The “Zombie” Portion of the pre-Wrath Event Is Flawed
by Lume ~ October 26th, 2008. Filed under: Misc, Wrath of the Lich King.I’ve been spewing profanities the past couple days. The source of my foul-mouthed escapades: the zombie portion of the pre-Wrath event. Or, rather, the extent to which people can use it to grief players and the lack of safeguards against it.
To give the situation some context, I should explain how the event works:
- People become infected with the plague. This is done when a player kills an infected roach, opens some infected crates, or is the subject of infection by either player or NPC zombies.
- The infection is applied as a disease. When the disease runs its course, or when a player dies or tries to remove the disease with an immunity effect like divine shield, the player turns into a zombie.
- As a zombie, a player retains his or her level and can attack other players of either faction, flagged or not.
- NPC’s can be infected and become zombies, as well.
- There are “argent healers” that can cleanse people of the infection and attack these zombies. High level players with any sort of disease cleansing capabilities can also remove it, though it has a high resistance rate.
- Guards can attack zombies.
This seems an okay situation on the surface. Argent healers were meant to serve as the NPC-driven defense against this menial version of the plague. However, looking deeper into the matter, it is important to note the various conditions that morph the event into one of the most poorly designed experiences WoW has ever offered. These conditions are as follows:
- The argent healers are only stationed in major cities at important hubs: banks, auction houses, flight points, and entrances to various areas. They are not stationed in most towns outside of the capital cities.
- Guards in most lowbie towns are too low in level to even put a dent in the high level player zombies. At best, they can daze the zombie and prevent them from reaching a lowbie that has managed to mount up and run away.
- Lowbie players cannot themselves put a dent in the player zombies that are much higher in level than them, due to the level difference.
Compound these conditions with the risk of putting so much power into the players’ hands and you have an absolutely, positively frustrating experience for many. If not for the fact that I could swap over to my level 70 retadin, turn on sense undead, and completely own the shit out of anyone with poor intentions, I’d be more annoyed than I already am. Especially because I rolled on a PvE server to avoid the type of asshattery I’ve been seeing.
I’ll put this into perspective. The other day I was trying to level up a couple alts in Bloodmyst. This is when two people from my own guild decided to kill me and decimate Blood Watch and all the lowbies there. Having none of it, I lectured them about when to say when, switched to my paladin, owned them, camped them, cleansed them when they tried to continue spreading the plague, and kicked one of them from the guild (who wasn’t a good member of the guild in the first place). As funny as it is to grief people, it takes a ball-less git to repeatedly grief lowbie players of their own faction. And a jerk to do it to people in their own guild, especially when those people are clearly upset or annoyed. Having leveled on a PvP server before, I did what was only natural.
Here’s another interesting case study. Some high level druid decided it’d be funny to grief all the lowbies in Darkshire. I just happened to stop by on my low level alts and notice, so I swapped over to my paladin to take care of the problem. The result is alarming.
Do we really want to give so much power to people like this? Especially on a PvE ruleset? I sure hope not. Notice how he tries to berate me for killing him by justifying that the event is for killing people. “y u kill me fagg” definitely reeks of maturity and social validity. I’m only doing what a lot of people would do on a PvP server when someone griefs and camps lowbies. There are repercussions for being a dick!
But don’t get me wrong. I’m all for having fun with people near the cap, considering they can immediately defend themselves. But thinking about the lowbies who have yet to build up connections on a server, I can’t help but wonder how frustrating this event must be for them. How many of them have quit over this fiasco? I’m willing to bet a rather sizable amount. The fact that safeguards weren’t put in place for low level areas is greatly disappointing.
What’s more, there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to becoming a zombie other than to kill and infect other players and NPC’s. If there was actually a quest to perform as a zombie, and if lowbies could actually defend themselves, I’d be a whole lot more forgiving and inclined to view the event in a positive light. I definitely think it has its place as a fundamental concept. But the specifics are broken.
10/27 Update: It’s Over
For those of you who are unaware, the zombie portion of the event ended at noon today. It was fun and frustrating while it lasted. I’m appreciative that Blizzard is trying to create more dynamic and robust world events that aren’t concentrated in one zone. However, I’m also glad it didn’t last until the launch of Wrath.
10/29 Update: Response to Some Comments
I don’t want to spam people’s feed readers, so I am simply adding this to my entry as an addendum. And since there are 100 comments, a lot of people don’t actually see the points of the event that have merit, so I am adding my general response here.
A lot of people in their comments have made the assumption that I was 100% against the zombie event. This is not the case. Might I highlight an important quote from the entry.
I definitely think [the zombie event] has its place as a fundamental concept. But the specifics are broken.
As a positive point, the event tied very well into the lore. It gave our characters and the factions ample reason and motivation to retaliate against Arthas directly. It proved to be “disruptive” to daily life, just as the first undead plague was. And it turned us against each other. That was probably Arthas’ intention. Or was it Putress’ intention? Who knows. In either case, I understand what the event was supposed to do. That’s exactly the “fundamental concept” I’m talking about.
World occurrences like the zombie event do have their place in WoW and should be done again. However, I still think it had its flaws, and these issues can be fixed without deadening the event’s intentions to the point where its purposes are rendered ineffectual.
Just because the event did its job doesn’t make it perfect. Just because some people enjoyed it, doesn’t make it perfect. Just because these two facts exist, doesn’t mean I should not address any issues I might have had with the event, in hopes of improving similar events for the future.
There is no doubt this event had great potential that it met to some degree. But it’s one thing to be disruptive, and another to completely obliterate people’s abilities to perform certain tasks for hours upon hours upon hours. It is, in my opinion, disruptive and engrossing enough that people can attack others while performing the tasks they deem “routine.” You can make various NPC’s immune, without obliterating the event’s intentions. That’s exactly why Blizzard made the flight master in Shatt immune. And it’s still disruptive and engrossing for lowbies that they can merely be attacked, even if they have the ability to defend themselves.
There is no reason events like these can’t happen in the future. There is no reason such dynamic occurrences can’t happen. For all its specific flaws, the fundamental concepts were sound. Blizzard just needs to take a little more care in designing events like this in the future. That’s all.
No QQ about it.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I am in complete agreemnent with you on this. It is my wish that Blizz will apply a debuff for the first 6 months of LK based on the number of people in your own faction that you infected or something like that. -.1% spell and attack power, for example, versus undead. And +10% run speed when running AWAY from undead just to drive the point home.
Apparently “fag” is the new black. Got some of that myself.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Couldn’t agree more. My rogue is now lowbie but she can’t even start questing in Hellfire, nothing is left alive for more than 5 minutes including her. Wanna do a BG while in Shatt? Sorry, all the battle masters are dead. Daily quest givers in Shatt…dead too.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Hi,
I’m of two minds here, but I agree with you completely. On a PvP server it’s, “Oh gee, my 22 was killed again by that stealthed 70 rogue…” or “Gee…killed again by level 70 zombie…”
But on a PvE server? Very poorly thought out. I guess the “anti-griefing commitee” didn’t participate in the construction of this event. “Hey, new people coming in through the friend program on a PvE server, guess what?”
I get it with the disease effects and the approaching Wrath. It’s cool that Bliz is trying to tie the game lore into something other than raids. The Shatt battlemaster respawn is less than the queue to get into most of the BGs, so I don’t mind that too much. Ok, the Auctioneers are dead, they’ll be back shortly. I’m ok with all that.
Kudos to your machine the griefers. They won’t learn, but you’ll earn some rep and maybe make their game a little less interesting. I think I’d just tell them, “You’re a zombie, it’s my job to kill you again and again till you’re gone.”
Maybe killing zombies should get Argent Dawn rep at the same rate as one would gain honor for killing players? A speed buff for running away is a great idea.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:36 am
[…] are a lot of negative things you could say about the enforced PvP aspect of the zombie plague, and Lume said them very eloquently; I’m not going to talk about it now because this is a positive post, […]
October 27th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Griefing? When zombies attack, that’s not griefing that’s just the game as it is. When capped alliance toons, not zombies, use the confusion and mayhem of a zombie invasion to gank flagged non-zombies .. that’s griefing. Why are they flagged, especially on a PvE server? There’s a bug in the way they set it up in that if you attack a zombie as a non-zombie, if they happen to be counter-faction then you become flagged for PvP. Oops.
