Let’s state the bloody obvious for a moment, shall we?
The Zombie event was a good idea. An exciting, neat, fun concept.
The key word in that sentence there is concept.
It is in the execution of that concept that it became a pain in the ass, rather than exciting entertainment.
I can see the thought behind the idea. “Hey, the Lich King is coming fast, Halloween is right around the corner, we have this big undead thing going on and everyone loves Zombies. Let’s have ourselves some awesome fun by letting the players turn into Zombies with special abilities and tear around Azeroth for a while!”
“And to make things even better, we’re going to ratchet up the tension to the breaking point! At the beginning, it’ll be isolated incidents, easily fought. No fear, just a little idle worry. But as time goes on, we’ll crank up the tension and fear by shortening the time from Infection to Zombie, and remove the Argent Healers! The plague will sweep Azeroth, and the players will fear it and feel that ramping terror, until we give them a plot chain to pursue, seeking a cure. It’ll be awesome! They’ll have to work together to save Azeroth!”
At the same time, of course, we have just one or two other things that might be going on to occupy our attention.
Like, oh… the invasions of World Zones, hunting down and fighting the Lich King’s forces in remote areas of Azeroth. If you haven’t taken part yet, it’s a ton of fun, and you can get some great Undead Slayer epics and neat items and Argent Dawn reputation. If you equip your Argent Dawn Commission trinket, you can even loot Invader Scourgestones for more Argent Dawn rep.
Or wait, what about the new boss, Prince Mirkblood in Karazhan? He’s up in there to fight, and a blue post says he is only there for a limited time, less than 10 days until he disappears again forever.
Or wait, how about… the whole Trick or Treat stuff? Or the Headless Horseman? Or leveling your alts and having fun playing the game?
Oh heck, do people still do that?
I mean, surely no one could possibly be trying to level to 70 prior to Lich King at this point, right?
No, no, let’s just unleash the Zombie hordes.
It was a great idea, and I love having so much to do. I think having all this to choose from is pretty kick ass, so long as you’re not faantically trying to do everything. If you just want to have a taste of different fun things here or there, then it’s pretty cool.
If you tried to do EVERYTHING, you’d be playing all the hours of the day, every day, all weekend.
Some of us are allowed to have fun, and still have a life, right? Just checking.
We had a week to play with specs, beat up the Headless Horseman, do a few raids, and explore Azeroth and Trick or Treat. Then, Zombie Attack!
I really only have one problem with the entire thing.
Blizzard, you gave the power to inititiate PvP and kill players and camp them, to the asshats. The Asshats! That is epic fail on your part.
I do not play on a PvP server. That is a conscious choice I made, because I have no tolerance for asshats. When I am playing the game, I have zero, I say again my last, ZERO interest in being a walking target for any room temperature IQ that gets off on ruining the fun of others.
As soon as I saw Phase two start, and saw that they were dropping the incubation period of the infection, I saw it coming.
And Blizzard should have seen it too. You DO read your own forums right?
Oh boy, do you mean to tell me that players will have the power to become a Zombie, infect an area with a cloud of gas, and anyone touching it or getting hit will become a Zombie, and then die?
Oh boy! Sign me up for victimhood!
And even better, they will get flagged PvP, and stay flagged even when they rez as a normal non-Zombie again?
YAHOO!!! Asshat paradise!
Geez, let’s see, where do YOU think the asshats were going to go to try their best to ruin the fun of others against their will on PvE servers?
How about, oh I dunno… every Flight Master, every chamber that people Teleport to, every Inn where people Hearth to, the Auction House, and the Bank.
You think?
Maybe?
Two things, just two things would have made this whole thing a non-issue, and left it as a totally fun, awesome event…
- When you die from being a Zombie, you SHOULD NOT resurrect still flagged….
- There should have been swarms of Guards and Argent Healers at those few key points I mentioned above, so you don’t log in blind or land, already infected by asshats, and if they do get you, you can choose to clear the infection fast.
Just from a Lore point of view, are you seriously telling me the plague and Zombie invasion is that hardcore that the cities aer overrun, and none of these guards will have their posts changed to protect the vital areas? Or maybe have reinforcements?
Seriously. I am all for the event. I think becoming a Zombie and chasing folks is a neat idea… so long as it is PARTICIPATORY.
You give the power of control to asshats, and the first thing they DO is go looking to see how many people they can hurt, you morons! That’s what they do! It’s all they know how to do!
Our Trade channel was quiet this weekend, except for people upset at getting ganked every time they set foot in those places listed above. Or Shattrath.
Why was it so quiet?
Because every time I entered one of those key areas, there were Zombies attacking them, Zombies with names made famous as being lame little hateful asshats in Trade, each of them frantically busy trying to hurt people. Finally, they had the kind of game they wanted. They no longer had to resort to using their limited, four-letter-word vocabularies to try and inflict pain, and could now just go after the players directly. Innocent victims that couldn’t fight back in any meaningful way to hurt them in return. Joy!
Yeah, as a problem, it ain’t that big a deal. But the idea is for people to have FUN. That is why we play the game. So when an event like this ruins the fun for a lot of people, because of a few small oversights, over an entire weekend, it’s worth talking about.
It’s fair to say I’m personally enjoying the game. There is a lot to do, and I’m having a lot of fun getting in there and killing the Scourge.
We went into Karazhan and beat up Prince Mirkblood, and that was neat to figure out on the fly, and of course nobody new what he’d drop at the time, so everyone getting to loot their very own Vampiric Batling was awesome!
But the fun I had was in spite of the Zombie invasion and the asshats, not because of it. And that makes me kind of sad.
It was a great idea, but any time you give the power to asshats, they will abuse it.
C’mon Blizz, you KNOW that was poorly imlpemented.
Fortunately, I’m sure that it will all be over soon.
After all, I bet the complaining about being killed by asshats against your will on PvE servers has to have reached a fever pitch as this progressed, and somehow I don’t think Blizzard is laughing and rejoicing at the knowledge that they have actively pissed off their player base just to please a handful of ganking trolls.
Oh hey… on the plus side, my cat has spontaneously learned how not to Prowl! Just magically stopped auto-Prowling. Go figure.
Entries (RSS)
TBH, I see and understand all these “it’s PVP forced down our throats”, “it’s griefing to it’s maximum”… But even tho I also get pissed off at all those ghouls chasing me sometimes, it’s just genius… The scourge is attacking Azeroth. They’ll infect and kill everyone in sight. Invade our cities, kill our firends and chase our girl/boyfriends to eat their brains.
Just think for a moment, if you see aliens invading the earth, would you be fighting them or complaining that you can’t go to the gym without being harassed by one of them? The event is pure genius. You’re supposed to be fighting them, not trying to continue your normal life. Every player who gets converted into ghoul and starts “griefing”, it’s just doing what a real scourge member would do. Same with those player cleansing infected ppl (don’t swear at them, they are doing their job). Azeroth is in danger. Go fight the scourge.
