Swine Flu Infects World of Warcraft

[Keane Ng]

Swine Flu Infects World of Warcraft

Somebody alert the World Health Organization - the swine flu has been discovered in Azeroth.

Even in World of Warcraft, you can't escape the swine flu pandemic hysteria. As discovered by a few WoW players, the disease exists in Azeroth, too. This isn't another attempt at being topical and pop culture-y that you often find in Blizzard games, this is a genuine disease that you can get in the game that has actually existed since the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

The WoW Unliving Swine [http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50303], an enemy in the Borean Tundra area of Northrend. When you hit the pig with a melee attack, it has an 8% chance to infect you with the disease, which will trigger an effect called "Outbreak" that reduces your movement speed by 30% and hits you for 120 natural damage every 2 seconds. "The fever has come over you," the effect description reads.

Fortunately since you have to actually walk up to a pig and smack it to catch the disease, this won't be cause for any kind of outbreak through Azeroth, which has actually seen its fair share of in-game pandemics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood] before.

Naturally, WoW players have taken the spell as an occasion to make all sorts of silly jokes [http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50303#comments]. Pointing out that swine flu has a history beyond the current pandemic, user yawgmoth joked: "What a crappy proc rate, once every 38 years?" Meanwhile, snugglebear just had to go there and say it: "This is not popular on the Latin/Mexican servers." Okay, really?

(GiantBomb [http://www.giantbomb.com/news/swine-flu-pandemic-spreads-to-azeroth/1220/])


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[Kuliani]

Also, it's a curable disease in WoW... just sayin...

 

[ryai458]

awesome

 

[mythbuster343]

Also, it's a curable disease in WoW... just sayin...

big difference as appose to REAL life

 

[GodsOneMistake]

Hmm thats cool. I'm looking forward to starting this back up when summer hits

 

[Evertw]

Hehe, very funny.

Shoot the swine from a range?

 

[fenrizz]

hehe, that's funny
Made my day

 

[NeedAUserName]

Also, it's a curable disease in WoW... just sayin...

Well lets just round up all the Priest, Paladins and Shamans we can find!

 

[Drayco90]

awesome.

 

[Therumancer]

Also it's important to note that it caused several otherwise healthy adults to die in Mexico, when The Flu typically only kills the very young, very old, or the very sick.

Given the reaction of our "Friends" in China with SARS (under-reporting, denial of "responsibility" it seemed for a while) I can also see how WHO jumped the gun a bit, and why the Media was so "enthusiastic" other than the attention they generated.

My major concern is that with all the jokes and such about it people won't take it seriously if something even worse comes along.

I'm also a bit concerned that this virus was engineered given some descriptions of it. I could see either China or someone in The Middle East (perhaps comissioning the development from others) using it to test response systems in North America. Our weak border with Mexico being one of the easiest ways into the US, and infecting Mexico being one way to "hopefully" spread an infection into the US given their lesser security.

This is also presumably how someone would be most likely to get a suitcase nuke into the US. Get through weaker Mexican security, have someone who can pass as Mexican at least for the US (Arab with the right colored skin, or a mexican recruited intelligence agent) enter through worker/illegal immigrant channels and then set off the bomb in a major city.

One of the reasons why the border crackdowns aren't as crazy as some liberals would have you believe.

Another discussion though I guess.

The WoW comments are cute, but I think people aren't taking this one seriously enough. Because of the threat itself, not nessicarly because of the Swine Flu (which itself might become a bigger problem if the virus mutates, or if this was the first stage in a biological attack).

 

[mythbuster343]

Also, it's a curable disease in WoW... just sayin...

big difference as appose to REAL life

It's... Also curable IRL. If you aren't a dumbass.

Never said it wasn't

 

[Evilmonkeysniper0182]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM bacon lol, kill it, cook it. spitroast anyone

 

[JWAN]

Also, it's a curable disease in WoW... just sayin...

big difference as appose to REAL life

you can cure it, the only person in America that died from it was young enough to still be filling diapers and had other compounding ailments that worsened the flu's effect on his organs.

In Mexico diagnosis is slower and they don't have the best stuff to work with

 

[Archereus]

WoW is always the fist to make fun of almost any thing that could kill the world. There could be a plague outbreak like during the renaissance and WoW would sure as hell add some thing like it in its game. But this is nothing compared to the zombie outbreak during holoween man that made me man and frig was it annoying killing thousands of zombies and zombie players just to get to the bank in a capital city.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

What's next, the swine flu is going to be added to the disease list in Oblivion and Morrowind?

That would be awesome.

 

[Deleric]

Too bad there isn't a Madagascar in WoW.

 

[RebelRising]

Also it's important to note that it caused several otherwise healthy adults to die in Mexico, when The Flu typically only kills the very young, very old, or the very sick.

Given the reaction of our "Friends" in China with SARS (under-reporting, denial of "responsibility" it seemed for a while) I can also see how WHO jumped the gun a bit, and why the Media was so "enthusiastic" other than the attention they generated.

My major concern is that with all the jokes and such about it people won't take it seriously if something even worse comes along.

I'm also a bit concerned that this virus was engineered given some descriptions of it. I could see either China or someone in The Middle East (perhaps comissioning the development from others) using it to test response systems in North America. Our weak border with Mexico being one of the easiest ways into the US, and infecting Mexico being one way to "hopefully" spread an infection into the US given their lesser security.

This is also presumably how someone would be most likely to get a suitcase nuke into the US. Get through weaker Mexican security, have someone who can pass as Mexican at least for the US (Arab with the right colored skin, or a mexican recruited intelligence agent) enter through worker/illegal immigrant channels and then set off the bomb in a major city.

One of the reasons why the border crackdowns aren't as crazy as some liberals would have you believe.

Another discussion though I guess.

The WoW comments are cute, but I think people aren't taking this one seriously enough. Because of the threat itself, not nessicarly because of the Swine Flu (which itself might become a bigger problem if the virus mutates, or if this was the first stage in a biological attack).

I agree with this. We shouldn't panic, but we should be addressing this more readily. In another thread on the subject, I brought up the parallel of "media scares" to the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

A wolf did come, eventually.

 

[Dr.Calvyn]

WoW is always the fist to make fun of almost any thing that could kill the world. There could be a plague outbreak like during the renaissance and WoW would sure as hell add some thing like it in its game. .

I beleive he said it was in since the beta of WOTL beta...

O well at least it hasnt caused as much as that corrupted blood, never seen Irongforge so empty as when that hit.

Ps: Swine flu wont be a problem in countries like America/UK ETC... since the population is well fed and has acces to good medical care. It is only flu. "Pandemic" status is based on transfer ability, not virilaty.

 

[lava_lamp]

also the swine flu is being blown out of proportion