Scourge Invasion II has begun

[Merusk]

Yeah if I were going for the armor, grouped would be the way to go.  Since I just wanted the fun vendor stuff soloing the elites worked well.  It also helped that I did it Sunday, when everyone was busy standing in the cities bitching about the zombies so I was able to dominate 2 whole invasion points on my own.

[rattran]

I did the same, got to solo 4 of the Shadows, 3 dropped Plate chests.

The first was a pain to solo, then someone asked what my pet talents were.
"Umm, what?"
Then a short explanation, and it became MUCH easier. After being gone for ages, I are a Huntard apparently. 

[Ingmar]

Apparently a bunch of posters in this thread would be nothing but zombie food in the end 


Only one person has really been all QQ Zombies in our guild, but he is also the dude who can't figure out Bread+Meat+Bread = Sandwich half the time... Literally, at one point his complaint was "I can't even remove the stupid debuff!".

He's a shaman. 

Ahem, Priest. And my complaint was the zombie camping of flight points and the disease being 60% resist to dispel. One of the two is fine, both at once? Bullshit design. At the very least put the freaking healers somewhere useful. As is, a number of people were being infected and turned while spamming dispels on themselves, because well, 60% chance to resist dispel really wasn't needed on the ability at all.

Ha ha ha ha, not you.

[kildorn]

then 2 people, I was all QQ zombies for about 10 minutes when I couldn't get to the raid on time due to JESUS CHRIST STOP CAMPING THE FLIGHT POINT zombies

[Fordel]

then 2 people, I was all QQ zombies for about 10 minutes when I couldn't get to the raid on time due to JESUS CHRIST STOP CAMPING THE FLIGHT POINT zombies

You're special in your own way, but you have to log in more then once a month to count 

[SurfD]

Ahem, Priest. And my complaint was the zombie camping of flight points and the disease being 60% resist to dispel. One of the two is fine, both at once? Bullshit design. At the very least put the freaking healers somewhere useful. As is, a number of people were being infected and turned while spamming dispels on themselves, because well, 60% chance to resist dispel really wasn't needed on the ability at all.

Eh, that didnt really do much  good against a bunch of coordinated zombies.  I actually watched a group of zombies gather out of LOS of one of the priests, pop lurch, and run in and zombify the Argent healer.  Most Awesome thing ever.

[Azazel]

I could understand people being upset if this was a 2 week long event, but it was what, 3 days?  The first two were a little  inconvenient, only the third impossible to conduct business and only in SW and IF, for me at any rate.

Newbies can avoid capital cities.  Non-newbies can go to the non-affected cities to get their business done.

How ironic for people to complain about an event that has occurred... never... and won't again.  One time thing! 

You mean the event that arrived unannounced and could have gone for any length of time, since it was unannounced and only seemed to be intensifying? Seriously, fuck off with your revisionist hindsight bullshit. There was no way to know it'd stop after three days. If I had known I would have been far less bothered, but all signs pointed to it going on indefinately until WOTLK releases.

It started as "hey, kinda cool" and just became fuck-off annoying, especially as PLAYER CHARACTER ZOMBIES COULD NOT BE ATTACKED (first)IN SHATTRATH BUT COULD ATTACK AND INFECT YOU. That one aspect, if changed would have made the event a little more fun and I would have likely been more into it. Yeah, after being ganked I'd stay up in the rafters and pyroblast those fuckers down. But hey, they decided not to allow that level of immersion into their world event. Sorry, can only be a half-assed zombie hunter. Can't go for the ones doing the infecting. Fun.

I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but when I'm not having fun playing, I log out and find something else to do.

Yes, "World event griefing disrupting your play sessions and pissing you off? Just log off and don't play for an indeterminate length of time." Great advice. 

[Fordel]

There was no way to know it'd stop after three days. If I had known I would have been far less bothered, but all signs pointed to it going on indefinately until WOTLK releases.

Yea, if only they had put in a large gathering of important NPC's from both the Horde and Alliance in a central hub of player activity, actively working towards a cure, with quests all around the world informing players of those NPC's!

 

[Azazel]

Didn't see it. Didn't notice it.

In my playtime I was busy avoiding cities, trying to do the Hallows End quests and staying off the ground when in Shatt and getting the fuck out of any and all cities as quickly as possible. You know, much like you people keep suggesting we should do if we're not into zombie-grief.

The only new NPCs I noticed were the argent healers.

Sorry I wasn't looking for new quests while trying to avoid getting ganked in wherever-the-fuck these important NPCs were. And as it seems the plague ended arbitrarily on blizzard's command across all servers, it appears that these quests and such meant fuckall anyway. Lasti time I was online before it ended suddenly it'd just taken an extra spike with plague rats pouring out of the stockades, etc.

[ahoythematey]

 

[Kitsune]

The zombie event really demonstrated that a lot of WoW players are far too tightly wound, and it's a shame that people are going so far overboard on a video game.  Sure, when wading through the seething field of bodies in Stormwind, I did utter the phrase, 'God dammit, some ass ate the bankers.'  But this was not a day-ruining catastrophe for me; I simply huddled in a corner for about thirty seconds and *poof* back came the bankers.  Problem solved.  Then I got infected, turned into a zombie, and kamikazed myself against a bunch of zombie-killing players.  It was fun, I did some unique quests, had a good time on both sides of the zombie fence.

