The Corrupted Blood Incident

Virtual Plague

Stan Gabriel Andrei

Class XII D
Coordinating teacher: Rădoi Diana
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ARGUMENT 1
2. WHAT IS WORLD OF WARCRAFT? 2
3. HISTORY 3
4. THE PLAGUE 5
5. THE AFTERMATH
A MODEL FOR REAL-WORLD RESEARCH
5.1. Model for epidemic research 6
5.2. Model for terrorism research 9
6. CONCLUSION 10
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES 11
 ARGUMENT

“Playing videogames is just a waste of time” is just one variation of the phrase we get from our
parents when we spend our time playing videogames. Games are getting more and more realistic
with the upcoming Virtual Reality headsets that will enhance our experience when playing
videogames.
One of the main reasons I chose this topic is the fact that I love spending half of my spare time
playing videogames, especially the ones I can find myself in worlds beyond imagination while
I’m with my friends on my side. One of those games is World of Warcraft, known as WoW on
the internet.
This game is filled with all kinds of people, of all ages, the environment is absolutely stunning
(at least from my point of view), you can find groups of people, guilds, that you can share your
thoughts, ideas with, spend your time with and find friends that you will keep in touch with
indefinitely or even get lucky and find your other half. Personally, I think that in this game
everything is possible.

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 WHAT IS WORLD OF WARCRAFT?

World of Warcraft, abbreviated as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game

(MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth instalment in the
Warcraft series. World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, a high fantasy
setting. Initially, the start of the series focused on the human nations that make up the Eastern
Kingdoms, and the Orcish Horde, which arrived in Azeroth via a dark portal, beginning the great
wars. The Orcs came from another world, referred to as Draenor, the world that will be shattered
into pieces by demonic magics during the events of Warcraft II, thereafter being known as
Outland. Later in the series, the world of Azeroth was expanded, revealing new continents of
Kalimdor, Northrend, Pandaria and Broken Isles, allowing the introduction of Night Elves,
Tauren and other major races into the universe. The world of Azeroth also contains the
traditional fantasy setting of races of elves, dwarves, gnomes, trolls, dragons and many others.

The map of Azeroth

The series also spawned several books and other media, covering a broad range of characters and
timelines. Many comics have also been released alongside the books, further covering parts of
the universe’s storyline. A film adaptation was released in 2016, Warcraft: The Beginning.
With a peak of 12 million subscriptions in October 2010 and Blizzard’s final report of 5.5
million subscriptions in October 2015, World of Warcraft remains the world’s most-subscribed
MMORPG and hold the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers.

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 HISTORY

The plague began on 13th

September 2005, when
Blizzard introduced patch
1.7 to the game, entitled
“Rise of the Blood God”. It
consisted of changes to the
classes and other game
related mechanics, but it also was the patch that introduced the game’s first 20-player raid called
“Zul’Gurub” where players faced off against an ancient tribe of jungle trolls under the sway of
the ancient Blood God, its final boss, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Upon engaging the boss, players
were stricken by a damage over time ability called “Corrupted Blood” which would periodically
sap their life.
The disease would also be passed on to other players who were simply standing in close
proximity to an infected one. It would kill players with lower levels in a few seconds, while
higher ones could keep themselves alive. The disease would eventually go away as time passed
or when the infected character died.
Originally, this malady was confined within the instance, but made its way into the outside world
due to a programming error. Hunters, a class from the game, which use pets, could also contract
the disease and they would keep any active debuffs when dismissed and it would resume when
they were summoned again.
The disease could also be
contracted by NPCs (who
could also spread it outside of
Zul'Gurub); due to this fact,
the debuff quickly spread to
large populations, instantly
killing low-level players.
Within hours, Corrupted Blood
had infected entire virtual
cities, such as Ironforge and
Orgrimmar because of their
high player concentrations. For
days lots of skeletons covered
the highest populated cities
and town and were rendered
uninhabitable by the persistent
disease. Hakkar, the Soulflayer

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 The disease wreaking havoc in Orgrimmar

Deaths in World of Warcraft are not permanent, as characters are resurrected shortly afterward.
However, dying in such ways is totally disadvantageous to the player’s character and even the
player base as it incurs great inconvenience.
The major town and cities were rapidly abandoned by the population as panic set in and players
rushed to evacuate to the relative safety of the wilderness, leaving urban areas filled to the brim
with corpses and the city’s streets literally white because of the bones of the dead laying around.

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 THE PLAGUE

The Corrupted Blood incident was never intended to turn into a real plague; it was actually a
coding accident done by the developers. The spell cast by Hakkar The Soulflayer was intended to
inflict a damage over time effect on a character and could then be passed between characters in
close proximity to one another. Only high players could challenge Hakkar, so while the spell
made fighting him difficult, it would not necessarily kill these players.
The real problem was that the virtual plague was only designed to stay inside the instance.
However, through pets and teleportation, it spread to the rest of the world just like a real virus.
Corrupted Blood created mayhem throughout World of Warcraft.
During the outbreak, the normal gameplay was entirely disrupted. Player responses to the plague
varied but resembled real-world behaviours. People who played as healers, such as druids,
paladins, priests, shamans, who had the power to cure the disease, volunteered their services.
Players who couldn’t help would simply direct people away from infected areas, some would
flee to uninfected areas, and some players attempted to spread the disease to others. Players
reacted to this event as if there was a real risk to their well-being. It was attempted to institute a
voluntary quarantine to stop the disease, but it soon failed, as some players didn’t take it
seriously, while others took advantage of the pandemonium.
People who spread the disease out of malice were described as terrorists of World of Warcraft.
Also, this might be the first time a disease passed from player to player in a game.

