World of Warcraft Epidemiology - The Corrupted Blood Plague (And Why It Matters) - Extra Credits

[@extrahistory]

If you or a loved one played World of Warcraft in 2005, you may be entitled to financial compensation.

[@kristiecarroll5835]

Extra Credits hi

[@ahumblemerchant241]

Gib my money nao

[@SpathaMagna]

Wasn't this subject covered on EC previously?

[@jaydenliberty9536]

WOW this was a long time coming. I forgot about it

[@Jon-id7ki]

@@SpathaMagna iirc it was glossed over before. I don't remember which video.

[@andrebetita]

"Other players decided that, sick or not, they still needed to make money. So they did the equivalent of going to work." => I'm watching this in 2020 and this hits so hard all my gear is broken now.

[@andrebetita]

@Regan Beazley not during the incident itself. I joined the game around or shortly before TBC launch (didn't know enough yet to be able to tell the difference)

[@potatolord9715]

Desolate.

[@balover2010]

I'm here in 2023 and that "pandemics are rare" line felt so...innocently foreboding

[@lazzerchicken]

​@@balover2010true that

[@FelipeSxy01]

Yet the countries that did not close, ended up having fewer deaths and were not economically impacted as much as those that did. As well as Florida.

[@illidan124825634]

Fun fact, in the current expansion Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard weaved the corrupted blood plague into the lore of the game. The plague had once ravaged the ancient troll empire of Zandalar, which was caused by a troll wanting to summon Hakkar. The result was thousands and thousands of death and the creation of blood troll, trolls obsessed with blood magic. Blood troll and blood magic is currently the main antagonist in the game as of patch 8.0.

[@TheRealPentigan]

However in a weird twist of fate, one paladin brought a ticking debuff disease INTO the prison of the blood contagion and they did it on purpose!

[@ilikeceral3]

That’s super cool, I wish more mmos would integrate real incidents into their lore.

[@danieliglesias7119]

@@ilikeceral3 If i'm right EVE Online included its biggest battle into a monument

[@Scriptedviolince]

@@danieliglesias7119 IIRC EVE Online is kinda interesting actually, because the dev's outright said that everything that happened in the game is canon. The dissolution of BoB, the war between Goonswarm and HBC, and everything else are apparently canonized. The monument actually consists of the wrecks floating permanently where they died.

[@MrJoshy]

In ffxiv, they included their failed version into the lore by having A calamity to basically wipe out the 1.0 to make a realm reborn aka 2.0

[@LagunaCrale]

A small note - the exact bug going on wasn't that people forgot to heal their pets, it's that pets could be swapped out. So a player would dismiss a pet with Corrupted Blood, and pull out a different pet more effective for the encounter. The battle would end, and corrupted blood would too. But the dismissed pet still had it - so when you called that pet back out, it could transfer Corrupted Blood. (So, the bug is that the game wasn't dumping states on pets dismissed during battle).

[@VyreXP]

aka they didn't cure the pets before dismissing them. if you noticed they avoided talking about unimportant and specific technical mechanics that people who haven't played wouldn't understand without explanation.

[@roberteltze4850]

Correct. The epidemic didn't escape by accident. It was very deliberate. It was a trick learned with the bomb debuff in Molten Core so it was no great leap of logic for people to expect the same thing to work with the corrupted blood debuff.

[@Pile_of_carbon]

Too bad it didn't work with Burning Blood as well.

[@humusvitruvian1143]

Yup, must of the spreading and infecting was done intentionally. I was a high lvl horde player at the time and we infected most of the low level alliance zones... just because we could (and they did the same to the horde zones)

[@MisterJasro]

@@humusvitruvian1143 So it's Biowarefare? Hmmm reminds me of how the native americans got decimated by the European germs

[@adeadphish7931]

Fun fact, the CDC is actually referencing this event as a model Of pandemic response in addressing COVID-19 and some players have even cited similarities in behavior between current quarantines and back then

[@MylaMinoki]

Like the Trolls intentionally killing toons who didn't have the plague. Kinda like idiots not wearing masks on purpose.

[@3asianassassin]

Oh lord I fucking hate the behavior thing.

[@Peter_Siri]

@@MylaMinoki We have the luxury of respawning with the risk of losing our resources, which is why trolls can be trolls, but now this behavior has real world consequences.

[@MylaMinoki]

With how some of the unvaxxed have been talking, I think they believe they can respawn.......

[@MrPicklesAndTea]

@@MylaMinoki Am unvaxxed, can confirm, I do, indeed, respawn.

