World of Warcraft city deaths patched while murderer roams free

If you were in one of several of the largest cities in World of Warcraft's Azeroth this weekend, it's quite likely that you were killed – but no worry, Blizzard has fixed everything up now with a patch. This patch fixes the exploit that caused level 1 characters to be able to stroll on in to a set of major cities and decimate their entire population of both playable and non-playable characters alike. As it was, images of death were majorly visible to the general population over the weekend, this throwing Blizzard into a tizzy.

With a message that appeared inside the last day, Azeroth appears to be safe once more. As Blizzard puts it, the fix appeared to be simple, but the damage was already done. At the moment it would appear that they've got everything under control, but that they're still hunting for the villains that made the deaths of masses of characters a possibility. Blizzard has sent out word that they'd be glad to hear any information regarding the incident as soon as possible – note it!

"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. 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.

Video above via BornInCrimson – showing some of the death in Stormwind.

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." – Nethaera, Blizzard

This situation should remind you of a certain South Park episode in which one single player had enough power to destroy any other character in the game – WoW – to which the boys responded with days and weeks of leveling up, preparing to destroy him. It ended up being that Blizzard had to intervene with a "Sword of a Thousand Truths", a weapon that only existed in legend – and on a USB stick – with enough power to destroy the one deadly player. As it were here in the "real" world, the hacker(s) still roam free – powerless, but free.

[via Joystiq]