Well since it's always a negative when it comes to stories emerging from games and especially online games I thought this was a nice change.

Dude that's awesome, lol. Though I don't like WoW.
It reminds me of a story I heard about this Norwegian teen who was ambushed by wolves, and he decided to play his Creed music so loud that the wolves ran away.
My theory is to why they ran away was because the music was so god awful that they needed to escape the surrounding area.

Hmm interesting, while im a big hater of WOW I would say that it looks like some good did actually come from it lol, it is nice to see storys like this

My question is: aren't taunting and feign death common knowledge while facing wild animals? Rather than "WoW" skills?

Feign death is, but taunting? Who in their right mind would try to taunt an animal that big?

Except for the kid in the article...

I would think its the other way around, why would you play dead and stay in one place, doesnt that only work on some animals, I would think some animals would be very happy they dont have to run after there prey and eat him right there, and taunting makes since if its to save someone you love, otherwise it seems crazy.

Well feign death is something they tell people to do in those cases, I'm not saying it is the right thing to do.

Umm, pointed question: aren't these techniques just natural, instinctual behaviour? I mean, taunting isn't from WoW - his sister was in danger and anyone would have done the same to divert the animal's attention. Feigning death, likewise, is taught in pretty much every survival class.

Same thing with bears, you're supposed to just curl up in a ball and pretend to be dead. They might knock you around a bit and it's obviously gonna hurt (it's a bear) but they eventually leave you alone. WoW has nothing to do with survival skills. If the kid wanted to do some damage, he should of just LE ROY JENKINS!'ed the moose. Would of been more entertaining.

When I read that some kid used WoW skills to save his sister from a moose, I was expecting to read an article about him beating it to death with a stick or something while his friend healed him.

Well look, he's a 12 year old kid. He wouldn't have learned any of that unless he played WoW. And thankfully he did or else they might have died.

Well, maybe the playing dead. But any twelve year old would try to divert the attacker's attention from a vulnerable loved one. That's pretty basic human behaviour.

I think it's obvious that he used basic survival skills and everyone knows this.
This made the news because WoW players never actually leave their houses.

I think the impressive thing here is being overlooked. The kid is twelve and successfully saved his sister and himself from an attack. Even if this stuff is somewhat instinctive, it's hardly something you'd expect to do at 12. The ideas were reinforced in his head from WoW - second nature to him.
Stress causes people to act irrationally, which is why simulations often try to increase stress and then increase people's ability to lower that stress. The point here is that online games are stressful, and yet success depends on simply acting a certain way under that pressure.
One day this kid is put into a stressful situation in real life, and his 'training' as it were kicks in.

He learnt this stuff from WoW, but also learnt how to apply it. Theory and practice are where poor survival courses go wrong, if WoW can actually teach people how to apply what they know then good on it.
WoW saved this kids life. I personally don't like WoW, but it's hard to say that that isn't what happened.

And that's why, sometimes, games actually help you in real life

@Sparrow:
I'm sure that's not being overlooked, its amazing that he did this at 12.

Well, I suppose video game skills can be applied to real life in some cases. After all, I learned how to manage time effectively by playing The Sims many moons ago.

That's so weird. I learned math when I was 2-3 because of Sim City (1991 release) xD

Yeah I had that for the SNES, and I pretty much learned how to save money and budget from it as a little kid. Simulation games are good for learning valuable life skills - I now know the magnitude of choosing whether to spend my next hour on the toilet or building skill points!

OK, SO HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED.

Norweigal, level 25 Human Hunter, was questing in Hillsbrad when his little sister, FunnyBunny (Level 6 Human Rogue) came by to say hi. She pulled aggro on the level 23 Hillsbrad Moose and was about to OHKed when Norweigal used Distracting Shot. This pulled the aggro off the moose, but because he had just finished killing a strong elite questing mob, he used Feign Death and the moose ran away.

The sister was soon mauled by a velociraptor.

Actually what I would have done was block the way of the attacker and let them attack me while me loved one ran away while i'm getting killed/eaten and I would have never thought of taunting the attacker then playing dead ESPECIALLY thinking of playing dead.

Please don't necropost this topic is 6 weeks old,