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Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

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Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#121

Post by waterlesscloud »

dangrossman wrote: post #53
waterlesscloud wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a short-lived bug in a video game. There were research proposals that never went anywhere because it was concluded that the model would be a poor match for the real world. Plenty of things happen every single day that affect millions and are covered in multiple world news sources. They don't have their own pages, so clearly that's not the standard.

> There were research proposals that never went anywhere Multiple published research papers, not proposals. Over 600 Google Scholar results. It also made its way into several books.

What were the findings of these published research papers?

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#122

Post by dangrossman »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #121
dangrossman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were research proposals that never went anywhere Multiple published research papers, not proposals. Over 600 Google Scholar results. It also made its way into several books.

What were the findings of these published research papers?

We were discussing whether this event met Wikipedia's notability requirements. Those requirements are that the topic be 'worthy of notice' -- that it's been mentioned by more than one verifiable, third-party source. Clearly that requirement has been met and this event is notable. The fame, importance or popularity of the subject are not considerations for Wikipedia's notability requirement.

Should you wish to discuss the event and the research it spawned, I'm sure you can find a discussion group for that. I'm not your research assistant, and I doubt the sincerity of your interest, given you dismissed these papers' existence outright mere hours ago.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#123

Post by adgar2 »

npsimons wrote: post #73
brador wrote: post #17

It's interesting to comprehend the amount of lives a hack like this will positively affect. How many will pick up a book, or go for a walk, now that they no longer have their go-to fix of virtual reality. How many WOW addicts will have time to think "never again" and follow through. Equivalent to all the cigarettes in the world vanishing for a few hours? Possibly. And equally as effective I say.

Chuckle . How many of those will go out and rob a liquor store? How many will perform an act of vandalism? How many will kill themselves because they are cut off from the only friends they've ever known? While I can emphasize a bit (I used to play WoW, but "grew away from it" and now spend a large portion of my time in search and rescue and musical performance), I have to say that this is a very judgmental POV to tak…

> It's not like anybody suffers from second-hand MMORPG.

Addicts always say they're making a personal choice that doesn't affect anyone else, whether it's WoW or booze or blow. And they're always wrong.

The last AA meeting I went to, someone spoke for the first time and told a story about a typical night at the bar. Drinking, watching the game and minding his own business. Just like every night. Except this time, 8 beers deep, his daughter walked from home to the bar and tugged on his sleeve - there was nobody at home but her and she was scared.

Bet you'd never heard of "second-hand drinking" either.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#124

Post by silencio »

brador wrote: post #17

It's interesting to comprehend the amount of lives a hack like this will positively affect. How many will pick up a book, or go for a walk, now that they no longer have their go-to fix of virtual reality. How many WOW addicts will have time to think "never again" and follow through. Equivalent to all the cigarettes in the world vanishing for a few hours? Possibly. And equally as effective I say.

Please allow me to correct your mistaken impression that WoW players are all addicts that have no lives and no hobbies that impress other people:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/nordrassil/Spink/advan... is my main WoW toon (already level capped for the current just-released expansion and raiding), with weeks of /played time.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/stats/2444699-jane is the last couple of years worth of books I've read. How many people do you know read 50+ books a year?

I prefer to run, and I sustain an average of 8 minutes per mile in 5ks so I'm not an unfit slob. I don't run marathons though, I just run and swim for fun and exercise's sake.

I do all of this because it's fabulous stress relief, it's a great time-filler when I don't have the space/time to work (e.g. cooking/restaurants, boarding flights, random 5 minutes at places, right before bed), and WoW in particular enables me to spend time with friends no matter where they're located. I can do this in the first place because I don't do things many people do such as watching TV.

It's funny how people are incredibly judgmental about WoW but they find it incredibly impressive I read a lot of books and sustain reasonable times in runs. I find more rational reasons to play WoW (reasonably, that is, and not by ignoring people to do so) than to read. They're both hobbies. Take anything to an extreme and it's bad. But WoW overall is not as bad as the one off horror story you'll read about about parents ignoring their kids to raid.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#125

Post by waterlesscloud »

dangrossman wrote: post #122
waterlesscloud wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the findings of these published research papers?