[@delsquaredprogramming5279]

"pandemics are thankfully rare" Cries in coronavirus

[@boomdos4265]

Rare enough that there are now TWO current pandemics.

[@AoTheMighty]

They usually come once every 100 years

[@jameskingsbery3644]

A follow up video detailing what researchers learned about getting people to stay in place and stop going to W-Orc would be helpful.

[@ivanplavanko3562]

Now no respawns

[@grahamturner2640]

DelSquared Programming And the last huge one was 10 years ago (swine flu, which infected 10s of millions of people or more and killed only a few hundred thousand). And that epidemic started in the United States.

[@conan2735]

i remember this so clearly. The corpses littering Durotar all the way to Thunderbluff and undercity. death was everywhere except the wilderness. luckily i was maxed out and tried to help as much as possible, i actually felt like a doctor and loved playing Priest. ah the good old days of WoW with the best community ever. Those were the days

[@chickencrusade3886]

i hope they dont fix the glitch in Classic Servers :3

[@nefhelimwhat609]

conan273 fun fact: the plague is actually the reason I stop play WOW, after getting killed like 600 times

[@chickencrusade3886]

that is incredibly short sited and sad fish :U

[@garcalej]

FEMA failed WoW. But the community endures.

[@headlesshunter8435]

Now its hardly the same, I dont see how classic WoW should take so long when custom servers were doing it for years

[@misterb3037]

One of the the things you didn’t mention was how their were groups of people going around as effectively hit squads killing anyone with the corrupted blood

[@ody131313]

This is the first time I heard about that. Why would the enemy faction go and kill opposite faction players? Why would an Alliance player care if the Horde were being decimated by the plague? That sounds very weird.

[@nicolasouimet4176]

@Mister B303 Now this is just a stupid idea... But we are morons by nature... Almost...

[@TheRayny]

it seems rather unreasonable however? i mean you can kill people only of the different faction, how could horde players coordinate with allies ones? why they would even care to some degree compared to their in-house problem? if an ally got too close to an horde city it would have been killed aniway xD

[@nekoali2]

They also missed that it wasn't really accidental that population centers were being infected. Once people realized that their pets were infected and remained so even if dismissed, they would go to the raid, get their pets infected and then dismiss them. Afterwards they would walking into a city or auction house and summon their pets to deliberately infect people. This is part of why it kept going, even if it was eliminated in an area, people would deliberately bring carriers in to re-infect cleaned areas. Blizzard deliberately tried to replicate this with the lead in story to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion too, via infected food stores that eventually started changing PCs into zombies. Who could then attack and infect others, even on PVE servers. There was a lot of backlash to this event.. People either loved or hated it. I was one of those in the 'love' camp. I'd spend my time in infected areas.. entire towns or cities taken over by the zombies trying to cure who I could. And, when I eventually became infected, I did my best to spread the plague as a dutiful servant of the Scourge. As much as I was just annoyed by the Zul'Gurub plague when it happened, I loved the Wrath intro because it broke up the routine, but ultimately was only going to last a short time. And it was fun to play the bad guy in limited circumstances.

[@youngpistol6117]

The historic parallels are astounding

[@dragonslair951167]

Another important detail is that there was no way for players to develop an immunity to the plague, no matter how many times they were infected. The same player could be infected over and over indefinitely, meaning that herd immunity would never kick in to deprive the plague of new hosts.

[@Bombom1300]

That is an interesting detail! And also a very relevant one to diseases which mutate quickly enough to rapidly negate immunities, such as the Flu and potentially COVID-19.

[@jts1702a]

>>Over and over indefinitely Just. Like. This. Pandemic.

[@LastDoppelganger]

They were healed over and over, only to be reinfected and die

[@zuus87]

Me 6 months ago: yea but nobody would go out and purposely try to infect people just for funsies Me now: oh my God they were right

[@hauntedshadowslegacy2826]

I was at a thrift store in December, and there was a loud-mouthed jackass not wearing a mask and just bellowing his disgusting breath all over everything. They were indeed right.

[@nooneleftbehide]

Licking Ice-cream

[@GhostKitten69]

"the next big epidemic" I'm from the future. Corona virus says hey.

