Breakfast Topic: Elementals vs. Zombies -- which event was better?
by Kevin Podsiadlik 
Dec 6th 2010 at 8:00AM
In the days leading up to Wrath of the Lich King, plagued crates started showing up in major cities, triggering a widespread zombie infestation that, for a few days, brought World of Warcraft as we knew it essentially to a halt. In the days leading up to Cataclysm, cultists started showing up in the major cities, heralding an elemental invasion that would also impact World of Warcraft, just before the game would change once and for all.
With both events now in the history books, which event leaves you with the better memories?
For better or worse, the zombie infestation will almost surely go down as the more memorable event. It involved unique player mechanics not seen before or since and even created a de facto third faction which members of both Alliance and Horde could temporarily join (not always voluntarily). The elemental invasion? Quests were there, you did them, stuff showed up, you killed it. The settings may have been unique, but in the end it was still "just WoW."
Which brings us to the downsides. During the zombie infestation, WoW stopped being WoW. Which meant: Want to raid? Want to quest? Want to farm? Too bad. All that was pretty much shut down, and we weren't being told when it would be back. It turned out to be just four days, but nobody knew that at the time. With the elemental invasion, when players got tired of it, for the most part they could ignore it. Dalaran and Icecrown Citadel were unaffected, and pretty much everything was out of the way except for the city events -- and for those, you always knew that things would be back to normal in an hour at most.
Neither event was without its flaws, and both were unique in the history of WoW. No doubt the advent of the next expansion will produce another such event. Which event would you like the next one to be more like?
| Wrath's zombie invasion was cooler. | |
|---|---|
| Cataclysm's elemental invasion was better. |
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Tyro Dec 6th 2010 8:03AM
The troublemaker in me enjoyed the zombie event. You can raid/quest etc anytime, but for 4 days you had chaos. It was awesome.
Ad134 Dec 6th 2010 8:51AM
Nothing will ever beat transforming pretty much the whole of Westfall and marching my undead army into Stormwind...
Hoof Dec 6th 2010 9:17AM
That's the problem though. The troublemaker in you... the griefer in people in general... They enjoyed the zombie event.
Will I remember the zombie event more than I am likely to remember the elemental event? Yes... But only because of how much I hated it.
The Zombie event was one extreme. Blizzard in their "wisdom" gave players the tools needed to become the ultimate griefers. People who already enjoyed griefing others now had the ultimate toolbox with which to do so. It was a constant, 24/7 shutdown of the major cities after only a day or two of the plague going around. No amount of disease cleansing could halt the players (though I thoroughly enjoyed trying it, especially when they had only a few seconds left, I even enjoyed reporting those who couldn't respond in a civilized manner). While on my Paladin, I'd even let them transform on occasion when I knew what they were doing. Sitting there in the AH, just waiting, planning to infect several people and kill of the auctioneers... Transform, stun, dead. Great times. Like I said though, the plague was impossible to stop and eventually any and all hope was lost. I didn't log on for the final days of the zombie event. I had better things to do.
The elemental invasion is the other extreme of course. Once every 3 hours or so some big scary elementals come and ravage the town... except they're really not that big and they're certainly not scary. Chance of death was somehow less than zero percent. What seemed to be hundred man raids had formed at each portal and the town was saved within minutes. We then split up to enter the dungeons for 30 minutes before sitting around waiting for another 3 hours. This was cool... once. Many players felt this way too as it became less and less likely that the dungeon bosses would even be available, or if they were, it was within the last few minutes of the super shaman coming to save the city. Players didn't care because the event itself was so boring after you've seen it all once.
Pros for the zombies:
Unpredictable. Players controlled it. This was awesome and made the event far more fun that it would have been otherwise.
Cons for the zombies:
Ultimate griefing tool box. The cities flat out weren't safe. You could be attacked by your own faction, half your raid group would become infected fighting their way into the raid zone, level 70s were destroying players that had no chance against them, some of whom were honestly new players to the game who were likely chased off by the zombie event.
