WoW and MMORPGs as a tool to test epidemics
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 - 12:02pm
I dont know how many folks are aware of a very unusual event that occured in WoW that has caught the interest of scientists. I may have a few details wrong, because my memory has faded a bit on it, but the story goes like this:
A few years ago, a troll city instance was added to WoW. It was Zul Gurub and players could raid it to fight Hakkar, some evil diety. As originally implemented, Hakkar would put a disease on players and their pets that did damage over time. It was an aoe spell, so basically was contagious to other players around them. One result that was unforeseen during testing, was that when players went back to the main home cities, the disease DOT would infect other players around them... killing them. Significant cities like Ironforge were wiped out as low to mid level players didnt have the stats or healing abilities deal with it and higher level characters would also succumb to the aoe disease effects.
I thought this was one of the coolest unplanned moments of MMORPG gaming I had witnessed. Anyways, scientists apparently thought so too. As mentioned in the article below, they found that the players acted much like people do in the real world. Word of mouth spread news of what was happening, players began to avoid the cities and surrounding areas. Scientists are negotiating with MMORPG developers for access to use the playerbases to do more analysis through similar planned events.
Still the beauty of the original epidemic, is that it wasnt planned and design elements came together to have a very dynamic effect on the wider world of Azeroth...
Xbox Live: Irongut | Playstation ID: Irongut_GWJ
At least when the CIA ran these kind of tests back in the 60s, the test subjects (aka human guinea pigs) scored some LSD.
What kind of compensation will Blizz offer me to virtually vomit blood?
That which does not kill you, still hurts like Hell. - Anonymous Soldier
None of us is as dumb as ALL of us. - Anonymous Staff Officer
Veni, Vici, Ridebam, Discedebam - "I came, I saw, I laughed, I left"
Maybe the vomit could result in an alchemy potion crafting ingredient?
Xbox Live: Irongut | Playstation ID: Irongut_GWJ
Would you drink a potion made that way?
That which does not kill you, still hurts like Hell. - Anonymous Soldier
None of us is as dumb as ALL of us. - Anonymous Staff Officer
Veni, Vici, Ridebam, Discedebam - "I came, I saw, I laughed, I left"
To be specific.. you would kill the "Sons of Hakkar" which upon death would emit a poisonous cloud. Standing in the cloud would "poison" your character which would spread to someone standing next to you and so on and so on. The idea being that a few seconds later (you would sheep a Son and start killing the son ~10 seconds prior) Hakkar would "stun" most of the raid and do a drain life except since the majority of the raid was poisoned you'd end up poisoning Hakkar and draining his life instead of healing him. The by product of getting the drain life was it also removed the poison from most people.
Great fight in a great zone... lets hope Blizz duplicates ZG with ZA as it was one of my favorite instances.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
It breaks my heart whenever I see news like this and A Tale in the Desert is not part of it. I so wish those guys would get their proper due one day.
(@)
I'm not sure the ZG disease is a very good example, since people would purposely infect themselves so they could spread it.
Given my love for that Tobias the Filth Gorger quest and its AOE vomit effect, I'd participate in this experiment in exchange for lots of vomiting animations. If they can pull of firing from both ends, that would work too.
"Raise high the black flags, my children."
-- Gebhard von Blucher.
The way people have been treating each other, I don't think I should be anywhere near this "experiment". People's actions will just piss me off. I'd want to put a bullet into the skull of the first person who got sick and then purposely infected everyone they could. To me that's the height of petty, self-centered egotism. To unknowingly pass on a disease is one thing, but to purposely do so is a premeditated assault.
As for seeing how a disease could spread in a network... If this was done in such a way that the players had no way of knowing that the study was going on, then I could see using it as a model for how such a disease can spread in a society. Because there are no real world consequences to a virtual outbreak, I'd argue that players will go out of their way to see how quickly they could infect as many people as possible.
If however you are looking to study how a terrorist group could introduce a biological weapon into a society in such a way that it would spread through contact, then tell the players about the disease (not the terrorist part) and watch how quickly people revert to animals and assault their fellow players to see how quickly they can harm the other people in the game. I suspect that the first people to purposely make themselves toxic will be the same people who "camp" fallen corpses so that as soon as the other player resurrects, they can quickly kill them again (because that's fun).
Honestly, I try to treat everyone I meet like an adult, but some days people just go out of their way to prove that to be wrong.
GWJ Alliance on Blackhand
Lunazul - Rouge & GWJ Paparazzo
Lunarel - Druid
Funkenpants wrote:
RedJen... First off, there are plenty of people who go around infecting others knowingly. Just the other day there was an article in the news of someone getting jail time for infecting a bunch of people with HIV, knowingly. Secondly, the validity of a simulated world being a proper test case has already been proven. These scientists want to organize more events because they studied the past and have noticed that the transmission vectors in the game model real world quite well. I know we all like to think people that hang out in the game are just moronic, rude, unwashed teenagers, but as it turns out that is a misrepresentation. There is a same amount of sadists in the game as they are in real life. It's just that the game allows them to be visible. Besides, if someone wants to grief you and kill you in real life, you don't get to live to complain about it like in WoW.
(@)
You seem to be under the impression that I believe that type of activity is limited in game. I'm not. I'm well aware that there are people who have been tried and convicted of attempted murder for maliciously trying to infect people. I know that wait staff in foodservice have been known to do awful things to people's orders before serving them. I know that some of the people who hang out it in game are just moronic, rude and petty people in their real lives.
In my opinion, there are probably MORE sadists in the game as there are in real life. People can be very reserved in real life, transplant them into an RPG environment and often they will let loose their reserve and act on their impulses. In effect de-evolving to a point where they can ignore their moral compass. Kept in a game world, this can be annoying, but if allowed to go further, it can desensitize a person from their moral compass or even alter the person's perception of right and wrong. A lack of consequences combined with sadistic tendencies can be worrisome at best. This is why strong connections outside of a game world remain important.
