This Sunday, hackers exploited a client weakness to create a bizarre situation where level one characters, orcs and humans mostly, (thanks to the proximity of their start zones to Stormwind and Orgrimmar) were not only able to fly but also able to kill everyone in the area, NPCs and players alike.
Naturally, this caused considerable consternation. Blizzard called in developers on a Sunday, and a rolling restart was implemented as soon as a fix was in place, resulting in ongoing login issues. As well as login troubles, players were repeatedly dying as hackers used this exploit over and over, resulting in cities littered in corpses and bones.
Bizarrely, it seemed not to affect classes which were stealthed and considerably higher level than the level one players controlling the exploit. At first, players suspected a rogue GM, a bizarre glitch, or some other explanation, but the hackers quickly laid claim to their work, posting evidence of their exploits onto various websites such as MMOwned and Ownedcore. They assert it is an exploit similar to the recent one where servers were able to be shut down via a client hack.
What would actually happen, quite simply, is that the hacker would apparently use an ability, and in quick succession, every single player and NPC would drop down dead. Naturally, Blizzard took this very seriously, and have repaired the issue, saying that “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. If you have information relating to this incident, please email hacks@blizzard.com. We apologize for the inconvenience some of you experienced as a result of this and appreciate your understanding”
It will be interesting to see if the community hears any more about how this all pans out. Were you affected by this exploit?
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