Are we another social experiment?

PVP Battlegrounds
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Does anyone remember the plague? It ended up being a social experiment for the WHO. I’m starting to wonder if the imbalance, which could possibly mimic current world events, isn’t deliberate.

I know it sounds stupid, but I do wonder.

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Ok, I spent a good 5 min trying to figure a correlation between the current state of the game and current events. Couldn’t find one that made sense, please explain for my enlightenment and/or amusement.

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Are you talking about the Corrupted Blood?

That was legitimately a bug, but the reaction to it was what was/is used for research. It wasn’t a planned experiment.

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I thought who was on first

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What about the current state of PvP compared to the current state of politics? Is it just a coincidence that the colors of the factions match those for the political parties? What about twinks in the xp-on bracket and the 1%? What about fish feasts and poké bowls?

:alien:

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Oh I’m sorry, I do that. I frequently assume everybody knows what I’m talking about because… well you’re psychic, aren’t you? :rofl:

I was reading a current events article discussing the widening gap between the have’s and the have nots. There was a lot of speculation of how the middle class fell so quickly… yada yada. I was half reading the PVP forums where alliance and Horde were disputing/discussing/trolling each other about imbalances.

The plague thing was years ago. Someone caught a plague from a boss and d/c’d. When he rezzed he still had the plague on him when he went to Stormwind. The plague quickly jumped from player to player, killing everyone in Stormwind. After people rezzed they would still have the plague or recatch it.

The World health organization ended up using it as a model for pandemics. Some people dove into action and tried to dispel, others would propagate it by standing next to other players. It was a big thing. I’ll see if there’s anything I can find about it.

edit:
I found it. It wasn’t hard to find. Mauden had the name I didn’t know. It was The Corrupted Blood incident. I’m trying to post a wiki write up but the forum is being stubborn.

–edit: It was his pet.

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WoW is the black plague of MMOs ?

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Classist. Not plague. The plague was brought up because agencies like the CDC and WHO are interested in the information we can provide them. The question I was asking is… in different wording, will BG’s be used in future studies? There’s some imbalances that for whatever reasons aren’t being addressed. Coincidentally, we seem to be mimicking current world events.

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Still confused over what the point is. I see more of the ‘red party’ in blue alliance chat instead of in the horde red faction

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Four-five years ago NASA would open a talk with, “You’re not special.” Implying there was life all over the Universe and Humans weren’t special.

Scientist are slowly starting to admit life may not be as prevalent in the Universe as they once thought, the Drake Equation. Or not exist at all except on Earth.

What if we are just a simulation in a super computer in a super advanced civilization. Our only reason for being here is to observe the simulation from the inside so the super computer can collect data on what we observe.?.?

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The Corrupted Blood incident. It wasn’t an experiment, but it was and is studied, and i’m sure the incident resulted in many parties realizing what a PERFECT place the WOW universe is for applied sociology! Its perfect! How so?
Big enough, diverse enough, to supply meaningful data.
Anything can be introduced. ANYTHING.
Everything is trackable.
Nothing is private. All data belongs to Blizz.
Somewhere in the EULA its stated data may be sold…
Are we part of an experiment? Only if starting parameters were, can be introduced, initial set-up, so to speak.
That would go a long ways towards explaining … things…

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He’s just keeping it fun. The whole thread is just meant to inspire thought outside the box. I thought his post was awesome! As soon as I saw it i laughed. When he added the video i played it and enjoyed. All’s well :kissing_heart:

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Thanks!

:slight_smile:

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Well this “civilization” needs to update their servers cuz humanity is starting to lag like a sonofabeach. It’s either that or some kind of squish and well, we’d lose half our playerbase at least if that happens :scream:

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I just hope they have a reliable UPS.:grin:

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WoW could be many social experiments. Few of them optimistic.

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So… if it was an experiment what conclusions do you think could be made from from the data? The obvious one is, of those who didn’t unsubscribe, there’s been a mass exodus of Alliance to Horde but as it relates to real world events, how realistic is it for people to take the stance of either dropping out or the “if you can’t beat em, join em” route? Where are they going? Other countries? Jumping into a scarf or a log drop to water? And what gives the hangers on the motivation to continue under status quo?

Remember, this is all hypothetical :wink:

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Only sociologists and psychologists could really learn anything from observing group behavior like would be found in an MMORPG. Since those are pseudosciences (not a knock against them, just a fact) they shouldn’t be drawing any conclusions.

This has got to be the most “huh?” question/sentence I have ever read in my life.

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This is a fun thread for intelligent and open minded people to think outside the box. Don’t you get tired of all the negative banter? Ever? We aren’t judging anyone or throwing snark at anyone… we’re just theorizing and being nutty. Lets not take ourselves too serious.

…and no sociology and psychology are not “psuedosciences”.

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You need to up your medications, friend.