World Of Warcraft Players Killed For Exploring Secret Areas

There are simply some places where man was never meant to venture. One of those places is apparently any unfinished areas within World of Warcraft. Twitch streamer Asmongold found that out the hard way when he and his party were brutally slain by a Blizzard Game Master for trespassing in glitchy territory. In other words, these characters crossed a customer service representative in the wrong part of Azeroth.

As explained by GameRant, Asmongold and company were exploring the farthest reaches of Shadowlands, the next expansion for World of Warcraft, which is currently in beta testing. Though only one of the expansion's five new realms is currently available to players, Asmongold and his crew were able to glitch their way into unexplored lands.

This was accomplished by wandering around in the unfinished void between the other realms. This eventually led to the group clipping through an invisible wall and into the world beyond. They found themselves under the map, checking out some of the surrounding structures and a few completely unfinished areas. The group settled into an empty plane, but were suddenly attacked by an unseen force.

"Wait, why is everybody dying?" asked Asmongold as he snapped to attention. 

Asmongold watched as his teammates died one by one, slain by an invisible enemy. Asmongold seemed to immediately understand that his group had been targeted by a Blizzard Game Master who caught them trespassing. He shouted, "Blizzard! They literally killed us."

After sitting in stunned silence for a moment, Asmongold complained about the invisible nature of the attack. He said, "They won't even show themselves. They're so afraid, they will not even —"

Asmongold was cut off when the assailant suddenly materialized on the battlefield. A hooded figure bearing the name " Zorbix" stood over the fallen team and said, "gg" (or "good game" in internet lingo). It then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Asmongold sat smiling in disbelief, reiterating to his viewers the craziness that had just transpired. 

Blizzard is far from the first company to use character death as a punishment for bending the rules in an MMO. In a controversial move, ArenaNet once publicly shamed a Guild Wars 2 hacker before banning their account. After taking control of the cheater's character, ArenaNet's security lead made the character strip naked and wave goodbye before it walked right off a cliff. Some players found this to be a rather tasteless and unprofessional move on ArenaNet's part, regardless of what the cheater had done to earn a ban.

On a lighter note, Rockstar Games enforced a hilarious penalty a few years ago for people who hacked GTA 5's story mode to bring their cars from the campaign into the online mode. Any players who did so were met with a fiery end as their hacked cars exploded upon entry.

While that little prank from Rockstar was seen as a funny way to deal with unscrupulous players, fans of World of Warcraft have been a little less keen on the way Blizzard handled this situation with Asmongold. An entire Reddit thread has been dedicated to people arguing over whether or not Blizzard behaved unprofessionally.

One user pointed out that Blizzard was likely less concerned with Asmongoth causing glitches and more with his livestream potentially spoiling Shadowlands content before it's fully ready. 

Another Redditor mentioned that the Game Master could have come in much sooner and wiped out Asmongoth and company. Instead, they clearly let them run around for a bit and enjoy themselves before laying down the law. They wrote, "I don't even play WoW, and this was beautiful to watch. The fact the GM let them break the game and have a little fun before ending it was really cool – as opposed to just instantly shutting it down."

Regardless of how fans feel about this little altercation between Blizzard and Asmongold's party, there is plenty to be excited about for Shadowlands' release. The new expansion has been built specifically to help acclimate new players to the world of the game, giving them all the lore and experience they need before diving into the latest chapter of the World of Warcraft mythos. 

As explained on Blizzard's official site, "If you're new to World of Warcraft and have never created or leveled a character, you will automatically begin your journey into Azeroth with the starting experience—helping you learn the basics of your class and the fundamentals of interacting with the world you've become a part of."

Just make sure you don't wander too far outside the boundaries of that world, okay?