Breaking down Blizzard's world event so far
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 29th 2008 at 9:00AM
Blizzard, as we've said already, has really outdone themselves with this latest world event. It's been so fun and so innovative that players are wondering just why the rest of the game hasn't been this good so far (even though, of course, it's been superb anyway). The zombie invasion really gave players of MMOs everything they've wanted since this genre first came into being -- a growing, changing world populated not by mindless AI characters stuck in static patterns, but actual, creeping story and chaos. For all of the anti-zombie whining, this world event has been MMO gameplay at, I'd say, the best it's ever been.And while I was waiting until the event completely ended to do a final analysis, Colin Brennan over at Massively isn't waiting -- he's got a good analysis up over there about the zombie event and just why it was so brilliant. He describes how the world event not only gave players a terrific reason to hate Arthas enough to go to Northrend and want to fight him, but how the gameplay design of the event (when you are killed by a zombie, you become one) was tuned towards fueling the story and the immersion. As he says, the best way to fight the plague was to embrace the fact it was in the game, whether you were a zombie or a cleansing Paladin.
There's lots more to dissect with this world event, including how Blizzard brilliantly invoked something that had happened by accident -- the Corrupted Blood plague -- and incorporated it into the game itself, and how the various zombie abilities were aimed directly at gameplay only possible in an MMO, from the AoE healing to the shrinking plague incubation time. I'll go so far as to say it expanded the boundary of what an MMO can do -- Blizzard let zombies loose on the populace not by hiring GMs to run around on every server, but by giving power to the players. But again -- there'll be time for analysis later, once we've discovered ingame just exactly what's going on here and how it all ties to Arthas. Colin's analysis is a good start, though -- Blizzard really outdid themselves with, even considering the complaints, one of the best world events ever seen in an MMO.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Quests, Lore
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Gritiron Oct 29th 2008 9:04AM
It's been awesome! In before whiners.
D.O.T. Oct 29th 2008 9:47AM
Interesting how it's called zombie whiners and not zombies griefers.
Since it's a reference of opinion that comment should have reflected a more netural stance between the two - meaning another more appropriate word should have been used. Something like "the zombie situation" or the "the number of complaints by both zombies and non-zombies."
Vote it down if you want, but it's stuff like that which shows ugly bias in articles.
offday Oct 29th 2008 12:26PM
I was just going to say something about bias. I don't care if you liked the event or not, but why is every 9 out of 10 articles on WoW Insider the past week about how awesome the zombie event was? I mean, I understand you guys have like 50 writers, but it's been covered...to death. No pun intended. Here's an idea. Come up with an interesting, original article. We don't know 50 different people "breaking it down." For crying out loud, I think we understand it by now.
gridwerk Oct 29th 2008 1:38PM
Holy Jesus, people! IT"S A GAME! And its over, the nasty world event is over. Your precious toons are safe, the servers are still up, you still smell bad and live in your parents basement, still earn just enough money to keep your subscription current and are still respected by your guildies even though you cant interact with humans face to face.
You'll be okay. Unless a real situation comes across your path like an interview, a toothbrush or a girl. Then panic.
benicrystal Oct 29th 2008 7:41PM
Best. Comment. Ever.
Hamma Oct 29th 2008 9:09AM
Great event I enjoyed every second of it, Kudo's to Blizzard.
I hope something else great happens before the story pans out to Northrend...
Raaj Oct 29th 2008 9:10AM
Completely off-topic, but is WoW Insider's RSS feed broken? I haven't had the new articles show up for the last day, while all my other feeds are still working flawlessly.
cjshrader Oct 29th 2008 10:47AM
I think mine has been working fine. I use Google Reader
daveyp2tm Oct 29th 2008 11:44AM
Mine's fine too, also using google reader.
cian Oct 29th 2008 11:50AM
Mine is borked as well.
Andrew Oct 29th 2008 12:31PM
My server didn't get to into as much as it should had... however, still a lot of fun. I hope this isnt the end of the event and something else is planned before WOTLK.
Justinn Oct 29th 2008 9:20AM
MMORPG - its an online world just like the real one, just in a fantasy setting.
So such an event as this one had real world effects. Whether you wanted to or not, you knew about the plague, just like the credit crunch thats going on at the moment. The plague is being spread like any real disease or fear, could have been the plague of nazis across europe with hitler, world war being declared, whatever it caused "panic", even on a bigger scale the economy (or wow terms, AH people dying, vendors etc just like a real war would take a big toll on the economy & lifestyle)
Just like real life, you cant escape the effects of the credit crunch or a world war just like you couldnt escape the zombies or Arthas' presence.
Pure genius. We are all playing in the same WoW world, so when big world events like this happens like real life, you shouldnt be able to pick and choose what effects you and what doesnt.
WOTLK is really living up the blizzard standards and it isnt even here yet. Sure the zombies annoyed me some, but on a whole i loved it, there was always that "whats happening? what next?" in the back of my mind and across the realm.
Right now i really love blizzard even if they are nerfing my beloved paladin class "Too The Ground!!"
Nick S Oct 29th 2008 10:44AM
Godwin'd.
Mastermenchi Oct 29th 2008 2:01PM
Here is my problem with the event. Everyone saysit was an amazing feat of mmo gameplay etc, etc citing it as the best event the mmo industry has ever had.
The idea was a good one, i'll give it that. It however was poorly executed not because it didn't let players avoid it but because of the fact it penalized players for wanting to be the good guys and rewarded those that wanted to greif.
