It's like basing your football team's strategy off of a game where you're playing other people. Fine - you may get some idea of how the other side will react, but question is - was the other player really paying attention? Also, in a virtual world, there are a limited number of variables that can be taken into account, whereas in reality, the number of variables is infinite in many cases, and extremely vast in others, but never a small number.
How many factors would come into play with the spread of a real plague? Just physical alone - depending on the communicability of the disease, even wind and humidity might come into play.
Perhaps they will get a bit of a 'social engineering' aspect to this, but it would be minor, at best, I suspect.
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Re:
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I'm going to guess you have not played games since ATARI. Games have come along way since the days of 5 variables and 2 dimensions. In world of warcraft, I know that their different geographic regions support weather patterns and such already. Attributes such as wind and humidity are nothing but mathematical values that can be assigned to the world as a whole and influenced via correlation with weather variables. The results would be relatively accurate, since the really contagious viruses can only be spread through a few means.
If you factor that the virtual virus is air born and a humidity of x increases the viral transfer potential by a factor of y, and correlate the dispersion with wind speed of z, you can make some pretty accurate assessments of infection rates. Viruses will have a certain life expectancy wile airborne, so if you can figure out how long it would theoretically be active enough while in the air, you can figure out about how likely people are to contract it based on the physical variables of the location. Of course it will never be 100% accurate because in real life we have other factors such as perspiration, immune systems, air circulation systems, so fourth, that just are not included in WoW.
The single greatest influence on how a virus spreads, in my opinion, is the reaction people have to the virus. If all the virus does is turn you green and make you look stupid, people won't actively work very hard to avoid it. If it seriously impairs your character and could impact your game play, you will find that people either work to avoid potential sources, or do not play the game in general. Generally players of games like WoW would continue to play, at least from what I have seen, but would not travel to potential infection sites and would possibly seek isolation for the duration of the experiment. Much as people do in reality.
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Re: Re:
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Not a bad idea
Whoever was the first to start selling SARS masks in WoW would make a fortune.
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As opposed to ...
The advantages of using WOW to test how a plague spreads is that you can find out how people react to various things, such as quarantines. After all, it is fairly hard to model panic with computers, when people behave irrationally.
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The Sims Plague
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Re: To some people WOW is there real world.
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Griefing would ruin the study
Perhaps you could liken this to the office-idiot that comes to work sick, but that may be stretching pretty thin.
It might be better to hide the information from player though, conversely, that would mask data where some people isolate themselves when they know they are sick.
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WoW = Plague
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It's been tried in a smaller scale in games other
I don't remember all the specifics of what the plague did (it's been years since I played), I think it reduced your hit points, stamina and other stats over time, then incapacitated you. I don't remember a case ever getting that far because the ease of obtaining the cure.
For this to be a effective experiment in WoW they would have to make the effects serious to the character, maybe permanent. I doubt that Blizzard would want to do that because it would seriously piss the players off, not what you want to do to paying customers.
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Re: It's been tried in a smaller scale in games ot
Actually I bet they would just offer free play to anybody who wanted to participate in the study and then setup a different server from the one paying customers play on. I think it would be a good experiment, although I doubt you could draw much information from it since it is a virtual character. When I get bored with role playing games, my virtual beings usually fall to a creative demise.
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Time to go a bit superdork...
When the Zul'Gurub instance was introduced, one DoT that wsa passable between characters was Corrupted Blood, that did massive amounts of damage. Hugh level hunters would get their pet infected then dismiss the pet, until they were back in ironforge where they'd resummon the infected pets and watch the mayhem ensue. Yea so that was my dork moment for today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood
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WoW
Besides there is already a plague involved with WoW, bedsores from 16 hours of continuous play. Now if you could only monetize it...Blizzard you're a sack of greedy sack loving bastards.
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Re: WoW
Okay, this is woefully off topic, but I have to know where this data is coming from. I can't find *any* intuitive connection between intelligence and playing Wow, and I dare say that in this day and age, social interaction *includes* online activity. I mean, in the real world I may interact with a few people I don't know a day, but online I can easily interact with dozens of people I don't know.
