Transcript A World of Warcraft Approach to the Human Immune System

A World of Warcraft
Approach to the Human
Immune System
Introduction
As we’ve seen in class, many aspects of World of Warcraft can be
translated or discussed through other outlets, except biology.
I was inspired to do this project by an article published about an
infectious disease that was unleashed on the players of WoW. This
experiment by Blizzard offered insights into real life epidemics and
how people react to such crisis. This gave me inspiration to take it a
little further and try to deconstruct WoW to compare it to something
biological.
My attempt with this presentation is to discuss the human immune
system through the aspect of raiding and show the similarities of the
two.
Introduction to the
immune system
An immune system is a collection of mechanisms
within an organism that protects against disease
by identifying and killing pathogens and tumor
cells. It detects a wide variety of agents, from
viruses to parasitic worms, and needs to
distinguish them from the organism's own healthy
cells and tissues in order to function properly.
Detection is complicated as pathogens adapt and
evolve new ways to successfully infect the host
organism. To survive this challenge, several
mechanisms evolved that recognize and
neutralize pathogens. Even simple unicellular
organisms such as bacteria possess enzyme
systems that protect against viral infections. The
immune systems of vertebrates such as humans
consist of many types of proteins, cells, organs,
and tissues, which interact in an elaborate and
dynamic network.
Introduction to raiding
A raid is a type of mission in a video game, where the objective is to use a very large number of people,
relative to a normal team size set by the game, to defeat a boss. Usually a boss has enough defenses
that it would be impossible to defeat it outside of the designed raid size parameters for the particular
boss. For example, a normal team size in a game may be 8 people, but a raid for a particular boss may
be up to 40 or more people. A normal team size wouldn't be able to handle the level of damage that the
boss can do, therefore it is necessary to have enough people so that the damage dealt by the boss is
manageable. This can be done through a large enough group of healers and other damage negation
classes. Another benefit of an extraordinary large group of people are stacked buffs, where the damage
dealing classes are buffed, through an increase in damage or accuracy, by other classes such that the
damage dealt to the boss is enough to kill it.
Immune System vs.
Raiding
There are many components of the world of
warcraft that are very similar to the
components of the immune system.
I will start out by showing the analogous
components and then follow it up by
explaining how it all fits together and the
sequence of it.
Pathogen
The pathogen in the immunology sense is basically a foreign intruder.
This is obviously comparable to the boss or any enemies within a raid.
=
B cells/Tanks
The role of B cells is to tour the environment and seek the pathogen. Once is recognizes the
pathogen, it secretes antibodies or signals to guide attack and takes the initial damage from
the pathogen.
As like the B cells, tanks purpose in a party is to absorb and deflect damage from other party
members.
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Natural Killer
Cells/Damage Dealers
NK cells are a part of innate immune system and play a major role in defending the host from
both tumours and virally infected cells.
Damage dealers are analogous to NK cells in the way that they are the major source of attack
from the party.
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Helper T-Cells/Healers,
Casters
T helper cells play an important role in establishing and maximizing the capabilities of the immune system. They cannot
kill pathogens, and without other immune cells they would usually be considered useless against an infection.
Healers and casters also play a similar role as Helper T-Cells. Healers, obviously, heal. Casters attack the enemy with
spells as well as buff their party.
=
So how does it all fit
together?
This is very rough schematic of the immune system response in terms of WoW
The first step of the immune system response is the detection of the
pathogen. When the B cell detects the pathogen it immediate stops
patrol and locks in on its target, drawing in the pathogen to localize the
attack.
In a raid, the tank’s role is to draw in the enemy and take in as much as
the damage as possible.
This step is like an initiation to the start of the attack.
After the battle has
begun, other
members of the party
begin their attacks.
The damage dealers
continue to attack the
enemy while the
enemy release its
own attack on the
tank.
Meanwhile, the healers and casters are doing their thing from a distance. They cast
spells that can do such things as paralyze their enemy for a short period of time as
well as other spells that may hinder the abilities of the enemy. Healers heal their
party to make sure they are sufficient enough to fight.
This is analogous to the immune response in the fact that helper T cells send out
signals to recruit additional help and regulate the overall response. Other parts of
the immune response are also similar to the actions of casters. For example, mast
cells trigger actions like inflammation, an action that suppresses some actions
caused by the pathogen.
Every role is important
Every role in a raid and the immune response is important to the whole system. Every one
plays in an integral part that will help the success of the system or party. With a loss to one
part of the party may lead to either inefficient work or even death.
For example, without the presence of a damage dealer, the effectiveness of downing a boss
is very low, seeing that there isn’t anything causing major damage. In the case of the
immune system, without components like NK cells, you would be left without an efficient
attack against the pathogen. Another example is not having a healer around. Healers can
play an especially important role in a raid. Without a healer you wouldn’t have sufficient
healing of your party, especially to your tank. Without sufficient healing to the tank, your tank
would easily falter and die. That would easily lead to the entire party dying. The immune
system would be the same way. Without helper T cells, your immune system would be highly
deficient.
Conclusion
It was very difficult comparing the two ideas
but if you can understand the purposes of all
the components, you should be able to
understand how every part has a role that will
lead to the success of the system.