[@cosmicfails2053]

And literally everything that happened in WoW is happening IRL There are people spitting at people and on food

[@Feefa99]

Society need patch with update

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@cosmicfails2053 "And literally everything that happened in WoW is happening IRL There are people spitting at people and on food" lol, anyone surprised...? i expected that as soon as i heard of the new virus ^^

[@LightmareShadow]

and goes very similarly to this story

[@averylonelypotato]

I’m from 2040: The flu says hello

[@chadirby6216]

For the Lich King expansion, Blizzard did an intentional tribute to the Corrupted Blood plague, with the zombie plague. It was pretty similar, but nowhere near as deadly. On our server, we organized a countermeasure, intentionally using a real-world tactic: Ring Inoculation. We'd start at the entry points (city gates, inns, and the tram tunnel), post some healers there, and start working our way to the middle of the city. We got to the point where we could clear Stormwind completely in just a few minutes, and cure the incoming "terrorist" players as they tried to enter the city. After that, we just had to handle the occasional pop-up infection from the normal vectors and keep an eye on the entries for new zombies.

[@acebalistic1358]

Chad Irby progressive.

[@matthewgarofolo7231]

That sounds like how a real magic society would deal with an epidemic

[@PlaceHolderMechanic]

@@matthewgarofolo7231 unlike what they did at strathholme...

[@matthewgarofolo7231]

Duke Frostfell what happened at strathholme?

[@xandercorp6175]

@@matthewgarofolo7231 Play Warcraft 3, the Stratholme scenario was pretty fun.

[@CarMADforever]

I wonder if any dev companies running high count MMOs actually get approached by the scientific communities to "engineer" an outbreak, like this happened 13 years ago now and I personally haven't heard of anything like this happening since or on such a scale.... I think it's time to incite a little bit of chaos again, for science

[@crypticcorvid]

*cough* Yeah, f-for science...

[@geckoo9190]

sure sure, just for science, that and to see the world burning.

[@wolfbyte3171]

Blizzard did do a repeat of the incident in a zombie halloween patch. However, it wasn't as effective then because everyone knew it was coming.

[@starmangalaxy2001]

Yeah. The only other "plagues" that I know of in gaming have been helpful, Pokerus, and the infections from the ARG before Destiny: Rise of Iron. I wouldn't mind if that for a limited time (about a week would be good) a plague would ravage the game's player's and if the game doesn't have friendly fire normally, then enable it. Just to see how people react.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Blizzard tried to recreate it in a 'fun' sort of way when they dropped WotLK expansion. Didn't have quite the reaction that the original did, but it was an inconvenience.

[@nelswolf]

"May help save actual lives in the real world." Politicians: allow us to introduce ourselves

[@LordOfNothingreally]

For once I'll side with (most) politicians. I'm pretty sure stupid people who ignore quarantine or protest preventative measures are the real live trolls in this situation.

[@Yafama]

LordOfNothingreally Some politicians like bolsonaro aren’t helping either.

[@ziggyzoggin]

more like karens

[@jackbucher2049]

@@LordOfNothingreally except for the politicians telling people to ignore said quarantine or protective measures

[@Koekfluksthegreat]

^

[@moonstruck8245]

It was so fascinating to see how people reacted to the outbreak, the real-life methods people took to deal with it - some running and living in quarantine, some trying to help, some being malicious. It's neat to see how even in a virtual world, humanity always reacts the same way to situations that reflect ones in real life.

[@aelfrey3918]

I have heard of this tale before, and when I saw what this video is about, I dropped everything to watch it! Thank you for bringing this to us!

[@yosefsamson6678]

Same

[@ASLTheatre]

This is my favorite story of how games can benefit IRL.

[@drive2160]

:) lol

[@Shady22]

Time to study this some more... Might be needed soon

[@moleim3727]

its corona time !

[@xandercorp6175]

People are too busy studying the real-world data streaming in real time.

[@sarahluchies1076]

But look at the severity of the quarantines. I think we did learn something.

[@flyingsalmons934]

Yes

[@wedoesdostuff6212]

10/10 recommended to study

[@D3Vlicious]

"Because pandemics are, thankfully, rare." Yet here we are a bit over a year after.

[@chirsgw5360]

Still rare.

[@boomdos4265]

@@chirsgw5360 Yup. Although we are in the midst of two Pandemics. One many people have forgotten about...

[@sargentvanguard7612]

What happened in 2009(Im not telling why cuz p.i.)

[@chicks_before_dicks]

@@boomdos4265 what's the other one?

[@cristofercalleros1906]

Relate doesn’t mean impossible and the fact you’re living amongst a pandemic during your projected 90 year life span isn’t something spectacular. Unless this is the disease that changes humanity forever

[@deusexaethera]

When COVID-19 is over, please do some research and make a video about whether the studies resulting from this "digital pandemic" actually provided any useful strategies for dealing with COVID-19. I will be interested to hear what the similarities and differences were.

[@tauIrrydah]

Oof relevant. Stay home wash your hands.

