WOW players catch the plague

[Varsity]

Shacknews reader pigz brings word (http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=10760041) of the latest goings on in Azeroth: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 palyers 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 genral 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 quarentine and infect other players.
There is also a video (http://files.filefront.com/WoW_plauge_divxavi/;4145249;;/fileinfo.html) of the disease's effects.

Anyone remember the 'infectious' 3rd party Sims 2 items from a while back?

[Grimgrock]

So is this the intended effect or is it pardon the pun, a bug? Seems like it definitely adds a level of RP to the game but at the same time, a couple 250-300 hits of that disease and I'm a dead little gnome.

[Deadend]

just make the damage level based and grant plague immunity if you died of it it in the last 10 minutes.

[civx]

just make the damage level based and grant plague immunity if you died of it it in the last 10 minutes.

That's far too logical for Blizzard.

[Talanvor]

http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/

[The_Reckoning]

Already knew: http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/

E: OMG we thought of posting the same thing at the SAME TIME!

Great minds think alike, eh?

[feeble]

haha, thats pretty funny, itll eventually die out, as spawn times get longer and people get pissed off and leave the game for the night.

[Talanvor]

Now I'm afraid.

[Savok]

This completely stupid, really strange and utterly cool all at once.

[Talltale]

EQ2 had a game wide event for the plague a few months ago. Some owlbears were spreading it from Nektulos forrest. Started with a couple players bringing it to the city.. next thing you know almost every NPC had it as well. The GM's put in wierd snake-oil vendors and stuff. It ended up being solved by tradskill alchamists who developed a cure requireing a raid level guild to help get the components needed. The idea was cool, but man, was that plague annoying. /=

[Herald42]

I personally like the idea. Turn the thing into a big event. Scale the splatting to level, and come up with a solution. Then, fix it in a post-event patch.

[Derwin]

There should be fake "cures" for the Plague like in the medieval times, such as drilling holes in people's skulls to let the "spirit escape".

Or just sell an item called "Cure for the Plague" but it's not really the cure it just gives you the disease again.

[Mrbunchypants]

I think this was not intented. Like the warlock demon bug awhile back. cool vid though.

[bobafett10]

Yea, it's been in my server's Ironforge a few times. It's only annoying to high level players as we have enough Health Points to survive it for a long peroid of time. The only people it really effects are lower level characters that die in a matter of seconds from it. I can't see that really being the intended effect. It was probably never meant to leave Zul'Gurub.

[bobbler]

Neat game mechanic (the idea of it being spreadable) but seemingly rather frustrating.

[vornskr]

Hearing what Talltale said about that EQ2 event almost makes me want to play that game :x

[rein]

This is a big fuck up by Blizzard. There is no way the intended for someone to get a plague and wipe out the lower level population of major cities. Glad I have not been playing for a bit. I would have been pissed after waiting in a Que for 20 minutes to log on and die. No, not hating on Blizzard so fanboys can STFU. I am just saying it is a bug and would have annoyed the hell out of me if I were still playing.

Now, if they were to make it level based as suggested above it could have some really cool RP effects. Every time someone gets the plague they could be banished from major cities until they get the cure. It would be cool if guards would kill them on site if they tried to enter a capital city with the plague. Make it so that druids/priests can make a cure or you have to complete some small quest to get it.

[51|RandoM]

Lol, a high level priest could cause an awful lot of grief. Call her Typhoid Mary, she can travel from town to town, spreading the plague, keeping herself alive with her own healing abilities.

[Nintendo Revolution]

Sounds awesome to me. Teaches you to stay away from big crowds during these times. Makes the game feel more realistic if you ask me.

Too bad I stopped playing WoW months ago, this would have been neat to witness.

[Tennistoad]

What is this WoW you speak of? And who cares if a bunch of noobs get teh plag'

[Twigz'N'Berries]

I was holding off on getting the game, but I have to get it now. This sounds awesome. This is the type of thing you just don't get with consoles (at least I haven't ever seen it!).

[51|RandoM]

In related news, I finally got around to uninstalling WoW and defragging the drive it was on.

;-)

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Alternate headline: "WoW Spreads a Virus"

[net7runner]

Just in case anyone's wondering:

-The effect only lasts for about 10 seconds.
-You cannot contract the disease if you're PVP enabled (strange, eh?)
-Ironforge is now significantly less laggy due to the culling of all afk players
-Am I a bad person if I think it's funny to watch a level 60 with the plague chasing some poor lowbie around trying to get him infected?
-The GMs pretty much have no idea what to do. Some of them are claiming that things are "working as intended"

*shrug* it's funny and not that annoying. Just go PVP and you're fine....

[TheKeck]

Bring out 'yer dead!!

