Posted on 08/23/2007 3:19:57 PM PDT by Domandred
A plague carried around the world by travellers, pets and curious teenagers may show that experts have not taken everything into account when planning for an outbreak of disease, researchers have said.
Luckily, the world involved is an internet game.
The outbreak of "Corrupted Blood" indicates that specialists trying to predict what the next pandemic will look like might make use of a real-world laboratory - the culture of online gamers.
"It really looked quite a bit like a real disease," Nina Fefferman of Princeton University, who worked on the report with her then-student Eric Lofgren, said in a telephone interview.
This includes stupid behaviour, near-instant international travel and infection by pets.
The outbreak was an accidental consequence of a software challenge added to the World of Warcraft game in 2005, Ms Fefferman and Mr Lofgren report in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The virulent, contagious disease was introduced by maker Blizzard Entertainment Inc as an extra challenge to high-level players. But, just as a real virus might spread, it was accidentally carried out of its virtual containment area.
"Soon, the disease had spread to the densely populated capital cities of the fantasy world, causing high rates of mortality and, much more importantly, the social chaos that comes from a large-scale outbreak of deadly disease," Ms Fefferman and Mr Lofgren wrote.
"When this accidental outbreak happened, players embraced it. Some thought it was really cool," Ms Fefferman said.
The makers did not. They reset the computer game to eliminate the disease, wiping out any data that may have been collected.
'Stupid factor'
But Mr Lofgren, who played the game, alerted Ms Fefferman, and they studied what they could.
Ms Fefferman, a medical epidemiologist, immediately recognised human behaviours she had not ever factored in when creating computer models of disease outbreaks. For instance, what she calls the "stupid factor".
"Someone thinks, 'I'll just get close and get a quick look and it won't affect me,'" she said.
"Now that it has been pointed out to us, it is clear that it is going to be happening. There have been a lot of studies that looked at compliance with public health measures. But they have always been along the lines of what would happen if we put people into a quarantine zone - will they stay?" Ms Fefferman added.
"No one have ever looked at what would happen when people who are not in a quarantine zone get in and then leave."
She will now incorporate such behaviour into her scenarios, and Ms Fefferman is working with Blizzard to model disease outbreaks in other popular games.
"With very large numbers of players (currently 6.5 million for World of Warcraft), these games provide a population where controlled outbreak simulations may be done seamlessly within the player experience," she wrote.
Ms Fefferman noted that Ran Balicer of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel came to a similar conclusion in a paper published in the journal Epidemiology in March.
Experts agree the world is overdue for a pandemic of some sort of disease. The current No 1 suspect is the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which has killed 194 out of 321 people infected since 2003.
Yep. My pet was one of the main carriers on my server. Took our whole guild to cure it all.
do those who suffer from the plague have special rights? Just curious as to the level of realism. South Park’s episode on World of Warcraft is one of their best.
World of Warcraft is a feeling...
...who needs a social life?
No special rights lol. Level of realism though was interesting.
The day started relatively peacefully and a guild just got back from killing Hakkar (the boss that gave the disease). Someone's pet was infected and they pulled it out in Orgrimmar(one of the capital cities). The pet then started infecting people. Soon people died.
People not knowing exactly what was happening would stick around and try to figure it out, either out of curiosity or the "cool" factor...same people that stop to look at car crashes on the freeway.
More people were infected. The disease would rapidly kill low level characters (children) but high levels (adults) would also be killed, it just took longer.
Transport from capital to capital is easy. No biological contaminate checks. Soon infected people were traveling to other capitals and infecting there. More people died.
Smaller towns that also had transportation to them were also being effected, though not as quickly as not as many people hang out in the smaller towns and villages. They are more rest stops on the way to an adventuring area then a destination.
By the end of the week when Blizzard finally had to hotfix the problem capital cities were nearly ghost towns. Going to one pretty much guaranteed a fast or slow death depending on your level (age).
An interesting week, but looking back now I think it's probably a pretty good model what would happen in a serious disease outbreak.
it seems like a very fun and engaging game. Not a good idea for me, the poster-boy for ADD. Has anyone tried dispensing comdoms to control the outbreak? LOL
I'm not sure the "stupid" factor is an accurate model. People will take all kinds of risks in an online scenario that they would never take in real life. Granted, there are a few truly suffering from the "Stupid Factor," but most people behave very differently when they are really putting their own life at risk.
Speaking of virulence, Warcraft did have 6.5 million players - about a year ago and a half ago. It’s a bit over 9 million now, I believe.
Nerd.
WOW, I generally never survive more than 3 minuets in the games I play. But I just spawn again, reload and charge in.
” but most people behave very differently when they are really putting their own life at risk. “
Not so —
“Can’t happen to me” is a common attitude among us humans who spend more and more of our lives as spectators via tv or online — some begin to treat all experience as ‘virtual’.....
Perhaps ‘stupid factor’ isn’t the most accurate descriptive phrase — ‘denial factor’ may be closer.....
My $0.002
My son is totally addicted. Today he is suffering withdrawal symptoms because I unplugged the computer (and hid the plug).
I guess that might be the value of a Haitian centime by now . . . .
An Aussie friend of mine used to complain about the exchange rate between, as he put it, “The U.S. Dollar vs. the Australian Peso.”
I would say the online world is far more awash with the "can't happen to me" attitude. Mostly because if it does happen to you, it doesn't really matter.
FWIW, it did say that the attitude does exist, I just think the online model will not be accurate.
” I would say the online world is far more awash with the “can’t happen to me” attitude. “
Do you ‘cheat’ the speed limit by a little bit on your way to work in the morning?? Squeeze that last bit of yellow out of the stoplight??
Do you, even occasionally, ‘supersize’ your greaseburger?
I don’t mean for this to come across like it’s about ‘you’ — I’ve smoked cigarettes for over 40 years, even though I’ve known the risks for the better part of those years....
“Can’t happen to me” is more pervasive than you seem to be willing to credit — we all engage in dangerous, to a greater or lesser degree, behaviours daily with exactly that rationalization.......
Can players interact almost seamlessly? i.e. Can people from various place around the world form a team and work through the game together and communicate with each other?
Internet video games seem very interesting.
Yes, Yes, and Yes
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