Hackers attacked video game World of Warcraft over the weekend, unleashing a digital plague that wiped out player-avatars as well as computer-driven characters.
Thousands of players’ avatars began to convulse and drop dead across the massive multiplayer game’s virtual universe Sunday morning as a result of what the game’s maker, Blizzard Entertainment, claims was a hacker’s attack.
“It was really weird. I was [away from keyboard] for like one minute, and when I came back I was dead and so were everyone else,” wrote one player on a World of Warcraft forum. “Really creepy. I wonder what happened.”
Here’s a video, also posted to the forum, that purportedly shows several of the game’s mass die-offs.
Blizzard confirmed the hack Sunday and wrote in a statement that it has repaired the hack to prevent further deaths. “Earlier today, certain realms were affected by an in-game exploit, resulting in the deaths of player characters and non-player characters in some of the major cities,” wrote one of Blizzard’s community moderators who goes by the name Naethera on a player forum. “This exploit has already been hotfixed, so it should not be repeatable. It’s safe to continue playing and adventuring in major cities and elsewhere in Azeroth.”
“As with any exploit, we are taking this disruptive action very seriously and conducting a thorough investigation,” Naethera added, also asking anyone with information to email Blizzard at hacks@blizzard.com “We apologize for the inconvenience some of you experienced as a result of this and appreciate your understanding.”
The hack appears to be a mere prank, rather than a truly damaging attack: Death in World of Warcraft is more of a nuisance than a real loss, and characters can be resurrected.
But it’s not the first time in recent months that Blizzard has been hit by hackers. In August, the company announced that servers running its multiplayer gaming service Battle.net had been compromised, potentially putting an unknown number of users’ account information at risk.