By the way, this invasion ends when we “kill” a certain amount of those circles where you summon the elites. The faster we kill them, the sooner we get to back to normal life (and the gym).
Look at this event from a lore point of view. Add, if you want, a tiny bit of role playing and you’ll see that it’s not badly implemented, it’s just “working as intended” ;)
Just my 2 cents.
That is your point of view, and that is cool. I’m glad you’re enjoying it a lot. And yes, the idea was genius.
My point remains, I play the game to have fun. I often don’t have a lot of time, I come in and out while making dinner or giving my son a bath or, oh, fixing the toilet lever.
When things are changed in game, to add things that the majority of players go out of their way to avoid, because it is the opposite of fun, it is a big pain in the ass… then that is failed implementation in my opinion.
If the point of the game is to have fun, and most players on a PvE server chose their server to avoid the component of gameplay that involves getting attacked and killed against your will while pursuing the gameplay styles you DO enjoy, then if this is working as intended, the intension is to award asshats for being asshats and spoil quite a few people’s fun.
In your example, I am being generous when I suggest they made an oversight in implementation. If this is what they really intended, it was silly.
I suppose, if you live in the game all the time, every day, for hours every day, then sure. But if you play a few hours a day on weekends, then boom. You log in, and are infected, and go “What the hell?”
It’s no big deal to me, I’ll go chase crop circles, kill Scourge, and avoid the cities and towns. When I Hearth I’ll pop Flight and head straight up. If I die, I’ll just move along. It’s not fun, but it’s not like it’s some big game breaking thing.
It’s just stupid. It sure is fun flying into Ironforge to get infected at the Flight Master and die, and run back and die, and run back and die… yeah. Lots of fun. Boy, is that fun.
Thank you for putting into words what I have been feeling! While the plotline and killing zombies are fun for my two 70’s, I have two sixties parked in Hellfire Citadel, unable to do any questing or turn in any quests because Hellfire is Zombie Central. I can’t even log in because there have been twenty zombies in the inn the past five times I’ve tried. And while I can understand technically why we are flagged as PVP upon resurrecting after dying as a zombie, it is really stupid. I play on a PVE server for a reason.
I have some mixed feelings about the whole invasion thing.
On the plus side, I managed to get Tabard of the Argent Dawn, which still is one of the best looking tabards ever, and that alone is worth competing with the countless armies of the Horde (playing on a PvP realm is not making it easier) for the scourge mobs. I got some fun being a zombie for half an hour (when it all began and was still new), why not. And we killed the new boss and got the new pets.
Now for the bad side of things… the whole event is beginning to slightly get out of hand. Over the weekend, Shattrath has been just a zombie-town, and that is the biggest dissapointment of the whole thing for me. You can’t kill players there, even if they are a zombie, because of the sanctuary status of the place. And that makes it very easy for the idiots to repeatedly kill daily questgivers, battlemasters, bankers and what not. I’m really surprised Blizzard haven’t thought of that. I can put up with zombies in other cities, since I can usually kill them, but Shattrath is lost.
In Azeroth it’s a bit different – most zombies that try to invade Ironforge or Stormwind, don’t live that long before they get destroyed by the guards and players alike, so it seems more like a mild annoyance. Maybe it’s because I play on a quite low populated realm, so we don’t have enough asshats to do more damage to the auctioneers and other NPCs.
And in the end, I still think that the zombie invasion will be stopped in some way. There are new quests in Shattrath and the capitals, so it’s still not over yet. The reinforcements ARE coming. :]
And really… It’s a good event overall, even with all the asshats. It wouldn’t be as convincing if all there was to it was some random, non-aggressive mobs around. This way, we all can see the might of the Lich King – the power to corrupt people, just like Arthas was corrupted.
Not surprising that the idiots are playing a big role in this. They’re so easily corrupted…
BBB I respectfully disagree. I am also a casual player that has a hard time stringing a single hour of WoW uninterrupted outside of my one regularly scheduled raid night. I’m also trying to level another alt into outlands before wrath. I think this event is great. I like the fact that the pressure keeps getting turned up. There will come a time even the asshats will be so fed up with the zombies that they will turn to fighting them. In the meantime I avoid orgimaar like the plague, pun intended, and take out necropolises in any zone I want to level my alts in. If I need to go somewhere with lots of zombies I pull out my lock and spam Seed of corruption in the area before i come in with my other toons.
To use an out of date, over simplified, business buzzword, blizzard moved your cheese.
I can see the annoying parts. I’ve experienced them myself but after re-locating some of my characters to more remote towns I hardly see a zombie unless I willfully seek them out. Ogr and Shatt are lost to the zombies on my server but undercity is as untouched as can be expected.
So beyond having to frequent a more remote battlemaster and be a little bit more careful about planning my trips to the AH and the Bank I can say I really find the whole zombie thing amusing.
You can litterally plot your course through various places, hugging the argent healers and eliminate huge numbers of them without too much hassle.
After all this time it’s nice to be a little bit anxious to go places and even though I think shattrath should be 100% zombie free as a sanctuary zone I welcome the change, the added challenge and the occasional bout of zombie combat.
Even my lowbies seem to manage quite allright and I’ve never used blink and slowfall as excessively as I have lately which spelled nothing but fun for me.
All in all to me the experience is a welcome one but as said I can understand the need for people to be able to take a breather somewhere and yes, key location should indeed be equipped with more argent healers.
At least now I can recognize the asshats… they’re red, slow and stink a mile into the wind ;)
I personally have more problems with having to kill the headless horseman 5 times a day, do a ton of trick or treats and still not have a headless horseman helm drop for me. At least with zombies you have a certain measure of control.
The best part of WoW is there are so many things to do to keep you busy and you can do them whenever you want. But now I can’t even do most of the things I want to do at all. I was loving the zombie invasion for a while and I enjoyed participating in the first day but then that was enough for me; it didn’t really hold my attention. And even though I didn’t participate in the zombified areas it didn’t bother me because it wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t do other things. I figured they would keep argent healers in those key spots. But instead I spent 20 minutes yesterday trying to get my 60 shaman on a flight out of Shat and I couldn’t because I was flagged for combat forever. I wasn’t even being attacked, but there was some 70 zombie that would spawn and have his eye on me for a brief second because she is such a low level. So I would go to the flight master and I can’t leave because I’m in ‘busy in combat.’ So I go to logout. Won’t let me. I go to exit game. WON’T LET ME! I had to get to my task manager and forcefully quit WoW.
Ridiculous. Died a couple times logging back on to see I’m zombied. Finally got my flight out to get my jewelcrafting over 300.
Then I turned off the game and watched tv.
So my problem doesn’t even deal with asshats. Just Blizzard. How in the hell can they tell me I can’t turn off the game? Seriously.