Pros for the elementals: It was optional. If you didn't want to deal with the annoyances you simply used Darnassus, Exodar, Silvermoon, or the Undercity as your main faction city. The vendors, bankers, auctioneers, etc were all perfectly safe and sound there. Raids could continue without a hitch. Low level players in effected cities were given warning of the impending invasion and access to portals for a quick escape to avoid the all but guarenteed death they would suffer if they stayed for the attack.
Cons for the elementals: It was completely scripted. Players had a choice of how fast it would skip over certain phases of the event, but that was it. There was no ongoing excitement for this event.
I would rather the next event be more of a middle ground between the two. Both events failed hard for seperate reasons, but regardless of the reason, failure is failure.
Joker Dec 6th 2010 9:28AM
@Ad134.
I was leveling on my first Alliance toon in Westfall when this event was going on and a big fight broke out between the Infected and a whole lot of Alliance Paladins (I was a Human Paladin), it was one of the most epic fights ever.
I was level 13 and was fighting together with the rest of my Zombie Horde (Not "The Horde") taking down level 70's.
Still don't know why Blizz didn't make an Infection type BG in Wrath, it would have single-handedly made Wrath the best Xpac ever.
-
As for my answer, Zombie Invasion was without a doubt the best of the two.
Anyone who says otherwise is A) Trolling, B) Didn't play when Invasion was going on, C) Just stupid, or D) All of the above.
QQinsider Dec 6th 2010 9:29AM
@Hoof
Yeah, you have it completely right about the two extremes. Zombies were very irritating when you were trying to get something done, but it was also fun to participate in and certainly memorable. No-one is going to be reminiscing about elemental invasions in two years time...most boring world event ever.
fanficbug Dec 6th 2010 9:40AM
It's true that I won't reminisce about the Cata pre-launch event, but I also don't reminisce about the Wrath pre-lauch event because of how aggravating it was. Even my awesome "defending Khadgar's familiar from the ravening horde" story, I don't remember without a shudder. The massive amounts of BS I had to put up with for one cool story make it considerably less enjoyable to remember.
Zal Dec 6th 2010 10:30AM
@Hoof
That was the entire point of the plague though, that it was an endless, unstoppable stream of undeath washing over the civilization of Azeroth. Blizzard is not ignorant to what their users would have done with those capabilities, in fact that was probably what they wanted all along. For the game as it had been known up to that point to be stopped entirely in its tracks. To give players who were board from the tedium of what BC had become to get something new and interesting to play with. The game was "shut down" for four days, but that was the most fun it would have been for many players since the launch of SWP. Very few people ever got to raid beyond Kara and ZA. It was a pain to get groups together to raid the simpler 25 mans at the best of times with BC. It became impossible to do so after the game entered lame duck status. All there was left to do was to farm endlessly for gold or level alts, there were not achievements in the game around that time.
As well, it was only 4 days that it went on. Participation was made mandatory by the mechanics of the event, but if you did not want to do anything with it you could still have gone out and farm just fine. It was not like the undeath plauge was crawling over every inch of Azeroth or OL, you could go farm, return to a goblin city and deposit items into your back and post on the neutral AH just held onto it until the event was over. You could have gone out as well and done the various achievements that were in the game by the time that came around or simply not log in and go read a book, play another game or hang out with friends and family. Like it or not, Blizzard had decided that everyone in the game was going to play that way for a few days, so your only choices were to do so or halt and request for compensation from their billing department.
It was an engrossing, many more would have probably had fun if they simply ignored what had become ritual at that point to try something else. Holding out against a massive wave of zombies in the streets of Orgrimmar, every new guard spawned from the civilians maybe taking out one NPC ghoul before they would rise up and join the rotting tide.
Natsumi Dec 6th 2010 10:38AM
@hoof
You don't understand the Zombie Apocalypse event at all. The whole point was that NO PLACE WAS SAFE UNTIL ARTHAS IS DEFEATED. You're right, nobody was safe, but nobody forced you to sit in the Stormwind Auction House like a sacrificial lamb. Perhaps if you spent more time having fun with your fellow players instead of trying to win at the Auction House you would see exactly how much fun you missed out on. Oh, and GETTING INTO the Auction House was a CHALLENGE until the last day, as the Argent Dawn guy was standing inside destroying the zombies as they walked in.
