Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/Corrupted Blood incident

Corrupted Blood incident

I just recently began writing this thing up, and one thing that may be a hurdle is I know almost nothing about World of Warcraft, so I hope someone can give advice on improvements and anything that may need to be mentioned to help people better understand the game w/o having to go to the article (if it fits in this article, of course). - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 10:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

People who spread the plague weren't called griefers. They were griefing, but the article makes it out as if this were some sort of special term for people who did this. Anyone who intentionally ruins a multiplayer game for other players is griefing.

Blizzard had a related, intentional world event for the launch of the most recent expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. This event had a (much less immediately terminal) plague that turned players and NPCs into zombies, who could then infect others. Initially, players had to all-but-intentionally infect themselves and the incubation of the disease was very long, but as the disease progressed, NPCs in key areas would infect themselves (by killing infected vermin, for example) and the various Cure Disease effects became less and less effective. It lasted about a week, and coincided with the return of a world event from a previous patch. (Other than the seasonal world events which happen every year, Blizzard doesn't do a lot of temporary world events.) This plague, instead of being an incidental debuff from a badly-designed boss, was the Plague of Undeath, which played a major role in Warcraft 3 and has a major role in the expansion (as the aforementioned Lich King is at the head of that army of undead). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 10:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy review; I'll get to work on an impact section after I hit the hay and eventually awaken, and then awake after becoming awaken more so. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 11:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Levi's comments

Layout:

• The lead is kind of huge, especially compared to the rest of the article. Can you balance it a little?
• Do you need that image in the lead? I know there's no infobox, but it might look better in the next section.

Prose/Grammar

• "The plague began on September 13, 2005 when a new area was introduced in a new patch." - You use the word "new" here twice in relatively rapid succession; consider dropping the second one. Also, I'm unfamiliar with WoW's update process, but I've played other MMOs and patches are generally considered bugfixes. With something like this that included a new zone, "update" might be better.
• "The new area was called Zul'Gurub, and had a boss called Hakkar..." - Instead of "had," you could say "and featured a boss called Hakkar..."
• "The spell, Corrupted Blood, was intended to be exclusive to Zul'Gurub, but players discovered ways to bring it to other locations, causing an epidemic across several servers, though not all of them were affected due to some servers' players not managing to initiate the spell." - Kind of a run-on, consider changing to "The spell, called Corrupted Blood, was intended to be exclusive to Zul'Gurub, but players discovered ways to bring it to other locations. This ultimately caused an epidemic across several servers, though not all of them were affected due to some players' inability to transmit the spell."
• "During the epidemic, some players would help fight the disease by volunteering their services in a mirror to expected real-world behavior, while select others would maliciously spread the disease." - Awkward tense, consider changing to "During the epidemic, some players helped fight Corrupted Blood by volunteering their services in a mirror to expected real-world behavior, while others maliciously spread the disease."
• "These people have been compared to real-world disease spreaders..." - Consider changing "These people" to "The latter".
• "Complaints from players arose quickly after it became widespread and their characters too died from this disease." - You don't need "too" here.

Those are just a few sentences from the lead...the whole thing could use a prose polish and copyedit. I can do that for you, if you'd like a fresh pair of eyes. Otherwise let me know and I can continue specific examples here. — Levi van Tine (t – c) 09:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

In WOW, the term "patch" is used for any client update, from bugfixes to major content releases. That said, I don't think we need to say that the new area was added in a patch.

Hakkar was the end boss of Zul'Gurub; adding this fact may help the sentence flow better. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 03:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Tezkag72:

• The introduction's a bit long compared to the rest of the article. Try removing things like "These people have been compared to real-world disease spreaders, including early AIDS patient Gaëtan Dugas and Typhoid patient Mary Mallon" and all the examples listed for the reaction to the glitch. Those are both too detailed compared to the article's later explanation of the reaction.
• "Deaths in World of Warcraft are not permanent, as characters would be are resurrected shortly afterward.[2] However, dying in such a way will be is disadvantageous to the player's character and consequently it is inconvenient to get the infection.[3]"
• "some lower-level characters who could not help would direct people away from infected areas" Sounds like helping to me. Try putting "otherwise" or "any other way" after "help", or change "could not help" to "did not have healing abilities".
• "After the incident began, Blizzard received calls from angry customers complaining about how they just died." Depends on what "just" means here; either change "just" to "simply", or add "had" between "they" and "just".
• Good work on an article like this one. These are just a few issues that stand in the way of it being a GA. Tezkag72 (talk) 13:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)