Random stories

The problem with sudden success is that nobody is ever ready for it. While the problem of too many subscribers was not new to Blizzard, after all the initial response to World of Warcraft was well beyond their capacity as well, it was old enough that nobody currently working at the company remembered it. Or remembered things like server que times or severe lag and their repercussions from the fanbase. They only saw the subscription boom.

So when 2.3 billion new users all attempted to launch into the starting zone of the Orcs simultaneously, things went downhill quickly. High user volume was one thing and the latest expansion zones were coded specifically with that in mind. Durotar had not been revamped for nearly 36 expansions and was running on code so old nobody knew what programming language it was in anymore.

The mind-link VR tech had reduced lag to virtually nothing since every player in the Sol system was plugged directly into Battle.net. The few players on the colony ships were the only ones who were suppose to use the array, 20,000 at most. So the array did what it had to do to keep the connection open for those ships and throttled everyone's connection speed. It was a failsafe to ensure that the colony ships would never be truly out of contact.

Now of course the smart thing to do would be to invest the revenue from 2.3 billion subscriptions directly into the necessary infrastructure to get the game running, maybe do a press release about how ***first contact with extra-solar life*** had been established by, of all things, a MMORPG. However the conglomerate entity that now owned Blizzard (nobody was quite sure who actually owned the developer after the Activision/Disney war of 2037) instead gave all its executives bonuses and called it a day.

So when 2.3 billion intergalactic, angry WoW fanboys came with plasma weaponry, shielding technology, and a frothing battle rage the Sol system was woefully underprepared. Most of humanity was put to the axe within a week. Except for the Horde players of the Sol system of course. The invading space orcs considered them honorary blood-kin.

All was well for about a week which was when the orcs found out that most of the Horde players had Alliance alts. Then humanity ended. World of Warcraft would live on another 439 expansions, somehow still with the slow development times and story retcons. Orcish historians claim that "Blizzard time" is a curse and seek a cure for the malediction to this day.

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Submitted by EmanuelFaust on Mon, Mar 14, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

“Sir, World of Warcraft subscriptions just jumped by 2.3 billion” “Billion with a ‘B’? Where did they come from?” “Well, all the new traffic is routed through the Deep Space Array. It appears we’ve made first contact. Or, at least Thrall has…”