The flagging issue seems to be a bit spotty, incidentally. Last night I was unflagged (I play on PvE – RP, actually). Figured since I’d griped about the Scourge for the whole time, and done basically everything EXCEPT become a zombie, I headed for Orgrimmar, found a roach, and splatted it. Waited the requisite 30 seconds and…
Zombie’d! No PvP flag. I then go around eating guards, trainers, basically everything in northeast Orgrimmar, including exploiting the fact that training dummies are instant zombie health refills, even eating players (including a level 9 who I apologized profusely to because I didn’t see her level before I ate her). During all of this, no PvP flag.
Scout Manslayer (now at level ?? even to me at 70) eventually runs across me separated from my pack of loyal minions and gives me whatfor. I die. Still no PvP flag.
I repeat the above process for the better part of an hour, and yet never got flagged for PvP.
I think its a brilliant idea and the fact that its out of hand is excellent it really shakes things up. The tension is palpable and its a great way to lead up to the wotlk release. I’ve spent some time as a zombies sure…but I’ve spent way more time defending the cities, forming raids with pallies/priests at its heart to cure infections and push the undead back. I love it froma lore point of view as well. (On a side note being able to talk to the other zombified faction is a neat touch and a nice way to build some bridges)
Does it affect anything else I wish to do? not massively….getting around in outlands isnt a major concern and FP masters are normally prettily heavly defended plus avoiding zombies is a doddle and if I do get infected in a city it’s easy to memorise where the limited npc healers are and leg it for a cure. I lvled my alt fine the other day in Feralas…the cities are the main no go areas when lvling, stick to the wilds and you’ll be fine. The one sour aspect….the BG masters die…A LOT.
Just my opinion and I can see why it can annoy folks, but hey it isnt going to be around forever so might as well get to experience and enjoy it. And asshats are asshats if you let them know they are bugging you they sure as hell arent going to stop.
They definitely ‘forgot’ a few likely problems when they implemented this and I *hate* it with a vengeance. I don’t like flying into a zombie cloud when I land at a flight path, I don’t like not being able to leave because the flight master is dead. I seriously don’t like logging in and finding out I’m already a dying zombie. I totally fail to see the ‘fun’ of having to wait longer and longer to actually res.
And I really loath the fact that I get shouted abuse by all and sundry when my priest is out there healing guards, quest givers etc. (The *so* should have given those zombies their own channel and removed them from the general ones…).
However nice the idea…it’s spoiling my enjoyment.
/bump
I think the level of annoyance depends on whether your class of choice can cleanse diseases. I try to play pally, shammy and priest exclusively. This event is really Blizzard at its dumbest.
I really haven’t had much issue with the whole thing. But it has been fun to watch. Maybe its my server, or maybe I’ve been lucky. Just fly up to the top of a building in shat and you’re safe. If I need to get to a mailbox or bank I just find one that is more isolated than the obvious ones (TB or UC are great for the horde). The only time I had an issue is when my lvl 1 banker alt in TB got infected and died and I had no clue how to get from the GY to the elevator up to TB.
But, then, I don’t use FP or quest givers anymore, so the fact that they die hasn’t really bothered me all that much. And until you mentioned the PvP issue, I didn’t even know you got flagged. Funny.
Initially I really liked this zombie event, but it has very quickly gotten out of hand. I play on an EU server and the zombies first began showing up on Thursday (it may have been before but if so the invasion was too small to notice). Come Friday night and early Saturday it was game over! I tried going to the Auction House but they were all under attack and were so all weekend!
I’m am glad they put this event in because I didn’t start play WOW until after the opening of Naxx and the AQ raids so I had never really taken part in the big world events so it has been nice to see one and take part. The problem is that it should be my decision to take part or not.
I have seen no end of complaints in trade chat recently and for many people WOW has been no fun at all this weekend (thanks again to the asshats). It also doesn’t help that there is so much else to do at the moment. This weekend was really the last chance for a lot of players to really get through the Hallows End content and achievements as we don’t all have a lot of time to play during the week.
I do have one suggestion for those who want to get away from the zombie menace though, as a druid I would like the title you get from being exalted with Cenarion Circle and Expedition. I sent a good proportion my playtime this weekend grinding rep in Silithis and didn’t see a single zombie.
bbb i totally agree. blizzard should have seen this coming and taken steps to prevent this event from killing the fun in this game.
The way I see it there are 3 types of players when it comes to this event.
The first being those that love being a zombie. These people are not just asshats. There are tons of people in my guild, sweet innocent women, who just go nuts over becoming a zombie and there have allready been a number of zombie raids made. For the most part what I’ve seen only an organized group of zombies can actually infect a major city (besides shattrath which is just messed up). These people actually hate being cleansed of the debuff and go out of their way to get it. I’ve had lots of complaints from people that I’m ruining their fun when I cleanse the debuff off.
The second being those who love to kill zombies. The core of this group is actually priests and Pallies who can cleanse the disease from themselves. As I have both at 70 I have to admit I’m really enjoying fighting the war against the scourge.
The third are those who hate the event entirely and go out of their way to avoid it. This group is made up of people such as yourself BBB and many many low lvl players who I feel bad for.
In the long run its a unique once in a lifetime event that we won’t see again. We will look back at it one day and see either the frustration of zombie infested towns and no quest givers or battlemasters, or as the time that the Lich King nearly took Azeroth and daily life was changed for everyone.
Giving players control of the zombies was key because without it there would be alot more complaining. A bunch of NPC controlled zombies killing players who then instantly changed into zombie NPC would be far worse. Just sending in waves of undead without the plague doesn’t really show any kind of threat to azeroth.
Its a once in a life time event. For better or worse we are at war and we are reminded of the threat to the North and why we are going to travel to Northrend to bring the fight to Arthas. Remember these days, your friends and family being turned into zombies. Your life turned upside down. Your day to day routine gone. Remember this when you stand infront of Arthas and give him the payback he so completely deserves.
It’s a game. Games are meant to have fun. You will have eternity to level as many alts as you want to 80 in the coming year. You won’t get to be a zombie causing mahem and havok for much longer then the rest of this week (I’m guessing).
It’s a chaotic time in WoW right now. Stop complaigning about how it’s upsetting your alt leveling and start taking advantage of the event that’s going on.
I’ve been dabbling with being a zombie, attacking big cities and small ones alike. What I’ve noticed is that it’s damn near impossible to grief beyond killing grey NPC’s. A player zombie cannot kill another player unless they are attacked first. Attacking an NPC zombie does not flag you towards player zombies (I was irritated I couldn’t retaliate at the people killing my lovely zombielings). When dying as a zombie, unless you have flagged yourself by attacking a player, you will not be flagged. Does this not render most of your “PvP shoved down our throats” type complaints?
It’s a neat event that will likely only happen once. If you continue to whine and moan about it, you’re only going to regret it later on when you realize you missed out on something unique.
I tried to play on Friday after work and just gave up. The PvP didn’t bother me, but I couldn’t get anything DONE. All the NPCs were dead.
Screw that. Seriously, screw that in the ear. That’s not why I’m paying to play. I spent the (limited) gaming time I had this weekend playing Warhammer and LotRO, because this event made it too hard to play my mains, and IMPOSSIBLE to level alts.
