In most MMOs, bears are low-level foes that are part of some early stage kill 10 quest or perhaps used to harvest lower level crafting materials. There was one bear in World of Warcraft, however, that was literally capable of killing players with what appeared to be a simple aggressive look.
This so-called Death Bear was first brought up as part of a Twitter thread that asked folks to recount their most memorable video gaming bugs. Blizzard game designer Joe Magdalena recounted the borked bear’s discovery during testing of Burning Crusade and further elaborated on it in a Kotaku interview, which explained this particular Arathi Highlands bear was capable of meting out small amounts of damage in rapid succession thanks to an attack speed of 0.002 seconds instead of 2.0 seconds.
Naturally, this uber ursine foe was tuned downwards, but Magdalena, who is now working on Hearthstone, has remarked that the Death Bear could make its way into the CCG. “I think it could be a fun addition to maybe a Tavern Brawl or something, maybe a treasure card in a Dungeon Run. Could be a lot of fun, especially now that his legend has spread beyond an in-joke between a few old-school QA folks,” says Magdalena.
