Episode 18 - May 9 HUNTER-PALOOZA 2:

HUNTER-PALOOZA 2: This time it is fo real.

We welcome back Lassirra and Taffybag. After a brief bought of something-or-other, Lassirra is back to talk shop with Taffybag and crew about the exciting new changes that happened in 3.1, 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3... (you get my point). They will also be open to your questions in the Odds and Ends portion of the show.

Chat Room Moderator: Jeppy

Would indeed love to participate more in your shows, but living accross the pond, us (sexy) Brits are asleep by then

then you must sleep early, i am 2 hours ahead of UK so i am later than you and i still make the show

yea im almost available every saturday to help out if need be. Feel free to pick my brain of the various useless info thats there!

bump - show details updated

Unfortunatly i never get to listen live im raiding at the time, but im hoping to sit out this weekend, if so ill be in teh chat room

I came across this article regarding the zombie invasion... I think it might be an interesting topic to address on this week's show.

World of Warcraft Used to Predict Pandemic Behavior
By thomascrampton ⋅ May 3, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

A highly reputable medical journal, The Lancet, published a study of a disease outbreak in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft to understand outbreak behavior.

This is particularly interesting in light of the H1N1 quarantining of 200+ people in a hotel not far from my home in Hong Kong.

A nasty disease outbreak in World of Warcraft…
On Sept 13, 2005, an estimated 4 million players of the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, Irvine, CA, USA) encountered an unexpected challenge in the game, introduced in a software update released that day: a full-blown epidemic. Players exploring a newly accessible spatial area within the game encountered an extremely virulent, highly contagious disease. Soon, the disease had spread to the densely populated capital cities of the fantasy world, causing high rates of mortality and, much more importantly, the social chaos that comes from a large- scale outbreak of deadly disease. These unforeseen effects raised the possibility for valuable scientifi c content to be gained from this unintentional game error, and it is this possibility that we will examine.

..shows how people act during a pandemic…
This human-agent model of disease dynamics can be used to provide reproducible empirical analyses, yielding greater insights into the behavioural reactions and individual responses of people threatened by outbreaks of disease. By using these games as an untapped experimental framework, we may be able to gain deeper insight into the incredible complexity of infectious disease epidemiology in social groups.

…demonstrating how selfless, well-meaning behavior can worsen an outbreak
Some players—those with healing abilities—were seen to rush towards areas where the disease was rapidly spreading, acting as fi rst responders in an attempt to help their fellow players. Their behaviour may have actually extended the course of the epidemic and altered its dynamics—for example, by keeping infected individuals alive long enough for them to continue spreading the disease, and by becoming infected themselves and being highly contagious when they rushed to another area.

Conclusion: The game-playing epidemiologists say they should go back and play some more WoW for better understanding. “Sure Prof, I’d be happy to!”

The image and quotes are from the original report by Eric T Lofgren BA and Prof Nina H Fefferman PhD, but hat tip to Andrew Marshall of Reuters for bringing it to my attention.

Stompalina wrote:

I came across this article regarding the zombie invasion... I think it might be an interesting topic to address on this week's show.

World of Warcraft Used to Predict Pandemic Behavior
By thomascrampton ⋅ May 3, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

A highly reputable medical journal, The Lancet, published a study of a disease outbreak in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft to understand outbreak behavior.

This is particularly interesting in light of the H1N1 quarantining of 200+ people in a hotel not far from my home in Hong Kong.

A nasty disease outbreak in World of Warcraft…
On Sept 13, 2005, an estimated 4 million players of the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, Irvine, CA, USA) encountered an unexpected challenge in the game, introduced in a software update released that day: a full-blown epidemic. Players exploring a newly accessible spatial area within the game encountered an extremely virulent, highly contagious disease. Soon, the disease had spread to the densely populated capital cities of the fantasy world, causing high rates of mortality and, much more importantly, the social chaos that comes from a large- scale outbreak of deadly disease. These unforeseen effects raised the possibility for valuable scientifi c content to be gained from this unintentional game error, and it is this possibility that we will examine.

..shows how people act during a pandemic…
This human-agent model of disease dynamics can be used to provide reproducible empirical analyses, yielding greater insights into the behavioural reactions and individual responses of people threatened by outbreaks of disease. By using these games as an untapped experimental framework, we may be able to gain deeper insight into the incredible complexity of infectious disease epidemiology in social groups.

…demonstrating how selfless, well-meaning behavior can worsen an outbreak
Some players—those with healing abilities—were seen to rush towards areas where the disease was rapidly spreading, acting as fi rst responders in an attempt to help their fellow players. Their behaviour may have actually extended the course of the epidemic and altered its dynamics—for example, by keeping infected individuals alive long enough for them to continue spreading the disease, and by becoming infected themselves and being highly contagious when they rushed to another area.

Conclusion: The game-playing epidemiologists say they should go back and play some more WoW for better understanding. “Sure Prof, I’d be happy to!”

The image and quotes are from the original report by Eric T Lofgren BA and Prof Nina H Fefferman PhD, but hat tip to Andrew Marshall of Reuters for bringing it to my attention.

um im pretty sure the zombie invasion didnt happen in 2005 that mught be talking about the ZG disease
sorry stomp

Either they got it wrong, or this is very old news. lol

yeah I think they just go their dates wrong. I believe the post is in reference to the zombie events prior to release of Wrath.

no in 2005there was a disease that spread to everyone in wow on a curtain server althought same kinda thing did happen with the zombie event exept no repots just alot of bitching

Did they not have access to the same type of information from the most recent zombie invasion before Wrath was released?

I am intrigued.

Well they are scientists after all. Countless zombie movies have taught us that the only scientists are essentially useless when it comes to zombies. You want something done you have to find yourself a bunch of drunk college kids, one guy who needs to shave and doesn't talk about his past because he was a professional seal clubber for the military, and computer nerds. Case closed.

Yeah, the fact that they referred to it as a mistake has me thinking it was the ZG outbreak they are talking about.

I am about to set up the outline for the hunter portion of the show, if anyone has any specific questions they would like addressed this is the time and place to post it on the site.

Edit

Make sure to ask them to join us for the LIVE show's Q&A and maybe they can get some solid guidance!

Saturday @ 4PM CST on Ustream!

You know I'll be there so all mine will be there but if it could be brought up in the show where I can look

Jeppy will be posting links to topics discussed, and sites referenced... no worries!

You know I love ya stomp just don't let half know haha j/p love him too

im sorry i couldent make it, i just got seriously sick and decided to sleep at 10:00 pm and the show is like at 1:00

now I see why stomp talks most of the show

Dirty Iron wrote:

now I see why stomp talks most of the show

And that means...?

funnier with all the sexual references not a knock at you had your still my favorite host