[@peregrinemiles7936]

I was there. Cleansing noobs trying to escape ironforge. We only managed to hold the line for 2 hours. We ended up driven all the way back into instances trying to find functional vendors.

[@rosebearcat]

I was also there trying to heal people in Orgrimmar and blocking off the auction house

[@sirrliv]

Also, on a sadder note, I wanted to emphasize a bit of the story that you chaps seemed to have glossed over: Several sources I've read (most of them biased in not exactly anti-gamer, but certainly gamers in a harsher light, granted) have cited many incidents during the Corrupted Blood Plague of what can only be described as bio-terrorism. Some high level players with more wicked intent, ranging from just trying to spread mischief without realizing the full extent of the plague to those who were actively maliciously trying to do evil, would deliberately rush their way to the final boss and intentionally infect either themselves or their pets, warping back to the cities before they died and spreading the plague as much as they could in the limited time they had. The worst victims of this sort of griefing were new players who were (and still are) often bullied by more experienced players. These incidents of players deliberately spreading the plague have also been noticed by researchers and noted in some articles; sometimes, if someone knows they're going to die, they have nothing left to lose and will just want to see the world burn.

[@warriorfire8103]

For every behavior we have real world examples. It's interesting and scary.

[@Aereto]

You can find supervillainy in the desperate. Some prefer to end with a bang than a whimper.

[@DblDg1252]

That was called pet bombing, it was intentionally used to break priest cleanse camps and quarantine zones. I was there when one made it into the goldshire quarantine zone. Mat did mention that during his talk about people flagging themselves as infected

[@johnuferbach9166]

just that this plague was more of a gigantic annoyance and didn't cause actual death in any form, which is quite a difference^^

[@JF95]

Yea, thing about calling this evil or wicked though is that, as others have pointed out, this was a pastel and prime color painted cartoon make believe world. Nothing that has happened in this game has ever been important, though it can sometimes be very interesting to watch unfold. Terrorism is a bit of stretch when the worst that can happen to you is minor inconvenience.

[@Littleman3240]

"same time next week?" "see you then" Boss fight grinding in a nutshell

[@taufiqutomo]

During this coronavirus pandemic, every single thing mentioned in this video has happened ... except the one where people flag themselves as infected.

[@littletrooper]

Arguably happened in a small scale with people trying to get out of work and whatnot

[@jackfoxx6351]

To avoid infection i claimed i was infected. Not trying to get sick for a pizza job.

[@mattkuhn6634]

I remember the Corrupted Blood plague - it was fascinating while it happened! Minor quibble though - Stormwind wasn't the primary Alliance capital at the time. Only Orgrimmar and Ironforge had the faction Auction Houses, so Ironforge was the primary city for the Alliance. Every city didn't get an AH until patch 1.9, well after corrupted blood.

[@francesco8000]

"no one gets real life respawn" Jesus "Noobs, get good".

[@dr.vikyll7466]

No fair Jesus OP pls nerf

[@LakritsUwU]

Jesus is not OP he just mained the holy spec

[@dr.vikyll7466]

@@LakritsUwU yeah but the whole holy tree is OP yes you have severe weaknesses to some things depending on your choices nails for example but you are immune to most other weapons and status effects

[@MrJears]

@@dr.vikyll7466 True, but it requires extreme lifestyle sacrifices. I suggest levelling your demonic stats instead. You might be able to change your race or gain a beneficial curse in order acquire semi-immortality like vampirism and lycantropy. Not as good as the holy tree immortality, but you're allowed much more freedom.

[@Anastas1786]

Heh... "Get good..."

[@sirrliv]

Just throwing this out there, possible idea for a new recurring segment a la "Games You Might Not Have Tried": Extra Gaming History. There's been some truly incredible events that have happened in games development, such as the development of E.T. for the Atari 2600 (and the general Gaming Crash of the 80's) or Daikatana, as well as events that have happened within games themselves, such as "The Fountain War" in Eve Online, that would undoubtedly warrant coverage both for the amazing stories they tell and for the impact and legacy they've left on the gaming medium and on fans. This episode here would be a perfect pilot for such a series.

[@commonviewer2488]

sirrliv Historical Events in Gaming sounds interesting, both real world development cycles, and player behavior can make for some intriguing lessons.

[@ingamrvr]

The Fountain War is definitely an interesting event.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Extra Credits: if you see this; please cover EVE online’s warfare in general, not just the fountain war. I’m fairly certain fountain has been topped in player count and US dollars lost by more recent events in that game.

[@MrDuncanBelfast]

Does it involve laughing at an industry that never learns anything, tee hee hee?

