The latest component of many MMORPGs is the real life treasure hunt component. If you’ve never had the opportunity, it often involves searching out a number of objects, geocached in the real world, in order to complete a quest. This seemingly harmless game element caused quite a scare in New Zealand yesterday. The moral of the story: let the police know what you’re doing before setting up your clues.

A package was seen being strapped to a railing at the rear of the Aotea Centre in downtown Auckland. Motorists were asked to stay away from the area while the Defence Force bomb squad was called to examine the package. A quick view of closed circuit camera footage was enough to convince police to call the bomb squad. While the area was blocked off, an employee from nearby Datacom came to police and told them the device was a geocache, a tracking device used by computer buffs. Further investigations were made to confirm this and the alert was lifted around 6:30 p.m. Source: New Zealand Herald

 - Michele White