Have you
ever heard of the most popular MMO-RPG (massively multiplayer online role
playing game) in the world – World of
Warcraft by Blizzard? If no, nothing happened. To understand what happened in
that game at 13th September of 2005 you don’t need to know about game anything.
 |
| World of Warcraft Logo |
In World of
Warcraft one way of enjoying the game is defeating "bosses". We’re gathering in group which contains
at least five people and we’re fighting
against bigger and stronger monsters - called bosses. Then, we’re collecting items which make us
stronger and again fighting against even more dangerous things.
The
situation is called “Corrupted Blood
Incident” and it
happened at 13th September of 2005 after adding to game new “instance” called Zul’Gurub in patch 1.4.0. One of the new
bosses – Hakkar, during the fight was able
to cast a curse on us (the players) called “Corrupted Blood”. As a result, the players received
constant damage and in addition it also spread to other characters near the
infected person.
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| Hakkar in World of Warcraft |
Because of
the game developers mistakes infected players (after defeating the boss or even
if they knew that they don't defeat it) could teleport out of the instance and
spread the curse outside of the separated instance! What does It mean? Players
spreaded out the plague at the cities and many of them died because of it (in
game of course). Players who have infect other players usually did it on
purpose. Can you imagine whole huge cities in corpses?
 |
| One of the main city after plague |
Even epidemiologists
became interested in this situation. This bug still remains as a one of most
popular not only in the World of Warcraft game but also in all other games
because of the conclusions drawn from them. We learned from it a little bit
about human nature and how we would possibly behave during pestilience.
1. Did
you hear about World of Warcraft game? Have you ever played it?
2. How
would you behave in this situation? Infect other players or try to stop
spreading the plague?
3. Do
you think that we would behave in real life the same as we do in video game
(during the epidemic)?
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Corrupted_Blood
https://tvgry.pl/wideo.asp?ID=4714
3
Comments
I just hope it was not a bug but some social experiment. That would be far more interesting as the game has its own rules like the real life, so it could in fact resemble a real epidemic behavior of the group.
Obviously I don't think we would behave the same in real life.
I think that I would never infect other players. I've never enjoyed being unfriendly for other players and it's sad that in the most popular computer games like Counter Strike or LoL there is such a lot of players that's main reason to play is to make game more difficult for others. I don't know why is that, maybe every "troll" has some problems during his/her childhood. I do not think that people would behave the same in the real life. Despite law aspect, there is a phenomenon where a lot of people tend to be different person online that they are offline. Most of trolls or Internet aggressors are probably not very successful in real life - they do not have friends, they live with their moms etc. Then they have a chance to become someone else online and "show can begin". I'm not saying that all trolls are like that, sometimes they are quite normal and they think about themselves as a funny person.
I've just never understood how it is possible to enjoy about someone's harm. Only exception is failarmy- they are extremely funny.
I reckon if I was at your shoes, I would infect other players just for fun. This bug seems to be really crazy and I am sure it looks weirdly.
No, we don't have to behave in real life like in game.
I wouldn't be able to infect other players - I'm not this kind of person.
I'm not sure how we would bahave in real life - such situations verify people, and even you can't be sure how would you behave. You think that you would to this, but reality may be totally different.
For me it's best game in the world, but it's good that I stopped to play. Game interesting but you don't see how quickly time passes.
And if I was at your shoes, I would have infected other players. It's game, where you should to get fun :) I have never understood why should I play seriously in games...
Some people mb yes. Because all the time they play game and they doesn't contact with people. But, i can't sure . I don't know :)
If I got infected, I would spread the plague. That would force developers to repair the bug, because such behaviour destroys fun of playing the game.
In my opinion, we wouldn't behave like that. We could spread the plague unconsciously but after some time quarantines would appear for those people who need to cure themselves.
The plague would probably have ruined the game experience for me, even though I cannot tell for sure. I would've probably jsut stopped playing for a while, until it was over.
In real life, most of the people would probably stay at home not to get it or not to spread it, but there are always insane people who would go around and spread it thinking "If I have it, everyone else should too".
I would say i would infect other players,not because i'm malevolent, just because it is a MMORPG game and everyone wants to be the first in the top.
I can't even imagine how it could happen in real life, but i hope that it would never happen. But if it would be, i think people on our planet would understand and cooperate to prevent this catastrophe.
Yes, I've heard about this game, but I have nothing in common with it. I don't even know what you guys are doing in it and how to play. It doesn't bother me and never will.
In real life the situation is different. People are scared of any kind of dangerous diseases. Even nowadays, when it is proved that AIDS can't spread from one person to another by air, contaminated people are usually lonely, because everyone is irrationally scared of them. That's just our nature. If any person has realy dangerous and contagious disease nowadays, I don't think that he or she will act like some Typhoid Mary IRL. Of course if this person is smart enough and not a total freak.
No, I don’t think we would behave in real life the same as we behave in games. What kind of question is that?
What happens when your character dies in the game? Why is this situation is so bad? Do players lose all the achievement and items they collected?
That's why we haw a law and prisons. And it's not that easy to get access to weapons. Some people are vindictive and emotional, they would kill and make bad things.
2. In general I try not to be an as***le when playing with other people. Unfortunately "trolling" is very popular among 13-year-old boys playing such games. It's a way of grabbing other people's attention.