[@tomfranck8821]

When i read the first examples i immediately thought "let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything, teeheehee"

[@archwarrior6686]

Why does no one make MMO zombie games about this? Where the part of the goal is not to kill as many zombies as you can but to save as many lives as you can while also trying to cure people.

[@SuperMetroPolice1]

There is one. It's called Pathologic.

[@SuperMetroPolice1]

Well. It's less of an MMO, and more of a game- but the base premise is the same.

[@Ashalmawia]

not an MMO but lookup Plague Inc. (oh I guess you're not trying actually to help people in that, but it is probably the best virus/infection related game there is from what I've heard).

[@Kevinofrepublic]

Because thats frustrating and not a way to make a long term fun game. Instead of facing the frustration players would rather be godlike characters who kill thousands of things with little to no effort because thats fun and fun is profitable.

[@FalbertForester]

There's a series of board games, called Pandemic, which does this is a slightly abstracted way. Fun games!

[@ryanhughes9619]

When I first watched this I thought "nothing that interesting or world changing will ever happen our health and ability to communicate such things would render any epidemic to stay in two countries with a few small cases in other countries," well we all know how that turned out don't we.

[@grfrjiglstan]

Our interconnectivity turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.

[@HoppingSkipper]

This case study scares me with how close it was to reality

[@JordanYee]

I would love if Extra Credits had a Extra Game History series where they discuss iconic events in gaming communities. Oh imagine the incredible things this channel could do with all those crazy EVE Online events! :D

[@Sylocat]

Remember that big EVE Online scam with the fake company built to scam people with the goal of buying this ridiculously expensive ship?

[@alexparker5127]

You could dedicate an entire channel to the insanity of EVE Online events. Some of those rival WWI in complexity.

[@thatoneguy9582]

I haven’t heard of EVE online before but I have so many fucking questions

[@suboardi]

why isnt this an extra history episode? the corrupted blood plague quite literally made history

[@spookyaliens6286]

I would love to play an MMO that had events like real-life disasters like hurricanes, diseases and seasons. If I had to migrate to a different starting zone because one area got ravanaged, and there is a network of player and NPCs that help people get there.

[@CAD6343]

"Because the more we know, the less lives the next big outbreak will take" Politicians and antimask trolls: "hold my beer"

[@keithengle592]

The literal thought I had when they said that line

[@shawnc292]

This is the whole point though studying people not the illness itself is the value during a pandemic

[@Arjun0905]

Hold this bottle of delicious corona Extra

[@joel-uw2lg]

Some people are just stupid

[@0xXMagnusXx0]

"pandemics are, fortunately, rare". Wh's coming here to check this out after your country got the covid19?

[@elijahshott3931]

Covid19 is the disease, but the virus you catch is SARS-CoV-2, just fyi

[@0xXMagnusXx0]

@@elijahshott3931 I meant the disease.

[@GodsRemote]

Yeah. Here I am in America and we are slowly dying... a president who said Milleria pills works and people who are like "If I get corona virus, I don't care nothing is gonna stop me from partying" we are done for if they don't do something fast.

[@gibbous_silver]

Poopie

[@Kodaiva]

I mean, it’s not like that changes much, still rare

[@billybones79]

A lot of this info is kinda wrong. The plague did not last for long on player and was very visible and loud (there was a big blood explosion when it ticked). So all that jazz about NPCs being symptomless patients, and player flagging themselves as sick is wrong, because it's pretty easy to see who has the plague and who does not. The problem with npcs is that they were close enough together to spread the diseases to one another, keeping the disease always "up".

[@PedricCuf]

Thank you. I kept scrolling through the comments for this, because I was there, and those things seemed absolutely wrong, but I wasn't certain if I was just misremembering things.

[@SvenSimonsen]

Jep. Only lasted 10sec. It also cleared on death. Wich makes it more interesting because you would think that the plague would fizzle out once enough people died or got over it. But reinfections and constant moving in of respawns, unknowing players and even gawkers kept it alive. This crowd behavior made it a living moving system, which is why scientists even cared. Kinda shoddy on the details here EC.

[@The-Plaguefellow]

I come from The Future! And I bring Great & Terrible news!

[@AEther0238]

I had an account in 2005, but I was 6 irl, and didnt play/remeber it, and that disappoints me, because this seems like it'd be a cool experience.

[@acebalistic1358]

Oh I’m 6 and I’m gonna play a new game! World burns and covered with bones 🦴 What the heck

[@nanonymous8223]

I'm in Michigan where covid incidents are relatively isolated atm. I know the next thing to expect is people migrating to the cleaner counties trying to get away and bringing the plague with them.

[@CorvetteEnthusiast]

Michiganders unite!

