Scourge Invasion II has begun

[Nebu]

Cal does have a point.  Right now, I'm sure there are many people coming back to gear up for the expansion.  It's silly to turn off those that are trying to take a second (or third or fourth) look at the game.

[Calantus]

That's exactly why I don't like it WUP, it's not what I play WoW for nor what I expect from it. When I log into WoW to quest I expect an on-rails leisurely tour through various zones where I collect bear asses and kill boars for people with yellow !s on their heads.

[ahoythematey]

God forbid you don't do the same tedious levelling-cockblock bullshit for a couple of weeks.  I mean, it sure isn't there the other 40+ weeks out of the year.

Right?  Anybody?  Bueller?

Seriously, if you don't like it it's not that hard to circumnavigate.  Kill the zombies, they are quite squishy without any coordination on their part, or go to a lesser populated region.  I mean jesus fucking christ, this is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, and this kind of event is kind of a primary lure towards these types of games.  I seem to remember being excited about invading enemy territories and exploring dangerous regions back when I first heard about these crazy things called MMORPGs.

Or you can continue crying your bitter tears, my daggers are losing a little of their luster and could use some shinin' up.

[Kitsune]

I've had a pretty good time of things so far.  Got enough runes off the invading undead to buy some stuff from the Argent Dawn, fought the new boss and killed him for his free bat pet, been regularly fighting the Headless Horseman, had a guild party in Darkshire.  It's been a fun event.

People are still douches, of course.  There's lots of less than friendly competition for the undead spawns.  Some people go out of their way to grief with the zombies.  But despite their worst efforts, I haven't been terribly inconvenienced.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I can't say I really get where the anti-event people are coming from (except for the Invasion Spawn Points where it's a LAWL I TAGGED FIRST WHEE clusterfuck, although I suspect that they'll clear out a bit in a few days). The game has been there for years and years, it's OK to shake it up for a few weeks before a big ol' expansion. And I don't buy the "but people are coming back to gear up for the expansion!!!!!" thing, because a) they've had like two years and b) if they've been in WoW before they know it's not normally like this AND they know they don't actually have to gear up for the expansion at all.

Maybe my server (doomhammer) is just that less shitty than yours, but there are plenty of people combating the zombie hordes (including myself) and it really is not hard at all to function. Hell, I've been able to use the AH in freaking IF, zombie central, every time I've wanted to.

[Venkman]

People get in a certain mode. If you're used to soloing, it's easier to avoid the hassle of other people. If you're used to following the instructions of a raid walkthrough, it's easier to wait two months for the best one to emerge. If you're used to logging in, checking your tasks, going about doing them and turn ins and then logging out, while chatting with your buddies and watching some sports thing, yea, this sort random crap is going to annoy you.

But screw it if they can't take a joke. I mean seriously, we've all taken turns bitching about how samey rails these games have gotten and now some of those same people are complaining about a pretty good temporary interruption of that? Take the freakin' next three weeks off or something. Jeezus.

On the event itself, overall still loving it. Two hours just spent bouncing between IF and Shatt helping to keep it clean. Better than chasing that goddamned zerg fest inspiring Necropoli around. I'll wait for next month to worry about gear and shit again. But details-wise, for the Invasion, I would not have:

- Made it so easy to kill the Argent Healers, or I'd have added a few dozen more per city.
- Allowed plagued rats to infect you even if you're at range. Seriously, wtf is with that? I took out 22 zombies AOE kitting in Shatt just now and never got touched. One goddamned rat 60yds away and I'm looking for the second healer? Really?
- Allowed zombies to use the Shatt portals. THAT is dumb in a way I wonder if it was an oversight.

[WindupAtheist]

Zombie plague is supposed to end in a day or two from what I hear, with the Necropolis stuff going on until WOTLK.

[Calantus]

God forbid you don't do the same tedious levelling-cockblock bullshit for a couple of weeks.  I mean, it sure isn't there the other 40+ weeks out of the year.

Right?  Anybody?  Bueller?

