With overpowered abilities, Game Masters can influence the World of Warcraft. But so much power also comes with responsibility.
Game Masters in World of Warcraft should maintain the order of the game. For this, they have special accounts that allow them to log into the MMORPG to investigate incidents, restore items, or fix minor issues. However, a few days ago, a case came to light where a Blizzard employee helped a group of players gain an unfair advantage.
Blizzard stated afterward that this was an isolated incident, but many wondered: What can a Game Master actually do? This question was answered by the YouTuber “720 Zone” – who simply looked at the abilities of Game Masters.
With great power comes whimsical abilities
What can a Game Master do? As the name suggests, Game Masters have quite extensive abilities that normal characters cannot achieve. Obviously, they serve administrative purposes and are meant to help rectify minor errors, eliminate troublemakers like trolls, or simply test certain actions in a test environment.
The powers of a Game Master include:
- Area Test (Death): Everything in a target area is killed. This also affects the “invisible rabbits” that keep WoW functioning.
- Permanent Rooting and Banishment: Each a spell to hold enemies in place or to permanently banish them, making them untouchable.
- Grow / Shrink: All creatures in the game can be grown or shrunk to size with a GM spell. This is often stackable.
- Mind Control: All mobs present in the game can be taken over and manually controlled via mind control – regardless of what species a creature belongs to and whether it is friendly or hostile.
- Charm: All creatures in the game can be charmed and then act as a pet of the Game Master.
- Super Stealth: A stealth that is not broken in combat and cannot be seen through by any character.
- Delete and Summon NPCs: NPCs can be completely deleted from a realm.
Aside from that, there are many abilities that are only available via console commands. Almost all variables of a character can be adjusted – the maximum HP, maximum mana, gold in the inventory, reputation with certain factions.
You can see many of these abilities in action in the video by 720 Zone here, which showcases them in WoW Classic:
Are these the current powers of Game Masters? No, the abilities shown are those of GMs that came into play primarily in the “early era” of WoW, during the time from Vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King. Since then, the abilities and scope have certainly changed – but the exact, current extent is unknown.
What happens when a Game Master uses these powers? Although a Game Master’s powers are seemingly overwhelming, they cannot be misused so easily – at least not without it being noticed. Because Blizzard has stated that every use of these abilities is logged and evaluated. This has also been confirmed by some commentators under the video, among whom several former Game Masters have claimed to be familiar with the process.
In theory, a Game Master can stir up a lot of nonsense and plunge a realm into chaos, but already after a short time it could cost him his job, as happened just a few days ago. With great power comes great responsibility.
720 Zone showcases a lot of WoW content in which he explains the things that make World of Warcraft so special. A while ago, he just demonstrated that the game’s most famous sight is a big lie – because Stormwind has not just one cathedral, but several.
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