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General: In the Apocalypse

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

There has been a lot of talk lately about the mythical (?) Zombie Apocalypse and we are not immune. In today's Pokket Says, we take a look at exactly that in a "what if" kind of way. See what you think before weighing in with your comments.

Would this apocalypse be like in the movies and games that we play? I wonder this because I asked this question, in so many words, to my stream about a week ago. If the zombie apocalypse happened, would it be similar to DayZ? Would I not only have to be scared of the mindless, brain-eating monsters that aimlessly roam, but also be afraid of anything living? A lot of them said “yes” that I would have to fear living humans just as much, if not more.

Read more of Hillary Nicole's Pokket Says: In the Apocalypse.

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Comments

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099

    Even some serious medical researchers sometimes talk about their mathematical models of pandemics as zombie apocalypses (it tends to be more entertaining than talking about flus and using something fictious helps remind everyone that theoretical models are not guarenteed to match reality). 

    When I look back across the major pandemics and famines of history (as a non-historian just skimming the subject), one of the things that fascinates me is how little the survivors want to talk about it.  After it's over, people just try to re-establish normality as best as they can.  Wars (especially the victorious side) tend to have big spashy monuments and songs and stories passed down.  Pandemics tend to be a private pain.  WW1 killed up to 20 million (half military, half civilian).  The 1918 flu killed at least 50 million globally (with some estimates as high as 130 million).   Yet we hold surprisingly few stories in our pop culture of how society dealt with the flu. 

    What I find interesting about the zombie apocolypse genre is where it chooses to exaggerate: its plague has clear transmition rules, the victims are completely dehumanized and there is some notion of being able to fight back.  I think that says a lot about where the true stresses are in how people would react.

  • RohnRohn Member UncommonPosts: 3,730

    Never underestimate the levels of depravity that humans will sink to.  Challenges to a group's power base is enough to ellicit truly aberrant behavior - I would imagine the drive to survive such an infectious, invasive, and pervasive threat would be met with even higher levels of vicious behavior.

    Still, humans are social animals, and I do believe that banding together to face such a threat would be viewed by many as the best course of action to increase the likelihood of survival.  There is strength in numbers, especially when properly coordinated.  How such groups acted toward other groups/individuals would likely be directly proportional to the perceived threat.

    Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.

  • gaeanprayergaeanprayer Member UncommonPosts: 2,341

    Last paragraph made me laugh. Storms have been battering the east coast and damn if I haven't gotten a lot of writing done while my internet's been out. Only about half of it is coherent. Little did I know that internet was my prozac.

    "Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."

  • SlayblazeSlayblaze Member UncommonPosts: 24

    A few weeks back when some huge storms ripped through my area, I was without power for 2 days and without cable and internet for a full week. It was pretty bad at first, but I was able to catch up on some single-player games I'd been meaning to play but never got around to finishing. So it wasn't all bad, but a world without the net and tv really really sucks overall.

  • VowOfSilenceVowOfSilence Member UncommonPosts: 565

    People in DayZ don't behave like they would behave after an apocalypse. They behave like a horde of typical internet trolls in a typical sandbox game with broken mechanics, tons of exploitable bugs, quite a lot of hacks, and a dev who refuses to do anything about it.

    Hype train -> Reality

  • jeremyjodesjeremyjodes Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 679

    Pokket Really loves zombies, this I can see.

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  • SabbathSMCSabbathSMC Member Posts: 226

    I think there are alot of people already in postion to handle this type of problem. It wont be our government, look how they handled Katrina lol.

    It will be groups of like minded people that band together, sorta like that Tv series Jericho.

    played M59,UO,lineage,EQ,Daoc,Entropia,SWG,Horizons,Lineage2.EQ2,Vangaurd,Irth online, DarkFall,Star Trek
    and many others that did not make the cut or i just plain forgetting about.

  • AlalalaAlalala Member UncommonPosts: 314
    When the zombie apocalypse comes, I will be glad to have played DayZ, and not WoW's kungfu panda.
  • RamadarRamadar Member Posts: 167

    If there were to be any kind of Apocalypse it's gonna have to wait til around January 2014 after that I will welcome globle murder with open arms.

    Evil will always triumph because good is dumb....

  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726

    Ridculous speculation.  When you get sick you most certainly don't get strong.  Sickness weakens you.

    Silly kids should not let their imagination run wild about something they do not have a clue about.  

     

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435

    I thought this was going to be an article about tne WOW Panderan expansion.

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    Plague probably will be one of the big planet shaping events in the future, they just won't be running around trying to eat us after they die.

    Assuming the meteor strikes or global warming doesn't get us first.

    image

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

    "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant

    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

    Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

    Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™

    "This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon






  • TheBigDRCTheBigDRC Member Posts: 162

    Love the last paragraph.

    "No internet, no DayZ, talking way too much about zombies. . . but at least I saw the new Batman movie twice."

    Put that on a T-Shirt and then you got something. XD

    You know what's fun about chaos? I do, but I won't tell.

