I would like to have read what was learned too. From what I heard of the outbreak, it involved thousands of people deliberately trying to spread the disease as far as possible. I would hope that real life reactions wouldn't be so heartless.

Tom, Melbourne, Australia

"At last - something useful from a silly time waster."
Your lack of understanding into a different form of entertainment is astounding, sir. I'm not going to launch a tirade of facts at you about the benefits that "gamers" often end up experiencing. All I will say is that ANY hobby is a "time waster"- They're called "pass times" for a reason. If you don't understand something, then by all means, feel free not to understand, but don't go around being so dismissive of them- it makes you seem arrogant and more than a little foolish.

Chris, Chester, England

Anyone who has played Warcraft for longer than an hour (particularly if they roll a human character and spend that hour in the midst of Goldshire...) could tell you where the flaws lie in this supposed 'research'.

The plague was released into a population that can be stratified into two generalised groups: the characters controlled by a more mentally mature population who would role-play the situation accordingly, and the ever-present cliché of the semi-naked female characters controlled by 12 year olds who will think it great fun to infect as many people as possible before they drop dead, probably dancing on tables at the same time.

Perhaps if there was a release into one of the more serious role-playing realms it would be of some use, but I don't think it's worth the effort unless the 'lol' factor can be controlled... there'd be a lot people willing to help with this. Just form an orderly queue, give us the epic shotguns and the ability to exterminate members of our own faction...

Sara, Oxford, UK

Every body, buy your resist gear NOW!!! That is the answer to Global Pandemic. LOL.

Ron, Canyon Lake, Texas

I was just reading an article by Nicholas Gessler on the benefits of using (evolutionary) computations to model human culture. It immediately reminded me of RPG games like this one, and to read that a simulation of an epidemic spread has actually happened is... well, pretty cool. Warcraft is exactly like the program he was alluding to, to try and completely represent human culture and create "what if" scenarios like this one. Awesome, awesome. It's a great accident, one well worth looking into.

Gayle, Manila,

My 13 year old son is now going to hold up this article every time his mom "nags" him for spending way too much time on the computer playing WOW. WIth scientific backing for its value, he thinks he is justified in the hours wasted!

colan, toronto, canada

I can clearly remember when this problem came to our server. A raiding guild that was unsuccessful had several members that "brought" the problem back to one of the main cities in the game. (Ogrimmar.)

Within the hour the "corrupted blood" had laid waste to the cities population with the skeletons of player characters quickly choking the streets. The virus then spread to both of the other main cities through players seeking to share the fun. Other players made sure to "take" the virus to the Alliance cities in an effort to make sure the apocalypse was shared.

It was unsettling to see character after character logging in only to die seconds later, unable to do anything to truly stop what had been unleashed.

Jim, Cottage Grove, MN

I was there as well. It was terrible. Some people were laughing it off, saying, "Haha, you got infected!" as if it were some kind of silly prank to pull, but some people were actually serious. They tried to keep the infected somewhere where they wouldn't spread it elsewhere, but no one listens and goes off and spreads it to be a jerk. No one panicked, though, but I believe that's just because you can resurrect without much penalty. I, for one, was tired of dying over and over from this disease. After about the ninth time I logged off and decided to play again next day.

But that won't be the way it is if there is a real epidemic. No one can log off of real life, and no one can reset the server if the virus spreads. But not many people panicked. I believe it will be the authorities who go nuts over this. If anyone is going to start screaming bloody murder if, god forbid, anything like this happens in real life, it's going to be the authorities and the media. I don't think we're ready.

Derek Payne, Longmont, Colorado

I was there. Some of the other details of the event are a bit unsettling - one, the "virus" was limited to a small area until the players deliberately brought it back to infect the general population, and two, despite the effect wearing off of a single character in literally seconds, it managed to persist for an entire day in most places.

While I would like to think that a real epidemic would be accidental, limited and people would act rationally, I suspect that humans won't be any smarter or nicer than the elves and trolls in this case.

Ryan, Winnipeg, Canada

"At last - something useful from a silly time waster"

what, apart from them not hanging around the streets causing trouble? Or not getting teenage girls pregnant?

Sometimes, when they cancel the trains and stop me from getting on with my life, I wish I was a character in WoW - able to bring down firey death on the... unhelpful... staff who stand there and act like lemmings, unwilling to do anything outside their box...

I can see the appeal of WoW.

Raymon, London, UK

The public rarely panic. The authorities often do.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

OK, nice little experiment from an unexpected source. But it would have been nice to read about what was actually LEARNED from this curious, accidental experiment.

Ben Hoff, New Jersey, USA

No more silly than your TV Colin. People coming together, and solving problems in a virtual environment are still using
their brains. Often they're meeting people from other
countries too, and learning from that too.

If you want to insult something go take a pop at Second Life.
WoW is a game, whereas SL is a media hyped dolls house
with added corporate hubris.

Dusky, Bristol, UK

WOW

Josh, Poway, CA

Situations as mentioned above could be cause with premeditation to see what will hapen. The institutions interested in good models for social behaviors could ask software companies to cause the epidemic situations without telling the players about that. It's not quite fair but it's acceptable according to me.

Gabalus, Cracow, Poland

At last - something useful from a silly time waster.

Colin, Hervey Bay, Australia