Who said PC games weren't educational? A Norwegian boy recently reaped in the benefits of spending countless hours behind the LCD screen by surviving a moose attack thanks to the help of World of Warcraft.
Twelve-year-old Hans Jørgen Olsen and his sister went out into the forest near their home to take a brisk walk. Details are scarce, however they unintentionally wandered into moose territory. An alarmed moose came charging towards the two young trespassers upon their arrival.
Despite the threat, Hans knew exactly what to do.
Thanks to his numerous encounters in Blizzard's MMORPG, his first reaction was to "taunt" the moose so that it would ignore his younger sister. With its focus shifting to the boy, the sister was able to flee and head for safety.
In the PC game, taunting is the ability to draw the attention of the attacking beast away from the lower-level and less-armored party members. Apparently it works on real-world beasts too.
After the girl escaped, Hans initiated another World of Warcraft tactic he learned at level 30: feigning his death. Dropping to the ground and remaining inanimate, he waited for the moose to sniff him out and lose interest.
Eventually the beast wandered off into the woods, leaving the boy unscathed--he's lucky the moose didn't trample him into a fleshy rug. Hans said that he got up and ran back home to report what happened.
The amount of experience points given for the encounter is currently unknown.