[Crabby]

A very amusing situation since it has completely overshadowed the very real and serious unintended bug from the latest patch that allows rogues to outdamage hunters with certain 3.0+ second bows.

[ElectricMonk]

i think they should have npc priests that are immune and just walk around the towns curing people.

[ElectricMonk]

you know it just occurred to me, maybe adding less lethal diseses would be kind of neat. and you get immunity to some of them, like chickenpox

you could catch a cold down in a swamp if you weren't lucky

[Sloth]

i'm sure it wasn't intended as todays developers are too scared to implement something that players would consider "griefing" and "ruining their gameplay"

The irony is that it probably made the game much more exciting to play than the controled, sterile monster bash that MMOGs have become.

[Meshyf]

That is too fuckin cool. I can't wait till I get aids on my server :D

[Pantsmonkey]

You guys havent started following the path of Origin yet have you?

[Zeal]

They're either gonna have to delete this thing altogether or make it wear off much more quickly.

[Twigz'N'Berries]

I just went out and bought it. I signed up for a 3 month sub, because when the 360 comes out, I will be obsessed with it.
But, all the things I loved about pc gaming is here. The 5 disks I have to load. Then, I have to setup my account. Then I have to download a bunch of updates which I'm at 19% of doing.

November 22nd will not get here fast enough.

[Chiron]

There was a similar 'virus' earlier in WoW's history, where you would basically detonate like a bomb, causing a huge amount of damage to people around you. For example, if a pet had contracted the curse but was put away before it went off and you summoned him in a large group of players (an auction house for example) it would go off, killing everyone around you. It was funny to watch.
They'll probably hotfix this so the plague doesn't carry over outside the dungeon.

[Blue]

This isn't anywhere on Thunderhorn or, if it is, it hasn't spread any as I've been all over Azeroth today. I can think of a good handful of people I'd want to give this too. So they can, of course, give it to another hanful of people.

I Heart Blood Gods.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

How does this make the game "more realistic".

In the real world most people do not actively try to spread disease. ;)

The simple fact that MMORPGs are games keeps them from ever creating any sort of realistic world or community.

[Scar]

If this was unintended then I think it's kind of a fascinating look at what creating a virtual reality entails. When you think of The Matrix or other computer network based movies that have "rogue code" going around you kind of snort to yourself thinking, "yeah right, and there's some in Microsoft Word that deliberately mispells things." The idea of a piece of unintended programming having long-reaching effects seems ridiculous in any sufficiently engineered project. But in this case it appears to be right, that there is a relatively complex interacting system and an unpredicted circumstance came up, and now there's a big effect on the game world in general. It makes me wonder what kind of crazy stuff will happen as these worlds grow ever larger and more complex.

As for this plague in specific I think they should make it have some kind of long term effect, like scarring your character like small pox.

[Nintendo Revolution]

"Ironforge is now significantly less laggy due to the culling of all afk players"\

Genious! I can only imagine the auction house is empty now!

[bobafett10]

There was a similar 'virus' earlier in WoW's history, where you would basically detonate like a bomb, causing a huge amount of damage to people around you. For example, if a pet had contracted the curse but was put away before it went off and you summoned him in a large group of players (an auction house for example) it would go off, killing everyone around you. It was funny to watch.

Ahhh yes, the good old Baron Geddon bomb. :) Never seen it outside the Molten Core, but even in there if people aren't smart about it can easily wipe at least 5 people. Could only imagine that in the Auction House, lol. All things aside, that is quite the fun encounter.

[joruussuun]

You guys havent started following the path of Origin yet have you?

I guess nobody else got this... oh well, I thought it was hilarious.

[Sloth]

How does this make the game "more realistic".

In the real world most people do not actively try to spread disease. ;)

The simple fact that MMORPGs are games keeps them from ever creating any sort of realistic world or community.

The short duration of the disease is such that you can only spread if you actively do it, i.e catch it recall to a busy area. But many diseases can be contaigous for a long time and sometimes you don't even know you have it. So it would not be unrealistic for one person to cause an entire city to become infected.

[Mrbunchypants]

there was a movie someone made about that curse going off.
It was alittle gnome warlock that dismissed his pet in MC then summoned it in the IF AH. killed like half the people in there. A few days later they fixed it so it couldn't be done outside MC.
They will do the same for this. Still funny to watch.

[Librum]

So not if you're PvP enabled? Guess that explains why I haven't seen it on the PvP servers, perhaps?

[Mobeus Chronox]

I'm thinking about reactivating my WoW account just to go catch the plague. :)
Perhaps this is a Blizzard tactic to get curious ex-players to sign on again.
Probably not, but it may work out that way in a few cases.