It has, to be honest, soured me on the Lich King release coming up.
Pretty sure that’s not the effect Blizzard was going for.
Gotta admit, that while I can certainly understand that some people dislike the zombie invasion, it really doesn’t bother me in the slightest =P
I spent all weekend playing characters of various levels across various servers– never once got turned into a zombie, I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but it’s… I dunno, it’s easy for me to avoid? Even on my low levels? Maybe I’m just lucky =P The worst I’ve had to deal with is waiting a few minutes for questgivers or auctioneers to respawn and again, that doesn’t bug me because this is a freaking epic thing… coolest thing I’ve ever seen happen in WoW.
But then again, I was always the type of person who said “Man, I wish I could log into WoW someday and Stormwind would be in flames and all the NPCs in there would be dead and it would advance the story and we’d have to deal with it.” This is the type of thing I thrive off of. So… take everything I say with a BIG grain of salt =P
It can be annoying at times, but I’m hesitant to complain because we get to see so few world events. I don’t want Blizzard to stop trying.
@Artorin:
“The first being those that love being a zombie. These people are not just asshats.”
No, the asshats are still there. They’re not the people you’re talking of. It’s the kind of people that will camp the lowbie zone or important NPC for hours, and the same ones that spam trade with stupid dirge and anal references.
“These people actually hate being cleansed of the debuff and go out of their way to get it. I’ve had lots of complaints from people that I’m ruining their fun when I cleanse the debuff off.”
That was true in the beginning, when you had to go down all the way to Booty Bay to get infected. Even then, ruining their fun? Their fun ends where other people’s fun starts. They shouldn’t complain, just admit defeat of the zombie invasion and plan it better next time. :]
I think it is interesting how troublemaking players are really the ones making this look like a zombie invasion.
///warning – conspiracy spoilers///
Keep in mind the only reason BBBB has had it so rough is BRK has been secretly hiring zombie assassins to kill him for his enjoyment!
I just got my main(feral druid) to 70 this weekend and didn’t have any trouble with zombies (in Nagrand, Shadowmoon, and Netherstorm). However, pretty much the entirety of the Eastern Kingdoms was in zombie control, so I didn’t go there. Now that I’m 70, I’ll go see if I can have some fun killing zombies, when I group up with some Pally friends. It would be fun to make a well-organized raid group and take back a major city…. mmmmm, justice.
Very thoughtful and well written article. I share your opinion to the letter only difference was I hid in ZA instead of Kara due to the Asshats and my cat also stopped the auto prowl (that was annoying too). I think that it should have been maybe a 2 day lead in just before the launch of WOTLK.
But bar none were the whiny asshats who gave me crap for killing them when they were infected, I mean come on I saw Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness it’s the right thing to do.
Blizzard tends aim, shoot, and question the corpse sometimes.
Arthas doesn’t care about your dailies or your rep grind. ;)
I love it. It’s the very first world event that actually affected the world. Yes, it was impossible to purchase anything from the AH before we did our TK run last night, but that didn’t bother me. But I also remember the end of OB where everyone was getting killed by Infernals in the bank of IF and King Mosh was in the Keep in SW. I had to corpse drag myself into IF because level 16 Rogue stealth doesn’t do much against Dreadlords guarding the door.
The game on rails, where nothing happens that’s unpredictable and nothing changes in the world will return shortly. We apologize if the Zombie Invasion from Hell has inconvenienced you in anyway.
We’ll return to your regularly scheduled predictability shortly.
It nearly caused my guild leader to disband and quit.
My guild has been doing virtually non-stop instances to stay away from the Scourge annoyance. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the goal of the world event and I personally find it highly annoying.
The ability for players to grief with Blizzard support is ridiculous.
(Shamelessly stolen from the Euro forums)
Acolyte: We have released the plague my Lord! they shall suffer the scourge once more!
The Lich King: Excellent news!
Acolyte: The lower level heroes will feel our wrath, as the infection mutates them all!
The Lich King: They shall all bow to me and…wait…did you say lower levels?
Acolyte: Umm yes Lord, is there a…
The Lich King: You can’t affect the lower level players! Good god man, I may be an insane murderer and I may have betrayed my friends and killed my own father but I know there is a line!
Acolyte: O, I…I didnt know
The Lich King: Indeed, modify the plague to only affect the high level heroes!
Acolyte:And the lower levels?
The Lich King: Send them a letter addressed from myself explaining my mistake and offer my apologies.
Acolyte: Right away my lord!
Participatory!
That’s the most important word in your post BBB.
I totally agree with you. The first time I got zombiefied, I had some fun with it – lurched after a lowbie player to give him a fright, spat green goo at other zombies, and exploded on any one who attacked me. But I didn’t infect a player running away – I thought the idea of the plague being in the lore was fun – but we are on a PVE server, and I am NOT about to ruin someone else’s fun.
Every player in my guild chose PVE over PVP because we just don’t like the gank thing. Now, we are being forced into it by Blizzard – you can blame the asshats, but Blizzard wrote the code. Our usually sunny Assistant GM is full of curses whenever she logs on, and about ready to quit the game she is so frustrated.
Our solution to the frustration has been to run endless instances/raids with whoever we can get. No zombies in the instances (yet)! We are just getting beyond Kara – but this week was my first BT, our guild-second ZA, a return to ZG (got the Spectral Tiger omgomgomg!), Kara’s new boss, and so many heroics my head is spinning.
Of course that also means that we are all of us dead poor because we’re using up supplies and needing repairs, and can’t get to daily quest givers or the AH. BUT, we’ve managed to keep having fun while we wait out the stupidity.
Blizz – you should have made it optional to be a zombie by only infecting people who attack them, or restricted zombies to zones, or something to relieve those of us not into PVP.
You also should have spaced it better – one week to get used to new skills, two weeks of Hallow’s End, two weeks of zombie stupidity up to Wrath.
P.S. Can you just imagine the person who hears the hype about Wrath and finally bought the game in the last week? My pity goes to them!
You know, every one of you that posts a comment saying “Suck it up, asshole”, goes straight to my spam filter. You do realize this isn’t the WoW Insider comments section, yes? I’ve moderated these comments ever since the great vulgarity explosion of PvP post era, and most especially since the death threats against my son.
I could care less if you disagree with me, but if you can’t comment in a civil manner, contributing to a discussion, then I ban you. Good riddance. Bye! Wham!
If you want to share your love for the lore and the fun and the excitement of the event, that’s great.
I also, as I might have mentioned, think it’s pretty cool too. It’s too bad I can’t post my opinion as to a few of the consequences of how it’s been implemented without stoking the fires of fury, but hey. Such is life. It’s my mistake for not acknowledging how awesome so much of the event is, or mentioning that it’ll only be for a little while, and that there are a lot of other things we can do. Oh wait, I did? I did say that? Huh. Go figure.
