Breaking All Barriers

[Ironwood]

Not Just a Game.

I'll try to repost the 'Not Paying' Article, since I have the paper copy.  It's an interesting insertion of virtual life into real life.

[Azazel]

Is this that raid bug that was put to the video of "Everybody has AIDS"?

I think it was someone'e pet that gated out, and still had an infectious dot on it.. ?

[Morat20]

Is this that raid bug that was put to the video of "Everybody has AIDS"?

I think it was someone'e pet that gated out, and still had an infectious dot on it.. ?

Yep and yep. Damn thing killed the 40 and under crowd in one tick, but didn't kill the 60 elite guards -- they healed through it. So the NPCs were spreading the crap all over Stormwind and Ironforge. Some of the screenshots from the time in question are pretty funny.

[Ironwood]

Sorry, I meant to post the follow up and some meat of the actual article, but I got real busy real quick.

Basically, yes, this is the WoW Blood Curse plague.  However, what's interesting is that the Scientist who wishes to study it is not interested at all in studying the way in which the virus behaved, but says online games are the perfect medium to study how the humans behaved in a time of plague.  Considering the attachment that players have to their character, it makes a little sense.

The quote that sticks out in my mind is one of his colleagues poo-pooing him and saying 'Well, players intentionally distributed this plague as well.  You wouldn't see real humans doing that ever.'

Which just goes to show that scientists can be just as fucking stupid as the rest of us.  It was an interesting piece and I'll try to get a copy electronically.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, I remember reading about all the peasants who ran around yelling "LOL AIDS LOL" during the Black Death, and how a signifigant percentage of the population of Europe logged off and played Xbox for a day or two until God put out a patch to fix it.

[Ironwood]

You don't think using the same data to study the effect of deliberatly targetted biological warfare would be equally interesting ?

Or are you just going for 'teh funnay' and falling short ?

[WindupAtheist]

You don't think using the same data to study the effect of deliberatly targetted biological warfare would be equally interesting?

No, I think it's mental masturbation.  It's empty cyberwank nonsense.  It sets off the same bullshit detector that triggers whenever someone starts breathlessly talking about Second Life as anything but a mediocre shitpile that nobody except furries actually likes.

World of Warcraft is a "world" where death is nearly meaningless, everyone is functionally immortal, a guy can dive off a cliff into a pile of bears just to get a laugh out of his buddy, and anyone who doesn't like what's happening in the "world" can instantly disappear into another world (the real one) and come back only when they feel like it.

The resemblance between WoW and the real world is so limited that any conclusions you could draw from studying it would be elementary to the point of worthlessness.

[Ironwood]

Ok.

Then Fuck Off.

[Xanthippe]

WUA has a point, although I don't entirely agree.  Using WoW for a model has very limited use, although I do think it has some use.

Imagine if the devs introduced some kind of stats-reducing disease to the game that was curable only through some quest line (something like that Duskwood Stalvan quest) but what if the disease was communicable as well?  Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Dren]

WUA has a point, although I don't entirely agree.  Using WoW for a model has very limited use, although I do think it has some use.

Imagine if the devs introduced some kind of stats-reducing disease to the game that was curable only through some quest line (something like that Duskwood Stalvan quest) but what if the disease was communicable as well?  Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

That's the way to do it.  Make it so it makes you travel 1/2 speed though.  Nothing would piss people off more than that.  It would affect their play time, thus be substantial.  Death in WoW in one instance IS nothing, so make it persistent and annoying.

Also, add something in the game that would show real time updates of where the plague is concentrated too. 
Make it so you had to come within a few inches of each other to get it too. 
Make it so that even though you got the cure for it, you might get it again if exposed enough. 
Make the "cure" take enough time to be a pain, but not enough to required days of playing (maybe make you go out of your way for an hour of playtime.)