[@CorvetteEnthusiast]

Jk, social distancing

[@Ry_TSG]

Well that indeed has happened in America, so WoW was right agian

[@ilackthebrainpowertothinko78]

“Scientists don’t know how humanity would behave during a pandemic” well, there are toilet paper shortages, no sports or anything and much more happening all from a pandemic so I guess this is a good experiment

[@user-ps2sg8qr2k]

Fun fact : The Goblin Vampire suck your blood, so they use corrupted blood as bio weapon so the Goblin Vampire die bit by bit because of the disease

[@TerLoki]

So, crazy idea, just hear me out. What if an MMO were to do a planned "plague" event in-universe. They don't say where or EXACTLY when it will happen, just that after a certain point it has a chance to happen. During the event player-characters will NOT respawn if they die of the plague until after the event (but if that happens you can make a temporary character in the mean-time at a certain level based on your character that died), and NPCs, companions, etc. can be carriers. Players who are healers, mages, medics, and other support or sciencey type class will be given quests to help develop a vaccine to stop the plague, which they will then need to test on volunteers. Players can earn rewards by setting up quarantines and screening characters for illness to help slow or stop the spread of the plague. And the event only ends once the percentage of infected players lowers back down to a certain threshold. Those that participate can get neat equipment, titles, etc. and if the event ever rolls around for another go a degree of immunity. Personally I think that would be really cool, but I've been known to say that about some terrible ideas so... Grain of salt.

[@mstorer3772]

More than zero players would stop playing. That's why this'll never happen. Can't lose those subscribers.

[@stazvlad2937]

sorry bud this wont happen its too umm childish i guess or planned out

[@Jaxter0987]

Players not respawning instantly nixes this plague event idea and makes it a terrible one. If a player's character doesn't respawn for the duration of this event. They're not going to make temporary characters to continue playing, they'll just stop playing. If this MMO is a subscription based one, the backlash would be even worse than just players not playing.

[@ruruasile9600]

👀👀👀👀

[@h.m.8068]

Now this is an intresting topic. Great job as always!

[@TheAsvarduilProject]

This is the Extra Creditz I used to love back in the day - intelligent discourse about the practical impacts of games and the process of their development. I am most happy at this return to form.

[@alise1973]

So cool. I am an Infections Disease nurse who plays games but not WOW. This stuff is cool. I really love hearing the details of this incident.

[@geckoo9190]

Yea I think that is pretty interesting, I mean try to get so much data from a real disease.

[@ACuriousTanuki]

There's a GDC talk that goes into more detail, worth the watch

[@graysongdl]

What's the title? I want to watch it, now.

[@mstorer3772]

Go find those papers. I've heard some of the details from Blizzard's Head Of WoW Servers guy (we worked together on EQNext (don't get me started)) at the time, those details don't quite line up. I would hope an academic paper would be more accurate.

[@urielseptim910]

Solution to coronavirus: Hold signs saying "I have coronavirus!"

[@samburnes9389]

I mean, there are people intentionally infecting others, so human behavior didn’t change that much.

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

lol everyone quoting him saying "that deseases are rare" and then counterargumenting with covid19... you guys know that just because something is rare and happens... it's still rare. the argument would be true if we had like different new outbreaks every month

[@gregoryjean5442]

But we do this is 2020 there's no breaks

[@JordanYee]

YES! Such an iconic story in mmo history, and I'm super happy Extra Credits is finally telling the story :D

[@nirast2561]

Just shared this with my friend who studies medicine, waitng for his response.

[@alphakicker8499]

radu nicolae can’t tell if you’re joking or if you actually shared it. xD

[@w.kuiper316]

Please report back! I’d love to hear his opinion

[@nirast2561]

+Saurius ok, I reported you. . . . . Oh, you mean report from my friend! Yeah, I'll send you a comment once I find out his opinion, but don't hold your breath, he's slow to answer.

[@bruvamichal7437]

Me too

[@TheMrCarnification]

Sticking around for the response

[@xam7536]

And then came the Wrath of the Lich King pre-launch event, where Blizzard intentionally caused a similar outbreak. Only this time, dying to the disease turned you into a zombie.

[@silverbane8065]

Yeah, but that was designed that way and we knew going in what was going on. You got a debuff and it warned you to go to a city and get cleaned by the newly available priests. We had timers and warnings so you could choose to take part in the zombie event or to just get cleaned lol it was quite fun

[@TheMagnay]

Oh i remember that, players would intentionally infect others by using a ability then when the timer ran out you transformed.

