The Zombiepocalypse: One year later
by Mike Schramm 
Nov 1st 2009 at 2:00PM
And surely Blizzard learned a lot from what happened a year ago -- Linedan has a nice wrapup of the good and the bad that Blizzard may have taken away from the zombie apocalypse. The idea of turning players on players was great, but that unfortunately led to more griefing than most players would have liked (and the fact that, by the end of it, you couldn't avoid the zombies at all, probably didn't help). And for all of the disruption, there was no real reward (the eventual rewards came with the Scourge invasion, and then it was simply just farming tokens), and no real payoff (the final world event seemed half-cooked, and it was only implied that Arthas was the one who'd shipped the crates).
So hopefully Blizzard will take all of these lessons and all of this experience, and really impress us with the upcoming Cataclysm world event. I have to say, it'll be tough to beat anything with zombies in it, especially an event that spreads like a plague and gives us a whole new set of zombie abilities to run around and eat brains with. But we can't wait to see what they'll try.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Mask Nov 1st 2009 2:08PM
I thought the event was awesome. A little griefing is good for the game.
rkaliski Nov 1st 2009 10:07PM
Griefing is in the eye of the beholder. I have found that a lot of the humor around WoW peaks out at a 2 year old crapping on the floor and laughing at it.
What I had against the Zombie invasion was that it dropped right in the middle of the halloween event. Course what should have happend if you got killed as a zombie was that you took the 10% loss in durability. Then people would have been less willing to get turned into a zombie.
It would have been a cool event some other time of the year.
Richie Nov 1st 2009 3:52PM
I had such a fun time with it. I really hope blizzard blows us away with the next world event.
Out of curiosity, what was the event for burning crusade? I started playing during TBC so I never got to see what it was.
Calybos Nov 1st 2009 3:54PM
That's a joke, right? "A little griefing" is always BAD for the game.
Izbay Nov 1st 2009 4:04PM
Burning Crusade was just a bunch of demons coming through the gate and a killcount quest for an argent dawn tabard that makes you flex on use.
ben Nov 1st 2009 8:05PM
This.
A while back, somebody mentioned the beginning of the event be cultists gathering in major cities accepting all "infidels" who want to join their ranks, but are laughed off as skeptics. Maybe a little trouble in cities with these cultists... oh i dunno, turning people into elementals, drowning people in balls of water, teleporting people into enemy cities... yknow, it could be a whole weeklong war against crazy cultist extremists. Then comes deathwing, who lands on top of a monument or something and sets EVERYONE WITHIN A 2000 YARD RADIUS OF THE CITY ON FIRE, AND IF YOU CATCH ON FIRE, YOU GET A DEBUFF THAT SETS YOU ON FIRE WHEN YOURE DEAD!!!! sorry for caps.
Zerochance Nov 1st 2009 9:09PM
A little griefing is good for the game????? Only if you're the one doing the griefing and you're immature enough to need that sort of validation of your epeen.
PvP is fine, when both sides have a reasonable chance. This event unfortunately seems to have encouraged the opposite, empowering the jerks of WoW and forcing the rest of us to let them have their fun at our expense.
Given how abruptly things ended, it appears that there might actually be an adult somewhere in Blizzard's management chain. Now if we could just get that person to look into some of the more ridiculous class imbalance issues.....
chipersoft Nov 2nd 2009 2:25AM
It didn't end abruptly, it ended right on schedule. The day before it ended the debuff was down to 30 seconds, instant if you got hit by a couple zombies, and all the NPCs who were in place to kill off the zombies were dead or "missing". It ended when the Apothecary Society found a cure for the plague and the argent dawn dispersed it immediately.
As much as the whiners would like to think so, Blizzard did not stop the event early because of player QQ. I would even wager there are more people who enjoyed the event than there were who hated it.
DarkWalker Nov 2nd 2009 1:59PM
With the extreme displeasure lots of people had with the event, if they had more players hating the event than loving it the event would have been a total catastrophe. AFAIK, there were even people asking for, and getting, playtime refunds for the event week. Someone even posted a fairly good guide on how to ask for a "zombie apocalypse refund" on the customer service forums (a post which, of course, was promptly erased by the mods).
Personally, I canceled my second account after the event (sacrificing my dual boxing capabilities was a low price to pay to demonstrate my displeasure), and I'm quite inclined to cancel my WoW account two months before Cataclysm launches and spend that time getting to know one or two competing MMOs. I'll, however, keep an eye on how the pre-launch events are going, and if they don't seem to have the big drawbacks from the zombie event I might think about renewing my subscription.
