Today's #quizzytime: What if I told you that there was a worldwide plague in 2005, spreading through contact? Some people banded together to quarantine and restrict the spread. Others willfully spread it. Where did this take place?
Quiz ends at 2 PM. Google if you like.
Quiz ends at 2 PM. Google if you like.
Ans: In 2005 players on 'World of Warcraft' found themselves besieged by a virulent virtual plague nobody knew how to cure or combat. The plague spread unchecked killing thousands of players’and experts have since used it as a research model for epidemics & bio-terrorism
Known as the Corrupted Blood Incident, the plague’s genesis can be traced to a September 13th update that introduced an ancient blood god called Hakkar the Soulflayer. Any player who got too close to Hakkar while he was in the throes of death would be afflicted.
A player who survived an initial infection could be re-infected by an ally and in turn, pass it on to others. The original intention of Blizzard (the makers of World of Warcraft) was for this disease to be limited to the encounter with Hakkar and the dungeon he resided in.
However, as with plagues, it turns out there was a very simple way to spread this to the wider world- animals. Players realised that a character’s pet could be infected and if they dismissed their pet within a few seconds, they could recall it later, in a populated city, say.
The cities throughout Archimonde were littered with skeletons and news of the virulent, deadly plague sweeping across the server caused quite the commotion in the spheres of gaming. Internally, however, Blizzard employees were baffled and it took some time to figured out that
Hakkar the Blood God was responsible. Frustrated with a lack of communication from Blizzard, without instruction players began setting up their own quarantines around major population centres to halt the spread of the plague. In addition, higher-level players who were capable of
surviving the effects of the Corrupted Blood began venturing into the cities to seek out clues as to what was going on, while lower levels players who couldn’t, would stand guard outside, warning approaching players not to enter the infected area.
Players with healing magic rushed to help, working in shifts to heal infected players. Unfortunately Bilzzard’s first attempts to put a stop to the plague failed spectacularly thanks to a small, but dedicated subsection of players who resisted attempts to eradicate the plague.
This began a game of cat and mouse between Blizzard and players who wanted to keep spreading the disease, apparently just for their own amusement-some people just like to watch the world burn. A shadowy cabal of players spent their time hiding in the mountains,
periodically returning to cities to break quarantines and ensure NPCs remained infected, as well as hopping between realms to avoid server purges. It took Blizzard a month to fully rid the game of the plague and they were forced to reset the entire world.
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