Zombies, could explode, infect, etc etc ultimately making them very powerful making everyone turn to zombies. Players who fought back got nothing out of it, there was no quests to defend their cities, no items to allow classes that couldn't stave off the plague to do that. And Shat was just plain broken to those of us that wanted to defend as you couldn't attack player zombies or cleanse guards. I mean seriously what was up with that?
If you're going to design an event that effects the entire world give people a reason to partake in both sides. Me as a player who had no interest in being a zombie and griefing was forced to leave towns/quest hubs for the simple fact that there was no reason to stick around. Why fight the zombies if the end result was nothing more then to be turned into one.
Also the community ruined the event for me as well. I had death threats, tells to f off, and other such equally pissed off players who felt it was their god given right to be a zombie and kill npcs and lowbies but when a 70 shows up who can cleanse disease and kill them to play out the good guy it is a horrible offense.
Dunhear Oct 29th 2008 9:26AM
Can we get some "analysis" from someone who doesn't have a level 70?
Can we get some "analysis" from someone new to the game who was just getting the hang of it before this "world event" about what this meant?
Can we get some honest "analysis" that doesn't just brand everyone opposed to it as whiners and mod them down?
The truth is that if you weren't a high level person this was absolute hell. You were instagibbed the minute you spawned by people of your own faction.
Roll a new toon?
"Hello little level 1, all of your quest givers are dead, and soon, you will join them. Trust us, it's fun! Quit whining!"
This event just empowered the worst of the people on the server — the griefers. For one brief shining moment the guys who tea bag after every kill and corpse camp lowbie zones for hours didn't actually have to go to enemy territory to do it.
And mod me down now, because apparently this moderation system is based on whether you agree me, not whether it's a point worth discussing.
Karazak Oct 29th 2008 9:34AM
Yeah we definitely need some analysis from someone who hasn't played enough to be near the end of the game. Oh better yet, why not have people who have never played give analysis. That way its not affected by that stupid bias "experience".
Know what? Sometimes things are catered to end game players. Considering Recruit a Friend, reduced Exp requirements, and removal of mount quests etc. I think you all have plenty.
Zharg Oct 29th 2008 9:34AM
I think you missed the point... this isn't supposed to be "attuned" to level 1 players. This was a world event! In RL if ur weak ur first to fall in a plague... so why would it be different in WoW?
You should feel lucky that you could witness this event as there probably won't be one until a further expansion. Next time it happens you'll be able to tell people that you've been around for at least 1 in the past.
Being disrupted for a few days is such a small price to pay to witness an event like this... I can't wait for the next one!
rosencratz Oct 29th 2008 9:35AM
Talking as someone who levelled up to level and as someone who watched a friend level up to 12 and another level to 15 i can safely say your opinion is bull.
Only once during the peak hours of both the zombie invasion and of players present on a server were any quest givers relevant to leveling from 1-20 dead. We were almost entirely undisturbed. A couple of times one of us at various times would spot a small amount of Zombies in defias areas or similar but part of the fun, quite frankly was avoiding them, which we did, with massive ease.
So non level 70 opinions?
I can name 3 people who leveled in the 1-20 range. 2 people in the 30-40 and 3 people in the 50-60 range who had no complaints whatsoever.
Not only that but i also did some alt levelling myself and everyone in the list above happily, upon occasion got fully involved whilst the event was going on.
better now?
Rosa Oct 29th 2008 9:45AM
The issue is that the cry cry think of the children! bitching is all completely exaggerated.
I've been levelling two alts during the course of the event, a 50-ish paladin and a 20-ish mage. I got infected one on the mage and took a quick flight to SW to get out of it, and once I had to sit and wait for five minutes while a questgiver in Westfall respawned. Didn't have a single problem on the Paladin except not being able to repair for about 30 seconds at the Bulwark because the AD quartermaster was dead.
I also have a friend who only JUST started playing wow a month and a half ago, he's a baby level 18 shadow priest and he didn't even SEE any zombies, or carnage, in five days of steady play during peak hours until he went to the cities. Never got turned accidentally.
On the endgame notice, I also never experienced any inconvenience on my old main, a level 70 moonkin druid, but I haven't been playing her much because I've been focusing on my alts. My boyfriend, a 70 mage, only got accidentally turned once, outside of Karazhan, and he spends 80% of his wow time idling in AHs playing with the economy. He had his auctioneers die a few times, laughed about it, kited and killed a couple of zombies.
We all play on a PvE server, too, so we're just not "used to" griefing. I hate PvP. I have like 1000 lifelong hks and I've been playing since early spring 06.
Maybe all of these cases were just INCREDIBLY lucky, but I think so much data pretty much cements something as a rule, not an exception. If this event SERIOUSLY disrupted your playing ("you" in general, not "you" in particular), you were either doing something wrong or INCREDIBLY impatient.
For the experienced, there were a lot of ways to avoid zombies if you didn't want to mess around with them. Do other dailies, not Quel'Danas ones. Spend time in TB or SMC/Darn or Exodar when you're doing your city business.
For the inexperienced, maybe this WAS a bad time to start playing, but if you find me someone starting wow yesterday who doesn't have any friends playing who can give him some tips, and I'll give you a cookie.
The negative affect this has bad, both on lowbies and 70s, has been so incredibly exaggerated, to the point of almost being a charicature.
I'd think it were a joke if people didn't actually seem ready to tear their clothes and put ashes on their heads :/
Stag Oct 29th 2008 9:49AM
The QQ was completely unnecessary, that's why people have no time for the whiners.
I managed to level my my alt without a hitch during the invasion. The odd setback, but certainly nothing to warrant the full-scale tear tsunami that appeared. Add to this the fact that it was only temporary and that other people obviously really enjoyed it, and I think those crying were really just being very intolerant.