There’s no reason for that to happen .. but I believe they didn’t intend that to happen. Probably just a hold over from the object-oriented coding they have.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:59 am
@Greg: “Ok, the Auctioneers are dead, they’ll be back shortly.”: I have like 2-3hours to play. Waiting for a quest-NPC to respawn 3 (!) times just because he was immediately attacked/killed is not fun. My bankchar died 3 times this morning within 5mins (3mins of that was running back from the graveyard) - when I logged in I was already greated with a “Release Ghost”-message…
For the next 2 weeks I will either a) not play alltogether b) farm for vanity pets (whelps).
Does anyone know if I get my money back if I cancle my account? Yes, I’m upset like that.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:56 am
I look at it this way
I’m a zombie, it’s my job to eat you.
I’m not a zombie, it’s my job to stop you from eating things.
The problem is that people who want to opt out of this, can’t. But at the same time, if that had been put in, how many people would participate after the first night or two?
Maybe if Blizz had confined the player zombie’s to a certain area (maybe with a fatigue-like mechanic? And no, the health-loss thing is easily ignored), /shrug
Either way, it’ll be over in a few days, it can’t last longer, or there’d be nothing left XD
October 27th, 2008 at 5:35 am
[…] Lume the Mad and Big Bear Butt’s perspectives for well worded arguments against the way the zombie plague […]
October 27th, 2008 at 6:09 am
There’s also another annoyance in Shatt where the players zombies cannot be attacked by other players. So while you can kill the npc zombies that were created, the players themselves can only be kiled by the guards or argent healers.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:28 am
I don’t know… I think I’m more of the mindset of “this is supposed to be seen as an epic world changing event and NO ONE is safe.” This is not something that can be ignored. You can’t just expect to live a normal life undisrupted when there is a plague turning the world into zombies. As crazy as it is, I’d have to say this is probably one of the greatest events because it has caused such mass carnage all over.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:34 am
[…] two other bloggers (that I know of, I’m sure there are more) have already said, the concept of […]
October 27th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Only gripe about this is that it’s happening during Hallow’s End.
Trying to get those achievements done while dealing with people who think it’s fun to take out innkeepers and infecting people trying to get flight masters is just griefing, pure and simple.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I haven’t played WoW in quite a while but I know that if I was playing it and this event happened in which I was griefed that would immediately lead me to cancel my account. I do like PvP but only when I want to PvP. It is why I always roll on PvE or non-open PvP servers. This event sounds like a complete disaster.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:54 am
it seems to me that the whole issue was that Blizzard had an awesome idea…cause I mean on paper the zombie infestation sounds great. They just didn’t take into account a lot of player personalities. I understand to a point why they didn’t want to put this on the beta servers (and ruin the surprise, etc) but a lot of this could have been avoided.
I would disagree that the anti-grief committee at Blizz was not involved, they were just asleep at the wheel…they -tried- to put some limitations on it, like how Zombies run slower and their health degens over time, but it might have also helped to make it so zombies could not attack targets more than say 5 levels below them (even that’s a stretch) and/or players spawning in to locations would have something similar to an Honorless Target debuff that makes them unattackable by zombies for the first 30 or so seconds of a zone-in…as I have noticed, the Zombie griefers love to hang out near where portals spit players out and grab them while they are loading.
If you want even more annoying, you might also note that in Shattrath the player zombies show up as blue and the NPCs as red…so player zombies can endlessly go about making armies and really you can’t do anything to stop them.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool event and a great idea, but a lot of bad implementation and lack of foresight has turned a cool event into a prime opportunity for grief.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I think both sides are valid, but my own taste goes with the Armageddon position, ie this is a major world-changing event and NOT business as usual. I have vision of the last tree players left alive on the realm, hidden on the SW AH roof…
So yes, this is forced upon me. Had to give upo levelling my 45, change real back to my old 70. But I try to make the best of it and enjoy the event, BECAUSE it will not come back this way again, at least for a long time.
But as far as new players are concerned, this will give them a wrong impression of the game. This said, it is impossible to please everyone, all the time, and any such major event will leave some unhappy: AQ had problems. Original Scourge invasion had problems. Zombies problems are just so much more manifest.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:01 am
[…] World of Warcraft, Events, in-game, Expansions, News items In a move driven in part by frustration, Lume the Mad recently outlined his specific beefs with Blizzard’s pre-Wrath zombie event for World of Warcraft. We’ve seen in the past that some […]
October 27th, 2008 at 9:03 am
This event certainly needed more structure, as Lume indicated. Some sort of quest or other activity to accomplish while you were a zombie would have made it seem more worthwhile than just an excuse for all the annoying “heh gank you!” players to have a couple field days. Wake me up when it’s over.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am
[…] a move driven in part by frustration, Lume the Mad recently outlined his specific beefs with Blizzard’s pre-Wrath zombie event for World of Warcraft. We’ve seen in the past […]
October 27th, 2008 at 9:25 am
If this goes on for much longer blizz will need to introduce air traffic control in Shatt. So many ‘peeved’ players now just hover, only landing when things are clear and they can go about their business. When I do get zombied, I find a clear space and then just explode myself. My “plaintive cry in the wilderness” against the infantile behaviour.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I have t disagree here; I think that yes some parts are heavily broken and yes I have engaged with griefing low level people mainly because I was testing to see if it was possible and to my surprise it was, and was it terribly fun. Yes. Doe this make me a terrible person I don’t think so, I have not done it since and I think that some strictures could have been put in place but by and large this is the best live event they have ever done. The rest have either been lagfests or non-events where stuff happened off-screen and we move on to business as usual.
The event displays the chaos that Arthas and his forces can inspire does it suck in the short term sure, but by and large many MMO-players are actually fairly conservative when it comes to change; most don’t like it on a good day and many hate it when they feel it impedes what they want to get accomplished even if it is a temporary thing that won’t last the full three weeks till Wrath comes out. Things will go back to normal and this entire outcry will die down fairly quickly.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:30 am
[…] play without warning and a system where even same-faction players can grief lowbies with ease, they just want it done with. However, looking deeper into the matter, it is important to note the various conditions that morph […]
October 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am
[…] curiously named WoW blogger Lume the Mad has more commentary, including tales of his thwacking errant guildmates. But don’t get me wrong. I’m all for having […]
October 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am
[…] In response to this post. […]
October 27th, 2008 at 9:59 am
seriously, i completely agree with you.
as I said on my i-kinda-quit-wow blog, Blizzard have the ability to report griefers and frown upon them, yet implement an event such as this zombie stuff to promote griefing.
i got pissed off when someone killed an NPC in Barrens that i needed… i’d be smashing the walls in if i were still playing through this “event”.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:03 am
[…] Looks like someone else agrees - http://www.lumethemad.com/2008/10/26/the-zombie-part-of-the-wrath-event-is-flawed Posted by convolutedhappiness Filed in […]
October 27th, 2008 at 10:39 am
As of noon today (PST I believe), the zombie portion of the pre-wrath event will be removed. The developers insist that it was always planned this way, but I bet they may have spead up their time table because of how seriously flawed the event was.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:49 am
“If there was actually a quest to perform as a zombie”
Thanks for the article, and for stating what was my beef with this event as well! They’ve put all of these zombies in, I think, as an attempt to immerse us in the lore, and get us ready for the new expansion.
While I think that’s a fabulous idea, I think they way they went about it was all wrong. Wouldn’t it have been cool if they’d put in some quests to complete as a zombie, something to entertain the little PvP fanbois and keep them from spreading the kind of mass carnage that gives them a pint-sized woody? Maybe something that would give an achievement, or some harmless little trinket to keep the kiddies happy.
As it is, my AH bot is only level 30, I haven’t been able to even get her out of the the AH in Stormwind, much less maybe to the Elven lands, which are at least a little less infected than the human. Consequently, I haven’t even been able to put up the auctions I’ve wanted to in order to make a little more dough pre-expansion. Le sigh.
I plan to take this time before Nov. 13th now to try to knit that Tom Baker Dr. Who scarf I’ve always been wanting to try. Because I sure as hell won’t be playing WoW for 3 more weeks.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I agree that the plague has made Hallow’s End notably Less Fun. Despite the synchronicity of zombies and halloween, the plague detracts from what is one of the best holidays in WoW. Which blows, but is consistent with the lore. Perhaps allocating AD healers next to innkeepers and flightmasters would have assuaged some of the ire.