Seriously, if you don't like it it's not that hard to circumnavigate.  Kill the zombies, they are quite squishy without any coordination on their part, or go to a lesser populated region.  I mean jesus fucking christ, this is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, and this kind of event is kind of a primary lure towards these types of games.  I seem to remember being excited about invading enemy territories and exploring dangerous regions back when I first heard about these crazy things called MMORPGs.

Or you can continue crying your bitter tears, my daggers are losing a little of their luster and could use some shinin' up.

Until the 3.0 patch I had not done a level grind for a couple months, and when I did it was with the recruit a friend promotion. Before then I hadn't leveled up for many months. If I was constantly grinding characters I wouldn't have any characters left that needed grinding. I specifically am grinding now because it is a unique set of circumstances where the xp has been nerfed and WotLK has not yet hit. So I figured I would level my last few alts from 60 to 70 while my main has nothing better to do and I don't have anything else better to do outside of WoW either. Telling me to skip leveling for a couple weeks when I specifically, and only am interested in leveling during this specific couple weeks is not helpful. And don't say "kill ghouls" when my complaint is "the quest giver is dead and now I have to wait 10 minutes for his ass to respawn". Killing the ghouls aint gonna do shit to bring him back.

Also, you guys are funny. I never would have thought a comment that is essentially "camping an NPC's spawn location waiting for him to repop so I can progress really sucks" would be met with "OMG U LAZY BITCH JUS DEAL WIF IT OR DONT PLAY LOL U NOOB" on this site. How soon we forget lessons from EQ.

[Paelos]

And I never thought people on a site that bitches about how uninspired and repetative MMOGs can be would have a complaint about a random world event. It comes off as OMG BLIZZ YOU'RE FUCKING WITH MY VALUABLE TIME!!1 If there's nothing better to do, and the one option isn't fun to you right now, you just don't play for a bit. I didn't play 3 weeks before the last expansion because it was boring as shit then. We all knew what we were doing was pointless, so most of my guild just logged off. They are doing the same now, since only 3 of them are on a night.

You either join in the fun, or you don't.

BTW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM

[Big Gulp]

Until the 3.0 patch I had not done a level grind for a couple months, and when I did it was with the recruit a friend promotion. Before then I hadn't leveled up for many months. If I was constantly grinding characters I wouldn't have any characters left that needed grinding. I specifically am grinding now because it is a unique set of circumstances where the xp has been nerfed and WotLK has not yet hit. So I figured I would level my last few alts from 60 to 70 while my main has nothing better to do and I don't have anything else better to do outside of WoW either. Telling me to skip leveling for a couple weeks when I specifically, and only am interested in leveling during this specific couple weeks is not helpful. And don't say "kill ghouls" when my complaint is "the quest giver is dead and now I have to wait 10 minutes for his ass to respawn". Killing the ghouls aint gonna do shit to bring him back.

Also, you guys are funny. I never would have thought a comment that is essentially "camping an NPC's spawn location waiting for him to repop so I can progress really sucks" would be met with "OMG U LAZY BITCH JUS DEAL WIF IT OR DONT PLAY LOL U NOOB" on this site. How soon we forget lessons from EQ.

I'd also like to add that I play on a PVP server.  I can handle the paranoia of travelling through contested territory.  What I can't handle, though, as a 2 week old 30ish toon, is getting ass raped by a gang of level 70 zombies when I'm just trying to bank.  It would be different if I could do fuck all as a zombie, but since I'm only level 31 I'll be instantly killed by a guard, costing me money and a corpse run for something that isn't fucking fun and that I never had a chance in to begin with.

I can only imagine how pissed off lowbies on blue servers feel.  They didn't sign up for PVP at all, let alone this nonsense.

[Lightstalker]

Today we've had pretty regular zombie camping of banks and mailboxes in all capitals on my server.  For extra fun, they stand on the backside of the portals from Shatt to Zombify everyone as they teleport from Shattrath to the respective capital city.

