Schrodinger's Jump
by Matthew Rossi 
Aug 21st 2007 at 12:59PM
Piping hot from the WoW forums comes the tale of an interesting experiment: Psychosheep, a troll warrior on
Anvilmar, decided to jump off of the Aldor rise with 15 seconds left before server reset. Best comment comes about half way down the thread, in my opinion: Renault, a BE Pally from Suncrown, says " ...mein Gott. It's Schrodinger's Jump. Considering we do not know the state of existence until you log back on, your char is both simultaneously alive and dead at the same time. Until you log back on to confirm the state."
Now, that idea right there just tickles me, both because it's very apt and it's the kind of metaphor that tends to extend itself. It's weird to think about your character in a state of quantum uncertainty when you disconnect or the server goes down, essentially in limbo while you try and get back. Does he or she even exist when you're not playing? The Armory would seem to offer us some solace in these uncertain times.
Have you ever done anything similar when your server was about to shut down? The closest I've ever come personally was when I, not paying attention to general or announcements, was farming furbolgs in Winterspring and I managed to charge one just as the server came down. I spent an hour trying to get back in, and finally managed it to discover the furbolg dead and my character at half-health. But I don't think I would have deliberately done so, as was the case here. I'm not a big fan of dying from fall damage.
Anvilmar, decided to jump off of the Aldor rise with 15 seconds left before server reset. Best comment comes about half way down the thread, in my opinion: Renault, a BE Pally from Suncrown, says " ...mein Gott. It's Schrodinger's Jump. Considering we do not know the state of existence until you log back on, your char is both simultaneously alive and dead at the same time. Until you log back on to confirm the state." Now, that idea right there just tickles me, both because it's very apt and it's the kind of metaphor that tends to extend itself. It's weird to think about your character in a state of quantum uncertainty when you disconnect or the server goes down, essentially in limbo while you try and get back. Does he or she even exist when you're not playing? The Armory would seem to offer us some solace in these uncertain times.
Have you ever done anything similar when your server was about to shut down? The closest I've ever come personally was when I, not paying attention to general or announcements, was farming furbolgs in Winterspring and I managed to charge one just as the server came down. I spent an hour trying to get back in, and finally managed it to discover the furbolg dead and my character at half-health. But I don't think I would have deliberately done so, as was the case here. I'm not a big fan of dying from fall damage.
Filed under: Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Humor, Fan stuff
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Hank Aug 21st 2007 1:14PM
I do not come here for lessons in advanced quantum mechanics, physics, and the basic rules of...oh hell.
Schrodinger FTW.
Knat Aug 21st 2007 1:15PM
Well,
I can tell you for a fact that one should never NEVER log in an elevator in the Undercity... Where the floor was may not be where the floor is when one logs back :(
Haikou Aug 21st 2007 1:16PM
Just before the last server restart, I was trying to wrap up a quest and get to safe ground. With 15 seconds to spare, I found a quiet spot away from the mobs and watched the end of the countdown. When I logged back on after the restart, I found that it had put me in the spot I had left a few minutes before the restart... in the middle of a group of 5 mobs.
Scruffy Aug 21st 2007 1:17PM
Aldor Rise boils my blood. Sure it's fun to take flying leaps when Light Feathers are plentiful but, damn it, I shouldn't be able to cast levitate AND die from fall damage at the same time.
Until my alts can choose a side, it's the Scryer inn ftw.
Scruffy Aug 21st 2007 1:20PM
Oh, and related to topic:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/02/im-in-ur-quantum-box/
Paul Aug 21st 2007 2:05PM
ugg, this wasn't before a server reset, but this posted combined with the post about AH and lag in shattrath reminded me of one time when my hunter drank a noggenfogger at the top of aldor rise. I gained the floating effect instead of the skeleton, etc, so I jumped off. The lag was so bad that the floating effect ran out while i was still in the air, so i fell and died. :(
RogueJedi86 Aug 21st 2007 6:51PM
My ISP has been crap for the past few months, cutting out during every rainstorm, even light showers, so I've had experience on this.
If you get disconnected when you're in combat, apparently your character keeps attacking on auto-attack. I would log back in to see the corpses near me.
On the other hand, once I was manually flying(not on auto-run) from the lake above Allerian to the lake above Stonebreaker for fishing, when I got disconnected maybe halfway between the 2 locations. I woke up dead, couldn't find my corpse, and had to rez at graveyard. Apparently my character kept flying, and died over Stonebreaker.
Sirg Aug 22nd 2007 2:04AM
I got DC when flying from Booty Bay to Stormwind. I got back the other way and I was flying again over Duskwood. Again, I was DC in Alterac Valley, just minutes before the team won - when I returned, it loaded the AV data, but I ended at the battle master with no medals for that battle. 3 hours wasted :)
When the internet connection goes very low, the communication with the server is still on, but everything freezes while you can move your char. It's very odd, like time stoped for everyone else but not for you. You can move around and see what everyone was doing - this happened in AV - and I could have seen where a rogue was hidding, how many were fighting in Frostwolf Village, there was one in the air, that jumped from a tower... it was interesting, but then the client disconnected me. :)
RogueJedi86 Aug 22nd 2007 2:12AM
I've had the in-flight disconnect too. Flew from Wildhammer Stronghold to Shatt, disconnected in Terokkar, logged in a day later, still flying. So I guess it won't auto-move you when it's a flight path.