World of Warcraft, otherwise known simply as WoW, is one of the most popular and successful computer games in history. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game that 6 million people pay $10 -15 per month to play. This type of popularity creates a sample size that is large enough to reflect the forces that control it. In Layman's terms, with this many people playing this online game at any given time human nature tends to get a stronger representation.
The first "reality" check was a bug that caused a plague to outbreak and affect people's characters in certain cases instantly killing any player below a certain level.
The second "reality" check was when this group of Warcraft players otherwise known as a guild interrupted a memorial service. Apparently, some dude dies in real life who is a popular WoW player. The people in the game think it would be nice to have a memorial for the player so they log into his account, take the character to a lake, and set it up for everyone to come pay their respects.
A bunch of dudes decide this would be a great time to ambush everyone so they run over a hill, kill the dead guy's character, and then wipe out everyone who was there to show their respects. They filmed the whole thing and put it on the net.
http://spikedhumor.com/articles/22282/WoW_Funeral_Ambush_Video.htmlThe Google VideoDeadly WoW Plague
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4272418.stmhttp://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/09/plaguelands.html