Virtual genocide on the "World of Warcraft" servers claimed the lives of an untold number of characters yesterday (Oct. 7). A player with the handle “Jadd” claimed responsibility for the mass deaths that included players’ characters and those controlled by the game.
"WoW" developer Blizzard Entertainment acknowledged the "in-game exploit," asked for any information regarding it and told players that the exploited flaw had been hot-fixed and would not affect gameplay in the future.
"Everyone in Stormwind and Orgrimmar was killed ... It's also been happening on Tarren Mill, Ragnaros, Draenor, Twisting Nether, and no doubt other servers, " WoW" Insider blogger Olivia Grace wrote under the headline "Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms."
Other headlines from this weekend’s event read, “Thousands executed in Azeroth” and “Hack turns cities into death traps.”
“What appears to have happened is that one or more level-one characters was able to execute a script that invoked a spell called Aura of God to kill everyone around,” said Emma Woollacott, a senior reporter for TG Daily.
"WoW" is the most successful and popular online multiplayer role-playing game with 10 million users. Half of all "WoW" players are believed to be based in China, the BBC reported.
Blizzard had another security issue in August when hackers breached the company’s servers and stole the answers to personal security questions and encrypted passwords.
Despite the disruption, commenters on "WoW" forums seemed to be taking the prank in stride.
"For some reason I find this all strangely entertaining. I wonder who is behind it all," wrote Alesandra, a 90 Human Rogue. "You wanna know what really happened?" Mikhail, an 85 Human Mage, asked. "I ripped the tag off my mattress.”
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