] Shadowbane had been hacked by several of its players. But ] unlike standard game hacks, where players gift themselves ] with super strength, health or wealth, these hackers ] managed to completely alter the rules of Shadowbane -- ] turning a suddenly wrathful game loose on its players. ] ] "At first, players started speculating that there was a ] really bad bug in the game code," player Tim Wheating ] said. "Then we realized that somehow an insane god had ] taken control of our world and was out to kill us all." ] The population of an entire Shadowbane town was forcibly ] moved to the bottom of the sea, where they drowned. City ] guards turned feral and attacked town residents. Mobs of ] never-before-seen superpowerful creatures, seemingly ] spontaneously spawned from the ether, began to prowl the ] streets unchecked, killing characters in the most painful ] way possible. ] Mike Gontelli, a late arrival to the game that evening, ] said that when he arrived in Shadowbane "there were ] hundreds of tombstones. New players were being beaten and ] tortured. Newbie blood was flowing like a river. I knew it ] wasn't real, but it was oddly terrifying." |