One can't bank.
One can't check mail.
One's quest givers are likely to dissappear while you are talking to them and be replaced with a zombie out to get you.

It stops being fun when your play is frustrated by other players without your consent - certainly so when there is nothing the player can do to avoid their temporary zombie fate (camping the player teleport spawn points and mailboxes/Auctioneers where the UI blocks your ability to see the world around you, player zombies who cannot be targeted in sanctuaries but can infect regular players).  I don't really care how fun it could be, I care about how absolutely disruptive to my ability to use my time it is.  I don't pay a subscription fee such that any idiot can jerk me around, I've got standards.  It is the same reason telemarketers calling a cell phone is against the law.

They've provided unopposable consequence free griefing.  There is no upside.  The mechanic is supposed to cause us to hate the undead, but it just incites hate towards the developers who thought this would be a great thing to push out before the weekend.

And a GM told my guild leader to just not play until the event is over if he doesn't like the event.  Since he's playing a paladin and not too happy already, that's a particularly dangerous piece of customer support to provide.

[Righ]

Waa the fuck waa.

It works both ways, so this quote is not out of context.

[apocrypha]

I've actually been logging on more specifically because I wanted to experience this event. My back injury means that playing is something I've been avoiding as much as possible because sitting aggravates it, but this has brought me back to the game and enduring the pain.

If everyone hated this event then there wouldn't be 100's of people playing as zombies. The mass zombie horde (small h) that attacked Stormwind lastnight on my server wouldn't have happened. There are easily as many people enjoying this as not enjoying it, and it's only going on for a short time. Avoiding this is easy as has been already pointed out, and one-time events are, IMO, vital to keep MMO's feeling interesting and making the world feel more alive than the rigid persistence usually permits.

[Fordel]

I had a interesting Zombie fight in Shat tonight. A few Zombies were infecting all those Shattered Sun NPCs training on the terrace of light, and because of the sanctuary rules, we couldn't kill the player Zombies, but we COULD kill the NPC zombies.

It was this endless stream of Zombie Zergs slowly shambling towards us, as we laid down coordinated AE's and CC. (Typhoon  ) This went on for like 20 minutes straight, just mowing down zombies, frantically trying to cleanse the infected and containing the infestation.


Was a welcome change of pace 

[Modern Angel]

I think we should complain how MMOs never have any purely and solely player driven events which change the world. Then when a MMO actually does it on a huge scale we should bitch about how inconvenient it is.

[ahoythematey]

Until the 3.0 patch I had not done a level grind for a couple months, and when I did it was with the recruit a friend promotion. Before then I hadn't leveled up for many months. If I was constantly grinding characters I wouldn't have any characters left that needed grinding. I specifically am grinding now because it is a unique set of circumstances where the xp has been nerfed and WotLK has not yet hit. So I figured I would level my last few alts from 60 to 70 while my main has nothing better to do and I don't have anything else better to do outside of WoW either. Telling me to skip leveling for a couple weeks when I specifically, and only am interested in leveling during this specific couple weeks is not helpful. And don't say "kill ghouls" when my complaint is "the quest giver is dead and now I have to wait 10 minutes for his ass to respawn". Killing the ghouls aint gonna do shit to bring him back.

Also, you guys are funny. I never would have thought a comment that is essentially "camping an NPC's spawn location waiting for him to repop so I can progress really sucks" would be met with "OMG U LAZY BITCH JUS DEAL WIF IT OR DONT PLAY LOL U NOOB" on this site. How soon we forget lessons from EQ.

Well, I could counter that with saying that experience needed to level from 60 to 70 is supposedly being reduced after wrath hits, sort of similar to what happened to 20-60 post-BC, and what you are really doing is making more work for yourself by trying to swim against the tide right now.  It's especially sad when you consider that just three or four level 70s can restore a town to normalcy very quickly if they play smart.  If I run into some group of white-cap-wearing chucklefucks being loud and obnoxious at the store, I don't go all emotional and tell the manager how fucked up it is that he lets them shop here, I just try to avoid them or go take my money elsewhere.

