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World of Warcraft is Infectious

Posted by Zonk on from the practice-safe-mmoging dept.

ringbarer writes "News is coming in that the lands of Azeroth have become infected with a deadly plague which the developers never intended to spread. Originating from the new Zul'Gurub instance, the plague has spread from player to player via town NPCs. Entire cities are being wiped out, yet players are finding this surprise content entertaining!" From the article: " 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." Commentary on Terra Nova.

6 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Unintentional? by EvilAardvark · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This was unintentional? We had no idea on our server and assumed it was something Blizz had added to add some depth to the game. It was actually quite amusing to watch it spread as people attempted to go about their business between the bank and auction house in Ironforge.

    1. Re:Unintentional? by Big_Breaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No the most amusing was a boss MOB which cursed a player to explode after a brief delay, severely damaging all who surrounded him. The curse could also be put on pets. An enterprising hunter dismissed a cursed pet before the explosion was triggered and resummoned it much later inside the trading hall. MASS extinction ensued as the explosion went off.

  2. But can you fling an infected player at a town? by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Romans used to fling diseased corpses into the towns that they were laying siege to, and not surprisingly the tactic worked quite well. But can you fling a player into a town in WoW?

    --
    Monstar L
  3. Sounds hilarious! by Yeechang+Lee · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What I posted on Usenet:

    I'm sorry, but this sounds hilarious (I'm sorry I missed the streets paved with corpses of the dead) and absolutely appropriate. I mean, explorers returning from a remote, mysterious, newly-discovered jungle outpost bring back a highly-contagious disease that decimates the young and weak and severely weakens the strong? Entire books and movies have been written with less to work with!
  4. Horizons: Empires of Istartia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's been a long while since I've last played this MMO, but if I recall, there was an event involving a plague that was spread around the various servers. The disease would lower your stats increasingly over time until it was cured. After a bit, I think it would kill you. Of course, death was a much less inconvienance in Horizons.

    I think the dragons were immune to the disease. They actually could create a temporary cure to remove the disease, but you were likely to get affected again.

    I don't know how it ended up. I think there were some monsters in the blighted regions that needed to be destroyed, along with special machines to disable the disease-bearing spots. However, Horizons had this before WoW. And it actually had some bearing to the storyline, rather than getting griefed.

  5. Re:'Twas interesting... by Thing+1 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Now, expect that to last. 3, 2, ...

    Hang on, why not talk to your fucking supervisor when they're paying you and you've got "nothing going on"?

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.