Seriously, if you post comments telling me to “Suck it up, asshole”, and endless variations of the theme, long, long variations of that theme, I am just going to put you on my spam filter. To be ignored is truly the one thing that asshats cannot stand, or so I’m told.
And how much better to be put behind a spam filter, so I don’t even see that you are full of hate? You type out a mile long rant about how much I suck and how much you hate me, and then it’s gone… eaten as though it never existed. Like your brains.
Braiinnnnssssss…..
I play on a PVP server. I don’t gank or like to be ganked. Nonetheless, when I am a zombie, everything must die. When I am not, all zombies must die.
It’s a world event, go with it. While there are some kinks to work out, seeing the main towns covered in skeletons and erupting with a green infected glow is the best experience this game has provided me to date.
And yes, I am a zombie movie nut, so that helps.
@Blacknimbus
LOL nice
Back to topic. Yup it’s really annoying and my wife almost got pissy about it. Really hard to quest when there are no quest givers … There will be always asshats in the game. So what did we do? Me and the wife grouped and took notes of the people who likes to spread disease then we would kill them next time we see them at the same time cleansing me, other players and the guards. I griefed the griefers which make me a griefer. lolwhut? That was just us roleplaying saving Org but we had fun doing it.
BUT that is how we dealt with the change in gameplay just like the EULA says “Gameplay May Change During Online Play” Damn that Agree button!
Of course if you do not want to participate in the event, have limited time, or just wants to get something done quickly this can be really game breaking. But remember … don’t get so worked up. If you don’t like it, rest from the game abit, work out, jog, read a book w/e. Keep your cool.
Last thing if you’re into the Lore and stuff. Think how this drove Arthas nuts which eventually led to his demise. He got so worked up with all these zombies that he ordered to kill the citizens of a town before they turned into zombies. In the end he got so desperate that he ends being the one which he hates the most /sigh.
Respectfully disagree, Bear Butt. I have both a 70 shammy and a 24 hunter and have been able to play both of them with few distractions that I didn’t actually want. If I had to complain about anything it’s that the Scourge invasion events for 70s (the ones with the skulls on the maps) don’t last long enough for me to get to them and further, due to tagging issues, haven’t got one rune stone yet. However, Slig did single-handedly wipe out a zombie invasion on the Elder Rise of TB without getting infected once. (While waiting for a quest NPC to respawn, I might add.) And it was the funnest thing I’ve done in-game since going to Kara the first time. I felt like a real Hero of the Horde! The 24 hunter goes on her merry way. Yes, it’s sometimes annoying when the flightmaster is dead, but it takes, like, 2 whole minutes for the respawn. So I go off and kill some more stuff and then came back again. Or, heavens to betsy, walk to the next flight master, yes, killing stuff along the way. This one time (at band camp?) I was running through a Scourge attack in Org to get to the flightmaster and got bitten once – JUST ONCE! Got infected and went zombie on the flight to Ashenvale. When I arrived, Splintertree Post was as pure as the driven snow. Unfortunately, the guards smelled my zombitude and killed me immediately, essentially infecting the whole camp. It was fascinating to watch the infection spread just from one arriving Scourge. Still, it’s easy. After I got killed, I went and did some quests, and in about 30 minutes it was all back to normal. /shrug
I have to whole-heartedly agree on this one. I even posted as much on the Blizzard Forums until my account was handed a 72 hour ban for daring to suggest (SUGGEST mind you) that Blizzard should have made the event optional by allowing players to set their own PvP flag to either particpate or not. I was a *bit* sarcastic in my post, but certainly not beyond the boundaries of accceptability and certainly within the TOS for the forums. Meanwhile, 1000+ threads of “you’re an asshat”, “suck it up a-hole”, etc. were all allowed to stand in their entirety with no moderation or consequence from Blizzard.
To me, it has become painfully (and I say painfully because it is disheartening, frustrating, and downright discouraging) clear that Blizzard failed to adquately consider the feelings of a large part of their player-base on this event. I too would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just didn’t consider that there would be players who were not pleased with the event and would actively express their displeasure by quitting the game, not logging in, vocalizing their complaints on the official forums, in trade chat, etc. I’m going to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just failed to consider that anyone would not be happy at the opportunity to be come near-instantaneously infected, and spend their time griefing other players on PVE realms. Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s hairy butt what players on PVP realms think of this. They’re used to it, it’s what they paid for. By all means, kill yourselves until you obtain whatever measure of self-worth you feel is necessary to restore your precious ego. I do; however, care considerably that Blizzard has forced PVP upon realms that are expressly NOT PVP and by doing so have angered the majority (yes, MAJORITY) of players that do not wish to participate in daily PVP.
While I’d love to give Blizzard credit on this, rather than listening to the large vocal population expressing their displeasure, Blizzard has actively deleted threads, banned accounts, and otherwise ignored their players all while ratcheting up the tension, frustration, and annoyance by decreasing incubation time, removing the healers, etc. Were this a business, it would be equivalent to a resturaunt continuing to serve crap on a plate in ever-increasing quantities while their customers walked out of the establishment, picketed in front of it in protest, and otherwise expressed their displeasure.
To the many who say, “suck it up, it’s part of the invasion, it’s a one-time limited event, yadda, yadda, yadda” I say, Shut the Frell up! The few times I managed to post on the forums, I posted suggestions for compromise and I was told all of the comments you’d expect from the asshats who are thriving on this environment. Someone pointed out that compromise to that group of people means that everyone takes their side of view. I couldn’t agree more.
Blizzard has failed on this event. Whatever well-intentioned reasons they may have had for implementing it in this way have failed to survive the true test of implementation…ie. the reactions of your customers. Were they to just admit their mistake and actually take responsibility and…oh, I don’t know…FIX THE PROBLEM…I think they would restore the confidence of their players and rebuild a portion of the trust that has been lost. However, they have refused to do so and instead allow the asshats to continue to mock, ridicule, taunt, degrade, and otherwise disrespect those players who dare to post their displeasure.
Personally, I feel that Blizzard has become a victim of their own success. They believe themselves to be vindicated because of the success of the game. They would be wise to review history and recognize that the road to this point in the industry is littered with the corpses of the games that failed to respond to the needs of their playerbase. New games are out there and Blizzard may just find that the wildly successful implementation of World of Warcraft could just as easily turn into the rapid fall and decline of the same.
I only find the zombie thing to be annoying when I am on one of my lower level characters trying to level but can’t because 20 zombies would rather “eat my brains”. Granted when that happened I went on my higher level main and killed them :P I just don’t find it fair that it’s being forced on the lowbies, since most are leveling in which the zombies are invading.
I agree about it being a good idea in concept (and hey it is kinda fun, to a point), but something like this gets old fast at least to me. So basically, I just think the lowbies should have an option of whether or not they want to participate. Oh yes, and not to mention the heavy lagging when several zombies are in one area … that is my main annoyance with it.
I’m the guy desperately trying to see content I wasn’t geared for pre-patch and that won’t be popular after the expansion. I find the zombies horribly annoying.
