Real-World Lessons From a ‘World of Warcraft’ Virtual Outbreak

When it comes to a worldwide pandemic, human beings are the supreme wild card. That makes it challenging to build precise mathematical designs to predict how the development of the illness will play out. We’ve definitely seen lots of all-too-human actions to coronavirus over the last two weeks, with some individuals panicking and hoarding food, bathroom tissue, and hand sanitizer. Others hold on to rejection, and still others are defying calls for “ social distancing” by continuing to go to dining establishments, bars, concerts, and so forth. Our epidemiological models are a bit much better able to account for that unpredictability thanks in part to a virtual break out in Wow nearly fifteen years back, referred to as the “ Corrupted Blood incident.“

The Damaged Blood break out was not deliberate. In 2005, Blizzard Entertainment added a new dungeon called Zul’ Burub into World of Warcraft for extremely advanced gamers, managed by an “end boss” called Hakkar. Hakkar was a blood god called the Soulflayer, who had, among his toolbox of weapons, a “debuff” spell called “Corrupted Blood.” Contaminated players would suffer damage at routine repeating periods, draining away their “struck points” up until their avatars blew up in a cloud of blood. The only treatment was to kill Hakkar.

Blizzard thought this would make sure the infection wouldn’t spread out beyond that area. They were wrong. Instead of standing their ground, many contaminated gamers panicked, teleporting out of the dungeon prior to passing away or killing Hakkar, and taking the d