Also, that NPC you are waiting for is only one of many different ways to progress.  Have you maybe thought of actually socializing in this socially-oriented game and gone somewhere else to grind your fucking xp bar?

I don't mean to single out your comment alone, cal, but it smacks of so much that I feel is wrong with MMO's today.  You want it your fucking way, right the fuck now, and if you don't have it exactly as such then your reaction is to complain to GMs, to the devs, on message boards(yes, I am aware of the irony here), or wherever else you can prop your little soapbox and make much ado about nothing.  A lot of the mentality that goes behind the "zombies?  this is really fun!!!!" thought process is the type that seems more open to compromise, and is willing to shrug of some inconvenience in exchange for a more dynamic experience.  At least, that is my hypothesis that so far seems to hold water.

[Calantus]

They put the experience nerf in the 3.0 patch that hit a few days ago. I can't imagine them doing it again when wrath hits.

A store is very different from a service I play a subscription for, and people who happen to be in a shop are different from an event that the game developer specifically put in. But hey, I'll work with it. If the shop owner demanded you pay a subscription to enter the store and then had an "event" where their emplyees would randomly make you wait at the counter for minutes at a time before responding to you I imagine you'd be a little more pissed.

Lastly, let me make it perfectly clear that NPC ghouls killing off NPCs I need is not, in any way, a social event. A level 70 ghoul 1-shotting a lowbie is also not a social event (not that I have ran into it, this being Big Gulp's beef). Assuming I'm a drooling, anti-social retard because I don't like zombies killing off important NPCs in a game is just fucking stupid. I've done the whole ninja-tapping undead at invasion points so the group can buy tabards, running kara for the axe-guitar, and more HH summons than I care to remember (although that's just halloween). I just have a problem with the part of the event that is a pain in the ass and I cannot seemingly opt out of unless I opt out of playing entirely.

[DraconianOne]

Game Experience May Change During Online Play

To be honest, I've got real complaints about this event too. I took my lowbie level 10 priest to back Deathknell the other day. I was infected and decided that the only area where I could actually benefit from this was in the starter area where both NPCs and PCs and those Scarlet Crusade fuckers were going to not beat the unliving shit of a zombiefied me was going to be there. A minute left on the timer and the fucking bastard Argent Dawn Healer by the gates to Death Knell cured me.  

I immediately raise a ticket and complained to a GM because my fun was being cockblocked by an NPC and had to go and get reinfected all over again. I logged in disgust.*

Seriously though - maybe I'm on an underpopulated server or something (although I doubt it) because I'm not having any problems.  I'm an RP-PVP** server (EU-TVC) and levelling my first 60-70 in Zangarmarsh with no trouble, a 50-60 in Tanaris with the only trouble being serially ganked by Ally scum so no change there and a 10-20 in The Barrens with the only trouble being hanging around in the Crossroads while PvP flagged and a bunch of lvl 70 allies sitting around. Him I might not log in again so soon. Then again, he wasn't going to make it to 70 in the next two weeks.  My bank alt is in TB and hasn't had any problems there either - especially as the mailbox, the bank and the AH are all extremely close and there's a couple of AD healers right by them (although haven't logged him in since last night so don't know if they've removed many yet). Not that anyone goes to TB.

I fucking love this event (although I won't be trying any of the necropolis tag-matches anytime soon). I'm hoping they might reintroduce some of the Invasion bossess in some of the lower level dungeons too though like they allegedly did for the Naxx Invasion and not just the Kara boss.


*This paragraph is not actually true.

**I've seen more impromptu RP because of this event over the last few days than I have done in a long time.  It's been very amusing and entertaining even if it's still something I won't actively do.

[K9]

I fucking love this event (although I won't be trying any of the necropolis tag-matches anytime soon). I'm hoping they might reintroduce some of the Invasion bossess in some of the lower level dungeons too though like they allegedly did for the Naxx Invasion and not just the Kara boss.

Balzaphon is back in Strat according to a guildy.

