Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Styxx on September 20, 2005, 08:24:40 pm
-
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 (http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=10760041), 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 (http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/) 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: Bit-tech.net (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/09/19/wow_plague_disease/)
Awesome. Well, if you're not a World of Warcraft player, that is. ;)
-
Tanoshi.
Anyway. I don't really care since I don't play, but I get how someone might find it significant that a string of code is replicating itself where it shouldn't, thus the ending result being a "disease".
After all, in such a high populated place like WoW, you'd expect a certain amount of VD's.
-
:lol: Ohhh, now thats funny.
-
Odd...interesting...scarry. I will be the subject for discussion in many an academic class.
-
That's kinda neat to me ( i don't play WoW) but it must suck for the people playing it :D
-
I'm surprised that debuffs work on the shopkeeping NPCs that are effectively impossible to kill, (otherwise they'd die of the disease and it wouldn't spread) it seems that these NPCs have effectively become carriers.
-
You'd think Blizzard would just write a stream of code that turns off the virus, and gives it to every player for free - a free vaccination.
-
My suite mates were talking about this. They're hardcore WoWers. Like, 3-in-the-morning hardcore.
-
This is actually kinda cool, TBH. It may be a severe issue, but more issues like this would give the game more feeling.
-
Somebody posted this thread on another forum, it basically has the developers saying they're stumped.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=4929988&P=1
-
Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that 75% of all posts in that thread simply affirmed what page it was?
-
Hmm.. interesting. I should log on to see if Ironforge on my server is contaminated :D
-
Originally posted by IceFire
I will be the subject for discussion in many an academic class.
Yes, yes you will.
Also
http://media.putfile.com/Theplague94
-
from that thread:
http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/
-
From this thread too.
Thread starting post actually. :p
-
ah, yes, so it is :)
-
:lol:
-
Man, that's funny. Well, I guess they really built their world convincingly, then. You know, apart from those carriers who can't die and so carry indefinitely. :p
-
Setekh! Long time no see!
-
Suprisingly enough, typing /pvp to turn your pvp flag on cities(or off and then back on) will prevent you from getting the plague for 5 minutes.
It's just fun watching newbies die from it.
-
How stupid! This would NEVER happen in Commander Keen!
-
Sandwich, have I ever told you that your Avatar always looks like a Wooly Mammoth out of the corner of my eye, as in while i'm reading what you've written. I know it sounds strange, but whenever I read what you've typed, I always see your Avatar as a Wooly Mammoth with big, red Tusks...strange...:shaking:
-
Mefusie, my boy, you need to seek professional help. While the threat level of a Wooly Mammoth and a Browning 0.5cal pointed at you are approximate, they really have no visual similarity whatsoever.
Get help. :yes:
-
Duh-nah-nah, Duh-nah-nahhhhh.... Duh-nah-nah, duh-nah-nahhhhhh-duhhhh!! duh-nah-nah....duh-nah-nah..... duh.... nah-duh!
For those of you less musically gifted, that was the Terminator 2 theme song. :p
-
Hahaha, quite interesting and hilarious indeed :lol:
-
Quality. I love emergence like this; even if the developers must absolutely hate it.
-
Originally posted by StratComm
Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that 75% of all posts in that thread simply affirmed what page it was?
I'm disturbed that we don't do the same here. With punishment beatings for those who try to make the first page and fail :D
-
My god, this is fantastic!
-
Aww....I know some WoW players.
I'll have to squeeze in their funerals/mass burials into my time schedule. Sniff.
-
Seriously this is (if real, and not a deliberate move of Blizzard) an amazing event in game development.
-
Wouldn't it really suck for newbies? From some of the things I've read on Blizzard's WoW forum, some higher level players, who can survive the disease, infect their pets. They then dismiss the pet, so the disease counter is frozen (at max), and then go to an area with loads of people, and recalls their pet, which then kills everyone nearby.
-
Originally posted by General Freak
Wouldn't it really suck for newbies? From some of the things I've read on Blizzard's WoW forum, some higher level players, who can survive the disease, infect their pets. They then dismiss the pet, so the disease counter is frozen (at max), and then go to an area with loads of people, and recalls their pet, which then kills everyone nearby.
:lol:
How good a tactic would that be for some form of PvP - ready delivered plague carcasses!
-
Heh. ;) It's not good for the community spirit. But WoW is so large that a few 1000 players leaving it wouldn't actually hurt it very much.
-
Heheh. That's quite awsome indeed. :lol:
-
'The devs being stumped' seems kinda goofy, since they could easily fix things by removing the offending code, setting its damage to zero or modifying the effects.
-
Except that server downtime and large-scale rollbacks are a bad thing in MMOs. The whole persistant-world thing gets screwed over when you apply a patch that's retroactive. The last patch was, to my understanding, an attempt to fix the problem without having to resort to such drastic measures, and it didn't work out.
-
the end is nigh!
-
Originally posted by Shrike
'The devs being stumped' seems kinda goofy, since they could easily fix things by removing the offending code, setting its damage to zero or modifying the effects.
I'm (stabby stabby in the dark style) guessing its somewhat akin a property which is attached to the player character ala Decorator pattern, and it's impossible for them to check the entire world to remove the offending attached property code (because the player character 'object' won't know what properties are attached to it). Or maybe they can remove the code from the codebase iself, but not the rogue bits of executing code that have somehow attached themselves to NPCs or players.
-
Perhaps the "plague" spreads faster than they can remove it...