Log in for a BT raid, infected at log-in point, run from zombies spamming cleanse, zombified and die. Hearth to Shattrath, rinse and repeat death sequence. Grab consumables from bank with one more death. Flight master is dead so I take my slow mount all the way across Outland. Once at the stone, trying to summon people before they are infected is also oodles of fun.
Maybe if I didn’t have to eat the repair cost for my gear every single time, I’d be less bitter.
(Yes, I know I can remove everything but weapons while zombie and run around naked but I don’t have the bag space for most of it)
Running dailies to try and pay for this only to find every murloc and naga in sight is now a zombie would have been amusing if it hadn’t cost me another death.
I’ll just be glad when it’s over.
At least us horde have Undercity as a refuge, since none of the npcs can be affected… :p
Not sure about ally, but Silvermoon City is out of the way enough that it’s also relatively peaceful. You might want to try Exodar for your banking/AH needs…
But, I do agree, it is getting a bit out of hand. My pally had to go through Org just now & was basically running & spamming Cleanse the whole way…
I think my experience mirrored Pike. I did tons of stuff this weekend in WoW, did almost all of zangamarsh, did a bunch of raids, did dailies, never was i bothered. Sure, shat was a zombie town, but I ran through it and somebody cleansed me (thanks). My bank alt died a few times, and I thought that was pretty fun. I do agree with B3 in that there was so much going on this weekend you had to pick and choose. I tend to ignore the holiday stuff, and chose to level my alts, one near 68 (which i’ll probably stop at until wraith), and the ohter is now 66, just two easy levels to go until wraith. Anyway, it was fun and i know its not going to last.
I had taken a break for about a month, come back, get the new talents, etc. Then the zombies start, and I’m really digging it. Very cool.
Then I’m trying to level up my hunter alt. Got from 14 to 22, but no idea how. I suddenly hate the zombie infestation for all the reasons BBB listed.
Then, late last night, I go back to appreciating it, for most of the reasons Artorin listed. Now, it’s not the MOST fun I’ve had playing WoW, but it definitely will make this time memorable.
And unltimately, even if they made some mistakes, or it’s working as intended, I thnk that’s the point. Unless you really, really try, you can’t avoid the zombie infestation. It’s annoying, disrupting… and I guess that’s what a “real” (lol) zombie invasion would be like.
I think of it like this, the best stories aren’t how things were going great, it’s when you motorcycle for hours in rain, only to end up crashing once you’ve gotten there.
The zombie craze is like that. Most of the the “cool” gear I’ve picked up I forget how I even got in a couple months, but my friends and I will probably remember this zombie mess forever.
Well put. I agree completely that it seems very out of character for WoW to force you to play in a specific way. Like you, I am enjoying it. And, like others, I am finding that leveling my alt (you forgot to add “Recruit a Friend running out” in your list of compelling things to wrap up before Lich) that I can do it with a minimum of inconvenience. My RAF (new to the game) has stated, “if it was like this when I started playing, I’d not be playing” and that’s gotta mean something.
I agree that the downside of forced PvP on a PvE server should have been Painfully Obvious to Blizz and that more should have been done to make the event elective rather than a major inconvenience. For many players, I suspect this is really testing their love of the game…I know quite a few in my guild who are anxiously waiting for it to end.
If there’s a silver lining, it is that all the lag issues seem to have ended. Which is surprising given that new content seems to bring folks back in quantity. I’m suspecting that the quiet cities and zones have as much to do with folks electing NOT to login during the event due to its nature and resulting in lower server loads. That’s gotta be not so good for business I figure…
I think DruidGnome sort of nailed my feeling on the head. I fight the zombies. I stalk the plagued and put them down almost immediately. Then I go about my business. But if I get infected and can’t get cured, it’s all zombie all the time. I explode in the AH. It’s a plague, after all.
For hours on Sunday, Orgrimmar was fine. Skeletons everywhere, but perfectly able to conduct business. Then, a tipping point on zombies would occur and it’d be madness. For about 20 minutes. Eventually they die, the 70s have an easy time destroying zombies, and it’s business as usual again.
Really, I think those that complain about it not being fun should consider the fact that it’s going to be a distant memory fairly soon. I mean, at the rate the infection has increased, I can’t see more than a few days left. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended during downtime tomorrow. In the meantime, it’s an actual honest-to-God world event that we NEVER have in Warcraft. I would say maybe we should shake off the blinders we have on (Grind here, AH, Grind there, Instance, repeat) and enjoy the temporary insanity.
As a practical matter, I’ve managed to level an alt from 6 to 14 in Durotar with little trouble. Zombies are slow and won’t both chasing you for very long. Maybe it’s my server, but the actual inconveniences have been pretty insubstantial.
FYI…Tigole has posted that as of Noon PST, the zombie invasion will have run its course and zombies will be going poof. Time to see what is next. Woot!
Frankly, I can see people getting caught up in this new addition, and even having fun with it. But what fun is there in camping a Level One toon and destroying them over and over and over again?
I immediately thought of my friends child (age 7 and plays warcraft) and my own stepson (age 13 and thinks he’s big enough to take on the world, yet something like this still frustrates him so much that he reacts by crying and getting more frustrated; then gets embarrassed because he cried over it). The 7 year old doesn’t understand why it’s so difficult to stay away from the zombies. Doesn’t understand that someone else thinks this is fun. All that IS known is that someone keeps infecting them/killing them over and over and they can’t do a quest. If by some miracle they DO get a quest done; it’s moot, since the quest turn in is either zombied or infected or even dead.
Seriously folks. Have your fun; but please, please remember that that lower level you keep camping is probably some kid that just wants to have a little fun themselves.
Blacknimbus: We apologize if the Zombie Invasion from Hell has inconvenienced you in anyway.
LOL!
Zombiee: I’ll just be glad when it’s over.
I’ve actually enjoyed it and I’ll be glad when it’s over too. And it will be over.
I mean, we’re talking about a balance between what makes a tolerable-to-enjoyable inconvenience and how long it can be tolerable and how to apply that standard across a vast number of users. I question the repeated claim that the event is pissing off “the majority” of players. It sure seems to be a mixed reaction. I don’t know of any official numbers but I can speak for my little circle. Most of us adults aren’t much participating, but we think it’s pretty cool. The one of us who was around when BC was released keeps comparing the two and concluding this one is so much better. My kids love it. My one son really gets into the whole “I’m a zombie, gonna’ kill everything now” thing. My nine year old just gets a kick outta’ finding different ways to infect himsef then cleansing and looking for a new way.
I think the number of responses here, if you stop and look at them, pretty much shows that opinions vary.
And when have I ever said I thought that, hey, as long as some of you are having fun, even if it’s at the expense of other’s, it’s all cool?
Nah, nuts to that.
Yes, the zombie stuff was a great idea, as I said above. Yes, it was pretty neat. As I said above.
I just draw the line at having my fun, or someone else’s fun, being able to spoil the playtime of another… and I do not presume to tell that other person what should or should not be fun for them, just because I am enjoying myself.