[@edschramm6757]

i never got turned, i mostly hid in areas that would be hard to reach for the infected, especially when the timers dropped to 2 minutes, hiding in areas that were only accessible with flight became an effective strategy. first day or two, it was easy enough to keep it off you. once phase 3 or 4 hit, almost all of the healers vanished, so you had to rely on other players of your level or higher keeping you cleared.

[@andrewwynne6934]

2018: This could save actual lives in the future. 2020: I'm about to ruin this species whole career.

[@vidim888]

I would love to see a follow-up on this topic now after everything with COVID happened. How much researchers got right and what went differently

[@philippebelozeroff9346]

"In the future" A.K.A. almost 2 years later.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

squarespace is another online epidemic

[@gromigur]

if we get more Extra credits thx to some add I personally don't care. KZbinrs have to live on something since the adpocalypse and eh squarespace is at least something those who want it may not know about and those who don't wont have to care.

[@Jon-id7ki]

They sponsor everything, lol.

[@theharbingerofconflation]

cancer web sandbox

[@REXanadu]

"Stay away! I'm *cough cough* sponsored by Squarespace"

[@toboterxp8155]

Nah, their a shotgun.

[@IQuick143cz]

Events like these are always so interesting, thanks for making such great videos about them.

[@BlaxeFrost-X]

it's sad it was an accident

[@IQuick143cz]

I didn't mean event as in intentional event made by the devs but as a historic event of sorts.

[@edge21str]

Man, a couple of months ago this got me into extra credits and now I've binged the 390 previous episodes and I'm about to watch the rest.

[@DD-ms7ek]

Huh, that s called foreshadowing

[@playwars3037]

You know, while a lot of people complain about games being completely unrealistic, they sure provide a lot of data for real life phenomenons (like Eve Online and it's economy).

[@StefanDieWaldfee]

Blizzard did something similar as an event, when the expansion Wrath of the Lich King launched. People could be infected in the cities and turn into undead which would then attack friendly players

[@Revenante_of_Asylum]

I remember this event too. Fun bit of trivia, you could communicate with fellow infectees after turning. Including infectees from the opposite faction Got infected by a guy who said he was a draenei, and I was undead (no, not a zombie undead, I mean the race undead). We had a chill chat afterwards.

[@Kurtizss]

Watching this while The CoronaVirus spreading in my homeland of The Philippines

[@pepsmcpoppin9995]

F

[@intricatelast-name5291]

Patay, Your mom is behind.

[@lordmiraak8991]

The same thing happened in the mmorpg elder scrolls online some time ago although less sever, there is a sort of 12man raid where you get contracted by poison and can pass it to your teammates. Its old content and locked behind a loading screen so you cant take it out of the raid. But some time ago a bug infected a load of players in a high end zone, leading to literally everyone being poisoned and dying. Although you could see whos infected (by a big green circle which is also the way it spread) some people intentionally tried to infect more for the memes, in the end it didnt last that long and got patched pretty quickly

[@devnandannair2336]

"so much real world behavior happened" "the system broke down because people started trying to infect others so people tried to disguise as infected people" oh shoot literally

[@neotheresa]

“The less lives the next big outbreak will take” Oh, honey

[@nickolas474]

Warframe. Nidus. Consensus: Fashion is more important.

[@Lunictd]

I was kinda looking for this comment. To be fair, the worst thing that happens in Warframe if you get the Infested Cyst is walking around with a pink blob on your neck and getting an OP Infested Pet as a companion.

[@Cyancat123]

"a nice fireside tale of death and epidemics" OH! I KNOW THIS ONE!

[@TimeAce]

I love that extra talks about everything from mythology to games. Thank you so much!

[@SalimDoodles]

I think you guys should do more videos talking about diseases and outbreaks, I never found myself so interested in these topics until I stumbled upon your videos (this one and the 1918 flu series) They're incredibly well written and explain so much about the diseases, it's amazing!!

[@SuarezDigital]

Wow. Watching this in September, everything they talked about actually happened.

[@Reishadowen]

KZbin in 2020: "Hey! This looks like a fun video!"

[@porkchop13]

Man, these guys did a perfect 2020 video in 2018. Hell, Blizzard warned everyone back in 2005. Life is a big joke, innit?

[@alvarocardenas3865]

Who is watching this during coronavirus?

[@Woooo0000p]

Me

[@selimyucel741]

Me

[@sussyfor]

Me

[@celtoucan4956]

You

[@spootot]

not me

[@pwnwin]

From 2020, this video is way ahead of its time.

[@MattSinz]

I hope corrupted blood comes back in WoW Classic, just for a day.

[@professorflickmcslippers7318]

Would love to see a game do plauge events.