[Merusk]

I fucking love this event (although I won't be trying any of the necropolis tag-matches anytime soon). I'm hoping they might reintroduce some of the Invasion bossess in some of the lower level dungeons too though like they allegedly did for the Naxx Invasion and not just the Kara boss.

Balzaphon is back in Strat according to a guildy.

He is, found him while grinding AD rep yesterday. Scorn is also back in SM graveyard, too.

If you have a pally, you're easily able to solo the Elites that spawn at the invasion points after you break the summoning crystal.  They cost 8 runes to disrupt the riitual from the Scourge Humans, but drop 30 runes each and a chance at one of the purple armor bits.  I got 120 Necrotic runes yesterday during one invasion cycle, and now have ALL the stuff off the AD vendor.  I  my bubble-hearthing pocket pally

[Modern Angel]

Thesis: The main difference between MMOs and smaller scale online games is the persistence of the world at large. This would ideally include "real world" situations where control is not always left to the individual.

Reality: MMOs are almost uniformly static and unchanging. Players may kill a boss mob bad guy but nothing changes. They may open the AQ gates but ultimately it is a company driven event.

I understand why it can be a pain in the ass for some but this is *precisely* the sort of thing people have been saying they want for ten years now. Blizzard didn't even announce what was happening. They put the boxes in Booty Bay and left it solely up to the players. It's a thing of beauty how it's played out and it's two and a half weeks out of your precious Ironforge standing around time or your level my fifth 70 time.

[DraconianOne]

It's not even two and a half weeks - I get the impression as WUA said that the zombie thing isn't going to be around much longer and that the Kara boss isn't going to be around for more than a week. The "invasion" is progressing at such a rate that I believe they've introduced more quests that lead to a "cure" and new NPCs being added in Shattrath (Grand Apocethary Putress?), missives to take to the faction leaders and other such stuff.  It is very much like events are happening in almost real time in the game that are progressing a new story along and I even now feel like I'm missing something because I happen to be at work.

[Numtini]

The event has been fun, but I'm starting to see what can only be described as grief behavior--camping bank and mailboxes and that kind of thing. If it stops in the next day or so, it will have been a good event. If it stays running until Halloween or WOTLK it will be an enormous irritant.

[Mrbloodworth]

I think we should complain how MMOs never have any purely and solely player driven events which change the world. Then when a MMO actually does it on a huge scale we should bitch about how inconvenient it is.

LOL.

The event has been fun, but I'm starting to see what can only be described as grief behavior--camping bank and mailboxes and that kind of thing.

Zombies always go where there is a high concentration of brains and live bodies.

[Modern Angel]

The event has been fun, but I'm starting to see what can only be described as grief behavior--camping bank and mailboxes and that kind of thing. If it stops in the next day or so, it will have been a good event. If it stays running until Halloween or WOTLK it will be an enormous irritant.

Given that the new quest involves mention of a "cure" I figure that completing it may vaccinate your character from the plague or something.

[DraconianOne]

What if I don't want to be cured?  I've had the plague once and became Forsaken. Well, I'll tell you something - that bitch queen Sylvanas Windwhiner is not as hot as she thinks she is and quite frankly, working for old Arthur the poor little Lich boy seems to be quite an appealing prospect.  Anyway, the living are so boring.

Third faction? Bring it on! How do I sign up permanently for the Scourge?

[AcidCat]

You've had 4 fucking years to play the game. Take a month off you spoiled child.

Seriously, the amount of crying about this in unreal. "But it's messing with my goals!" "But, but, the newbies are suffering!"

There were several people in my guild complaining about this kind of crap Saturday night. I ruffled some feathers, insinuating that they were whiny bitches that have gotten so wrapped up in their individual agendas that they have forgotten they were playing an MMO.

[Merusk]

You've had 4 fucking years to play the game. Take a month off you spoiled child.

Seriously, the amount of crying about this in unreal. "But it's messing with my goals!" "But, but, the newbies are suffering!"