If you have had a great time being a zombie, that’s wonderful. I have had a great time this last weekend also. I enjoyed the fact the event was going on, and it certainly led to some fun and tense times. The first couple days of zombieism were fantastic fun.
But as the infection times drew shorter, and the healers vanished, it also led to a lot of frustration, and a lot of predatory activity on the part of players that enjoy trying to spoil play for others.
Just because you had fun, does not invalidate the feelings of other players. And there are plenty of other folks that have made it clear, yes, they encountered player-driven irritation with no choice as to whether or not they wanted to participate. And for them, it was not fun. Very, very not fun for them. You had fun? Good. They didn’t. Your right to fun is not > than their right to fun, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree. End of story.
Tigole has posted a statement that as of 12 noon today PST, the Zombie threat will be ended. He has also said that the invasion will continue, Necropoli spawns will increase, and many other new events will continue to occur.
He stated that this phase, the zombie infection, is not being canceled due to complaints or whining, but because this is when they intended it to run it’s course. A weekend blitz.
So Blizzard did anticipate the event running crazy and out of control… they wanted it to, but apparantly they were as sensitive to how fast it could get exploited by some as we would hope, and put a hard limit on it.
Bravo to them.
Now, to wait for the inevitable wave of people that will swear up and down that Blizzard caved in to whining and complaining, and that this was never scheduled to stop today.
But that’s okay.
I still am of the opinion the whole thing was a ton of fun, and could have only been made better if a few small changes were made… and my only regret is that some folks really got camped hard, and got really upset and frustrated at it. But it’s over now. Time to move on.
Bring on the instance bosses!
Y’know, this is the sort of thing that makes the subscription model even more gangrenous in my eyes. People are paying to play the game, and are effectively being told to play another game at login.
Now, if people were paying for the amount of time they actually played, rather than paying for access to something that changed under them, I think we’d see fewer complaints. What complaints still existed would be based on game design and community standards, which could be addressed independently of the sense of entitlement that subscriptions engender.
As for the zombie thing itself, I think it was a great idea, but making it mandatory does indeed disrupt things too much in my little game designer’s mind. Changing things up can be fun, but this just wasn’t well thought out.
No matter how much people complained about it. I seriously doubt anyone quit over this. It was a memorable event for everyone and is over just as quickly as it began. I think the only legitimate complaint would be getting attacked by a player against their will. As far as being inconvienced by missing vendors/flight masters/etc it just doesn’t carry any weight since with the exception of Shattrath they could all be killed by opposite factions.
Heck while working on the Bloodsail Admiral title on my Pally I cleared out every quest giver/auctioneer/banker/vendor in Booty Bay. I’m sure it upset people but when you play something that has these dynamics built into it, you have to be ready for your daily routine to once in a great while be disrupted.
I know on my server the Horde love to kill the flightmaster in Westfall but you don’t see a huge boycott and QQ about this occuring (alot more regularly then once every 2 years)
If you got turned into a zombie against your will I’m sorry. I see your point on this and agree that some sort of pvp flag mechanic would have been better served.
It dawned on me that a cool solution, in keeping with the lore, would have been a retreat to one city – or even an encampment! – by the Argent Dawn and thus create a sanctuary city full of refugees (i.e. the players who didn’t want to deal with the invasion).
This city or camp would be, no doubt, under seige, but could have been guarded with waves of elite 80 guards effectively making a safe, albeit crowded, zone for flight path departures and AH work. Ironforge seems best suited for defending against a siege …imagine a guantlet of guards and the waves and waves of zombies throwing themselves against the wall while everyone huddled inside!
(All the while giving the “don’t want to deal with it, don’t force it on me” crowd a safe place to play…)
I agree, the Zombie thing was poorly implemented in terms of the PvP aspect of it, and especially for low-level characters trying to level. Some people here are giving them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t see the consequences this would have, giving people a legitimate excuse to grief other players because “it’s what a real zombie attack would be like.” Or maybe it’s exactly what they wanted to happen. I don’t know.
BUT . . . even if they intended for things to get as out of control as they did, and even if they intended to completely ignore the rules of a PvE server, wanting to “shake things up” or “make it more real” or whatever . . . they could have told us from the beginning that this part of it would only last a few days. Or at least hinted at it.
I suppose part of the excitement of this is not knowing what’s coming next, and we all knew it was only temporary. But there’s a big difference between five days and three weeks, and personally I wouldn’t have minded the Zombie attack nearly as much if I knew it was going to be as short-lived as it was.
I tend to agree with you BigBear. While it was interesting, those who tend to grief others tended to be in power this week-end. For myself and my 11 year old granddaughter, it was not fun. When she say – this sucks, I had to agree. We were trying to level up her highest level in 3 years of playing – a 36 NE Hunter. And when you have lvl 70’s attacking you on purpose, while trying to get supplies or fly out of SW, it got to be too much. Before any says anything, she is in the BG’s all the time. She loves the pvp action, my I don’t. So what did we do? We made a pair of NE Druids :) We made lvl 5 before she had to go home, but she really wanted to make 39 on that hunter.
I have no idea what a druid does or can do. All I have ever played are hunters (and one lone rogue, that was locked in SW – stealth :( )
I guess the icing on the cake was the lvl 70, cussing up a storm at folks who were venting on the zombies. He loved it. But with no reward, no exp, but with a huge repair bill to pay for being dragged into something, it was not fun.
Not to pile on, but what I found cool was that there was, at least on my (PvE/RP) server, a concerted and largely effective effort by players to keep the trade zones in SW and IF usable. I don’t think it was particularly organized, there was just enough people who wanted to defend the city that it was effective… in the trade areas, near the healers. (I tried to help out elsewhere, but since Druids can’t get rid of the plague, it tended to end up in me getting zombied. My root-nuke skills are rusty.)
I too was leveling an alt, and happened to be stationed in BB, which was total Chaos. Logged in, zombied, guards killed me immediately. Rinse and repeat and repeat. Finally got out by jumping into the ocean.
Southshore, if anything, was in worse shape. And, naturally, a hordy ?? was waiting to gank you as you got zombied.
Luckily, Most of my play time was “off tour”, so less ganking than it could have been. Unluckily, most of my guildies weren’t online. :(
Basically put big brakes on my leveling/questing when I had limited time to play as it was. As a result, it was not an experience I’ll remember fondly. But I’m cool with people who enjoyed being zombied, I just didn’t have that same fun as perhaps I could have if not strapped for time.
As in the multitude of options to play, i don’t like PVP, but great for those that get big kicks out of it. Different strokes, different folks.
Well at first BBB I was upset at your view point of the zombie invasion so much so that I couldn’t read the whole post without getting upset and closing the page. I finally was able to get trough it and in the end we’ll just have to agree to disagree. In the end I have to respect your view point as your opinion and I have no right to expect you to always see things my way.
