WOW Fuxed!

[ZeroX]

In an absolutely bizarre turn of events, a virtual disease is spreading through the World of Warcraft servers, killing off characters everywhere it spreads. The disease is a direct result of a new in-game instance created by Blizzard, which appears to be working not quite how it was intended.

There is a little info over at Shacknews, but the basic gist is this:

Blizzard adds in a new instance, Zul'Gurub. Inside is the god of blood, Hakkar. Well, when you fight him he has a debuff called Corrputed Blood. It does like 250-350 damage to players and affects nearby players. The amazing thing is SOME PLAYERS have brought this disease (and it is a disease) back to the towns, outside of the instance. It starts spreading amongst the general population including npcs, who can out generate the damage. Some servers have gotten so bad that you can't go into the major cities without getting the plague (and anyone less than like level 50 nearly immediately die).

GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infect other players.

How absolutely bonkers.

There's an amusing animation here which basically sums it up.

This incredulous scenario has equally bizarre consequences. Is this the first example of an in-game disease ramping out of control? Is it another step towards on-line worlds becoming just like real worlds? It seems likely that this 'escape' will go down in history as one of the events that defines the MMO-era.


Source: http://www.bit-tech.com

[iago]

Hahaha, that's really cool!

[Screenor]

Rofl wow, that actually makes me want to go get WoW.

[Sidoh]

Haha, I guess my server sucks too much (in that area, anyway).  We don't have a problem yet.

[GameSnake]

Oh jesus. Welcome to the a brave new age. ::) What is this all about? Blizzard intentionally did this... why? I don't see any reason to kill other players on an MMORPG who are not involved in something, ie a "desiese" epidemic online, they should have the full 5-0: immunizations/shots/cures, you dont have a choice to participate so it doesnt really sound fair or professional to me.

[iago]

Blizzard intentionally did this... why?

The disease is a direct result of a new in-game instance created by Blizzard, which appears to be working not quite how it was intended.

[Sidoh]

Oh jesus. Welcome to the a brave new age. ::) What is this all about? Blizzard intentionally did this... why? I don't see any reason to kill other players on an MMORPG who are not involved in something, ie a "desiese" epidemic online, they should have the full 5-0: immunizations/shots/cures, you dont have a choice to participate so it doesnt really sound fair or professional to me.

Learn to read.  <_<

When you have a system as advanced as this, its easy to implement something that gets more out of hand than you initially intended.

[GameSnake]

I KNOW I DID READ IT. I was just wondering why they're not doing anything about it!

[Screenor]

I KNOW I DID READ IT. I was just wondering why they're not doing anything about it!

Because they can't just say "Ok, come to the doctors on map area 5251, 6783 for your anti-disease shots." MMO's don't work like that, and if they were to go and make it so it never happened to those people, they'd more the likely be deleting anything else they did around the time it occured, it's just way too much work. It's like the flu. Think a bit on this.

I for one think it's quite neat, wether intended or not, it changed a lot of my view points on the game in realistics wise.

[RoMi]

Thats amazing.

[Blaze]

http://www.g4tv.com/mediaplayer/index.aspx?video_key=9495

Good game.

[Sidoh]

I KNOW I DID READ IT. I was just wondering why they're not doing anything about it!

When they implement such a 'debuff' in an environment such as they developed, it's not exaclty destined to happen.  You never know how something will behave unless you release it into the real world.

This goes back to:

A computer program doesn't do what you want it to, it does what you tell it to.

[Newby]

That is really awesome.

[Ergot]

Old :O? I heard about it two days ago :S

[Joe]

Shaman -> Cure Disease.

Once again, Alliance is beaten (or, druids?)