Back to my original thought, I feel that there are valid reasons to include modeling of "blind" or "silent" epidemics in the mix. This type of population model could be used to study everything from information movement to genetics to an initially silent infectious agent. There are reasons why case studies are conducted with control groups. In this case, I'm saying that a blind group could yield just as much valid information as a group who is aware of the study. We only have to look at medical history to see that this type of study can yield valuable knowledge. In the past these have been conducted on people without recourse to defend themselves from being exploited in that manner. Those studies were morally reprehensible. Now that there are virtual communities where the experimentation is not linked to a person's physical health, this may be a way to use that type of technique without exploiting an underrepresented population.
GWJ Alliance on Blackhand
Lunazul - Rouge & GWJ Paparazzo
Lunarel - Druid
Funkenpants wrote:
While I agree with just about everything you said, I believe this one statement would be a lot more truthful if you were to say that there were more openly sadistic players in WoW than you'd see on the streets. The scientists will be able to get a much better view of people's impulses/intentions, if they don't have to deal with things like RL consequences, or even something as basic as morality (which a good number of players shirk off at the login screen).
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Now I feel like we're playing word games. I believe that there are more people who exhibit sadistic behaviors in game as opposed to real life. Until we can look at people and know without a doubt what is going on inside their head, we can only react and make judgments based on their behaviors.
GWJ Alliance on Blackhand
Lunazul - Rouge & GWJ Paparazzo
Lunarel - Druid
Funkenpants wrote:
First, I'd find everyone on my ignore list and infect them.
Second, I'd track down every Warrior who's told me I couldn't tank and infect them too.
Third, I'd track down Mallius and infect him (search WoWWiki if you don't know who he is), along with everyone in his guild - Game Theory.
Fourth, I'd infect all the claim and quest jumpers I could find in Skettis, Ogri'la and Netherwing Ledge and infect them.
Fifth, I'd infect the raiding guilds at BT and Mt. Hyjal who believe Pallies can't tank.
Lastly, I'd roll a Death Knight, knowing I deserved it for "Raid-ial" Genocide
Yeah...I got a dark side.
EDIT: I'd of course give warning to our fellow goodjers, KA and my friend's list to prevent them from the wrath of Krindle
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
I thought he jumped servers? He still around? Game Theory you mean his guild of the week? le sigh.
I think the studies would work better if someone got infected and didn't realize he was contagious. Which when this outbreak first happened was a totaly accident. Granted it happened a few times after intentionally.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
I agree to prevent exploiting it like I would. Perhaps a delay effect, where the debuff doesn't appear for 1 hour, but has infected everyone in that hour. Symptoms up to that point would be a change in facial coloration, or the occassional cough
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
I'd go a bit further in that once you showed symptoms you would no longer be contagious. (That'll keep Dark Krindle from getting loose and running amuck with disease as his weapon of the day.)
GWJ Alliance on Blackhand
Lunazul - Rouge & GWJ Paparazzo
Lunarel - Druid
Funkenpants wrote:
At first I was like... aw man that's evil. I could never do something like that... blah blah blah
And then I was like... hey, the man has a point there!
(@)
Think of the movie/quest that'd follow...
A Night Elf Huntress, in deepest, darkest STV, gets infected by one of the 25 gorillas she's tasked to kill. After the 5-hour incubation period (infecting people all along the way), she turns Undead (spreading the contagion to the Horde), and must eat the brains of 15 PvP-flagged toons to find the cure.
Seriously, to get the value the scientists derived from the original epidemic, it would have to be a surprise, or else, even the nicest person (in RL) will be tempted to infect someone who's slighted them in-game (knowing there'd be no permanent damage).
That which does not kill you, still hurts like Hell. - Anonymous Soldier
None of us is as dumb as ALL of us. - Anonymous Staff Officer
Veni, Vici, Ridebam, Discedebam - "I came, I saw, I laughed, I left"
Coming Soon: Outbreak 2!
Although, I'm starting to think about the benefits of this disease...would it be contagious by npcs or mobs? If so, I might just use it for AoE tanking
(like I really need the additional damage...)
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Hehe
I always liked a story behind my character, I've already saved the name Krandle, which will be my Death Knight when the expansion goes live. I'll slowly bring him up to Krindle's level and gear, and determine then which is better for tanking, but I'll use both given which needs the rep/items and which I prefer to play.
Copingsaw wrote:
Super K - The "Anti-Wipe"
Word.
Something like this happened in EQ2, as well, with infections and re-infections, though it wasn't fatal. I think as an "emergent" event, it's a cool thing, and gets people working together on a server-wide cure.
RIP ChronicNecrosis
my post will probably be lost in the debate on the validity of the study, but here goes.
I'm going to old man everyone here, I was there when the gates of ZG opened. I didn't participate in any raids till around Dec, BUT I experienced the epedemic. Let me tell you this was a great unofficial event! There was excitement in the world, something was happening that wasn't staged or happened every day. For a brief moment, the world felt alive like UO felt alive.
Ever since then I've always wanted Blizzard to do something like that again. Not just plan out an event from start to finish, but change something, and see how it effects the ecology of the game.
The Undead Invasion was such a disappointment because it was so tame, it was designed in such a way that it didn't interfer with anyone who didn't want to participate. And that's not what an invasion is!
I'd like to see Designers take more chances, do stuff that is going to alter the way people play even if they don't like it. You let your player base get into a rut, and they get complacent and grouchy about changes.
Stories of Yesterday
The Home Tree