MMORPG Used to Model Real World Disease

Oxygen99 writes "The Times is reporting on a paper by researchers in the US who argue that the spread of 'corrupted blood' in World of Warcraft might provide clues to the way a real world population would cope with the prospect of a global pandemic. In the study, to be published in The Lancet next month, Professor Lofgren of Rutgers University and Professor Fefferman of Tufts University, suggest that: 'If, God forbid, a disease broke out in London, you could see what would happen if people were told immediately of the risk. Would there be panic and chaos, or would it allow them to psychologically accept the danger and act accordingly? What would happen if we made people feel too reassured? These are all things that have a great impact on the number of people who would be affected. They are also things we just don't know, so [virtual games] could be of great value in helping us understand what their true emotional responses would be.'"

Re:I remember that

[Pojut]

Yeah, but you also have to look at the demographic that WoW was/is trying to reach compared to who Eve is trying to reach. WoW was designed so that yes, you have to put in many MANY hours to get to the endgame, but you still feel like you accomplished SOMETHING even if you logged in for only an hour.

Eve, as amazing of a game as it is (and it really is an amazing game) requires at least a few hours per sitting to really feel worth it (similar to everquest) It's designed with a different type of gamer in mind (whereas WoW serves to try to suck in both gamers and non-gamers alike, hence it's "dumbed-down" gameplay)

Re:In real life you can't run back from the gravey

[LiNKz]

Some people believe it isn't fair they contract certain diseases or viruses, and are willing to continue their lifestyle regardless of what it may cause ("It wasn't fair, so I'll just ignore it and keep going"). While this can pertain to HSV or HIV, I don't think it would be possible to relate it to this. If you were dying very quickly would you really urge to run out and infect a bunch of people? Not really.

Your 'terrorist' idea though, that is one scary idea. While I think the term has been beaten to death by Bush and the media, that would definitely cause it. Lets hope they realize in the end it would still spread to their people, too. Hopefully they have some sense of survival and self-preservation.

Re:I remember that

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, it was pretty cool. I don't know how it would ever model anything because it's got a few flaws over a real world model.

First, there is no incubation period. There is no "unwitting carrier". If you have it, you know it, and you spread it either intentionally, or because you're an idiot. I carried it a few times for giggles (I nuked Org once by zerging the AH while infected), but for the most part, if I got it, I'd go hang out in a corner 'till I died.

Second, the transportation methods are completely unrealistic. You get it in IF, you hearth to SW, and poof, you've infected two population centers in a matter of moments. A mage could get all three, easily, without much danger of dying before people were infected.

Finally, a substantial subset of the population actually wants to get the disease, so people are actively seeking it out for themselves so they can spread it.

Re:I remember that

[eht]

Unrealistic transportation methods? A good part of the populated North America could be infected in less than a day by a single patient zero carrier, Europe is the same way. And infectious diseases chain from one person to another, you wouldn't even have to leave the airport, just let other people from the airport fly away and infect others for you. In less than a week a single patient zero could easily infect the world, yes it isn't the same as World of Warcraft, but people don't die in minutes from infectious diseases either, otherwise they'd have a hard time being transmitted.

Re:Activism!

[Y2KDragon]

Besides, medical experimentation on Gnomes is much funnier.

Re:News flash?

[nahdude812]

In addition, being in the tightly enclosed space with recirculated air that is the aircraft, there's a good chance it won't be only yourself who is the vector on the other side. Hit the restroom early in the flight and increase those chances! This is probably even more effective than trying to cough on random people on the other side.

I doubt that it's that simple

[Moraelin]

I doubt that it's that simple. I can see how some of the reflex stuff, like the eye contact or distance from each other might count, so I'm not dismissing their research. But I'm saying you should know when to stop extrapolating from what they actually studied, to stuff that you just imagine _should_ work the same way.

1. Other stuff is more like built on logical decisions, and (consciously or subconsciously) min-maxing rewards vs risks within the rules of the game, not within the rules of RL. The solution picked in the game might be _very_ dissimilar to the one picked IRL.

E.g., rogues are popular in WoW because they're all-out-offense and get XP fast, and people are willing to take a few extra deaths if in the long term they level up faster. It's an option not many will take IRL. If someone told you you'll likely get a promotion faster if you run on foot across the highway daily, chances are you wouldn't take that risk. Or I don't think russian roulette is very popular a passtime IRL, as another example.

Or if you want another IRL comparison, take fencing, the original life-and-death kind. It was primarily defense oriented. The very name comes from "defence" via "defencing". The priority was defense, and harming the opponent was only left for when the oportunity presents itself. Both touching each other was _not_ an option, because then both would be dead. Then it was turned into a harmless sport based on points, and it went all aggressive instead of defensive, because that's what gets more point. Olympic fencing nowadays would look outright _absurd_ to a gentleman with a rapier from the days of yore. That's how much a behaviour can differ even when you simulate an activity IRL with RL props.

Essentially people are more willing to accept virtual "death" in a game (whether WoW or competition fencing) than IRL. That should already give you a hint that their reaction to having a deadly plague might not be exactly the same in WoW as IRL.

2. The study you linked is about Second Life, a primarily role-playing environment. I mean, it's not like there's even an actual game in there.

Role-playing is somewhat different from playing for xp, loot and honour points. Role-playing is primarily about acting, and making your character and reactions _believable_ to the other. I.e., the whole idea is to act like a RL human, or close enough. (Even if you RP a dwarf or elf or klingon, RP racial cultures are essentially just slightly exagerated human cultures and personalities.) So it makes sense that you'd pay attention to such details as whether your character would make eye contact, how close he'd stay to another guy, and that he'd react believably to the news of having a deadly plague. It's the whole point of RP, it's _expected_ that you do, and if you don't meet that expectation, you'll find less and less people want to RP with you.

In games like WoW, that assumption just doesn't exist any more. In WoW what's expected of you is that you make the most of the rules, and ignore stuff that doesn't directly impact your character's progress. What would be a realistic reaction suddenly doesn't really matter any more, unless you found yourself a group of die-hard roleplayers. Stuff that in a RP session would count as good RP (e.g., stopping to huff and pant when running uphill, or "omg, I'm gonna die" scenes when infected), here count at most of "lol, dude, you're funny" or even "yeah, yeah, cut it out with whining about realism already" if you overdo it.

And then there are some people who even make a point of acting as shocking or unconventional as possible, or even being as annoying as possible. E.g., I can assure you that in the WoW plague event a lot didn't think "omg, I'm so depressed that I'm gonna die", but quite the contrary, "bwahahaha, it's so cool that I can infect and kill non-PvP newbies." I.e., far from ruining their day as would happen IRL, it was the happiest day of their online life. Some even went and deliberately got infected just to that end.

So basically, just