More gaming news

World of Warcraft (Online Virtual Role-Playing Game) to be used to model disease outbreaks, if scientists have their way

NPR program “All Things Considered” reported yesterday that scientists are considering how the recent accidental spread of a plague in massively multiplayer game World of Warcraft might help them develop model responses to real-world disease outbreaks.
When the plague hit, player reactions ran the gamut from anarchic (porting to a town center to infect as many people as possible) to altruistic (running around resurrecting other players). Overall, player reactions were “remarkably realistic.”
For example one player was “crying out in his virtual world and shouting for people in charge—the is the game creators—to do something.” Sounds an awful lot like some of the pleas from those trapped in the Superdome in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The program quoted WoW’s lead producer as saying Blizzard isn’t averse to experimenting with the concept in the future.