The Corrupted Blood Incident

[Xprimentyl]

I'm not starting a thread about a 2005 incident as if it's news to all in 2019, but it is news to me thanks to my YouTube algorithm, and I find it fascinating and I'm hoping to garner some insight, hopefully from some of those who "were there."

In a nutshell, in 2005, new content for World of Warcraft introduce a new area as well as a new high-level boss whose death [I'm assuming] triggered an AoE status effect that caused damage to nearby players for of a duration of time, the Corrupted Blood. High-level players could wait it out and heal; low levels died almost instantly, and the status effect was spreadable from player to player. The "bug" was in the fact that it was also spreadable to player pets and non-killable NPCs, and these became "carriers" of the fatal disease which turned cities into ghost towns littered with the dead. While Blizzard scrambled to remedy the issue in silence, the WoW community itself, unbidden and uninstructed, banded together to establish sanctuary cities and ward off each other from infected areas. Conversely, some player carriers would try and intentionally spread the "plague" and actively evaded capture and curing by hoping servers. By the time Blizzard made a formal announcement, "the people" had already done for themselves what Blizzard would ask them to do. This incident became an actual case study in epidemic and terrorism research.

And this fascinates me, that humanity, for better or worse, rose to the top during crisis in a virtual, high fantasy entertainment construct; how much more "role play" could you expect from an RPG? That strangers could quasi-democratize and collectively make decision for the greater good , that some still sought to subvert the cobbled together systems of those collectively seeking to ride out the storm. Was anyone playing WoW at the time? How did you handle it (i.e.: yourself?) Am I romanticizing it or was it truly as telling of the human condition as I'd like to think?

EDIT: Linked YouTube video that found me.

 

[CritialGaming]

People are mostly good at the core. Even evil people have good in them. Look at any place that suffers a natural disaster and look at what people do.

In 1998 Kobe, Japan was rocked by a massive Earthquake in the city center. Thousands of homeless, tens of thousands injured or dead, and no way to get resources in or out due to a massive collapse of transportation systems. Who can to help? The Japanese Yakuza located in Kobe starting leaving care packages of food and supplies on street corners for people to take.

There is no surprise that when faced by a big problem in a grand community such as WoW had at the time, that they worked together to do the best they could with the situation. It trigger the same disaster response that naturally occurs with people in the real world.

 

[Kerg3927]

I was playing at the time and remember hearing about it, but I don't remember it being an issue on our server. I was on an RP server, so we didn't have any ultra-progressive raiding guilds in the first year of the game, so I doubt anyone on our server was able to clear Zul'Gurub and beat the last boss the very first week it came out, and that was the only week it was an issue.

So it didn't happen that way on every server. You had to have raiding guilds that were advanced enough that they could clear ZG in the very first week, catch the bug, and then spread it around.

 

[CritialGaming]

I was playing at the time and remember hearing about it, but I don't remember it being an issue on our server. I was on an RP server, so we didn't have any ultra-progressive raiding guilds in the first year of the game, so I doubt anyone on our server was able to clear Zul'Gurub and beat the last boss the very first week it came out, and that was the only week it was an issue.

So it didn't happen that way on every server. You had to have raiding guilds that were advanced enough that they could clear ZG in the very first week, catch the bug, and then spread it around.

Oh yeah for sure. Back in the day, raiding was hard and people respected those that could do it. Everyone wanted to raid, everyone used to envy those that can by with raid gear. Things used to MATTER in WoW. Now nothing matters.

 

[Xprimentyl]

People are mostly good at the core. Even evil people have good in them. Look at any place that suffers a natural disaster and look at what people do.

In 1998 Kobe, Japan was rocked by a massive Earthquake in the city center. Thousands of homeless, tens of thousands injured or dead, and no way to get resources in or out due to a massive collapse of transportation systems. Who can to help? The Japanese Yakuza located in Kobe starting leaving care packages of food and supplies on street corners for people to take.

There is no surprise that when faced by a big problem in a grand community such as WoW had at the time, that they worked together to do the best they could with the situation. It trigger the same disaster response that naturally occurs with people in the real world.

I total agree; it just found it intriguing that it happened in a video game. Mostly, when a game has glaring or frustrating bugs, people sit back sardonically until it?s patched or avoid playing it all, but in this case, players took ownership of the world and reacted enough as much as actual humanity might that science took notice.

I was playing at the time and remember hearing about it, but I don't remember it being an issue on our server. I was on an RP server, so we didn't have any ultra-progressive raiding guilds in the first year of the game, so I doubt anyone on our server was able to clear Zul'Gurub and beat the last boss the very first week it came out, and that was the only week it was an issue.

So it didn't happen that way on every server. You had to have raiding guilds that were advanced enough that they could clear ZG in the very first week, catch the bug, and then spread it around.

I?ve never played WoW so not familiar with the infrastructure, but the video made it seem like it was rampant. Was the camaraderie due to the fact that this high-level raiding guilds already had strong connections?

 

[Kerg3927]

I've never played WoW so not familiar with the infrastructure, but the video made it seem like it was rampant. Was the camaraderie due to the fact that this high-level raiding guilds already had strong connections?

Old school WoW servers were full on communities, your other life outside of real life. You walked around and saw and talked to people you knew and had played with before. It was kind of like living in a small town. You had a reputation on the server. If you were a really good player and/or a fun guy to group with, people knew it, and could easily identify you by your gear, because most gear was unique. If you were a bad player or an asshole, people knew that, too, and you would likely have a hard time finding groups. And people got to know each other because to accomplish anything noteworthy in the game, you had to group with other people, so your game skills, social skills, and behavior were all highly relevant.

This is the primary reason a lot of people are excited to play WoW Classic when it comes out this summer. People miss that sense of community that has long since died out in WoW because of the introduction of Looking for Group (LFG) and Looking for Raid (LFR) functions that allow people to just log on and queue up for a dungeon or raid and warp to it and zerg through a dumbed down version of the content with other random people from random servers without having to talk to each other. This convenience and other quality of life features aimed at casual players ended up destroying the communities, which last I checked was down to under 2 million people from its peak of 12 million around the time LFG and LFR were introduced.

So anyway, to answer your question, yes, there was a lot of camaraderie, and it came from the game design, which put a big incentive on social interaction.