[@geckoo9190]

Well actually there is plague inc, it actually applies several concepts of epidemiology although there we play for the bad side.

[@crunchyfloor5455]

This video hits different in 2020.

[@SuperHamsterhuey]

"Damn, I wish we had a better case study for epidemiology than a fucking video game" *Monkey's paw curls*

[@kenmc407]

"And how it may save real lives in the future." God I wish that was the case.

[@alicethetransdalek7333]

i wasn't expecting a video about that in 2018, nice to see that it still is a kinda relevant topic

[@trekiegoddess]

Your *real world* patch has been installed. You may now complete the study on how humanity will react.

[@DavidRichardson153]

That's the thing about virtual studies. They can't cover everything and are hardly ideal, but something is better than nothing, and the more potential information you have the better. If these studies help with real cases, then the studies did their job.

[@scene2much]

Past is Prologue. I "totally" shared this as an apolitical example of pandemics and human behavior. You have done the world of 2020 a "solid", though billions of the claps potentiated are one-handed.

[@tracesosebee5485]

"But that means we don't have a lot of data on them. Especially how humanity behaves during them." Well we sure have lots of data now

[@Garvm]

KZbin algorithm has been so funny to bring this today

[@highlyneurotic8384]

watching this in 2021 is surreal

[@quietone610]

@2:01 Pets, huh? When the house is warm and the food is hot The guinea pig cries forget me not Alas, some Sims may clean their own, Only to forget a guinea pig's home Hungry and cold, a pig feels no love This breeds contempt for masters above Expecting to play after many a night. Who is surprised by the guinea pig's bite Uncleaned, unloved a pig's life means naught Like a child's play thing, It is simply forgot, But warnings to all who turn a deaf ear Let the curse of the guinea pig always bring fear

[@TreetopCanopy]

Love this mix of games, world-building, and real life. Thank you!

[@dustypaladin9216]

man this hits way harder when you realize that it doesnt matter how much scientists learn when the goverments dont fing listen to them.

[@alexanderklass2172]

WoW predicted the corona virus exactly we have the people who -ignore corona -ignore quarantine -are doctors

[@indomations5611]

Why haven’t you guys made a video series on the Black Death? You really should.

[@DanCooper404]

Oh, I think plenty of researchers have gotten the information they need now.

[@jarredhall9555]

lol I remember Barrens chat. When we weren’t kiting world bosses into enemy towns we were trying to kill each other. The plague was gnarly though and a lot of this was very intentional.

[@whateverthisis389]

Game Theory and Extra Credits should collaborate,like,Extra Credits did indirectly create the Theory Channels(Matpat is a huge fan of Extra Credits,and was inspired to do the same thing they're doing)but yea

[@bloxotrotbt4732]

When a miss code turned to a pandemic.

[@ShibuNub3305]

God is sweating in the corner.

[@0ctaviaPony]

Ironforge was the hotspot for Alliance players back then. Stormwind didnt have an Auction house, so you didnt see very many people hang out there.

[@uncensored008]

This girl Vanilla'd. Ironforge was the shit back in the day and Stormwind was just a little bit more populated than Darnassus. I do miss those days.

[@TheDarkmaster1818]

Watching this in 2020 hits different.

[@toefour]

I was there for this! I remember logging into wow and seeing the quarenteen zones players had setup, the griefers charging their infected selves into the AH and as a priest I joined the effort to try and cure people! I still tell people, gamer and non-gamer about this event and how interesting it was. I think game worlds like MMOs should embrace this type of event perhaps making things like this a feature.

[@MechanicWolf85]

To think all of this happened in a game by accident is amazing

[@mattdarrock666]

Quick survey: When he said ''With a mighty battle cry'', how many of you immediately tought or shouted ''LEEEEROY JENKINS''?

[@connormclernon26]

Matt Darrock yes

[@finnianquail8881]

Me

[@samiraperi467]

/dbm pull 10

[@edschramm6757]

at least i have chicken

[@Tydorstus]

Yup

[@StefanoBorini]

So one thing we found out with covid is that the real world behaved exactly the same way

[@fightinjack]

Honestly so glad that this applies to real life now. Once again another reason why videogames are actually useful to real life, and cannot be ignored. Thanks for your content! (Liked the game citizen science episode too!)

[@caffemocca8855]

We are living in a video game as well

[@tankofnova9022]

You forgot to mention that a lot of people would go to this raid for the sole purpose of infecting there pets just so they can add to the viral inferno.

[@The-ms2ub]

Yo I’ve seen many of this guys shorts recently I had no clue they made a video on this incident too