[Styxx]

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, 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 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

Awesome. Well, if you're not a World of Warcraft player, that is.

[BlackDove]

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.

[WeatherOp]

Ohhh, now thats funny.

[IceFire]

Odd...interesting...scarry.  I will be the subject for discussion in many an academic class.

[achtung]

That's kinda neat to me ( i don't play WoW) but it must suck for the people playing it

[Ace]

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.

[Unknown Target]

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.

[Ford Prefect]

My suite mates were talking about this. They're hardcore WoWers. Like, 3-in-the-morning hardcore.

[Scuddie]

This is actually kinda cool, TBH.  It may be a severe issue, but more issues like this would give the game more feeling.

[achtung]

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

[StratComm]

Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that 75% of all posts in that thread simply affirmed what page it was?

[Zuljin]

Hmm.. interesting. I should log on to see if Ironforge on my server is contaminated

[BlackDove]

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

[Bobboau]

from that thread:
http://wowaids.ytmnd.com/

[BlackDove]

From this thread too.

Thread starting post actually.

[Bobboau]

ah, yes, so it is

[redmenace]

[Setekh]

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.

[StratComm]

Setekh!  Long time no see!

[DragonClaw]

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.