Autor: candelariaturrella

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger:

Let us all take comfort at this time in a few things.

  • Stan Lee died at a time when his most famous character was more himself than he’s been in a long time and where the fandom as a whole had more positive vibes than negative ones. It would’ve been too depressing if he’d left us even a year earlier.
  • Stan Lee died when he was being cared for by his beloved daughter. A few months earlier and he might’ve died whilst being abused by a piece of human garbage, but he was rescued from that and so his last few weeks or months were at least better, if not outright happy.
  • Stan Lee died when the characters he created were at the zenith of their fame and popularity. People in China, a country regarded as the enemy when Stan created half those characters, were in love with his creations at the time he left us. And the latest Marvel movies had been not just box offices successes but in the case of Infinity War made Cinematic History!
  • Stan Lee died beloved by the world at large and seeing his creations beloved too, he was fully aware of how they affected people and what they meant to us and so many others.
  • Stan Lee on the whole had a long, happy and fulfilling life with his daughter and his beloved wife.
  • Stan Lee himself and his creations are going to have a legacy and be remembered forever more, even after we’ve all passed on too.
  • Stan Lee had a zest for life and made history when he was middle aged. If there is one thing to take away from him it’s that life is for the living and it’s never too late to make something of it.

Excelsior

nerdgerhl:

lyinginbedmon:

lesbophobes:

gaypet:

paxamericana:

The epidemic began on September 13, 2005, when Blizzard introduced a new raid called Zul’Gurub into the game as part of a new update. Its end boss, Hakkar, could affect players by using a debuff called Corrupted Blood, a disease that damages players over time, this one specifically doing significant damage. The disease could be passed on between any nearby characters, and would kill characters with lower levels in a few seconds, while higher level characters could keep themselves alive. It would disappear as time passed or when the character died. Due to a programming error, players’ pets and minions carried the disease out of the raid.

Non-player characters could contract the disease but were asymptomatic to it and could spread it to others.[2] At least three of the game’s servers were affected. The difficulty in killing Hakkar may have limited the spread of the disease. Discussion forum posters described seeing hundreds of bodies lying in the streets of the towns and cities. Deaths in World of Warcraft are not permanent, as characters are resurrected shortly afterward.[3] However, dying in such a way is disadvantageous to the player’s character and incurs inconvenience.[4]

During the epidemic, normal gameplay was disrupted. Player responses varied but resembled real-world behaviors. Some characters with healing abilities volunteered their services, some lower-level characters who could not help would direct people away from infected areas, some characters would flee to uninfected areas, and some characters attempted to spread the disease to others.[2] Players in the game reacted to the disease as if there was real risk to their well-being.[5] Blizzard Entertainment attempted to institute a voluntary quarantine to stem the disease, but it failed, as some players didn’t take it seriously, while others took advantage of the pandemonium.[2] Despite certain security measures, players overcame them by giving the disease to summonable pets.[6] Blizzard was forced to fix the problem by instituting hard resets of the servers and applying quick fixes.[3]

The major towns and cities were abandoned by the population as panic set in and players rushed to evacuate to the relative safety of the countryside, leaving urban areas filled to the brim with corpses, and the city streets literally white with the bones of the dead.[7]

please read the full wikipedia article

image

Orgrimmar during the incident.

This is legitimately one of the most fascinating events in online and/or gaming history to date.

This post leaves out the most incredible part, which is that the CDC straight up contacted Blizzard and asked for all the data they had on the Corrupted Blood Plague for the purposes of refining their models of epidemic behavior in real human populations.