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World of Warcraft: Unplanned Plague Hits WoW
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
One of the scariest real-world threats has now invaded World of Warcraft! Reports are coming in from all over the internet that something has gone terribly wrong within the confines of this extremely popular MMORPG. It seems that characters are dying from an honest-to-goodness, unintentional plague that is spreading through in-game cities at an alarming rate.
Internet sources trace the problem back to the 1.7 patch and a new area known as Zul'Gurub. MMORPG.com reported the update back on on Sept. 13th, and had this to say about the new area:
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Zul'Gurub Hidden within the jungles of Stranglethorn, an ancient Troll city full of peril has been uncovered. Do you have what it takes to delve into its mysteries with a band of hardy explorers? There's only one way to find out! Zul'Gurub is a high-level, 20-man raid instance with 120 new rare and epic items to uncover. Adventure awaits! |
What we could not have possibly known at the time was that this would turn out to be a problem area, not only for players, but for the developers as well. According to Shacknews, the illness originated when, within the scenario, players are confronted by Hakkar, an evil NPC who carries the debuff "Corrupted Blood". This is what one poster had to say about the origin of the incident:
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Here's the skinny: 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 corrupted 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). |
Apparently, and again, according to unofficial internet courses, GMs have tried to quarantine characters carrying this virus. Their efforts, however, have met with somewhat limited success.
Blizzard Entertainment has yet to comment on this incident on their official website. Rest assured that whenever official word becomes available, we here at MMORPG.com will bring it to you as soon as possible.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
That was so much fun when it happened on Blackrock, corpses everywhere
the gm's were asking people in general chat to move out of the area and being in the vacinity of the Auction House that was never going to happen. It's not the first time something like that has happened though. People have gotten effects such as the bomb from Geddon in MC on their pets, dismissed them and then taken them out in the middle of a packed auction house.
*Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author... got sick of holding backspace.
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ParaTrooper, That guy that used to mod the MMORPG.com forums.
G4TV's, Attack of the Show, showed a video one player made of this plague in IF. The AotS host played it up like it was a real world tragedy and made a plea for help from everyone. I know people who have this plague are annoyed, but the way the guy's at AoTS did their skit was just damn funny!
I'm pledging 5 gold to the 'Find a Cure for the Hakkar Plague' fund.. It's the least I can do.
THAT IS AWESOME!!!
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Haven't seen it on my server. Hope it stays in control there
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=7014
A movie of it.
Edit:
Asked abit around in my guild. Apperarently it only lasted for some hours and now they have hotfixed it.
They have hotfixed it.
I am so resubscribing to WoW tonite! Hope i can still catch the plague!!!
I heard you can turn undead from that plague if it does exactly the same amount of damage as your health...
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
This situation bring a whole new meaning to "shafting non-raiders" that I didnt even consider before reading this.
A good raider is a guy who doesnt play the same MMO that I play.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
It has in fact been commented upon by Blizzard:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4929988&p=1&tmp=1#post4929988
I think I found that http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4929988&p=1&tmp=1#post4929988 although *I* can't take credit for it. One of our kind readers sent this along! <Just look one post above me for the culprit!> For those who don't want to click away, this basically tells us that they TRIED a hotfix to get rid of this thing and failed.
I think this all puts an interesting spin on MMORPGs as life simulations. Right now, totally by accident, an extremely crippling plague is being spread across the game world and the "medical experts" can't fix it. It almost reads like a real world news report where we'd all be fearing for our lives.
Anyway. There it is! Cheers!
Stradden
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I have to admit, that's beyond cool.
Yep, that's the one! I thought it was cool. As pscycho-glass-shards-in-the-eyes-fun that the WoW boards can be, it's nice that the mods there are able to maintain their sanity and keep things fun.
I haven't logged into WoW for a while, I've started back up on EvE again
and doing 3 different betas for various MMO's, but I'll have to check this out today, now that my "weekend" is starting.
Yep, that's the one! I thought it was cool. As pscycho-glass-shards-in-the-eyes-fun that the WoW boards can be, it's nice that the mods there are able to maintain their sanity and keep things fun.
I haven't logged into WoW for a while, I've started back up on EvE again
and doing 3 different betas for various MMO's, but I'll have to check this out today, now that my "weekend" is starting.
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Well at first I didnt think it was programmably possible but I just remembered that back in EQ2 we also had the plague. However it wasnt death threatening as WoW, still I havent logged in WoW but I saw a couple screenshots and am downloading a vid on it. Also the plague in EQ2 was an in game event, DEVs for EQ2 said that it wasnt that harmful, it did spread but someone was supposed to acheive a certain level and find the recipe to cure the plague.
Plague in EQ2 started here: http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive.vm?section=News&month=042005&id=448&direction=back
Dont know which server first found the cure but one of the servers did: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=105&message.id=6961&query.id=88783#M6961
for mmorpgs:
"Good", "Free", "MMORPG" - Pick 2.
Tamic
ROFLCOPTOR BLIZZ HAHA