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 THE AFTERMATH
A MODEL FOR REAL-WORLD RESEARCH
Model for epidemic research

The Corrupted Blood incident was described as a fascinating yet accidental case study of
modeling disease origins and control at the Games for Health conference in Baltimore,
Maryland by Gamasutra. They compared it to a real-life epidemic, in that it originated in a
remote, uninhabited region and was carried by travelers to larger regions; hosts were both human
and animal, comparing it to the avian flu; was passed through close contact; and there were
people, in this case non-playable characters, who could contract it but were asymptomatic.
However, there were elements that differed from a real-world epidemic, including an indicator
for carriers that they have the disease and how much risk they are at, which cannot be done in the
real world.
One trait was particularly interesting and that was curiosity, something epidemiologists did not
generally build into their models. Some players attempted to enter infected areas to witness the
chaos, then rush out before contracting the disease themselves. This behavior has real-world
parallels, particularly in the case of journalists, who must rush towards a problem to cover it,
then rush back out.
Though it may seem a particularly videogame-like behavior, griefing is something with
unfortunate real-world parallels. There was the infamous "AIDS patient zero" who slept with as
many people as possible and single-handedly pushed the AIDS epidemic up by some ten years,
as well as "Typhoid" Mary Mallon, who infected 47 people with typhoid fever over the course of
her career as a cook.
In August 2007, Nina Fefferman, a Tufts University assistant research professor of public health
and family medicine, called for research on this incident, citing the resemblances with biological
plagues. Some scientists want to study how people would react to environmental pathogens, by
using the virtual counterpart as a point of reference. Subsequently, she co-authored a paper
in Lancet Infectious Disease discussing the epidemiological and disease modeling implications
of the outbreak, along with Eric Lofgren, a University of North Carolina graduate student. She
spoke at the 2008 Games for Health conference in Baltimore, Maryland and the 2011 Game
Developers Conference about the incident and how massively multiplayer online populations
could solve the problems inherent with more traditional models of epidemics.

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The origins and pathways of some of the world’s major epidemics

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Fefferman added that the three base models have their strengths and weaknesses but make
significant behavioral assumptions. She also compared Corrupted Blood to a drug trial with
mice—"a real good first step." She stated, "These are my mice [and] I want this to be my new
experiment setup." She expressed an interest in designing new diseases, perhaps non-fatal ones,
to be introduced to the game so she could study how risk is viewed, how rumors would spread,
and how public health notices are handled. She added that Blizzard made such notices in the
original outbreak but kept changing its position as it could not effectively deal with the problem.
She commented that she did not believe it would ruin gameplay, as World of Warcraft dealt with
health challenges in combat, and that games set in medieval times had such health risk. She
argued that if researchers and developers worked together, it could be fun. While Blizzard was
initially excited about the proposition, it became less outwardly excited over time, though never
rejected it. She has been in contact with other developers, hoping to conduct the simulation in
games similar to World of Warcraft.
Dr. Gary Smith, professor of Population Biology and Epidemiology at the University of
Pennsylvania, commented that very few mathematical models of disease transmission take host
behavior into account, but also questioned how representative of real life a virtual model could
be. He stated that while the characteristics of the disease could be defined beforehand, the study
is just as observational as one conducted on a real-life disease outbreak. However, he added that
one could argue that the proposal could give an opportunity for a study that epidemiologists may
never have. Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling at
Imperial College, London, felt skeptical of the idea, commenting that such a study could not
properly mimic genuine behavior. Using the zombie plague used to promote World of Warcraft:
Wrath of the Lich King before its release as an example, players would intentionally become
infected to gain zombie powers. He added that characters could also regenerate, meaning there
was low risk in becoming infected. He felt that while online games such as World of
Warcraft could be set up to help scientists study epidemics, it will always be limited as their
primary use is for entertainment.

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 Model for terrorism research

In an analysis of the Corrupted Blood incident, Charles Blair, deputy director of the CETIS
(Center of Terrorism and Intelligence Studies), said that World of Warcraft could provide a new
way to study how terrorist cells form and operate. While his organization already uses computer
models to study terrorists' tactics, Blair explained that because World of Warcraft involves real
people making real decisions in a world with controllable bounds, which could provide a more
realistic model for military intelligence analysts. "To put it academically, you have both
dependent and independent variables."
Yale University terrorism expert Stuart Gottlieb admitted that while the outbreak was interesting
and relevant to the times, he would not base a counter-terrorism strategy on a video game.
Gottlieb expressed skepticism that analyzing the incident could shed light on the complex
underlying causes of terrorism in the real world, as the stakes for both terrorists and civilians are
lowered in a virtual setting.
Blizzard stated that the game World of Warcraft is first and foremost a game, and that it was
never designed to mirror reality or anything related to the real world. Whether the game's
operators want to admit it or not, Warcraft does mirror reality to some extent. Perhaps the game's
biggest weakness as a model for studying terror tactics is that death in World of Warcraft is a
nuisance at most.

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 CONCLUSION

To sum up, apart from being the most played videogame in the world, played by people of all
ages, nationalities, everyone really, this game can be a test ground for everything, including
society-based tests, medical ones like plagues and diseases and many others.
In my opinion, World of Warcraft combines elements from both worlds: our real world can
contribute with society elements, social groups, economic systems; and the fantasy world with
magic elements, unreal creatures, dangerous places, and there you have it, a scary and yet an
interesting world in which you can venture and do so many things that the real world alone can’t
let you do.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident
2. https://www.wired.com/2008/03/wow-terror/
3. http://allthatsinteresting.com/corrupted-blood
4. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18571
5. https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-flu-virtual/online-blood-plague-offers-lessons-for-
pandemics-idUKTRE53Q4HI20090427
6. http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Corrupted_Blood
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ntIVwJejk&t=37s&list=FLeP1jAo_87xcy_Cj06K
8o7Q&index=26

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