It isn’t just the players on PvE who are pissed. I’ve been observing the world event on multiple servers, and it’s been deeply polarizing among players on RPvP, RPvE, PvP, as well as PvE. (And the amoral PvP frenzy that is zombiehood can be fun - for short periods of time. Me? I got bored pretty quickly.)
For the first week, at least, the event has made most cities nigh unusable, even for higher level characters. What’s really striking is that so much of the infection - and subsequent chaos and devestation of the gameplay “infrastructure” (like the dead/zombified questgivers, ect) - emerges from player intention rather than accident or scripting. Arthas didn’t really make Stormwind a ghost town; it got that way because Alliance-side players have intentionally infected themselves with the crates & critters in order to take out everyone in the auction house, cathedral, citadel et al. The fall of “civilization” comes at the hand of player-created and organized zombie armies.
What goes for SW is largely true for Ogrimarr, as well. Conversely, Undercity has been significantly less affected by infection. I’m not sure how much this has to do with player attitude, and how much can be attributed to its unique spatial organization. For instance, there are more auctioneers in UC, and they’re spread out in a ring. Consequently, there isn’t the dense (and easily infected) crowds you get in SW or OGR.
The connection between commercial centers and infection is also intriguing. Moonglade has no bank or AH, and has been clean across the servers I’ve been watching. Stormwind, the commercial hub for the Alliance, is consistently unusable.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I just have to say that I completely agree with you. If the event had been one day, or had some different restrictions, it might have been enjoyable. However, bored griefers and immature idiots have made it … just… yeah. I’ve had the misfortune of flying into Darkshire during the attack, landed and was immediately infected and turned by one of about 40 zombies that were running around near the flight master. They were all high level (my main is only a 34, I’ve only been playing for a month) and I didn’t stand a chance. I just sat around yelling at my guild to come kill me, which finally happened by a random high level gnome, to whom I was extremely greatful. I called Blizz to day (20 minute hold time) to complain and request refund, and was told that I should post on the forum and that it is supposed to end at noon today. If it doesn’t, well, I won’t be back. If I wanted to play on a pvp server I would.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Due to this idiotic world event I have frozen my WOW account until after it ends. I have been told it may go until the release of WOTLK. Tried to lvl an alt last weekend and either died a lot, waited for NPC’s to respawn, or worked to clear out towns and was called an idiot for killing the player zombies. Nothing but wasted time.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Yeh, here’s my online experience for the past two days…
* Log on… run like hell to the fligh master (hope they’re not toast). Fly somewhere quaint like Splintertree Post (do quests).
* Return to Origrimmar to see if things have “calmed down”. They haven’t. Sprint to Bank (huddle in group of highest level players). Sprint to AH (huddle in group of high level players).
I’m only Lvl-24… I just realized it must really suck if you are just starting out. Then again… I haven’t been to the Den or near there in quite some time.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I can only say this:
“IDIOT. That’s what the event is for!”
October 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Seriously, cry some more; all of us who enjoyed the event love to drink your tears while we tear apart your towns as zombies.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
[…] play without warning and a system where even same-faction players can grief lowbies with ease, they just want it done with. However, looking deeper into the matter, it is important to note the various conditions that morph […]
October 27th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Wow, can’t believe I’m getting called names on my first post.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
“When capped alliance toons, not zombies, use the confusion and mayhem of a zombie invasion to gank flagged non-zombies .. that’s griefing.”
Player zombies are attacking non-flagged non-zombies. NPC zombies attacking stuff? Yeah, that’s part of the game. That doesn’t have any relevance to my opinion about player griefing. Though it does about lowbies not being able to defend themselves.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
@Nigel, Yeah, I noticed that, too. Sanctuary mechanics are an issue for that.
@Mordiceius, As I said before, it’s a great event concept. The fact that no one is safe is a good idea. Otherwise, WoW feels like a lifeless world. But as I said in my entry, that’s not the problem. The problem is in giving players so much power to grief people who can’t defend themselves in any way, especially on a PvE ruleset. And lowbies not being able to kill so many of the zombies, as they just have to bend over and take it until it subsides, or plea for any level 70 to come help them.
@Vanifae, Then you’re NOT disagreeing. Don’t ignore my repeated remarks that the event is a good concept on paper. Events like this are great to hammer home a point about the Lich King’s reach and abilities. And I had various bursts of fun amidst my bouts of profanity. But, again, parts of it were severely flawed.
@QQ, Yeah, I cry tears. Tears of laughter when I log onto a high level character and own your zombie face.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I am a complete newbie. My highest level is a level 10. I’m still on the demo client.
I couldn’t complete my quests because people kept killing my quest dude, and I couldn’t get anywhere at all. So I just turned it off and went to play a different game. Now that its done with I might play some more. But oddly enough I was only playing WoW until Fallout 3 comes out. I guess the zombies have me coming and going.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
[…] Lume the Mad has a particularly good write up on the whole thing. […]
October 27th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
So… The way I see it is about 10% of the WoW population really love this zombie invasion (those who go out of their way to infect members of their own faction and etc.) The other 90% either really hate it, just don’t care, or loved it at first and got bored/annoyed with it. I personally fall into the last category. I think it was a great idea that went WAY too far and am in agreement with some of the above posters in that the idea needed much more structure.
So i say majority rules. Pull the plug. Gotta keep the majority happy. And personally, i’d love to see that 10% get mad enough to leave WoW. Those are the little annoying kids / douchebags anyway. :-)
October 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
[…] a move driven in part by frustration, Lume the Mad recently outlined his specific beefs with Blizzard’s pre-Wrath zombie event for World of Warcraft. We’ve seen in the past […]
October 27th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Own the Lume, Own them ALL!!!
I’ll buy you a round no matter what faction you are just for laying down the PVP hammer or hand you a hanky whatever’s more handy. That is unless my stomach is cramping from the laugher. Good Show and keep up the good work!
October 27th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
As usual, nice idea and piss poor execution by blizzard devs. Could not even fight a zombie in phase 5 without getting insta turned which equals zero fun for zombie hunters. Same lousy foresight and planning that has people yelling for retadin nerfs now. I read one post you couldn’t attack zombies in Shatt — same mechanics that prevent flagged alliance and horde from attacking each other in Shatt in the first place! A simple detail the devs just miss - almost like they just grab random people off the street to design this crap or are totally out of touch with their own game.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:12 am
QQ more.. The event was fun, it was original… What does it matter half the stuff available to do atm in WoW will be irrelevant when WoTLK comes out bar gold and achievements. I think it was brilliant and Blizzard should do more of it.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:19 am
@Hellgaunt: It was original, in the context of successful 3D MMO’s (Horizons tried to do things like this, but the game was generally unsuccessful, and UO did stuff like this, but it was a 2D game that didn’t require as much effort to develop them). Certain aspects of the event were fun for some. And Blizzard should do more things like it in the future. But they should do it with more care and smarter design concepts.
You cite how things will be irrelevant with Wrath bar gold and achievements. But I guess you forgot the people just picking up the game who have to level, regardless of what expansion cycle it is or will be in the near future. For them, it’s not irrelevant.
You’re also discounting people’s time in-game for the sake of playing the game. People trying to enjoy themselves now is not irrelevant. The fact that battlemasters could be infected is not irrelevant to people who want to PvP for the mere sake of PvPing or building up honor. The fact that people who just picked up the game want to have an enjoyable experience is not irrelevant. If you can’t see that, you’re blind to everything but your own opinions.
There’s no QQ about it. Just facts and opinions. It’s called argumentation, bub.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:52 am
I’m of the opinion that people who got really upset about this need to lighten up or just not log. It was a fun event, and it was the forced part that made it legit.
On a side note, I was less bothered by the zombies (on the whole), than the constant chat spamming of headless horsemen grps.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:49 am
1) Wah. It’s a world event. It’s an actual change to a largely static game for a short period of time. I welcomed this change of pace with open arms.
2) The only major flaw on Blizzards part is perhaps they thought people wouldn’t qq because they had to spend a few days outside their little grindbubble.
3) Instead of offering solutions to fix what is perceived to be issues, have fun with it. There’s nothing stopping a pack non-zombies hunkering down and defending lowbies other than the painful jarring out of the regular routine of grinding dailies, farming badges or whatever else. FOR ONCE the entire world (of warcraft) was your playground. It had the possibility of blowing up into a huge fun thing, instead most people just whined in trade. Cross faction warfare should have been taking place, trying to capture vulnerable cities. People could have teamed up to push back the onslaught.