As far as the "Killing your own faction" part goes, how many times have you wished you could kill that idiot DPS that has wiped your group , or that fail tank, or that healer in melee gear? If you said none YOU ARE A DIRTY LIAR!!!!! On top of that, the Ghoul moved so slowly that you could usually kill it before it could infect you, and if you were infected the Argent guys would cleanse you. The best part was when people would fight so hard to kill the zombies and then, once infected and Ghoulified, would turn on their friends and allies in the fight, doing their best to increase their ghoulish ranks.
The Elemental Invasion however was a terribly unfun event and here is why:
1) Only the 80s could truly benefit from the event's "fun"
2) Leveling characters ended up having to completely avoid cities or die to elementals
3) Leveling characters COULD NOT TRAIN while the event was going on as all trainers were in the cities
4) You were required to form a raid to take down the elite elementals, going solo was a death sentence
5) After the first run through, nobody cared enough to do the event, making it impossible to do the bosses
6) Blizzards response led to constant running of the instances, locking people out of raids and instances for HOURS, causing others to not have fun.
Mindaika Dec 6th 2010 10:41AM
As Hoof said: The cities weren't safe and pretty much everything was shut down for 4 days. You know, kind of like it would be if they were attacked by an army of the undead...
No one will remember the elemental invasion.
Joshua Dec 6th 2010 12:13PM
I find it funny that people complain of greifing, I mean lets say there was a real zombie invasion in your home town, I doubt they would be like lets leave the utility, banks, and other important places untouched.
Sorithal Dec 6th 2010 12:12PM
And the most fun part was that if you didn't want to be a zombie, you could always unleash your inner zombie killer and go all Resident Evil/Left4Dead on the zombie players ;D
Thundermug Dec 6th 2010 12:28PM
Pre-wrath event was so much better. Zombie invasion was chaos while it lasted. And lots more memorable things from it to collect, like tabards, pets and my wonderful haunted momento.
Meanwhile, the Cata one just seemed to fizzle out, the invasions in IF were constantly bugged and there were no momentos to collect. Blizz failed on this one.
Stephen Dec 6th 2010 12:43PM
Both events were a PITA if you were leveling, but at least with the zombie invasion, you had a fighting chance to use a flight-master, turn in your quests, or see your class trainer in SW or Org. Leveling a Shaman with TB & Org being phased every other hour was annoying. So was trying to do the daily cooking quests for the Bounty Harvest.
On the bright side, I made a ton of gold selling ports on my mage.
The Zombie Invasion was fun & different, at least for a while. The Elemental Invasion quest line was good, but the city attacks weren't fun.
DarkWalker Dec 6th 2010 12:55PM
To state bluntly: I was tired of both events one day after each one started. The difference is that while the Elemental invasion let me just avoid the event after I got bored with it, the Zombie invasion forced me to either play the event, or leave the game.
So, during the Zombie invasion, I left. Cancelled my second account permanently and my main one during 3 months, and used each and every feedback Blizzard asked whenever I had to use their customer service to point out that, the next time they made their events non-optional, I would cancel my account at least for the duration of the event, if not more.
Judging by one post by Bashiok in the new forums, where he admitted the reaction to the Zombie event was too negative, I guess I was not the only one. After all, Blizzard is used to screening out the usual wailing on the forums; I doubt they would have made so big a turnabout if there were not bigger reactions than a few disgruntled players posting over and over.
And, just to make it clear: even if I my actions had single-handedly removed launch events from the game, I would still not regret it. I would very much prefer to never again have a launch event, than to have a repeat of the Zombie invasion.
It was, after all, the event that sounded all the wrong chords for me. I don't care about PvP, but absolutely hate griefing - and being turned into a zombie was, for me, akin to being asked to grief other players myself, which is much worse than simply being griefed. I don't like zombie-themed things, although it's not as strong as hate. I love when games provide plenty of choice, and by the same token hate when said choice is taken away from the game. And I guess I was hit with each and every single bug in the event: being unable to log back in if I hit alt-F4 while a zombie, having no abilities bar while a zombie, invulnerable zombies in Shatt, etc.
Noralith Dec 6th 2010 1:40PM
I think there is something to be said for both of the world events.