There were several people in my guild complaining about this kind of crap Saturday night. I ruffled some feathers, insinuating that they were whiny bitches that have gotten so wrapped up in their individual agendas that they have forgotten they were playing an MMO.

Not to mention that if you don't want to partake there are plenty of places and ways to hide while still advancing whatever your agenda is. 

[Modern Angel]

What if I don't want to be cured?  I've had the plague once and became Forsaken. Well, I'll tell you something - that bitch queen Sylvanas Windwhiner is not as hot as she thinks she is and quite frankly, working for old Arthur the poor little Lich boy seems to be quite an appealing prospect.  Anyway, the living are so boring.

Third faction? Bring it on! How do I sign up permanently for the Scourge?

I'm going to refrain from spoiling things for you...

[RUiN 427]

the zombie infection ends tomorrow for all you whiney no fun loving old people... hope you had fun not enjoying a one time only world event complaining about checking mail and the ah.

[Ingmar]

Cal does have a point.  Right now, I'm sure there are many people coming back to gear up for the expansion.  It's silly to turn off those that are trying to take a second (or third or fourth) look at the game.

Who needs to gear up for a WoW expansion? They deliberately underpower the entry zones and give you greens that replace your blues right off the bat - and anyone who is in gear higher than blues really shouldn't be having any problems with this kind of event.

[Ingmar]

I fucking love this event (although I won't be trying any of the necropolis tag-matches anytime soon). I'm hoping they might reintroduce some of the Invasion bossess in some of the lower level dungeons too though like they allegedly did for the Naxx Invasion and not just the Kara boss.

Balzaphon is back in Strat according to a guildy.

Lord Blackwood or whatever is in Scholo, too. (BTW, apparently trash mobs in there give AD rep even at revered now - that is probably an old change, but I didn't know about it.)

[Lightstalker]

Not to mention that if you don't want to partake there are plenty of places and ways to hide while still advancing whatever your agenda is. 

You mean offline, don't you? 

I watched a fire-brigade of players pass an infection across a zone to wipe out a flying access only area.  Great, unexpectedly cool player behavior.  Horrible that players cannot heal or cleanse the NPCs they need to interact with, and therefore cannot participate except as a zombie (or a victim).  Non-zombies are hard coded losers, grats for jumping to the 'winning' faction zombie lovers  

There is nothing player driven or world changing in this event.  The design is one sided and closed.  The infection will magically appear, spread, and abate regardless of player action.  All we have left in our hands is the magnitude of player on player annoyance.  As such, this event was poorly implemented.  Players should be growing upset about the scourge/Lich King/whatever in game, instead many are upset at the man behind the curtain.  Not everyone knows the event is temporary, or ending on Tuesday.  Why would someone keep playing when at any time their play experience can be interrupted, progress halted, and character destroyed willy nilly; and could continue to be so for the forseeable future?  One can't even find the appropriate NPCs to get the background story if one wanted to, as those NPCs are always the first ones dead.  If you play a melee, or don't have a cleanse, you are just meat.  Even if you do, you'd better not show up on the ground in a well known location with several seconds of standing around before you regain control of your character. 

PvP isn't fun when the result is decided before your opponent gets to react to a threat.  This is griefing, by design.

[Modern Angel]

What are you talking about? This is completely player driven. There was no announcement preceding it. Just boxes in Booty Bay. What the players did with it was up to them.

Whatever, it's over. Go do dailies.

[Nebu]

Who needs to gear up for a WoW expansion? They deliberately underpower the entry zones and give you greens that replace your blues right off the bat - and anyone who is in gear higher than blues really shouldn't be having any problems with this kind of event.

What I meant by "gear up" was that people were coming back to level to 70 so that they could enjoy the expansion content.  

Some people like the event, some don't.  Why is this such a big deal?  I was merely pointing out that Cal made a solid point.  If you look at the event through the eyes of someone that wants to play the game in a manner which they paid to play it, that the event can be a bit distracting.  I personally like events like this.  Some don't.  Oh well.