Seems to me that blizzard is trying to replace the undead. :p
-
"We iz strong an' tough. Da strong onez win, an' then the weak.
Some of dem is awright to keep for slaves, but most is best fer the pot.
One day we eats all of youse. One day soon."
- Plaguespreader
It is certainly true that this plague is something strange...
I mean a weird patch bug...:lol:
-
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Perhaps the "plague" spreads faster than they can remove it...
Seems to me that blizzard is trying to replace the undead. :p
I can only guess it's binary code which is running on the servers and is pretty much impossible to track down... but it's not exactly an area I'd know about anyways.
-
Originally posted by StratComm
Except that server downtime and large-scale rollbacks are a bad thing in MMOs. The whole persistant-world thing gets screwed over when you apply a patch that's retroactive. The last patch was, to my understanding, an attempt to fix the problem without having to resort to such drastic measures, and it didn't work out.
maybe they're just busy laughing their asses off.
-
Originally posted by Roanoke
maybe they're just busy laughing their asses off.
I know I am.
:wakka:
-
Funny this should pop up. With the holidays coming up, and a bit of money flowing into my accounts these days I've been thinking about getting WoW...
I think I'll put everything off until I build my new computer completely though. Otherwise I'll never get it running... :(
-
so would eve have something comparable?
-
Originally posted by StratComm
Setekh! Long time no see!
Yeah, it's been a pretty bad semester with workload. Good to be able to spend some time back around here, though. :)
-
Well maybe they just need to introduce an item in the patch that cures the plague. That way people can actually go around and heal people.
Give the community the tools and a quest or reward of some kind to go and heal people up.
-
Except that the plague spread precisely because of the ******* factor. While allowing people to "cure" it (my understanding is actually that they can do so already, albeit on a temporary and limited scale) may help, it won't solve the problem as people will continue to be ****s about it.
-
Originally posted by IceFire
Well maybe they just need to introduce an item in the patch that cures the plague. That way people can actually go around and heal people.
Give the community the tools and a quest or reward of some kind to go and heal people up.
People would probably farm it, though. Like get a plague bearing pet, infect, and then charge to heal.
-
Originally posted by General Freak
Wouldn't it really suck for newbies? From some of the things I've read on Blizzard's WoW forum, some higher level players, who can survive the disease, infect their pets. They then dismiss the pet, so the disease counter is frozen (at max), and then go to an area with loads of people, and recalls their pet, which then kills everyone nearby.
Sounds like a really good description of me :ick: Read my signature :p
I have been playing WoW for quite a time and it is becoming more and more boring :D
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
People would probably farm it, though. Like get a plague bearing pet, infect, and then charge to heal.
[color=66ff00]Damn, I'm glad you use your powers for the good of mankind.
You could be an especially effective evil entity.
[/color]
Yes, my use of wording pleases me.
-
Originally posted by aldo_14
People would probably farm it, though. Like get a plague bearing pet, infect, and then charge to heal.
Then just have the non-ass**** players report it, then ban the ****ers doin' it.
No dicking around. If people want to be *******s, they get whats coming.
-
I've yet to see this on my server, oddly enough.
Not that it would matter. As a Paladin, along with cockroaches and KrispyKreme, I'll be one of the last living things on the Earth. Invulnerability FTW!
-
Originally posted by Knight Templar
I've yet to see this on my server, oddly enough.
Not that it would matter. As a Paladin, along with cockroaches and KrispyKreme, I'll be one of the last living things on the Earth. Invulnerability FTW!
Well... people _are_ making a bigger deal out of it than it is. Only morons die from this stuff. And the plague isn't something you can farm; ZG is harder than MC is(in the group I was in for ZG, was half of the raid we had from MC after we killed mag, kept wiping on the first ZG boss). On my server, the only guilds that have beaten ZG are the ones that have all members in epic equipment already.
I don't know how you play a paladin... boring as hell, no dps... can't stop people from running away from you... all you have are those shields.
-
I don't know how you play a paladin... boring as hell, no dps... can't stop people from running away from you... all you have are those shields.
I assume you have yet to read the latest patch notes.
-
Originally posted by Tolwyn
I assume you have yet to read the latest patch notes.
Eh? He's pretty much right. Hammer of Wrath is a joke. I don't know what all this 20% percent bull**** is... I should get an ability that's just like "smite" for priests. It'd be like Exorcism, but for animals and bad men.
Oh, and playing as a Ret Paladin is like having christmas everytime one of my SoC procs and Crits line up to deal 1.3k damage. It's actually fun if you look at it that way.
-
Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]Damn, I'm glad you use your powers for the good of mankind.
You could be an especially effective evil entity.
[/color]
Yes, my use of wording pleases me.
I leave that to my evil clone.
-
Originally posted by Knight Templar
Eh? He's pretty much right. Hammer of Wrath is a joke. I don't know what all this 20% percent bull**** is... I should get an ability that's just like "smite" for priests. It'd be like Exorcism, but for animals and bad men.
Although it would be like cristmas to paladins it would render them too powerful. 20% is o.k. in case you fight rogues :D
-
Too powerful? :wtf:
Oh yeah... Nerf Pallies! :blah:
-
Paladins rule the relm you foo!
*member of hte official paladin/crusaider/holy warrior fanboy club*
-
Uh huh.
And we reserve a shorter bus just for you too.
-
Jesus will save you all from the plague! (http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0105/wow.html)