Bob Nov 1st 2009 2:27PM
This event was AWESOME! The more disruption the better IMO. What's the point of a world event if some people aren't effected by it?
zetathran Nov 1st 2009 2:16PM
This brought back a lot of awesome memories. The battles for Shatt and Stormwind were epic, it was a glorious time to be a paladin, even a holy one. I still wear my Argent Dawn tabard sometimes.
DarkWalker Nov 2nd 2009 1:34PM
You are remembering wrong then.
Shatt was bugged. Players could not attack (player) zombies and vice versa. So, in the end, Shatt was just a place where zombies were free to roam turning every NPC into a zombie.
Cyanea Nov 1st 2009 2:20PM
I had both a bad and a good time with it.
It was great when I was on my seventy, taking down Zombies and battling for Stormwind.
It wasn't so much fun when you and your boyfriend were trying to use up the last week of your RaF and were getting killed every ten seconds.
Qot Nov 1st 2009 10:42PM
I found out while trying to finish up Swamp of Sorrows that it was possible to create a self-sustaining zombie horde there due to the rate of guard respawn. Leveling during that period was absolutely awful, especially if you were trying to push it to get close to the first wave of Northrend raiding/leveling.
I still maintain that Blizz cut the whole experiment short when the griefing got completely out of hand. It was their own fault: the zombie explosion made mass infections too easy, Blizz completely forgot that guards were a higher level than the players in the zone (making skull-level zombie armies) and there was no way to skirt the corners of the event. If there was no zombie explosion, if the zombies were low level, if there was a trinket that summoned a healer to you... Event would've been great and maybe we would've gotten a conclusion. As it was, it went for a few days, getting worse and worse and then mysteriously disappeared (replaced with the original invasion) because... let's say a wizard did it.
That being said, now that my characters are max level, I do hope that Blizz tries things like this again, only learning from their past mistakes.
Shade Nov 1st 2009 2:28PM
My priest still has her dual-plagued brain, and chatters with it frequently, although it no longer talks back to her. I wish it did!
Daniel Nov 1st 2009 2:29PM
Yea the event itself was freakin awesome- got out of hand on some days lol especially since you couldnt avoid it by the end- like already said. But I frekain had an awesome time sneaking into northshire and spreading the plague between all of the defias in the field so they attack every poor noob around. I also loved how on my main (NE Priest) we all took shelter in the SW inn and held off the never ending waves of zombies and stupid ppl. I've never used abolish and cure disease so much in my lfe 0.o ultimately I loved it- but there were a few days I just wouldnt log on for hours because i knew what awaited me and that i couldnt get anything accomplished. So i give blizz a solid A- in creativity but a C in careful planning and telling us who sent the crates lol
Stoneblade Nov 1st 2009 2:32PM
Once I got over the irritation of the inconvenience of it all, shrugged my shoulders and tried to roll with it, I had fun with the event...
That being said, I think that the biggest problem was that there was far too much license given to players to be complete douchebags to one another (particularly with members of their own factions), with very little repercussions for their actions.
Other than that, it was fun, interesting and engaging, and I would love to see more world-encompassing events that leave us with profound memories; rather than the stock "point A, Point B, & the event ends until next year," that we often have.
BigBoyI Nov 1st 2009 3:03PM
Agreed about the douche part. If you were a high level and well geared you were probably fine. But as a lowbie I did not enjoy myself. Was constantly getting killed and just couldn't do quests or anything. I just didn't log in for the duration of that event.
KJP Nov 1st 2009 2:35PM
About the only thing wrong with it was that it was either a day too long, or a day too short with the missing day containing the point to the whole exercise. That said, it did provide some great memories and I'm glad Blizzard did it.
ccbutch Nov 1st 2009 2:41PM
I loved both per-expansion world events. While they both had downfalls most of it ended up being against lower level players. Whether it was getting stuck outside Ironforge due to Krull, or having no way to defend yourself against lvl 80 zombies and as soon as you turn getting 1-shot by level 80 guards. If they could do something to the effect of all zombies become the same level and health it would take care of most of those problems. Of course you'd still have people whining cause their regular routine gets screwed up for a few days.
Those it's a while off, I am kind of curious as to what Cataclysm's world event will be. Both BC and WotLK were kinda in memory of the destruction that players can find that the devs never expect or thought of. The BC world event was inspired by people kiting Kazzak up to Stormwind where he utterly destroyed everything(I still love this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl0VWJdE01M )and WotLK was inspired by the ZG outbreak which foreced everyone out of cities, cause crowds equaled death ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAEhyHiNdrA&feature=related ). Blizzard has become better at making it so this type of thing doesn't happen which is a good thing and a kind of a shame at the same time. So what would they base the Cataclysm event on?