quote: A deadly virtual plague has broken out in the online game World of Warcraft.
Although limited to only a few of the game's servers the numbers of characters that have fallen victim is thought to be in the thousands.
I don't play WoW but I know a lot of you do, so I'm assuming this is old news. Anyway, the thing that I thought was really newsworthy is the fact that something that exists not only online but also has very little bearing on the real world (it's not like a virus that affects real computers or people) can make news.
There's definately an element of tongue-in-cheekness in the article, but it's otherwise written so seriously. It's very 21st century to have news like this. It's like news about a lot of people loosing Monopoly property or something "crash on Monopoly market".
quote: The "Corrupted Blood" plague is not the first virtual disease to break out in online worlds. In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.
(reminds me of HHGTTG)
So, not only do we have to worry about real plague, but also computer virus plague (virtual plague) and then finally plague that virtual affects virtual people (virtual virtual plague).
Just wait until the sims computers' experience a virus plague. That'll be a virtual virtual virtual plague.
Anyway, I had to share.
EDIT: And I'm not trying to make fun of people's hobbies, pursuits, losses or genuine feelings but you have to see that this is quite... removed.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Is this a trial run for Avian flu? Are there any corrupted blood vaccines available? What sort of impact is this having on the infrastructure? What's the R rate of the infection (average number of new people infected from every case)? How about the mortality rate? When people recover are they immune from future exposures? I'd be interested to learn what people found out from studying the corrupted blood pandemic and how applicable it might be to our WoE.
<considers the possibility that given the mathematical nature of fundamental reality, our own "real" world is a simulation running on a vast computer called the universe>
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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What made Corrupted Blood outbreaks so nasty was the fact that the npcs could catch it. All you had to do was infect two npcs that stood close together in a high traffic area. The disease has a rather short duration but they would pass it back and forth until a group of players went by. Then it would spread and kill all the lowbies and any high level that was unfortunate enough to be AFK.
Corrupted Blood showing up anywhere outside Zul'Gurub was most definitely intentional on the part of players. Pets keep any negative status effects until summoned again. Because of the short duration the only way to get it out was to get a pet infected, then dismiss the pet. (This isn't the first time in WoW that pets have been used as carriers for nasty things either, eg. Baron Geddon's Living Bomb.)
I wish they had left it in, it added a certain amount of spice to hanging around in Orgrimmar.
Posts: 262 | Registered: May 2004
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Telp, that is an extremely good point. I don't think about sports news mostly because I don't follow it all and so I never read it except during the Olympics, but what is gaming but virtual sport?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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It's actually pretty funny to see the plague happen. It makes this...squishy...noise when you get it and start dying. Then everyone drops like flies. The chat at the bottom as people try to figure out what is going on is hysterical.
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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(reminds me of HHGTTG)
