Slashdot Mirror
Studying the Plague in WoW
Nimrod writes 'NPR has a piece on studying the 'Plague' in the virtual world, World of Warcraft. From the piece: 'Spread of virus or disease has a lot to do with human behavior ... Hardest part about researching human behavior is that people often act differently in an emergency than they imagine they will... Peoples reaction to the plague in World of Warcraft were remarkable realistic... Some decided that once they were infected, I really don't care anymore about anyone else, I'm going to teleport in the game to a crowed urban center and infect as many people as I can.' We've discussed this before, but as it has been picked up by the major news outlets it appears to be accumulating commentary about how virtual behavior mimics societal trends. The NPR piece goes into more depth on the subject.
Why couldn't more events like this happen in MMO worlds? I have to say, this is much more interesting than your standard organized battles or the like.
My other sig is funny.
they're not saying this is a worrying precedent, that people might act like this in the real world some day. they have history books. this is exactly what happens during major plagues. I guess if you know you're going to die really soon, at least a few people will feel alright aboutn infecting others.
see AIDS for a more common everyday example of this in real life.
Yes. There have been multiple cases, and people have gone to jail for it. But imagine what would happen if AIDS was much easier to spread (say, via ingestion instead of blood/blood contact). Spiteful individuals could infect literally thousands of other people. Among those thousands, there would surely be other psychotics who would also spread it. It would explode out of control.
The problem with HIV is that it leaves you alive long enough to get pissed off that you're going to die, and with enough time to take out that anger on other people (if you happen to be a psychopath).
How does that work, law-wise? Is it unlawful to knowingly expose other individuals to a disease? If so, wouldn't that apply to people going in to work when they're sick, or even staying home (with kids, family, etc.) when sick? Is it only based on maliciously exposing them, as opposed to knowingly? Is it only some diseases? If so, which diseases, and who gets to decide and on what basis? Obviously, we can see how this ties in with, say, biological terror (or war) attacks. Using a disease as a means of aggression. But since diseases can spread on their own, without any intent, and sometimes without knowledge, on the part of the carrier ...
...)
(Not like I expect our laws to truly make sense. Just look at the FDA, drug laws
"This isn't news. It's just becoming more well known. I don't mind that, I just wish people had more MMO history in their brain pan."
Don't get me wrong, I play and enjoy MMORPGs, including WoW.
That said, I wish people knew real history and nothing whatsoever about MMOs. It would make a fascinating twist to the game we call "real life".
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
Yeah, any time people know they are in an artificial situation, they will act differently than they would in real life. Online game? Check. Murder mystery dinner party? Check. Dreaming? Check. Sociological experiment? Check.
I figure it comes down to consequences. If you know there won't be any, or if you know they depend on something different than they would in the real situation, you'll try things you would never consider if you thought the situation was really happening.
Yes, in that history does show that once someone doesn't care (any more) about what happens to them (e.g., because they're going to die anyway), there's nothing you can do to keep them in line. Most you can do is take them out of the game: e.g., lock them away in a prison or kill them.
The same applies to games, and I wish more designers did learn that from history. (It would have prevented the UO fuckup, for a start.) Once someone doesn't give a damn about what happens to their character, nothing you can possibly do to their character will deter them. In-character justice just doesn't work on them. All you can do is take them out of the game: e.g., ban.
No, in that the setting is a bit different. We're not talking a case of "waah, I'm gonna die! The world is so cruel! I'm gonna have my revenge against this cruel world!" We're most likely talking about people who never gave a damn about their character, and much less about the minor bother of having to respawn. We're talking people who most likely just saw it as a case of "awesome! now I can kill newbies with this!"
There's a whole category of people who pays that monthly fee purely to annoy, troll, and cause as much distress as possible. Their supreme achievement is managing to drive someone completely off the game. I.e., griefers.
They also don't like taking risks, and their favourite kind of target is one which can't even possibly defend at all. E.g., one who's 20 levels lower and preferrably idle. And Blizzard just gave them the equivalent of nuke which does just that: run up to a bunch of newbies, and they're dead with no chance to defend. Far from making them desperate or depressed or anything even remotely similar to RL plagues, it probably just made their day.
It's not even something new. Bartle described that very same category back in the days of MUDs.
So, hey, there's an idea for designers: if learning from history is too much of a bother, at least learn from what was already discovered in other games. MUDs ran into most of the same problems ages ago.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And another factor: when you have a real plague, it becomes somewhat more challenging to get out of bed and reach an urban population center.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking