MMORPG CASE STUDY

PRESENTED BY HYAE NA KO GLASSICK

World of Warcraft “Corrupted Blood”

Presentation Outline

WoW System RequirementsWoW Gameplay basicsOrigin of “Corrupted Blood”The Corrupted Blood IncidentPlayer ResponseDeveloper’s Response

WoW System Requirements

Microsoft WindowsWindows XP, Vista, or 7Intel Pentium 4 or AMD

Athlon XP 1500+ 1300MHz

512 MB+ RAM (1GB for Vista)

32 MD 3D video card15 GB free HD spaceDVD driveBroadband internet

connection

Mac OS XMac OS X 10.4.11 or

newer1600 MHz or higher G5 or

Intel Core Duo processor1 GB RAM+ATI or NVIDIA video card

with 64 MB Video RAM15 GB free HD spaceDVD driveBroadband Internet

Connection

WoW Gameplay Basics

P2P – Pay to Play1st or 3rd person viewCustomizable AvatarPVP & PVE, RP & RP-

PVP (Divided by Realms)

Dungeons & RaidsExpansion Kits

(Wrath of the Lich King, etc.)

Origin of “Corrupted Blood”

September 2005 release of Zul’Gurub raid instance (20 man)

New boss – Hakkar the Soulflayer

Health: 710 000Debuff Skill: Corrupted

Blood (Deals 263-337 damage every 2 seconds & infects nearby players) designed with self-propagating code

The Corrupted Blood Incident

“… a disease called "Corrupted Blood," intended merely as a short-term, short-range annoyance - but afflicted players were able to teleport back to large population centers, effectively starting a quick-spreading epidemic, leaving central hubs littered with bones and covered in blood as players dropped dead left and right.” (Gamasutra - GFH: The Real Life Lessons Of WoW's Corrupted Blood)

Started in Archimonde Realm – spread to at least 2 others

NPCs unaffected but infected

Player Response

Griefers deliberately infected themselves and pets before entering cities. (Character death = 10% reduction to equipment durability)

Panicked players fled to uninfected areas of the Realms.

Players with healing capabilities volunteer to heal others in infected areas.

Responses closely modeled real-life reactions to epidemics.

Developer’s Response

Hard-reset of serversNew patch to limit area of Corrupted Blood to

the dungeonInspired for potential future events