Plague Hits World of Warcraft

Posted on September 26, 2005

Wonderland points to a thread on Shacknews that is discussing the outbreak of a plague on the popular World of Warcraft MMORPG. The BBC reports that thousands of players have become sick with the disease in an article that describes the origin of the disease which started with a NPC named Hakkar.

In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.

The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.

This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.

Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as "carriers" and infected player-controlled characters they encountered.

The Register says the outbreak has swamped several World of Warcraft servers. 1UP.com reports that Blizzard has yet to provided a patch to cure the disease but they have commented on it on the official forums:

What Blizzard's finalized response to the plague remains to be seen, but if their message boards are any indication, it's thankfully tongue-in-cheek. "It appears that the hotfix remedy concocted to combat the recent Azerothian outbreak has not yielded desired results," says one moderator on the official forums. "At this time, our medical staff is continuing to develop an effective cure. We look forward to ensuring the health and vitality of the citizens of Azeroth in the near future."

Bloggers are discussing the plague and Technorati shows over 500 blog posts about the disease spreading in the online game.

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