3. I hope I would try to prevent the spread, but its hard to predict how people would react in such a situation. Assuming I'd be aware of being contagious, there are still plenty other factors to consider:
- Would the disease affect my brain chemistry making me reckless or even aggressive? (zombie scenario :D)
- Would there be a cure, and would I be aware of this? What if I'd approach other people in search for it?
We're programmed for survival. It's unrealistic to expect people in such a situation to just lie down and die for the greater good.
I don't think I would behave just like those people mentioned in the aricle. Being constantly diseased would probably stop me from playing until the bug would have been fixed. Intentionally infecting other players seems like a waste of time for me.
I think there are people that would behave irrationaly during epidemic, but overall it'd probably only small piece of society. I believe people in WoW infected each other because they know very well that they'd be resurrected in few seconds so it's not that harmful. "Griefing" is well-known phenomenon but it doesn't look like it "spreads" to real life.
This somewhat reminded me of the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" when a high level player starts to go around killing other players and the boys decide to play every day to stop him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgvTgV5EoGY It's a different situation but I guess I would also try to make love not warcraft.
I followed the link you provided to Wiki about this incident. With a connection to real life, what really interested me was the use of it by Center of Terrorism and Intelligence Studies to model how terrorist cells form and operate. I believe even if online trolls would not behave similarly in a real life, there apparently is a lesson to learn from it.
In real life? Of course people would go around running and touching others just to spread the plauge. Like come on. Game is a game. Life is life. There are no consequences in a game...
I would probably infect other players, it's just a game. I don't think anyone would really care, but after a while it could become really annoying, even for me. I would just count on developers to fix that bug as soon as possible.
I'm sure that if that happened in real life, we wouldn't try to infect others "for fun". We are already prepared for cases of epidemics, we probably would be able to stop that, before some large death toll.
If we are talking about plague I would say that im not sure but maybe I would do it just for fun. It's only game.
In real life you wont infect other people just for fun, unless you are psychopath. We have to distinguish game and real life.
I would try to prevent spreading of the plague. But still, it's just a game and if it's fun to spread the plague between players - go ahead. I think, comparing video game epidemic with real life is silly, obviously, we can highlight some similarities, but, overall, people in real life are more unpredictable and tricky.
I don't think that our actions in the game and life are connected. Except for abnormal marginals, I don't think that, someone will intentionally infect others because didn't want to die alone. Unfortunately, in life, you cannot load the last character.
I like to help people in games so I think that I would try to stop spreading the plague.
About third question? It's only game and In my opinion we shouldn't compare games with real life.
I don't know. Maybe I would infect other players just for fun but I don't think that we can learn anything about 'human nature' because of it. For me it is a bit naive to believe that people would behave like that in a real life.
The incident itself was interesting, I'm pretty we'd act in a similar way, but of course we'd see far less "trolls" spreading the plague just for fun, as it'd be no longer a video game we can laugh at while somebody else is suffering. Of course there are such people, but I don't believe they'de be in this scale.
I would infect other people just because of the fun factor. The death in WoW doesn't cause you anything, but a little bit of ingame currency to repair your equipment.
Of course not. I hope I will never face such epidemic in real life. In the game you din't risk your life so you take different actions and steps comparing to real situation.
In both cases we can see a simple behaviour that is prominent in many species of animals, including humans. The behaviour is called herd mentality. I don't think that many people would go and infect other people in real life, that is if we don't count raping and stealing that would occur during the outbreak, simply because they would rather try to survive. That's why I don't like the idea of basing the studies of possible plague behaviours on a computer game case study. It was just players being influenced by their peers' behaviour, while having some fun alongside.
I've read about the incident too, it turned out that scientists used the example of mass plague and created a typical image of terrorist (as people infected with it who spread it further, did it without any bigger point or gain, and did it on purpose). Personally, If it was "incurable" I would gather with other healthy players and try to survive as long as possible, just as in real life, but since it was a bug, I'd probably try some funny and retarded moves, just for fun.
In all movies and games about plagues, it usually starts with a common scheme, that is well described by they guy at theoatmeal.com:
https://i.imgur.com/U1IZbBV.jpg
So it probably WON'T go like this in real life- people would become very isolated and suspicious to each other, rather than storming hospitals...
Now I think that I would definitely stop the plague, but realistically I would probably spread it like crazy. However in real world I don’t think that anyone would behave like this.
If I played it, I probably wouldn't infect other players, as I hate any acts of mocking or mobbing both in games and in real life.
I doubt people would behave similarly in real life situation. I think there is no point in comparing two different worlds. People usually do much darker things in the Internet than in the real world :)
I have to admit that this incident from 13th September of 2005 has interested. Especially the reaction of other players on it was also interesting. I think I would join players that infect others! You can't let other players win! Honestly, I don't think people would behave like that in the real world.You have to distinguish real life from a video game. Life is not a game.
It’s the biggest time consumer ever.
Nah, I wouldn’t infect other players. I’m always trying to be a helpful. You know, karma always comes back ;).
Will people spread the plague in real life, that’s what you mean? Maybe some desperate people.
In fact it’s very hard to me to understand situation like this in game. I suppose that if I’ll be infected in game, I’ll try to spread the plague. Why? That’s only a video game… doing something wrong can’t really hurt people.
In my opinion most of the players think in the same way, so it’s inrelevant to the real life.
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