Here's wikipedia's take on it, for your reading pleasure.
So, I dare say, if anything, playing an online game like WoW increases social skills on the general level.
Though, maybe I'm biased. :P
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Regular players can run away from the infected's slow pace, but will be drawn in by the gold and items surrounding them.
That way, intentionally spreading it would be bothersome to the player. However, because of all the items at the infected's feet, someone that knows no better is bound to walk into the trap.
The spread of how the virus works through broadcasts/shouts/etc just factors into the study of public reaction. I'm sure folks in real life spread viruses while fully aware they have them, with the intent of infecting others.
You could argue that virtual characters have nothing to lose, but their real life counterparts cannot be fully absolved from taking similar actions by virtue of their corporeal body alone. Some may feel that by contracting a real life virus, that they have nothing to live for. Therefore, resolving to spread it willingly.
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Re:
It simply wouldn't work-- either the 'study' is not realistic, or Blizzard will piss off all 9 million of its paying customers. Maybe, just *maybe* on the test server, where (I assume) no one is there for any type of character gain, since everything is subject to deletion at any time.
I have never played (if that is the proper term) Second Life, but maybe it would be more realistic there?
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If a virus gets lose there, real commerce, belongings, and information will be at stake. Hardly different from securing your computer from spyware. It'll be good to know well beforehand how people will react in such a situation where it's no longer just a game.
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Re: Re:
Since the end-users create their own content, I'm wondering if something like this might be possible from their end.
Create an "Object" that will automatically be transferred to any other character within a certain range (air-born). This object does nothing for the first 24 (game) hours, at which time, the character's skin turns blue. As long as the object is on the character, it can also pass on to anyone else...
Someone else can create a "cure" which can be passed by giving it to another character.
It would make an interesting test, since Second Life is quite a bit less of a fantasy world. I don't know about the griefing aspect of SL's game play, but I would think that it is much less than in other MMORPGs.
EtG
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I have to agree. Wow is not like many other games where social misfits are the only players (see Dungeons and Dragons). It has turned out to by a very powerful social networking system. The demographics spans from kids in their early teens, to adults in their 60's. We were given the game as part of a team building exercise.
Anyone who believes that socializing online promotes poor social skills has not observed the situation fully. I would say that the opposite is true, and socially dysfunctional people use the internet to meet other people on the same social level and actually develop better social skills.
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hmmm...
Maybe this is a turn for a new research...
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The study is less about the disease and more about how people would react to it.
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Modern or Medieval?
Today, if there were a "plague", i'd hear about it via TV or internet and I wouldn't leave my house.
An interesting twist to the WoW experiement would be to run it twice - once where they don't tell people, and another where they announce that it's happening. The difference could show that a modern day plague is less likely possible because of the lack of contact involved in information delivery.
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Re: Modern or Medieval?
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No, actually I have been a video gamer since 1979, lol - and currently play Wow - but a fake 'rain' and the reality of how it impacts the environment are two different things - for instance, even at the most simple level - your character doesn't get wet, would we also have to take into consideration drought periods, hurricane season, tides, volcanic activity - what I'm saying is there is a practically limitless number of variables in the real world, as opposed to computer code that needs to be limited to run smoothly. I realize computers are more powerful now, of course..
But in addition to that, in reality, we have no way of really measuring global precipitation. Sure we can say this area got 'about' an inch, but it's just that one spot, it may not reflect the true amount.
But like I had mentioned, perhaps there may be a bit to be learned in terms of social engineering. But ok, I agree - the study is mainly about human reaction to it.
But you do have to consider something else about WoW - people will know, at some point, Blizzard will give them a 'cure'. That may or may not happen in real life.
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Re:
Although this is not graphically simulated, it can be done mathematically behind the scenes. A character can get a virus from the rain even though they do not look yet. A computer program can have virtually limitless variables. Im sure the global warming models have quite amount of them...
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HA
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Re: HA
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Re: Re: HA
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Give my time for research
Many have mentioned locking themselves away. Where? Hide in an instance? There isn't anywhere else you can go to hide/avoid other toons.