Now you'll have several things happen:

1.  People stop playing = suicide (just decide it isn't worth going on anymore!)
2.  People avoid areas that are known to have high infection rates = voluntary quarantines.
3.  People start standing farther apart from each other at banks, ah, etc. (Paranoia sets in.  Think Old School UO days with thieves at banks.)
4.  People start educating each other on the disease and how to protect yourself.
5.  People purposely trying to infect others to be an ass (never ever happens in real life....um, sure.)


Maybe have the game automatically start blocking infected players from entering towns if the level of the plague gets to a certain level in that area (military law to force quarantine.)

It would be interesting, but there is no way a successful game would want to jeopardize their subs with this kind of thing.  It might be interesting to have a game specifically designed for this.   Maybe you could get a few thousand subs if it was free.  Maybe that's enough? 

[Jayce]

I wonder if a game like Eve would be a better test case.  Dock at a station carrying the plague and everyone gets it who docks there.  Make the cure a high-dollar item, but detectable with a certain type of scanner, so that it's more economical to blockade and inspect ships than to decontaminate your station.

People in Eve are more used to being abused, and in fact welcome it.  WoW's playerbase is entirely too whiny to be a good test case :)

[Ironwood]

The point the guy was trying to make is that there is currently NO way to study human behaviour in a contamination situation.  You can't do it 'on purpose' and if you go somewhere where it's known, there's no way to trackback on behaviour at all.  There's also the tricky little matter of catching it yourself and dying.

When I was discussing it with my wife she said 'Priests couldn't heal it and were getting frustrated being asked'.  I thought that right there was an interesting little facet in itself, but this one has sparked off my thoughts.

Of COURSE WoW is not the medium of choice for any serious study on this, but the point is that the closer our online gaming vectors to our real-life experiences, the more useful such studies can become.  At the moment, computer modelling and simulations totally lack the human element.  (Like that Zombie Simulation on the Net.  It's ridiculous.  Where are all the axes ?)

WUA may have valid points, but he's got himself back into the trolling threads for kicks and negative emo 'nothing matters' shite like he did the last time he left.  Second Life IS interesting, even if not as a game...

[WindupAtheist]

See, here's what you do.  You have some university design a game so hardcore and realistic that if it were commercial, nobody would play it.  (Insert Vanguard joke here.)  You make sure it has an economic component, enough of a combat mechanic for the citizens to kill each other in fits of paranoia, and permadeath.  Then you hire a bunch of college students to play it, and tell them you'll pay them for every hour they spend logged in, and every widget they produce in the economic game.  But if they die, they don't get paid at all.  Then you spring your virtual disease on them all unexpected, and see what they do.

But this WoW plague crap?  Zero value, except maybe as inspiration for someone to make something like I describe above.

[Ironwood]

Which is fair enough.

Failing that kind of budget, you ask Blizzard to include you in any plans for future diseases, as well as contact all the other online games for similar kindness, and write an article in New Scientist.

This WoW Plague Crap was perhaps the most interesting feature in online games since the EVE hijacking for me.  Mostly due to the fact that it was something organic that grew entirely out of the mistakes of the developers.  And, for God's Sake, it was unexpected and funny, something you hardly EVER see in any Diku game.

Further, once again, this raises the awareness of gaming as something IMPORTANT.  Not just something that fucking socially retarded greasy asshole teenagers do in their spare time when not fucking whining.  That can only be a good thing.  You may not see it, but your hobby is still not gained the respect and wide acceptance that it should.

[Furiously]

Didn't EQ2 do this at some point? I'm pretty sure they did.

[Ironwood]

I'd be interested in a link.

[Alkiera]

Didn't EQ2 do this at some point? I'm pretty sure they did.

Now that you mention it, I think they did.  Your character would change a funny brown color, and cough a lot.  Just being around someone who was 'sick' would make you sick, too.  I forget if the sickness had any affect other than the coughing thing, tho.  It did have a timer, so you could get rid of it, however once the towns were infected, it was tough.  I think healer classes could cleanse it, but often you'd end up getting it again shortly anyway, it was so pervasive.

--
Alkiera

[Righ]

We had contagious diseases in Discworld MUD a long long time ago... 1993? :) IIRC it was written by Ember.