All in all, it smells of missed opportunity.
You had enough time to scrape people together and have MADE SOMETHING out of the event. The time you took to post complaints could have been better directed at, scraping together a server event. Here’s an idea, just pulling something out of my hat.
Citizens of Southshore Militia is recruiting members to stem the tide of the zombie hordes. Zombies/Defenders Signup below the cut.
Woot!
To hell with having fun. I’ve got rep to grind.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Kudos, Lume. My husband and I are thrilled the zombie event is over. We are in our late 60s and both bed-bound from illness. WoW is our life right now, and has been for over 4 years. We are on a PvE server because our reaction times are less than stellar, so we do not do instances or battlegrounds, nor do we duel. We quest, work on rep, and love to explore. We hone our professions and support our fellow guildees with potions, armor, weapons, enchants, gold and any other way we can. We try to help any newbie, Horde or Alliance, if we see them having problems. Between us we have 4 lvl 70s and a host of lower-level characters. Blizz may have had an Argent Healer in major cities, but I can tell you from personal experience that on Dalaran server, both in Orgrimmar and Shatt, that healer was often absent … for whatever reason. On the second day of the Plague, my 70 Warrior died 5 times in the first hour after I logged on … and all I was trying to do was make potions. Repairs were prohibitively expensive. Over the course of the zombie invasion, I probably spent close to 100G to heal all my 10 characters. Flasks, supposed to last thru death … did not, if you died as a zombie. If you tried to port from Shatt while you were zombiefied, you got disconnected. This was extremely frustrating when all we were trying to do is work on Hallow’s End candy collecting and other achievements, plus trying to help other guildees. Yes, some of my younger grandchildren thought it was fun to infect others at first, but when I explained to them how it was affecting us, they apologized and stopped giving grief. Thanks for the in-depth analysis. I can only hope Blizz is playing attention.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:27 am
My gripe is really simple. The NPCs are STUPID. Here is the scenario. Your city is being overrun by the undead, what shoudl I do, oh I know, I will stand where I died last time and repeatedly die. How about digging in and defending from a section of the city, keep them at bay, think or any zombie movie you have seen, they consolidate and attempt to erradicate any zombie they see. You seldom see them running into an open field practically yelling “KILL ME!”.
I spent over 20 min waiting to get my TK heroic key, which I forgot to buy earlier. The group I was in was waiting and starting to get annoyed. This was the kind of thing that was pissing me off, this is collateral damage of the event that should have happened. Between that and the fact that the murloc coast on the shattered sun was ALL zombies was the icing, could not even do dailies and had just spent 50 gold to respec enhancement so I could get away from that crap and make some coin back.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:31 am
A poignant moment from when the plague first hit. I was on an alt in the Barrens at the Crossroads when I logged on to discover I was being attacked by zombies. Log off and log back on with my 70 Hunter and take care of the problem. All zombies are dead and my pet is cured of infection. Then a small group of low level players who had been infected come rushing up to me in a group and the leader begs, “help us.” They just wanted to turn in their quests and get back to leveling. They did not want to be zombies. In fact, since this happened right as the event launched, none of us had any idea what was going on and they were a bit scared. I didn’t know how to help them except to kill all the zombies. After a while, everyone knew what was going on and were either trying to become zombies or fighting them. But for a few minutes at the beginning a powerful lvl 70 hunter looked at a small terrified group of infected characters following her around, begging for help. And didn’t know what to do. It was a great moment. A real moment.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:35 am
It was a simple fix…..offer immunity (just like most plagues in RL) after one had been infected.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:43 am
I couda swore the infection was to infect poeple? Call me crazy but im pretty sure blizzard intended this when it happened. so players can infect players, and cities.. else what would be the point?
im all for cleansing it or spurring on te infection, but man.. you need to relax and understadn the ENTIRE EVENT was to infect people and let it get crazy like that… that WAS the intention, hence zombies even had a limited skillset to utilize while infected. human nature is to complain about everything hence the nerdrage post and kicking guildies??? for a very rare MMO event. thats your own perogitive.. but poeple like you are just as bad as the druid who called you a fag for killing him.. also what makes you think HE wanted to get killed and not stay a zombie?
the only argument is “well he killed lowbies and turned them to zombies first” 2 wrongs dont make a right champ and hassling zombies jsut makes the circle of harassment come in full.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:45 am
double post.. but i didnt liek that you took dura hits from dying to npcs, sinec youre immediatly flagged as hostile towards everything. i dont mind being hostile, but the dura hits were unnessesary.. but overall awaesome experience..
precious snowflake players dont want they’re world to change at all and were prolly fine with zero mundane experiences, but world events that havent happened in years are a very welcome addition and an overall fun experience.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:45 am
thanks blizz my ignore list is now full of griefers who infected my low lvl char because they could…they’ll remain on it when i reach lvl 70 and beyond
October 28th, 2008 at 8:53 am
In my opinion, the Zombie event was a great laugh - I have never experienced a world event like this before and it was incredible to see the effect this change had on everyone. I enjoyed the originality, and the pace at which it all changed did make it feel like an epidemic of sorts. Logging-in and seeing half of IF covered in skeletons and zombies is something I won’t be able to see again in-game. I had reached the end of what I wanted to do this expansion and was happy for there to be something ‘new’ for me to play with. I was delighted at the chance of getting myself an Argent Dawn tabard I had missed before, only starting WoW after TBC release last year.
A friend of mine, however, hated it. Everyday I’d ask him how he was and get a “there are zombies everywhere - I can’t play” response. He /w me yesterday SO very close to quitting until WotLK release near enough saying goodbye - luckily I had read the event was to finish imminently and told him. This guy has been playing daily for 1.5 years, has 3 70’s and yet was going to stop playing something he enjoyed because this event was making it so easy for people to grief - a side of the game that particularly frustrates me.
This all boils down to to that point, if you ask me, the griefing. A mechanic was put in place that allowed people to annoy lower level players that have no real chance of retort - and players used everything they possible could to piss off other people - even their own Guild members from the example on this blog. Its easy to say “implement something that doesn’t allow griefing” but with all due respect maybe its not as easy as that with the amount of influence us players had in this event.
The main thing that upsets me about this event is that Blizzard will be wary of giving players this much control over a world even again - and we only have the players to blame for it - not Blizzard. I doubt their idea of the event was groups of 70’s tearing up their OWN factions starting areas and cities. (please don’t try and tell me you all RP’d the zombie ‘faction’ when killing bank alts in SW…not much brrraaaainsss on a level 1!)
October 28th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I loved it not saying i ran around killing lowbies because i did not do that :) but took my lvl 70 mage to goldshire and went all out on the zombies there the best way is to call it resident evil of wow one of my best times in wow, but im sorry for you who did not like it at all but blizz cant make us all happy sadly, but really take it as a shake up for those of us that needed some new things to happen before we burn out of boredom
and before people start hating me LOL i’ll say not it’s not fair for the low lvl’s but come on men and women thats what we are here for to help keep them safe
October 28th, 2008 at 9:07 am
and we only have the players to blame for it - not Blizzard. I doubt their idea of the event was groups of 70’s tearing up their OWN factions starting areas and cities.
this is so true.
i was having fun throughou the whole event. even in its most chaotic state. it was fun to live through the same hell as in WC3, it was very interactive. but exactly there lies the problem. in the AQ event a normal gamer could only collect suff and turn it in, whereas the epicguilds were doing the real stuff. (creating the key for AQ)
the first time a real MMO event, where every player could do something and involve the players around him. but with so much interactivness it all got out of control. i really see o need to keel lowbies and tear starting areas apart.
me and some realm friends were laughing our asses off. someone said wisped to me: in 5 sek i will eat your brains, LOOK BEHIND YOU ;) really it was soo much fun, but on the other side if i read how some ppl are shredding lowbies apart, i really see no fun in that…..
October 28th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I’m trying to think of a good way to put this, but what a bunch of babies. I’m glad that something came along to shake up the monotony that WOW is now. There should be more events like this in my opinion. This game is called World of WARcraft. It was high time that some WAR came along to the carebear population. Remember, this game isn’t called World of Auctionhousecraft.