Offer a way for people to grief others and they will take advantage.
As for simulating air travel or other methods of transfer I really don't think the game has the hooks to make it work.
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Re: Give my time for research
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In today's world with instant global travel, a global pandemic is actually something that becomes more of a concern, because the spread rate becomes that much faster in a wider area.
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stupid idea
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Re: stupid idea
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Ridiculous
A) It would not mimic real life, your results would be specific to WOW.
B) If you wanted to change parameters or otherwise make it more realistic, too bad, you're stuck with the interactions & limitations of WOW
C) It would be realtime. That sucks... a good simulator could give you results faster than realtime & do a much better job.
How did this make headlines? What a waste
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Re: Ridiculous
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See... in WoW none of that would 'matter'.. :) - There's no 'dire' need for food, water, power, or anything really. You could leave your character sit in place for 9 months and nothing would change - assuming you kept it from logging you out for inactivity and logged back in after patches.
I could park myself in a off the wall place and fish for 6 months. If I wanted to - there would be no real reason, other than perhaps sanity to interact with others.
Of course, if one went to the mountains and took up fishing - I suppose in the end, he could accomplish the same thing, lol
Although - I find the test might give them some more statistics for more direct computer simulations. Perhaps they are looking for stats like:
7% became hermits
53% tried to avoid it, but went on with their affairs
20% tried to spread it
20% welcomed it
Although, I may still question the real motive behind the government wanting this data, if used for the right reasons, I don't see any reason there wouldn't be some benefit from it.
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Researchers? Sorry more like drooling feebs.
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Re: Researchers? Sorry more like drooling feebs.
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Re: Re: Researchers? Sorry more like drooling feeb
However, if no one in WoW even knows that they are infected, then you would get *zero* useful data, because unless they have a reason to avoid getting the disease (e.g., it causes some type of harm to the player) people will just ignore it and go about the game as usual.
So, for it to work, they would have to 1) Give an incentive to *not* spread the disease and 2) Have this disease worth avoiding.
I can't see any way to do that without pissing off the players.
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Re: Re: Re: Researchers? Sorry more like drooling
The only way to get any real data from this type of experiment would be for Blizzard to not claim responsibility for it and let the community believe it's an actual virus. Also, the consequence for contracting the virus would have to be somewhat significant.
Doing so would definitely piss a lot of people off and could possibly cause irreparable damage to their customer base. Being a former WoW player and Blizzard customer, I know first hand that they are scared shitless to do anything that would threaten their business model. Even if it makes perfect sense, much less something experimental.
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Old News
The main goal of such studies is usually to determine what emotions or thoughts influenced a persons' 'emergency response' reaction. Basically why the executed behavior of an individual varies from what they predicted their behavior to be (which tends to happen often in high pressure situations e.g. evacuating for a hurricane, response to fires/flooding/etc)
As many people in WoW have a small emotional, and time vested, interest in their character many of these initial decision changing conditions are felt (if on a much smaller scale then reality).
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4946772
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Re: Old News
First of all, I mentioned that in the post.
Second of all, what's new is these researchers actually working with Blizzard on it.
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Account Infection
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Money and age issues.
I play WoW, and I'm not sure what I'd do myself. If I spent two weeks with a virus unable to do anything but sit and wait for it to end because the virus ruined my character to the point I couldn't even quest for a cure, then I would not even log on anymore, and would more than likely cancel my account until Blizzard decided to quit being retarded and cleaned everything up.
I mean, come on, players on WoW freak out over 30second sever resets. One happened today to impliment voice chat and everyone was on all the world channels freaking out wondering what was going on, how long it was going to be down, why this or that.
Not to mention the government has to take into account they have no idea how old the players are. The age range is just too vast to get accurate readings on how humans would react. Children play the game... how they act in the game is severely different than how they would under their parents if a real plague spread. Children aren't going to get scared and things like that if they are some hulking warrior on a game and they are safe in real life.
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epidemics
Brice Nolan
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b) You can't run back to your corpse and resurrect in real life.
If this is true the researchers are really silly.
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