I found this whole event to be great fun, I found I was excited with the game again. I hope blizzard plans more events like this in the future because these unexpected events are what really make this game a RPG to me. Lets just hope next time Blizzard takes the time to pick up it’s Nerf bat and start swinging it hard for the PvE folks out there. After all it would be a shame for you all to have to go get new keyboards cause the old ones are friend from all the QQ tears as your blog about the injustice of forced PvP. ;-D
I find killing zombies to be quite challenging and tends to be fun… espcally when it’s my level 70 shaman, a level 70 warrior, and 60 warlock trying to litterally survive an invasion on southshore. The intensity was quite real, and while it was frustrating to get killed many times in a row, when we survived the onslaught and cleansed the town it did have a real survival horror feeling.
Now my biggest complaint about this event is the timing. Yes Hallow’s End is a celebration spurned by the forsaken’s break from the lich king… and what better time then now to spurn an attack. However to overlap the two was just a massive overload. They could have launched the attack at then end of this week at the height of the festival after had our chance to beat up the horseman, and get all the achivements and so forth… the slap us with feelings of dread and doom.
I recently started WoW.
Suffice it to say, no only is it annoying to be unable to participate in this fully, but I’m level 46. I’m trying to get higher level, but every town I go to, someone thought it would be a good place to plague. I know that RP-wise I should fight the plague, but being only 46, I can’t even get the QUESTS.
I won’t complain; The 70s played for longer, and I’ve mostly gotten over the fact that I’ve missed the chance for a lot of things (Spirit of Competition achievement? In my dreams), and the fact that the Hallow’s End event might be different this year, so I might not get the chance to fight the Headless Horseman.
If people are having fun, great. I’ll try and let them. But GOD STRIKE ME DOWN if it doesn’t annoy the hell out of me.
I’m sorry that some people did not have fun with this event. Personally, I had a blast, even though I couldn’t do “constructive” things during the Plague.
But I remember the first “Invasion”. The undead hordes basically had a picnic outside the main cities and did nothing at all to affect the world. The build up and payoff for this very, very brief event was fantastic. I remember logging on the first day and seeing these healers in the main cities speaking cryptically about the Lich King. Then a few zombies appeared and the citadels were sited outside the gates. Mysterious boxes appeared at BB and diseased rats and roaches started streaming into the capitals. Then it got worse…
It was an epic event that allowed the players to ‘play’ along. You could raise up your army of very slowly walking minions (with a new skill set) or you could play Bruce Campbell and cut down the hordes of walking dead. It made the game feel alive, at least for a few days. I don’t even role play or do much PvP, but when I was a shambling zombie, I played the part. When I was defending lowbies from other revenants, I felt like I was doing something special. We had groups stationed at Xroads and TM among other places defending against the Scourge. And when we got infected and zombiefied, we turned against our teammates…because that’s what mindless zombies do.
There was no way to make this event memorable and worthwhile without inconveniencing some players. I feel bad that everyone wasn’t able to get into the spirit of this one time event for a few days. I hope the next phase is even better. Think about the storyline and the lore for once instead of your dailies and the AH. You’ll have the grind, the instances and the Achievements to do for the next 2 years until the next expansion.
I honestly can’t decide which is scarier, that Blizz knows that somewhere around one third (to be kind) of their playerbase are asshats whose first impulse is always to try and find some way to make other people’s lives as miserable as they can manage so Blizz gave them the power to just for kicks, or that Blizz is completely ignorant of that fact and had no clue they were creating a griefer’s paradise.
I have to believe it’s the former, but either way it seems clear (forced PvP zones on PvE servers, anyone?) that this is rapidly becoming a Griefer… er… PvP game.
PvP is for players whose preferred form of enjoyment comes at the expense of other players. WoW is for them a zero-sum game. I do not degrade other players enjoyment of the game. I don’t PvP. I have no desire to be either victor or victim. I don’t like being forced to play those roles. While I suffered relatively little inconvenience during the zombie plague, I have great sympathy for those who were mercilessly harassed by asshats motivated by malice or boredom. Most were utterly defenseless.
I’ve got to be honest, once this thing started getting out of hand and the trolls started laying waste to the cities, myself and a very dedicated team of hunters started patrolling IF.
People coming in the front gate, portal room, and FP were greeted by 5-man groups of hunters with the following statement:
“WARNING: Ironforge is a CLEAN ZONE. Teams of Hunters are using Track Undead & are treating all zombies & infected as KOS. If you are infected, get to the Argent Healer in the Throne Room or by the Flight Master, or YOU WILL BE KILLED WITHOUT MERCY.”
Infected incoming were escorted, or terminated immediately on turning. The front gate was bum rushed several times, but there’s only so much that a group of zombies can do once a chain of frost traps go off and keep them crawling for 200yds. When 5 hunters and thier pets choose to lay into you from that distance, zombie or not, you’re going to die.
We caught a lot of howling from the griefers, but for just a little while, maybe 6 hours or so, Ironforge on Bladefist (US) was a class A clean zone.
Like B^3, I like, and would have enjoyed, the concept of the scourge invasion, had Blizz not done the equivalent of handing the car keys to the belligerent drunk with an inferiority complex.
I hated this event. I did participate; I have a 70 druid, a 62 shaman, both Alliance. My druid was used to clear the Northshire Abbey of the lvl 45+ players that felt it was “fun” to infect all the NPCs there, making it impossible for new human toons to do a thing. My shaman performed several clearings of Auberdine… on 3 occasions, single-handedly… to give the lvl 11-15 NE toons a chance to do some quests. Both toons also saw action in the defense of Darnassus and Stormwind. I got zombified and killed several times (I lost count), and incurred well over 100G in equipment repairs. On day 5, I pulled both toons back to remote outposts, and parked them. I was not happy about all this, and I am angry that I was forced to pvp against my will. And this after I spent $100 to move 4 toons from Aegwynn (PVP) to Azuremyst (PVE) earlier this year.
BBB, I agree with you that the concept was excellent. Brilliant even. But the utter stupidity of permitting players to control zombies and “raise armies” with which to terrorize members of their own faction is almost too incredible for words. My deepest contempt is for the players I was forced to fight against who not only feel that this was all “fun”, but attack me for my not loving the event. The most ludicrous argument offered by the more rational of them is that this “inconvenience” was a good thing, as it brought a jolt of real tension to the game… a game they are apparently bored with, so I’m at a loss as to why *they* stay. The argument is flawed, however, because their actions make no sense in the context of the event they love so much.
Consider: why would a healthy and able-bodied individual actively seek to become infected with a disease that will turn them into a zombie? He wouldn’t, unless he knew there was a benefit to him. That benefit… the *only* benefit… that these players were seeking was the ability to grief other players in the game, those belonging to a faction that would be otherwise off-limits: their own.
No, Blizzard should have implemented this idea exactly as they did, with one exception: no player-controlled zombies. If you get infected, and die, a mob is spawned that is the same level as the area’s guards. The player would be then forced to run back to his body to rez. That would remove the incentive to seek to become Scourge, and would encourage fighting against them instead.