World of Warcraft has suffered a major hack in which the entire populations of some of the game’s virtual cities have been destroyed.
According to game creator Activision-Blizzard, hackers using level-one (beginner) character were able to use an in-game exploit to destroy both characters controlled by other players and characters controlled by the game. The results of the hack were dramatic – the in-game cities Stormwind and Orgrimmar had their entire populations slaughtered with several other cities also coming under attack.
Blizzard has confirmed that the issue has been “hot-fixed” and that it should “not be repeatable.” The company has appealed for more information on the hacks and has launched its own investigation into the attack. In a statement, the company has said they are “taking this disruptive action very seriously”.
Though World of Warcraft has suffered from a variety of hacks in the past, it is believed that this could be the biggest yet. It is not yet certain how many players have been affected by the attack.
One of the hackers has since come forward, criticising Blizzard’s handling of the situation. In a forum post he said: “We didn’t do any permanent damage. Some people liked it for a new topic of conversation and a funny stream to watch, and some didn’t. The people who didn’t should be blaming Blizzard for not fixing it faster (four hours of obvious use is sad).”
“It’s not like I added 20,000,000 gold to everyone’s inventory and broke the economy, but look at the big Chinese gold seller companies who are doing this every day. Now ask yourself who is really ruining the game. It’s not us.”
“That’s my justification” he added.
Since it launched in 2004, World of Warcraft has attracted over 10 million subscribers, making it by far the most popular massively multiplayer online game of all time. Player numbers hit a peak of 12 million in 2010 but dipped to about 9 million at the start of 2012. This attack has come just over a week after the release of Mists of Pandaria, the games fourth expansion pack.
This expansion, which introduced new locations, classes and races (including the Pandaren, a race of anthropomorphic pandas) has already sold 2.7 million copies within the first week of it’s release and has created a spike in the number of people currently playing World of Warcraft.
