The Bugs Of World of Warcraft

Curse You Blizzarrrrrrrrrrrd

Every video game has bugs, some game breaking, others just amusing.  Old school NES players likely remember the Minus World from Super Mario Bros., and all arcade junkies strove to reach the unplayable 256th stage of Pacman.  Yesterday I found an amusing, and somewhat expensive, bug inside WoW during my quest for Solidsagart’s first exalted standing (with Sons of Hodir).

As I took to the skies in the grasp of a wild wyrm I realized that I was no where near full health.  Lacking the speed to throw up a Renew before liftoff, I resided to the chance that I may die during stage two of the assault, but I wasn’t going to roll over.  Solidsagart fought valiantly, proceeding to get eight stacks of Pry Jaws Open on the frosty beast.  With a 40% chance to land the killshot, and little health left, I triggered Fatal Strike.  Failed.  A few more PJOs as the CD refreshed and I fired it off again.  Failed.  At this point I knew there was no way I was making it out of this battle alive.  I began spamming Fatal Strike and it finally landed; the same moment that Jaws of Death ticked one last time, crushing my squishy body in the now-dead wyrm’s maw.

Here’s where the bug comes in.  Instead of the wyrm and my body giving way to the forces of gravity, or the beast ejecting me from his toothy hold, as normally happens in a successful kill, my body was left floating hundreds of feet in the air.  Here’s a thousand words for you:

I crossed my fingers as I released, praying that my soulless husk would plummet to the ground as I ran to reclaim it.  It didn’t.  Instead of residing myself to a single death at the start of the quest I was now facing two, or a resurrection sickness penalty.  I took the fun way out and allowed the second death to race towards me at an incredible speed.

World of Warcraft is full of fun bugs, exploits and glitches, just like any other game.  During the early days of WoW players used to access all sorts of off-limit areas thanks to terrain bugs or expert platforming skills.  I personally feel through the world at least a half dozen times, the first time was when I was standing outside my favorite instance.  What amusing, painfully expensive or eye-opening (Hyjal, the basement of Karazhan before the instance was added) bugs have you experienced?