The Zombie Invasion was much more memorable and much, MUCH more fun... at first. When the infection timer was still a couple minutes, it was possible to enjoy both WoW as we knew it and the madcap hijinks. Resistance groups would rove around, fighting off the zombies and the infected, while players who didn't want to participate didn't have to go far to be cleansed and left alone. Then the infection timer was suddenly dropped to a minute, then to a few seconds, and no one had a choice anymore. Even I, who really friggin' LOVED the event, grew irritated when I had my fill of zombie killing but couldn't go do anything else.
The Elemental Invasion wasn't nearly as impressive in terms of what you did, but the lore was exciting and really pushed towards Cataclysm. It took a suspension of disbelief, as does the rest of the game, but I really got a sense of "Oh shoot, something bad is gonna happen soon!"
So, I enjoyed them both. I would have to say the Zombie Invasion was the more fun invasion... and also the horrendously less fun one. Maybe if the Elemental Invasion had let you turn into a Fire Elemental if you were ignited...
Ata Dec 6th 2010 1:49PM
From a marketing, catering to everyone in your market standpoint, the elemental invasion was better designed because it was optional....but it became nothing more than a holiday event. How often do people stop the fires of halloween by the end of the horseman event? Once one does it, gets the achievement and loot wanted, people generally stop caring. But it was better, because if you did care, you could continue to fight, even if it became more difficult as more and more people didn't care. But if you didn't want to, you didn't have to, and keep your world from being different or changed.
From a storyline standpoint, the zombie invasion was better, because it was 'real' and you -couldn't- avoid it, and that was the point. Players could either work together to defend their town against the zombie horde, or they could succumb and become part of that horde. I think it showed better the danger that Arthas posed than rampaging elementals could show of Deathwing. If Deathwing's rampaging across the landscape were less random or at least more frequent (I only know of two of my friends who have 'stood in the fire', and they got it on a server away from my main), then perhaps it could approach the 'holy crap this guy is serious' feeling that the Scourge invasion put forth.
The zombie invasion was the -ultimate- act of immersion in the game. It made everyone basically be on a pvp-rp server for the time being, you realized the horror (or hatred) of what could happen if the Scourge were to come and truly attack the world....everything you knew and were comfortable with was destroyed. You were thrust into uncomfortable, disturbing, angering situations. You were basically put into the mindset of a person from the first invasion of the Scourge.
I guess a lot of people don't like to think about the story of the game that much.
I think the zombie invasion would have been completely perfect if there were a noteable timelimit. If we knew how long it was going to last, then it wouldn't have felt quite so overwhelming. That would have lowered the emotional impact, but would have certainly upped the fun...if you knew it was only going to last a few days, you could accept not being really able to do most of your 'normal' things, and maybe join in on the fun.
A combo of both...perhaps an item that phased you into a zone impacted by whatever is happening, or accepting a quest that would place you into a phased version of the cities depending on if you wanted to join or not, would be more acceptable. I think a balance between 'mandatory' and 'optional' can be better struck than leaving half of the cities alone. Maybe now that there's auction houses and banks in Shatt and Dalaran, next time something comes around, -all- of the main cities can be hit, and if you really want to avoid it and go do your banking and whatnot, there are the two old hubs just fine and far removed from the chaos that should be hitting the world.
DarkWalker Dec 6th 2010 2:39PM
@Ata: The whole point for most people that are so enthusiastic about the Zombie event, unfortunately, is that there should be no way to avoid it.
If the zombie event was optional, I would not have reacted badly to it - I would have just looked at it, decided I didn't want to participate, opted out, and kept playing as if nothing was happening. But it seems like plenty of players here see that "kept playing as if nothing was happening" part as being outright offensive.
Most of those players, BTW, when asked how to fix the Elemental Invasion, go to great lengths about making it impossible to avoid. Saw that, debated it hotly on WoW's forums, until the CMs started either locking or outright deleting those posts. Fortunately for me, seems like Blizzard, for the time being, is on the side of those that want the event to be optional, even if against some developers' will.
Ata Dec 6th 2010 2:53PM
@DarkWalker
For myself, I understand the want to opt out of things. I know that a lot of people don't go into a game with the same sort of mindset as others, they go for a break from stress, want to do x set of things, and don't like disruptions.
