For the second time in World of Warcraft history, players have unwittingly spread a virus across an entire server and killed several innocent bystanders in the process. The “Corrupted Blood 2.0” virus breached the containment of the Brackenhide Hollow dungeon thanks to a glitch, resulting in everyone who came into contact with the plague emitting a snot-like explosion of goo.
As spotted by WoWHead (via PC Gamer), the Withering Contagion debuff was spreading to players at some point before July 3 this month, although it’s currently unclear exactly when the virus began to spread to players outside of the Brackenhide Hollow dungeon.
The funny thing is that the NPC that inflicts the Withering Contagion debuff, Vile Rothexer, has been in World of Warcraft since the introduction of Patch 10.0.0 on October 25, 2022, so it’s surprising that something like this didn’t happen sooner. Unfortunately, it will likely never happen again, as WoWHead notes that the glitch was patched with a hotfix on July 3.
That didn’t stop the plague from wreaking havoc across the Moon Guard U.S. server in the short time before it was contained, though. BlueSky user meggoart managed to record the virus as it swept across several Moon Guard locations. This includes a video from the Lion Pride’s Inn, featuring dozens of slime-covered corpses.
The name “Corrupted Blood 2.0” is a reference to the last time a contagion spread through the game, back in 2005. In an event that became so famous that it now has its own Wikipedia page, the original Corrupted Blood infection spread in a very similar way, as the boss Hakkar the Soulflayer infected players with the Corrupted Blood plague during a raid event.
I’m sure Corrupted Blood 2.0 was extremely annoying for some players, but it’s kind of a shame this was fixed so quickly. According to accounts from the first Corrupted Blood plague, the virus swept across Azeroth for weeks before Blizzard ended up patching it out of existence, whereas Corrupted Blood 2.0 seemingly lasted mere hours.
On the other hand, one player stated that the Withering Contagion debuff caused “23,360 Nature damage” every time it triggered, which would immediately decimate any low-level players on contact, so perhaps it’s good it was patched out ASAP.