There have been many bugs throughout the history of World of Warcraft. But only a few are funny or so absurd that they remain etched in memory…
At nearly 15 years old, World of Warcraft has one of the longest histories of all video games and a lifespan that very few other games can compare to. However, throughout 7 expansions, things in the world of Azeroth haven’t always gone as the developers originally intended. Numerous bugs plagued the game repeatedly, but some of them have remained memorable. We present our little list of the funniest bugs that WoW has ever had.
1. Negative Mana Regeneration
The mana regeneration has been a heavily debated value in WoW. While mana played a significant role in Classic for almost all classes, the resulting “downtimes” have been gradually eliminated over the years, so that today only healers and, for example, arcane mages really rely on mana.
In the year before last, shortly after the release of Battle for Azeroth, the developers installed a hotfix. This was supposed to adjust the mana regeneration of healing classes because it was too high.
The hotfix worked, but “a little” too well. Instead of regenerating mana, healers had to deal with an extremely annoying bug that mainly occurred in the low-level areas:
Healing specializations lost mana while in combat – all on their own! As soon as the fight started, the mana of healing classes began to dwindle without the respective players casting a single spell.
This was likely due to a small coding error that turned mana regeneration into a negative value.
The bug was fixed within a few days but it certainly became one of the funniest in the history of World of Warcraft.
2. Player levels backwards, loses several levels
In some games, it’s normal for characters to lose levels, such as when they die. But in World of Warcraft, there is no such system – it only goes one way, and that’s up. At least, that’s what you would think.
The player Saurzan noticed this shortly after the implementation of Patch 8.0. He signed up for a PvP battleground as usual and wanted to level up from level 98 to level 99. However, that did not work.
He was quite shocked when he realized that rather than gaining experience points after finishing the match, he had lost a considerable amount instead. His character was now no longer at level 98 but had been reverted to level 94.
This also meant that Saurzan was wearing items that he technically shouldn’t have been able to equip. His blood elf was wearing gloves that could only be worn at character level 98, and they were now marked as “red” (unusable).
Blizzard was able to quickly fix this peculiar isolated incident, and a support employee restored the correct character level. So it was just a one-time error that affected only a very few players – known is just Saurzan.
3. Gigantic Hunter Pets
Another funny type of bug occurred occasionally on live servers in a smaller scale, but never as gigantic as during the beta of “Mists of Pandaria”. Through the combination of a series of talents and glyphs, hunters were able to inflate their pets to an absurd size.
The animals not only overshadowed their hunters but in some cases even entire buildings. Especially spiders, core hounds, and certain giant dinosaurs caused horrified faces when logging into Orgrimmar or Stormwind, where these gigantic creatures besieged the city walls.
On a smaller scale, there was often another bug in combination. Core hounds and dinosaurs had the characteristic of stomping extremely loudly, causing the entire screen to lightly shake for surrounding players. This was because the animals retained the effect that caused the ground to slightly tremble even after being tamed.
This bug returned for a while even in Legion:
Nowadays, however, at least one can grow trees to absurd sizes in WoW:
4. The Corrupted Blood Incident from Zul’Gurub
Strictly speaking, this incident is not a bug, but a mechanic of a boss encounter from the raid Zul’Gurub. There, players could be afflicted by a corrupted blood plague that caused damage over time. If the damage was lethal, the respective player would explode and infect other nearby characters with the plague as well.
Normally, this debuff would be removed once you left the raid, like many negative effects. However, there was one exception – once again – for hunters’ pets. If they sent their pet away while it was afflicted by the plague, they could later summon it again and the plague would still be present.
This led some hunters to only bring their pets back in the major cities like Orgrimmar or Ironforge. The plague would first kill the pets and then transfer to the players. Since there were also extremely many low-level players in Ironforge, they were almost instantly killed.
This allowed the plague to spread at an alarming rate and decimated entire cities, making them nearly uninhabitable for several hours.
At least the hunters definitely had fun with this incident.
The whole event even later became an inspiration for its own card and a small event in Hearthstone.
5. The Cheater Shirt Martin Fury
Our last point is technically not a bug but rather a service mistake that made history in World of Warcraft. This occurred during the time of Wrath of the Lich King, when the raid Ulduar had just been uploaded to the servers.
A guild that previously had few major successes managed Ulduar in record time and netted one “Server First” achievement after another. No matter how difficult the boss or how incredible the success, the guild “The Marvel Family” defeated one boss after another.
This was due to a shirt that the raid leader wore. This item was named “Martin Fury” and even had stats that improved the character. But the most important thing was the effect that activated upon use:
All enemies within 30 meters die.
The shirt only had “100” charges and could not be used indefinitely, but it should never have fallen into the hands of players.
However, it did, as it was accidentally given to a player in the guild.
The player Leroyspeltz had reported months ago that his account was hacked, his characters were transferred, and gold was stolen. He waited over 4 months for a response and even leveled up another character in the meantime. When after a long time his account and characters were restored, there was also another item in the mailbox of the account: the aforementioned shirt “Martin Fury”.
Leroyspeltz thought this was some sort of “apology” from Blizzard for taking over 4 months to restore his account. Leroyspeltz passed the shirt to his guild master, which led to many achievements and first kills.
However, Blizzard did not find this amusing and permanently banned the raid leader who had used the shirt. Other players involved in the raids also received 24-hour bans.
What were your funniest bugs and errors that you experienced in World of Warcraft over the years?