We were discussing whether this event met Wikipedia's notability requirements. Those requirements are that the topic be 'worthy of notice' -- that it's been mentioned by more than one verifiable, third-party source. Clearly that requirement has been met and this event is notable. The fame, importance or popularity of the subject are not considerations for Wikipedia's notability requirement. Should you wish to discuss…

The papers I have found were all proposals or investigations of the possibility of further research.

You seemed to be saying there was actual research based on the incident, and I wondered if you had found something different. I assume you did not.

Also, to directly quote the wikipedia page on Notability: "Notability is the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction."

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#127

Post by npsimons »

adgar2 wrote: post #123
npsimons wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chuckle . How many of those will go out and rob a liquor store? How many will perform an act of vandalism? How many will kill themselves because they are cut off from the only friends they've ever known? While I can emphasize a bit (I used to play WoW, but "grew away from it" and now spend a large portion of my time in search and rescue and musical performance), I have to say that this is a very judgmental POV to tak…

> It's not like anybody suffers from second-hand MMORPG. Addicts always say they're making a personal choice that doesn't affect anyone else, whether it's WoW or booze or blow. And they're always wrong. The last AA meeting I went to, someone spoke for the first time and told a story about a typical night at the bar. Drinking, watching the game and minding his own business. Just like every night. Except this time, 8 b…

Bet you'd never heard of "second-hand drinking" either.

Until someone gets a case of cirrhosis of the liver from someone else's drinking, there is no such thing as "second-hand drinking", just as there is no such thing as "second-hand carpal tunnel syndrome" from someone else playing too much WoW. I'll be the last to say that addiction doesn't affect others, and yes, I will agree that people can spend too much time playing video games (or getting drunk). But much like the alcoholic telling someone else they should never drink because it's "Evil", I won't take my advice from someone who obviously thinks that WoW is inherently evil.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#128

Post by dsl »

patio11 wrote: post #24

Admin consoles: the soft underbelly of billion dollar software operations since... Seriously, though: you almost certainly have one if you run a software business. Client side SSH certificates are your friend. If you're not able to do that, because it is really annoying, separate it from the main app and lock it down as much as possible. (Separate authentication from the main site/app's authentication scheme. Lock do…

It's just speculation that someone used GM powers to do this. Most likely they tracked down a boss mass wipe ability (i.e. kills all players within 30 yards) that was incorrectly flagged as useable by players. You can then write an AddOn that uses CastSpellByID() to give you that ability.

The GM interface requires a special build of the WoW client, a specially flagged account, and a two factor auth token to login. It's pretty hard to emulate the client as opcodes are randomly shuffled based on the hash of the binary itself.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#129

Post by adgar2 »

npsimons wrote: post #127
adgar2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like anybody suffers from second-hand MMORPG. Addicts always say they're making a personal choice that doesn't affect anyone else, whether it's WoW or booze or blow. And they're always wrong. The last AA meeting I went to, someone spoke for the first time and told a story about a typical night at the bar. Drinking, watching the game and minding his own business. Just like every night. Except this time, 8 b…

Bet you'd never heard of "second-hand drinking" either. Until someone gets a case of cirrhosis of the liver from someone else's drinking, there is no such thing as "second-hand drinking", just as there is no such thing as "second-hand carpal tunnel syndrome" from someone else playing too much WoW. I'll be the last to say that addiction doesn't affect others, and yes, I will agree that people can spend too much time p…

I don't think WoW is inherently evil - were you referring to your parent poster, or me? I just think nearly everyone in this addiction subthread is woefully underinformed about the realities of addiction.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#130

Post by npsimons »

adgar2 wrote: post #113
rhizome wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for your troubles, but not everything that touches dopamine is an addiction.

You just wrote off everything I said except the word "dopamine." Given your outright advocacy ("anti-gamer") throughout this thread, it seems you aren't interested in a real discussion.

And you like to cherry pick what you deem relevant to the discussion and demonize a harmless diversion that millions of people dally in daily with no repercussions to the rest of their life.

Look, I'm sorry you've had a bad time and got addicted to WoW. That doesn't make it an inherently addictive thing. Some people can play it in their spare time without issue; others can't. Not everybody is the same.

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