I do agree that the griefing could get out of hand, but take it for what it was. This event was an attempt to make the world more immersive and alive. For those of you that complain that Blizzard doesn’t do enough world events, this is why. People whine entirely too much. If a few days of this was enough to make you want to quit and demand your money back, perhaps you need to get out more often.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:13 am
@Lunitari
I don’t think immunity is really the answer, that makes it so the plague can never progress exponentially, which is what you really need for an event such as this. I personally liked the event at max level, but that very weekend I decided to make a new toon. Suffice to say, my experience wasn’t so great as zombies camped the starting zone.
What might work for future events is to allow attacking and infection of all npcs and any player (of either faction) of a level high enough to give you any honor. This means only lowbies can attack lowbies, giving the attacked person some viable means of defending themselves.
In my case, my new toon was never turned — it was one-shot over and over and over again. Certainly the experience at level 70 was vastly different than the experience at 4 or so.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Lamer… The event was about zombies desimating the world. Thats what zombies do. That includes low level areas and cities. You can heal and fight the zombies if you want but kicking someone out of the guild and lecturing people??? Seriously, who pee’d in your frosted flakes? You must have been the kid who reminded the teacher that your class had homework.
For the record, I am horde and loved being able to raid both SW and Org. I miss raiding cities. I think you QQers forget that WoW is a MMORG and not basically a multiplayer Warcraft 3 game. Stop your silly grinds for one weekend and get involved in the world… of warcraft.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I don’t ask for world events. I am a solo player. I don’t do many instances, and don’t whine because of it. I like playing at my pace and exploring. I do NOT play on a PvP server because I don’t *want* to PvP, or BG or Arena. I don’t want to. This event forced it on me and others, and that’s not right. I don’t play on a PvP server - where I would, naturally, *expect* events like this.
No, Lume’s points are quite well taken, and I agree heartily. I do not agree that ‘this is how it should be’ because it’s warcraft. when Ultima Online came out, folks used to camp the spawn point for newbies, kill them and take their money. it got so bad folks just stopped playing. Gee, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea they figured, after they lost a lot of income because of it.
I don’t mind events, sometimes I get a kick out of them, but it’s not why I play. I enjoy the mechanics as much as the next guy, if not more (being a beta tester of hardware and software, for over 15 years), but to intentially (recall the original story Lume brought?) camping newbies in the lowlevel areas for fun, is not fun for the newbies. Sorry.
Good on ya Lume, well said, well taken.
/shibumi
October 28th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Quite frankly, the event didn’t last long enough to make anybody quit. It was refreshing while it lasted, and people only took over lowbie towns before the plague got strong enough for high-level towns. Even lowbies could easily outrun the zombies, which were slow and lumbering.
You overreacted. If this had been a long-lasting thing, rather than 3 days, maybe your view would be more valid. Having the world change for 3 days and adding flavor is welcome. Getting max-level players to refresh mostly-defunct lowbie areas is also welcome, especially since the lowbies could participate as zombies. Also, why don’t lowbies want to be zombies just as much as everybody else?
Events are a fun change. Just because you don’t “ask” for them doesn’t mean they don’t make the game richer.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I am one of the people overjoyed this idiotic part of the “event” is over.My highest character is a 67 hunter,so no leveling of my alts could be made at all during this crap.So since I couldn’t even quest in Outland and wasn’t into grinding,I used my time to keep Crossroads clear at least for awhile.I got several “thanks” and an ungodly amount of cussing,being called a “fag”,and yes even threats against my life (real life not my character).Some have said that this was unintentional.There is no way this was unintentional!The mechanics behind the zombies were nothing but a griefers wet dream!No this is just like all the recent things from the “World Events Team”,no care whatsoever towards the low leveled characters.”If you don’t have a 70 you don’t matter!” is the message that every thing that has come out recently seems to send,and I for one am getting fairly sick of it.
And they dearly need to hire new CMs as the current crop have no talent for dealing with the public.Legitimate issues are met with “This too shall pass” and Carlin jokes.Blizzard makes a good game,but their customer service is a joke.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Man, so many people crying over this event, just get over it. If you would have just stopped the leveling frenzy for just a while and tried it out you probably would have had fun with it. I think this has been probably the best event ever on WoW. First one that has actually brought players into what is actually going on in Azeroth. If the scourge are trying to invade s@*t is gonna go down and its not gonna be nice for the residents of Azeroth. Besides it was so easy to get away from the zombies that it wasn’t even funny. Well whatever, WoW keeps growing, all you cry babies are still playing and in the end Blizzard still makes money and the best mmo out there and this event is a great example of why they are the best.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I played through all of this event, and with the exception of one death due to not making a gryphon during the fastest of the infection phases I was never infected or died against my will. OMG I had to run back, rez, and catch the bird, I want my .0017 dollars back for my time lost. No one had to take part, there were plenty of places and plenty of things to do outside the realm of the event, no matter the level.
No one was forced by the game mechanics to take part, unless they chose of their own free will to go where it wasn’t safe.
No one was forced to log in to a place or time that would have caused them grief.
Crying because folks made poor choices while fully informed, if they chose to be, is a little silly at best.
I am baffled that when the team does something that is interesting for once, something out of the norm, something that gives the world an out of control feeling for a part of a second, people actually claim the stupidest of new world disorders, hurt feelings.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:31 am
You are the alliance in real life. Please god quit the game. You want a *PLAGUE* to be *NICE* to you.
“I can’t use the auction hall because the PLAGUE killed the auctioneers.”
“I can’t quest because the PLAGUE is everywhere.”
“The PLAGUE is turning people into bloodthirsty evil monsters. Why can’t they be nice monsters or monsters with no teeth?”
You, and your millions of real-life alliance gamers totally fail at fiction. You fail at games. You fail at everything remotely related to having fun. It’s SUPPOSED to suck. It’s SUPPOSED to be dramatic. It’s SUPPOSED to be disruptive. As far as I can tell, everyone who cried has zero imagination, or much less tolerance for other’s imaginations.
I have really tried to understand the people who hated this event. I really have. And I am simply, completely, incapable of feeling any sympathy, any caring, anything other than revulsion at you people who are so fully immersed in your own expectations of game design you spew and wretch your own gangrenous-filled vomit of complaint when the game doesn’t behave as apparently advertised in the EULA or the “PVE” contract you signed in blood.
You want a nicey-nice plague that doesn’t affect game play. I get it. You don’t want people who turn into zombies who can attack you. But most of all, and here is the best part… YOU DON’T WANT TO BE A ZOMBIE! You know what, I bet every motherfucker who got the black plague in the middle ages didn’t want it either.
You fucking weakwhores. Go play Hello Kitty Online or something just please god get off WoW.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:46 am
The point isn’t that the plague wasn’t working as intended. The point is that the plague made the game unplayable for a lot of people, especially those of us who finally convinced a friend to play wow w/ them and the friend’s first log on is to her dead body having been savaged by lvl 70s while she was still loading the game for the very first time. Maybe it was Blizzard’s intent to screw everyone who wasn’t already lvl 70. We’re saying that that was a stupid intent.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Could you clarify more on how you would have fixed it? You mention adding a quest (or something) to do while zombified, and adding a defense for lowbies. What else could be done, or how could these things be implemented? Right now your post is mostly whining, and not very constructive.
I do like that you make note of the difference between PvE and PvP servers. For PvP-server players, this isn’t much more than business as usual.
One thing I would have liked to have seen, would have been a way for not only lowbies to defend themselves, but players without a “Cleanse” ability to do so. I play a paladin, as so the tactic I found most effective was to keep cleansing a high level guard, and let him do the fighting. The fact that I would have to Cleanse 10+ times to actually proc the effect meant that it was economically infeasible for non-Cleanse players to use potions or other costly tools. Some sort of buff that added a minute of immunity, or enhanced resistance, or having potions be guaranteed to Cleanse would have been nice.
I thought that the mechanic where if you got hit by multiple zombies you turned into one faster was interesting. I’m not sure if it was good or bad, myself. On one hand, it gave a chance to low level players to overwhelm and convert high level players. On the other hand, even a decked out 70 couldn’t fend off a couple low level players. Also, immunity effects should have worked as usual, removing the infection.
I have seen so much whining about this event, and it seems to come for a very loud minority only, but almost no serious, constructive discussion. Game census sites agree that more than 1/3 of the population is 70, with each other level taking up about 1%, so addressing lowbie populations isn’t always the majority target audience. More than half the character population is over 55+, and it would be interesting to see how many of the lowbies are actually alts of high level characters (I’m sure Blizzard knows).
