World of Warcraft has the plague

[chocobokick]

"Here's the short version:
Blizzard adds in a new instance to their MMORPG World of Warcraft. This instance is named Zul'Gurub. Inside is the god of blood, Hakkar. When you fight him he has a debuff called Corrputed Blood. It does roughly 250-350 damage to your character and affects nearby player characters.

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 regenerate fast enough to ignore 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 dies). GM's even tried quarantining players in certain areas, but the players kept escaping the quarantine and infecting other players. "

[SamuraiSmurfette]

LOL. I don't think that was supposed to happen, right? ;)
Interesting, that.

[calthaer]

They never fully playtest stuff like this or think it through when they do MMOGs. This is one of the many reasons why I never play them.

I remember back in the day in Everquest - before there was anyone over level 25 or 30 - that you would have a whole zone filled with these Griffons right in the newbie area. Now the Griffon was like level 45, and would kill everyone there. The thing is that it was a very rare spawn, and would only show up like once every 200-300 kills in the newbie zone. But since no newbie could kill it...

It was pure dumbness. The griffons could also kill people through walls, so if you went inside a house structure to escape it, it would still kill you.

Why people pay monthly for this kind of crap nowadays I'll never understand. The novelty of MMOGs and "MULTYPLAYER GAMEZ OVER TEH INTARWEBS!" has worn off. These games need to get their acts together.

[devilman]

It's interesting to read about it on the WoW forums - most of the people on there seem to want to keep the plague in the game and that it's the best event ever. O_O

[boatofcar]

I think its awesome. MMO's are supposed to be full of experimental stuff. Just like when some EQ people got together and killed the "unkillable" monster/thing.

[FantasiaWHT]

See I think stuff like that is what makes online games incredibly fun.

I used to play one called Nexus; Kingdom of the Winds. It sucks now, but it used to be amazing- the GM's would run events on a daily basis; some of which were EXCEEDINGLY dangerous. As part of one storyline, nearly immortal enemies were released into the central portions of town. Nobody at the time could kill them except by completing a quest that drove them off for a time.

Keep in mind that in this game, when you died you dropped a "deathpile" of every item you owned and had equipped, and anyone could pick it up.

Fun times :)

[PDorr3]

Sounds interesting, but I would imagine for low level characters it would get highly aggrivating..

[pacmanhat]

http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/

(link probably nsfw)

LOL

[Zing]

Bugs like this are nothing surprising to a seasoned WoW player. Hell, even the average Diablo/Starcraft player knows that Blizzard has a QA department staffed by single cell organisms.

Ah well. I had fun with WoW until hitting 60 and literally beating the game. Relatively low amount of content, fast progression, and low difficulty results in completing the end game dungeons in a mere 3 months. It's probably for the best, since I have college and a large library of unplayed console games that need attention. :)

[Jasoco]

That's hilarious. Maybe they're trying to kill it. The game I mean.

[goatdan]

On one hand, it's pretty interesting that something like this could happen in a game. I mean, isn't it plagues that seriously changed the world back in the 1500's and 1600's?

On the other hand, if I just got the game and started playing, I wouldn't be too happy to show up in town and constantly be getting killed by someone walking by me and infecting me.

A way to "fix" it might be that after having the plague for a certain amount of time (48 hours?) then the character who had it becomes immune to it. That would mean that while you would have a few people running around, it wouldn't kill everyone.

I would also suggest to the developers to make it a percentage of their health, not a certain number of hit points. That way, even the big ol' character don't want it (and it is life threatening for them) and the small characters could deal with it.

[WanganRunner]

That's pretty cool, IMO.

Sounds almost like something out of .hack, just wait until the plague starts infecting players in the real world, lol.

Seriously though, it's these sorts of things that get me interested in MMORPG's, not turned off by them. I like seeing stuff like this because it reminds me how different they are from a normal, "dead" single player environment. If unexpected shit never happened in them, I probably wouldn't have the slightest bit of interest.

I got bored with the conventional aspects of FFXI pretty quickly, then I spent about a week playing "hide and seek" in the Elvaan home castle with people, and then never played it again.

[davepesc]

I agree that this would be pretty devistating to a new player, (do you lose the plague when you respawn?) But it is what separates MMOs from "regular" games. First, this is something players will remember and talk about in the future. Second, I can see it adding to the immersive quality of the game. PLayers fleeing to the hillsides to avoid the plague.

Great stuff.

[Promophile]

Bugs like this are nothing surprising to a seasoned WoW player. Hell, even the average Diablo/Starcraft player knows that Blizzard has a QA department staffed by single cell organisms.

Ah well. I had fun with WoW until hitting 60 and literally beating the game. Relatively low amount of content, fast progression, and low difficulty results in completing the end game dungeons in a mere 3 months. It's probably for the best, since I have college and a large library of unplayed console games that need attention. :)

I'm with you there. At least EQ made hitting the level cap an achievement. WoW just isn't fun cause it was built for the casual whiners that couldn't play EQ at all and were jealous of the people that put in the time to be the best. I played WoW for about 2 months, in which I hit the level cap, joined the best guild on server, and ran through just about all of the high end content.

[Stark]

Even with this new "event" WOW is still boring after hitting the level cap. A major bug like this is nothing new really just crappy play testing or lack of.

[Sylentwulf]

Wow, how original. EQ2 did this like 5-6 months ago when I played it, on purpose.

[Sothy]

I dont like MMORPGS but the first thing I thought of was the medic in team fort.

Nothing beats waiting inside the enemy base for someone to exit the spawn room and injecting them with virus and they run back in for a healthpack and infect 2 more people causing a huge gunfight to break out.