  • HrimnirHrimnir Member RarePosts: 2,415

    There would definitely be communities that banded together, but FOR SURE there would be a lot of people out there who would kill you without a seconds hesitation just to take the bag of peanuts off your corpse.

    Honestly though, everybody uses the zombie apocalypse in a joking manner, but if anarchy were to descend, i highly doubt everyone would be laughing at the people stockpiling guns, munitions, food, etc.

    "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

    - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • AtibraAtibra Member Posts: 65

    I think what's more disturbing than a true "mindless zombie" apocalype would be the alternative that is more likely to become a reality -

    That being that a highly contagious infectious disease with extreme physical side effects (think leprosy) spreads throughout the world.  The non-infected would attempt to quarantine off the infected population as much as possible, going to extreme measures of ostracization and execution.  As such, the infected side would become increasingly hostile and retaliatory towards the non-infected side..

    The result would be the post-apocalyptic type combatative world you see in typical Zombie vs. Human movies/games - but much scarier, as you wouldn't be fighting mindless drones, but other humans who simply were infected.

     

  • TrionicusTrionicus Member UncommonPosts: 498

    If the zombie apocalypse affects the works at nuclear plants and water treatment centers then it's all over. For the few months that preceed the complete reactor failures and heavily polluted water systems, we can all kill eachother for canned beans.

     

    Sweet.

  • HokieHokie Member UncommonPosts: 1,063

    I know something that will really toast youre noodle...

    Next time youre out grocery shopping, stop and take a close look at the store, or any store that sells critical "goods" that would be critical during a zombie apocalypse.

    If you can compair them to say the same store built back in the '50s, and tell me what you see.

     

    Vintage -

    How are you going to stop a zombie horde from entering that?!?

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    ___________________________________________________________________________

    Newer fortress style -

    Easy controled access, the entrance will have metal drop shutters.

    If it does have glass windows, they will be smaller and have metal emergency drop shutters too.

    All built that way to federal code.....

    image

    Video games about the zombie apoc, movies coming out about it, and a best selling book The Zombie Survival Guide, also specially build zombie proof houses ?

    What does it all mean? What do they know that we dont?

     

    Absolutely nothing. But its fun to theorycraft.

    Or is it....?

    "I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."

  • taramirtaramir Member UncommonPosts: 74

    "All in all there was really not much of a point to this column"

     

    Ahh I was not the only one who thought this as I was reading.

  • helthroshelthros Member UncommonPosts: 1,449

    I live in Miami, FL and we have definitely seen the onset of the zombie apocolypse!!

  • HokieHokie Member UncommonPosts: 1,063
    Originally posted by helthros

    I live in Miami, FL and we have definitely seen the onset of the zombie apocolypse!!

    Didnt they find out he just had weed in his system and then got a terribad case of the munchies?

    "I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."

  • TrionicusTrionicus Member UncommonPosts: 498
    Originally posted by Hokie
    Originally posted by helthros

    I live in Miami, FL and we have definitely seen the onset of the zombie apocolypse!!

    Didnt they find out he just had weed in his system and then got a terribad case of the munchies?

    Trace amounts of THC, aka, he smoked weed several days, weeks or months prior but, at the time of the face eating he was completely sober : Though there is a study stating that a subject WITH the potential for Schizophrenia may experience episodes if introduced to THC.

  • SircaSirca Member UncommonPosts: 110

    Would move to the Poles, I doubt zombies have an extended cold resistance if any.

  • XarnthalXarnthal Member Posts: 130

    You've convinced me to go buy another gun. Damn you!

    Sennheiser
    Assist
    Thage

  • SephiroSephiro Member UncommonPosts: 7

    Take a look at the TV show The Colony, it gives a pretty good demonstration of survival after an apocolypse.

    Human nature in video games and on the internet is not the same as in real life. When you shoot a someone dead in the game there is a good chance they will come back not so in real life.

     You know that and unless you are a psychopath you would feel something awfull for taking a real human life. Think about if you kill a young man or woman your actually potentialy killing thousands of people if that human life would have produced generations of childeren.

     

  • AthisioAthisio Member Posts: 72
    Originally posted by taramir

    "All in all there was really not much of a point to this column"

     

    Ahh I was not the only one who thought this as I was reading.

     I concur not sure what this column has to do with mmorpg's....... Seems some what of a waste.

  • rygard49rygard49 Member UncommonPosts: 973
    Originally posted by Athisio
    Originally posted by taramir

    "All in all there was really not much of a point to this column"

     

    Ahh I was not the only one who thought this as I was reading.

     I concur not sure what this column has to do with mmorpg's....... Seems some what of a waste.

    Not everything on this website is about MMOs all the time. If you've been here long enough you know that. And don't pretend like you don't imagine doomsday situations from time to time just to figure out what you would do.

    That, and there are a couple of Zombie MMOs (and the author has written a few columns about them) that have inspired this article, so it's still loosely related to the MMO future.

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