I agree that there are things that could have been done better, but I think over all the event was a success, and that Blizzard should continue to produce and refine these events, to make the world more dynamic and alive. I think it breaks up the dullness that we ourselves create by over-analyzing all the games assets, knowing the exact drop rate of every item, the location of ever monster in the game, the strategy to defeat everything. These type of events leave a little bit to mystery, since you have no idea what PEOPLE are going to do once they control the zombies.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am
@ David: In fact a lot of people did quit, and many quit permanently. I’m sure that was NOT part of Blizzard’s plan.
When the zombie event occurred prior to The Burning Crusade expansion, Blizzard professed (or feigned) surprise that so many players turned into griefers: They actually thought the players would band together and fight the zombies tooth and claw (so to speak). A couple scholarly papers were written that also tried to understand why in-game behavior and reactions weren’t the same as what has been observed in “the real world” in the face of invasion and disaster. (The answer, of course, is that a game is not the “real world.”)
Blizzard knew full well exactly what would transpire, and they weren’t disappointed, according to comments Tigole made yesterday. Still, I don’t think they were prepared for the number of account cancellations that really did take place, not to mention thousands more who simply did not log in for several days.
For those of you who argue, lorewise, it’s Arthas’ fault, then arguably such events shouldn’t end, and should definitely continue throughout the introduction of the expansion. Oh…and in that case, good luck proceeding with your planned leveling, et cetera.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Yeah, not being able to attack Player Zombies in Shatt seemed to be an oversight, would’ve made the area a whole lot more fun. Instead, I spent prolly a couple hours on my boomkin attacking the same group of SSO trainees again and again then running back to the Argent Healer to get healed only to find a player character (who I could not kill) had turned the next batch into zombies.
On the Greengill Coast, on Echo Isles realm, a faction actually cleared it of zombies for about an hour. It was nice and would’ve made a nice turn if that’d been an option. How ’bout a limited immunity to zombie plague that lasts 15 minutes to clear out zombies in an area that’s 10 minutes away (or some other mechanic where you were charged w/ organizing, cleaning areas, keeping them clean, etc. I wanted a Dawn of the Dead event (the mall one if that’s the wrong title) where we can fight back, we can control our destiny.
All in all it was fun for a few but could’ve been so much more.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I believe Lume gives several important points that are valid. Blizz would be wise to take his advice into consideration for future events.
Very well thought out Lume. /cheer
October 28th, 2008 at 10:58 am
The point you miss is that during the black plague people did not go around WANTING to get plagued so they could kill someone else. That was something different entirely.
You sound like the sort of person who would stuff their underwear full of sawdust while questing in Tanaris to make it feel more real. The game is MEANT to be fun, there should have been an opt out mechanism for lower level players.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Overall, the zombie attacks were the most fun and exciting event Azeroth has seen in a while… i do admit that the players could have been involved in a more positive roll(i.e. quests to drive the action etc opposed to the random chaos the event created) especially the lowbies (who as usual get the short end of the stick) but from my experiences, both good and bad; i felt more immersed in the game world than i ever have.
The first few nights i grouped up with some buds and raided theramore and other towns as zombies it was fun… as the plague got worse i felt compelled to aide our home cities(defend the bank and AH ;) ), defend helpless lowbies and cleanse the plague… i got to be the villan and the hero… in the end im kind of sad to see it go, but we cant disrupt normal play forever and it was a wild ride…
to those of you who were miserable, and are arguing that this was your worst Warcraft experience of all time, im sorry that you missed out on all the fun and were inconvenienced. ( i may have added to a few corpses runs and repair bills :P) but please remember this is a game, you play it to have fun, if you get frustrated or are nolonger having fun…take a brake and stop playing and do something else for a bit…
Cheers to you Blizzard for continuing to evolve/improve Your IP and continuing to provide us with high quality entertainment.. you can’t please everyone :P
October 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I enjoyed the hell out of it; it made for chaos and participatory fun far surpassing the “scourge invasion” sit-around-the-circles-and-compete-for-overcamped-kills event from the Naxx opening, now repeating.
I, of course, didn’t specifically try to grief anything. Zombied up a few times, developed hordes, attacked cities, died, came back, defended the same cities against my own hordes.
Two suggestions for the next world event in a similar vein, however:
- Achievements for both sides. That would have given Blizzard a way to focus the attacks, given the players more sense of reward, etc.
- No attack-immune players. Shattrath was a huge mistake on Blizzard’s part in this regard, the zombies were unable to be attacked, and so just ran rampant. Either A’dal and the other Naaru should have been flying around zapping the zombies themselves, or allowed the “no-attack” field to be lifted, or both.
I’m actually quite sad that so many people didn’t have fun with the event. It surprises me that so many were not willing to participate in a one-time thing, especially given that you could join either side, or switch as desired. I’m one of the people that always complains about how static MMORPGs are, though.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:27 am
One priceless thing that came from all this… The other night in the very thick of all the chaos going on with zombies owning Stormwind on my server, a guy starts advertising for ports to other cities, but with an “I am Legend” twist to it:
“This is Korey, I am transmitting on all trade frequencies”
At any rate, I had decided to get my mom back into the game (she’s on disability and can’t afford to pay so I am paying for her now) and I actually had to tell her to wait until this was over before she came back or run the risk of her getting soured by this event, and that wouldn’t be any easy thing to do as she dearly loves WoW, but I also know how she feels about doing PvP and honestly this could have actually made her lose her “special happy feeling” about playing WoW.
One thing I think people in general are having a hard time wrapping their heads around whether they be pro or anti zombie, is that different people enjoy the game (and MMO’s in general) in different ways.
What may be the most boring thing imaginable to one person, gives a huge rush to another kind of person.
Zombie city griefers don’t get that the “PvE Carebears” totally get a warm wonderful fuzzy feeling playing the game exactly as it is set up to be played with no zone disruption. They are having a blast.
The PvE Carebear crowd doesn’t get that the zombie city griefers actually get a huge rush and an “OMG THIS IS TEH FUNNEST THING EVARRR” feeling from doing the zombie griefing. They are having a blast.
Different strokes for different folks I believe is the saying…
October 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Adding some small barricaded off safe areas in the cities could be both good to people who want to feel safe, and nor disruptive for the whole zombie/Lich king mythos.
Still I agree with the replies that say that the event was fun and a welcome change to the grind-auction routine. Some people just forget that the game also has a plot and a little bit of immersion not only a number-crunch, and I really miss the immersion part of WoW. The event gave me the feeling of leveling my first character back in the elder days, the feeling of danger, exploration and the unknown.
I just feel sorry for all the people the cry that their daily routine was changed, forgetting that this is a game - not a job. Routines aren’t a positive aspect in games. Whats worse is that I’m afraid that such fun events will be canceled in the future because of the vocal minority.
BTW, what did I do in the event? When human I tried to kill zombies and clear areas of them and not get infected. When zombie I tried to cause as much carnage as possible and eat brains.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am
First of all, I’ve never been a “griefer.” I’ve even been known to help out Alliance folks that seem to be in trouble. I even - gasp - assume that a person fighting a mob by a mineral or herb node has the right to it, and I’ll wait to make sure they weren’t going to pick it before grabbing it. I’m a “peace and flowers” WoW-player.
But . . . what a release the zombie event was! If you went with the flow, you became part of a rapacious mob. Suddenly the need to grind xp, honor, or gold melted and you got to indulge the part of me that wonders what life is like on a PvP or RP server. It only lasted a couple days, but I don’t regret decimating Crossroads and helping to spread the plague to Shat - even hunting down guild mates to infect.
It was disruptive on the last day, and somewhat annoying. But it was only really bad for less than a day. People that didn’t log on that day missed it - it’s now a unique event and experience. People will say, “Wow, remember how amazing/annoying that event was? Man, those were the days.” I understand your complaints, but I’m glad Blizzard took the risk with the event.
Now a philosophical look: What is the Plague about, and the Arthas story line about (and Illidan’s and Qael’s, for that matter)? Good-intentioned people being corrupted by the lure of reckless power and then wreaking destruction upon their former brethren. It was an interesting experiment in power and corruption to participate in the zombie event. I never grief anyone, but for one day I relished infecting lowbies (most of whom *wanted* to be infected), downing guards, spreading chaos. I threw myself into the destructive mob mentality; it was intoxicating and wicked fun. I’m sorry not everyone saw it that way. But most of the participants are not and will not be griefers, but people who went along with the flow for the sake of immersion - something that’s normally lacking in the grind of everyday play.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
really what it all boils down to is…. it looks like not enough people had a “zombie plan” :P
October 28th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
One thing they could have done that would have made a huge difference is have a conversation option with the Argent Healers where you can have a special blessing placed on you that makes you immune to the zombie disease for an hour, or even a day (yes I realize that it wouldn’t fit with the story behind it, but it’d be easy enough to retool the story to fit it in).
