World of Warcraft is in the midst of a Scourge invasion as part of the launch of Shadowlands, and players are already bringing back an old annoying tradition - bullying new players. Players were excited for the event, especially after watching the cinematic for the Shadowlands expansion.
The Shadowlands Scourge invasion introduces an infection that causes players to transform into zombies. These infections can also be cured by finding an Argent Healer. This event is supposed to work as a battle between the infected and the uninfected, as zombies invade Stormwind City and Orgrimmar. The event introduced many new features, as well as bringing back an old boss called Nathanos Blightcaller, who everyone loves to hate. While this event has received a mix of positive and negative feedback, there was a major issue Blizzard missed that lets veterans bully new players.
Superab made a post on Reddit showing their character dying in the intro cutscene. Before getting a chance at playing the game, Superab was slaughtered by a zombie. While PVP is supposed to be disabled for new players to prevent them from being killed by high-level players with much better gear, there was an oversight that did not prevent PVP from zombies. New players who begin their journey in the new starting area of Exile's Reach are immune to the zombies. However, as Wowhead pointed out, this benefit is not given to players who begin in the traditional starting areas, where zombies are killing them.
This is likely an oversight from Blizzard and could be easily fixed, but this isn't the first time a problem like this has occurred. Many years ago, instead of zombies, there was the Corrupted Blood effect that players exploited from a boss. This was done by Hunters or Warlocks corrupting their pets, dismissing them, and resummoning them outside of the fight with the effect still in place. This allowed high-level players to run around spreading the Corrupted Blood effect to cities, which killed many new players. Now, infected zombies are running to traditional starting areas and slaughtering unsuspecting players. This could be worked around by new players starting their characters in Exile's Reach, where protection from zombies is provided, or waiting a week for the pre-patch event to end.
World of Warcraft's annoying tradition to bully new players seems to never end, even after Blizzard has had many years to learn how to prevent it. This might be disappointing to players who pre-purchased Shadowlands as well, trying to play the game only to be slaughtered right away by zombies.