But it is an mmo. It's meant to be a dynamic world, not a static one, but for the most part, the game is static. You can rely on x happening at x time, and go along with little disruption. But for such a major event as celebrating an expansion, something that happens only once (each expansion is unique, though yes, we do have a set 'expansions happen'), I think that perhaps those who like to do x set of things should at least give 'y' a try, and if you're more forced into it, at least having the knowledge that it won't last forever is a good thing. I think a game company is within their rights to shake things up and change the world, at least for a little while, to celebrate such a major, massive event, and I kind of think it's a shame that not everyone wants to interact. I wont hold it against any who wish for the optional state, but I do think it's kind of really, really missing the point of an mmo in a world with an evolving story.
Eisengel Dec 6th 2010 5:58PM
Yeah, but I don't play for chaos. If I wanted chaos, I'd play something more unpredictable, like a FPS.
I was high enough level during the zombie invasion that I wasn't really harassed by them much. I just logged out in the wilderness and hearthstoned/city teleported around. That said though, it was incredibly annoying and imbalanced. If you were high level and wanted the items, you needed to run around to find a crystal not camped by players and the gear drops were random. If you weren't high enough to basically ignore it, you would get steamrolled by packs of zombies in starter cities. It was boring and mildly frustrating from a high-level perspective and game-breaking form a lowbie perspective.
The problem was the imbalance of the incentives. There was plenty of incentive for high-level players to stay well away from cities, standing the middle of the wilderness camping crystal spawns. There was also incentive for players to amass zombie armies and grief lowbies and cities. There was no incentive however for high-level players to help battle the zombies or protect lowbies and no way for the lowbies to gain from the event. That was the problem from my point of view. Lowbies would get screwed, and high-level players were, on the whole, just fine.
I tried to fight the player-spawned zombies, but due to massive targeting and flagging problems, I couldn't. So, to me, the event reduced effectively to: ignore it as best I could while siting in the middle of nowhere waiting for crystals to spawn. A grind that involved mostly waiting. Not the most epic thing around, IMHO.
Sl0th Dec 6th 2010 9:15PM
Zombies. Hands down, zombies.
The elemental invasion was fun... For the first day or so. Then it became a dozen times more disruptive and annoying than the zombie invasion ever was. People stopped killing the elementals outside peak hours within the first week and it ended up horribly disruptive to lose two cities every other hour. And there was no other fun to be had with the invasion outside of cleaning out the city and fighting the bosses. The elementals were just sort of there.
Worse, on some realms, the invasions were broken. On the realm I had just transferred to to play with some friends, our Ironforge invasions never, ever worked. They'd spawn the initial non-elite elementals until we put up all the reinforcements, then everything would just stop. The rifts spawned, but no elementals showed up with them. We didn't just lose Ironforge once every other hour. We lost Ironforge once every other hour with no recourse to get it back before the NPCs ended the invasion. Also, we didn't get to fight two of the bosses except on the final day of the invasion where the rifts were opened for all without having to fight the elementals.
The zombie invasion, on the other hand, was fun. Yes, it was horribly disruptive to the entire world, but it was fun. It shook up the status quo of hang out and wait to raid/bg/arena/5-man/etc. that BC had fallen into near the end. And the fun wasn't limited to only level capped players. Also, there were a variety of other things going on in the world as part of the event that didn't involve the zombie invasion itself.
The best part of the zombie event was that the players were a major part of the event. I don't mean we were just playing the big damn heroes, fighting off the invading Scourge. Players could become a part of the event on either side. And while this is the most reviled part of the event to many, I absolutely loved it. We weren't just fighting elementals on a strict spawn timer like we did this time. We were fighting our fellow players as they led the zombie forces gunning for us. We got to make our own fun.
My fondest memory of the zombie invasion event isthe time when I, on my paladin, protected a group of lowbie players as we made our way from Booty Bay to Ratchet and then continued to protect them as we waited for the flightmaster to repawn while fighting off the zombie-infested town.
Meanwhile, I don't really _have_ any fond memories of the elemental invasion. The only real memory I'll carry with me from the event is the endless trudging around from zone to zone on two of my characters, trying to find the stupid rifts to close so that I could get them their feat of strength.