As far as “people looking back will miss how great the event was” yes everyone will at some point do that because people tend to always forget the downside and only remember the good stuff, looking back through rose colored glasses.
Case in point being Star Wars Galaxies; People talk about the first iteration of the game now as if it were the be all, end all of an MMO.
They tend to forget the ridiculous class imbalances that existed (Rifleman with headshot/Combat medic with mind poison anyone?) that made PvP a joke the majority of the time.
We’ll have the same thing with the zombie event; People will look back and say it was the single greatest event in any MMO of all time, but not remember that the zone disruption was also the biggest pain in the rear of any MMO of all time.
Again however, people aren’t wrapping their heads around the fact that different people enjoy the game in different ways.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I agree with you completely. I had a similar blog post at raidingirl.blogspot.com
Even on a pvp server it can be frustrating when trying to level alts and getting killed by your own factio.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I personally enjoyed the event. For me, it harkened back to the very much unscripted plague of the “Corrupted Blood” when ZG was first released (hunter/lock pets could bring the plague to major cities). What errupted then was one of the most fascinating unintented gaming social experiments I’d ever seen. You had altruistic players running around trying to cleanse like crazy, and the psychopaths running with the plague to stand on top of flight masters, or into the AH.
This zombie event is much like that, only it lasted a little longer. Personally, I played both sides of the fence. I played the zombie part, running around, munching on argent healers and other players that stumbled too near my slow lumbering gait. It said it in the tool tip: You’re hungry for humanoid brainnnnssssss!! So I tried to act like a “real” zombie, even ganging up with other zombies for some real fun. Then I got on my pally and camped out at the inn in SW and racked up kill after zombie kill - much to the annoyance of those players, surprisingly (I mean, really, you’re a zombie, I’m not - you expect me to just let you walk all over me and my town?). When in shatt, I mostly stayed in flight, and would nab quest givers when they respawned, which was on a very short timer. Yes, it took a few minutes longer. But, really, it wasn’t that bad, even with what seemed to be thousands of zombie corpses littering the pavement.
I agree with you that it certainly is sad that low level players were getting ganked, perhaps ruining the game for some of them. Blizzard almost certainly should have been a little more vigillant with the argent healers in newb towns like goldshire/crossroads. But I think that’s a relatively minor point. In the end? The event was very short, exciting, and in my opinion, a great time. Sure, I didn’t log my level 2 banking toon for those last two days where it got really nuts, but that’s not the end of the world. If you are so stuck in the game that this really really ticked you off, you probably need to unplug a bit anyways. :) The idea behind an MMORPG like this, IMO, is to simulate a fantasy world. And what’s a world without disasters every now and then? Pretty boring.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I enjoyed the event a great deal — not because I liked ‘griefing my own faction’ as someone upthread suggests, but because it was great story, and terrific atmosphere. There was a real sense of urgency and menace, the sky was dark and gloomy, bodies were strewn everywhere, and things could literally pop any second.
That said, my toon is a 70 with nothing to do (when not raiding or heroics) than dailies and farming which, quite honestly, is boring. This was a welcome change in the routine, and I look forward to seeing what’s next.
However, the assertions that it was ‘easy to avoid’ for lowbies? That’s pretty silly considering that towns and cities were constantly being overrun, flight masters were swallowed, and green clouds of zombie gas were everywhere. Yes, there were plenty of places out in the countryside to go, but nearly all of the quest givers and vendors are in the towns — the very targets of most attacks. I can see how those people would be ticked off.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
My post got deleted because it was a flaming troll zombie. This blog entry was one of the worst I’ve ever read.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
[…] it have been so hard to put in safeguards for protecting lower-level players? The suggestions in Lume the Mad’s post (both his and those left in the comments) would have been easy to […]
October 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
It could’ve been better implemented… more rewards for zombie and zombie-D for example. But I had some fun with it, especially on the last day.
If I would’ve implemented it, I would’ve done the following:
1. You can’t kill players - you can only infect them and turn them into a zombie. And you have a small aoe and single target snare.
2. You can’t die as a zombie to other players and you can’t get cured. You can only die to other non-zombie NPCs.
3. As soon as you get infected, you get a quest that requires you to infect 10, 25, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 NPCs. Rewards include xp, and can also have titles, achievements, trinkets, etc
Lower lvl characters should be able to join in on the fun as much as the lvl 70s. If you allow them not to get roflstomped, give players direction (by giving them a quest and rewards), and you have the desired devastating effect to the game.
Will the AH whores and bank alts still be pissed? Yeah, but you’re not supposed to be able to carry on daily functions during this event. That’s the whole point.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
@Vorgaak: All those low level players who could do nothing about the zombies attacking them should just log off and not play the game they just bought. And let’s say nothing so similar events aren’t done better next time.
@blarg: Why should I just stay quiet? Why should I not try to pick apart problems so the next event like this is just as dynamic on an end-game level, without absolutely ruining the game for some people? I’m sorry, but I’m not about to be some complacent ninny who can’t speak up for himself. Just because there were problems does not mean there can’t be similar events done better next time. I could have not written anything? I could have been, what, having fun? Oh, yeah, I didn’t have fun owning zombies faces. (That’s sarcasm. I did. Stop telling me how to have fun with the event when I had my fun with it. Thanks.)
@Lunitari: The plague would be over in short time and have very little effect if they did that. Different safeguards are needed to keep it enjoyable, but relevant.
@redmest: Do you think all of the sentient non-plagued citizens of Azeroth take a look at a zombie and say “Oh, he’s *supposed* to infect us. Let’s just stand here and take it, because it’ll just come full circle if we kill him!” No. Neither do the players. The problem is that some people couldn’t defend themselves from it. All lowbies could do was bend over and take it, unless the zombies were the same level. And important hubs for them were completely obliterated nearly 100% of the time. They could do nothing but bend over and get owned by zombies nearly 24/7. If that is one of the points of the event, then it is flawed. Again, I have absolutely no problem with level 70’s going after level 70’s. And I’d have no problems if lowbies could actually defend themselves to keep their hubs clear of the infection from one level 70 looking to ruin their ability to do anything.
@Ernoldsame: Yeah, they will probably be wary, which is why I make the call for safeguards against it. They don’t have to avoid doing events like these in the future if they do it right. If lowbies could defend themselves, then the ability to grief goes down. Same could be said for making certain NPC’s immune: bankers, auctioneers, battlemasters and flight masters. Everything else could be fair game.
@phoniex: The problem is that people don’t always come to their defense. And I did enjoy parts of the event. I did not think it was entirely flawed, and I say as much in my article.
@oblivioncry: Players are also to blame, yes. But Blizzard is partially to blame for overlooking those important flaws. Though I doubt they intended some of the problems to happen.
@Xtordin: Yeah. I’m a carebear. I didn’t go out and kill the people I thought were jerks to the lowbies. I just huddled in a corner and wept. There *should* be more events like this in the future, just with more tools involved to make sure *EVERYONE* could do something about it. And more safeguards to make sure important NPC’s and hubs weren’t dead all day and all of the night.
@Andrew: Fine. But lowbies should be able to defend themselves.
@shibumi: UO is a very good example of things done wrong.
@David: No, actually, my coworker isn’t coming back. He said if more events like that are going to happen in the future, where lowbies can’t do anything, he just won’t play the game.
@Bucephalus: I did try it out. Thanks. Stop assuming what people did or didn’t do. Blizzard is the best generally speaking, MMO-wise. That doesn’t mean every part of the game is perfect and that we shouldn’t point out the problems. And stop assuming people like me don’t want events like this in the future. I want this type of event, just with better care about certain parts of it.
@TooLyre: I guess you didn’t roll a level 10. I guess you weren’t the subject of some level 70’s decimating your low level hubs or riding up with the infection and then dismounting next to you and popping immunity before owning you. I guess you didn’t try to queue for BG’s with your HS on CD and all the battlemasters dead. A lot of these people trying to do those things were “fully informed.” You think this was an opt-in event, but it goes to show you didn’t fully understand it.
