It was a case of death imitating art. Or at least virtual game world imitating cartoon. In a scene reminiscent of a famous South Park episode, a hacker went on a massive killing spree in World of Warcraft over the weekend, taking advantage of a vulnerability to off hordes of characters in the popular online game before game administrators stepped in to stop him. His massacre was captured on video (see above).
The bloodbath is similar to a popular 2006 episode of the animated series South Park called “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” in which the cartoon’s four lead characters faced off against a player in the massive multi-player game who went on a character-killing rampage.
Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind World of Warcraft, acknowledged that a hacker had used an exploit to conduct his massacre over the weekend and said it had administered a fix to keep it from happening again.
“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 moderators 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.”
World of Warcraft players didn’t really lose anything in the massacre. WoW characters can get their lives back. WoW players, on the other hand, have already lost theirs.