@Ben Applegate: No, actually, I wanted the lowbies to be able to do something about the plague. And I wanted certain parts of the game to be accessible during it. I didn’t want it to be nice to me. Oh, and if you think the Horde are all thick-skinned you’re sadly mistaken. I raided horde for a couple months back in 2005. There’s no difference, bub.
@Guido666: I guess your definition of constructive is different from that of the dictionary’s. I said I wanted lowbies to be able to defend themselves. There’s various ways to do that. Making it so lowbies’ damage scales based on the level of the player. Giving lowbies an item that could be used to do more damage than they could normally. Or making the item something like a usable grenade of light that does X damage to the zombie. Something. Anything. I left if ambiguous because the solution can be one of many things. Same for the other problem. Battlemasters could simply be made immune (I’m not sure if they were or not by the 5th day, but there was a point where they weren’t and where they had to be cleansed and protected if you wanted to to arena or BG’s). I made my post for so the problems could be noticed and improved. That’s the very definition of constructive. People like you who expect finely detailed and outline solutions that take up pages and pages are the only definition of constructive don’t understand the real intentions behind people’s posts.
@Zerekth: Actually, I think the Qiraji event was the best one. Not the part about collecting materials, but the part where you actually opened the gates. Once the lag cleared up after the first couple hours, it was insanely fun with people dragging mobs back to CH, and raid mobs constantly spawning at the gates. The zombie event had potential to outdo it, just that a few oversights tainted it.
@Cthulhu: Yeah, the scourge invasion is pretty weak. Well, when it was first done back in 2006, it was all right. But now it’s pretty dated.
@JayW: People look back and remember everything.
The other day, guildies of mine were reminiscing about the loot lag that used to happen in the first month of WoW’s existence. The type that could only be cleared by waiting that hour out or alt-F4ing and logging back in. The type that made you scoot around the world on your knee doing nothing. That problem was hardly fun, but we all look back on it and say “LOL, I remember that. That sucked.” We laugh about it, because Blizzard made improvements to the way loot lag worked and it’s no longer the huge issue it once was.
For example, with the AQ gate opening, Blizzard realized it was a great concept to add dynamic world events, but they made the mistake of concentrating the major action in one zone, which lagged the game to the point of nigh unplayability. So the next time they did something like it, with the introduction of Naxx, they made the events scattered between zones. But it didn’t feel like an “invasion.” So for the opening of the Dark Portal, they made a Kazzak-like figure invade cities. But Kazzak doesn’t have the best mechanics for populated areas, so that was a mistake in itself, but the concepts all had good intentions and everyone looks back on them.
The same will happen for the zombie event. I will remember the good parts: capped players owning capped players. The constant barrage of players blowing up on top of the battlemasters while trying to queue for BG’s with my guild. Accidentally blowing up the first time I tried to use DS on the infection with my pally. Owning griefers. I’ll look back on those specifics fondly, while I look back on other specifics as mistakes that could be rectified to make a similar future event like this better.
…
Anyway, I’m absolutely thrilled that so many people have taken on this issue. And I have had a good chuckle over the emotion and conviction with which some people post. That’s not to say I think everyone has expressed themselves in a good way, but many have. This is important to refining various aspects of the game. I never said “get rid of the zombie event.” I said it was flawed. Imperfect. Just as a lot of parts of the game are flawed.
It requires discussion and criticism to improve our game. From every side. And I am thrilled that so many people have taken interest in the issue and contributed to discussion.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
@Ben: Your post wasn’t deleted. There it is at 10:31 AM. Maybe you’re just blind.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
@Lume the Qiraji event was definitely one of the better events, although it seemed pretty exclusive to end game raiders…(me, not quite 60 yet at the time soloing) I believe blizzard was looking for an entire world altering event… that touched even the lower level players. Hoping we would all band together under one banner? (that part was pretty naïve… if in fact that was their thinking)
A few Questions and random thoughts about the event
The zombie event only lasted a week, so I assume they were aware of the consequences, making it brief?
Was the event really as flawed as we assume, based on our discussion? (Bad press is good press) Blizzard just announced they hit 11m subscribers.
Are most players going to be more motivated to get to Northrend now? (if you look at it from a different perspective It is Arthas causing all this pain, not just to the NPCs but to the Players as well.
The lore is no longer limited to quest text in dungeons and raids, in a way every player that has been affected by this event has their own story and reasons to adventure into Northrend now. (or not progress further too scary :P)
I agree things could have been done better to make it more fun for all of us… many of those items discussed here…
That being said, I think the event accomplished its purpose and im even more pumped to see what the lich king is going to throw at us ….this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg, for good or for i’ll, “flawed” as the event may have been; Blizzard has got my attention.
Thanks all this has been a fun and interesting read!
October 28th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
@Lume you’re right there are a lot of people who will look back and remember all the specifics, and I should have probably said that from my experience it’s around a 65%/35% split of rose colored glasses folks/people who remember the majority of the specifics. I could be a bit off on that split, but I guess it also depends on the title and what is being discussed.
I think the people that tend to remember the specifics over time are people who are “up on the hill looking down at the forest” when it comes to MMO’s in general.
And… I think that it’s great this has gotten as much discussion as it has, since I’d wager it’ll make people think, and hopefully people who are in the industry.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
@Zereketh: I don’t know that you can equate reaching the 11 million mark with the zombie event. It could be returning players because Wrath is impending. It could be people wanting to switch characters for Wrath leveling up using the RAF program.
I don’t think the lore behind the zombie invasion is going to drive people to Northrend, as much as merely the fact that it’s new content and required to hit 80. It might be better from an engrossing lore standpoint, which is definitely a good thing and a part of the game, but it’s a molehill among mountains.
The part where lowbies can’t defend themselves is, I believe, as flawed as I said. As is the part where certain major game play areas are completely inaccessible from various points. And I’m not talking about the banks and whatnot. I’m talking about queuing for arenas and BG’s, which is a very big draw for a lot of players. That is also a big flaw.
To some degree, you needed the event to be disruptive, but I think it went a little too far the areas noted. Blizzard as much admitted this, though ambiguously.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I found the Zombie event to be one of the best things I have seen in WoW. Yes, the low level players should have been protected, and ALL zombies should have been attackable in the neutral cities. But if those two issues would have been addressed I would have rated it as the most immersive thing I have ever done in WoW.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
@JayW: I don’t know. I think it’s pretty difficult for people to forget major events, even if we’re talking about those in an MMO. It’s one thing to forget something specific like how terrible druids were (if you didn’t play one). But it’s another to forget stuff like the Dark Portal event, the Qiraji gates, the scourge invasion, the introduction of the SSO island, the introduction of arenas, first month loot lag, etc. If you were there, that is.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
@Nero: Yep. Pretty much my point. Though I’d also include access to battlemasters and other important things as an issue, as well.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[…] Lume the Mad » Blog Archive » The “Zombie” Portion of the pre-Wrath Event Is Flawed. […]
October 28th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
There have been many good points made, but one that seemed to be missed for the most part with this event. The trouble was not zombies trying to take over the world by infecting everyone they could reach. They are zombies, that is what they do. Nor should anyone complain about players killing player zombies and cleansing infected players/npc’s. If they had that ability, that is what they should do, would do if it was real life. For me, the problem was purely players doing their darndest to get infected then infect others. On the first day of the event, when you had plenty of time to get to a healer if you wnated, players were calling out on chat to get large groupd of people together and infect Sw or Northshire. I was spending a fair amount of time in Goldshire because of the Hallow’s End event, and with in a couple of hours it was near immposible to save the town from burning because of all the high level zombies killing you.
In Shatt, on my higher level toon, a problem later on. Again people were deliberatly getting infected to kill quest givers. Sure, if you are 70 you can fly up and easily avoid the zombies, but what about the 60’s? they are stuck. And because of the deliberate sitting on quest givers, there were hours that you could not get or turn in a quest because they would be in battle/killed the moment they respawned.
The event needed to be disruptive, but needed changes to allow it to be fun for all. Making the inns in the capitol cities immune to zombies (a nice tiny barracaded area people could go and be safe when they log back in) and make the area right around the flight path also immune would allow a small measure of safety.
To give it a more real feel, move or remove npc’s as they are reacting to the horror that is happening around them. Then, to limit the big problem, make players progressively more resistant to becomming a zombie over time, or give them specific quests/goals to make them not want to become a zombie in the first place, like maybe