When the olympics were out and there were rewards for going out on battlegrounds, people complained at all of the carebears infesting the PvP, or complained about having to PvP for prizes.  I went and played a bunch of PvP, had a really good time with it, died some, killed some, got a sweet pet, walked away happy.

Now that the scourge are invading, people complained at other people having the temerity to also want to kill the same undead things and competing for the same limited resource.  I grabbed random guildies and set out over two nights to put a sizable dent in the scourge population, did more unique quests, got a bunch of fun and useful loot, walked away happy, having gotten complete armor sets for three guildies and two armor sets for my hybrid ass.

In every case, some adaptation and receptiveness to trying new things carried me through the dark times with nary a scratch.

[Koyasha]

Also, shadows auto-aggro on the person who summoned them.  Short of using semi-exploits and having really good timing, you can't ninja the shadows.  A lot of people don't know that you have to talk to the NPC and hand him 8 runes to make a shadow appear, and are all pissed when 'their' shadow runs off to fight someone else.  Well, that someone else is the person who paid to summon it.  Don't waste time trying to be the first person to hit the shadow, instead work on being the first person to talk to the NPC.  It is possible for some classes to use a bug to ninja the shadows if they're a douche, so don't be lax about hitting it after it spawns to be sure you've claimed it, but you don't have to be super-paranoid about it, either.

While shadows auto-agro, it's hitting them that claims them, and anyone can steal them even if they're hitting you, if you haven't hit them back.  Since hitting them back requires you to be spamming right-click or an instant-cast on them, you basically have the same chance as everyone else to tag them, basically.  Some servers seem a lot worse about the shadows than others - I just got on my Blood Knight and did some in Eastern Plaguelands, and I got like 10 shadows with my little group of two others I picked up while there.  We had one shard all to ourselves the entire time, with nothing more than the occasional lone person wandering by and picking up a couple mobs (unfortunately including one rare, which I bet dropped my plate legs!).  But on my alliance server, except for the first couple hours of the first day the invasion was active, I haven't seen a single time when there's less than a swarm of people trying to grab shadows.

[Kitsune]

While shadows auto-agro, it's hitting them that claims them, and anyone can steal them even if they're hitting you, if you haven't hit them back.  Since hitting them back requires you to be spamming right-click or an instant-cast on them, you basically have the same chance as everyone else to tag them, basically.  Some servers seem a lot worse about the shadows than others - I just got on my Blood Knight and did some in Eastern Plaguelands, and I got like 10 shadows with my little group of two others I picked up while there.  We had one shard all to ourselves the entire time, with nothing more than the occasional lone person wandering by and picking up a couple mobs (unfortunately including one rare, which I bet dropped my plate legs!).  But on my alliance server, except for the first couple hours of the first day the invasion was active, I haven't seen a single time when there's less than a swarm of people trying to grab shadows.

That didn't mesh with my experience thus far in which shadows would come for me, right through other peoples' AoE attacks, and still count as my party's kill.  Admittedly, I wasn't letting the shadow just sit around for ten seconds, I'd smack it once it spawned to be on the safe side, but in the twenty-ish shadows I wound up fighting, not one was stolen from me, despite several occasions of heavy AoE fire blanketing the summoning circle.

For people who care, here are the cloth and leather sets.

Cloth:



Leather:



The art department was clearly not overworked, kinda blatantly using identical textures for the legs and chest, but I like the look of the sets.  Note the lack of Volkswagen buses on the shoulders, a rather sizable improvement over most of the absurd shoulderpads out there.

[Koyasha]

Set textures/models don't match properly, especially the shoulders and gloves, and particularly for non-plate.  As you may or may not have recognized, that's the Judgement texture, but the gloves are wrong on all sets, and the shoulders are only matching on the plate.

I find your experience curious - several times me and friends have had a shadow stolen, to the point where we pretty much gave up on using our own runes to summon them and just started grabbing them when other people spawned them (which has worked with about a 35% success rate).

[Sjofn]

Set textures/models don't match properly, especially the shoulders and gloves, and particularly for non-plate.  As you may or may not have recognized, that's the Judgement texture, but the gloves are wrong on all sets, and the shoulders are only matching on the plate.

I find your experience curious - several times me and friends have had a shadow stolen, to the point where we pretty much gave up on using our own runes to summon them and just started grabbing them when other people spawned them (which has worked with about a 35% success rate).

The ninja method I've seen most frequently is hunters putting down traps where the shadows spawn. Once they become hittable, trap goes off, they're tagged.

[Phred]

Yes, "World event griefing disrupting your play sessions and pissing you off? Just log off and don't play for an indeterminate length of time." Great advice. 

Ya. I went off and played my paladin in Nagrand which I'd been putting off for months getting to 70. With the temporary overpowered ret tree he was able to breeze through the last half of the 60's way quicker and less boringly than the first half that saw him abandoned for months at 66.

With today's hotfix nerf it turns out the timing couldn't have been better.

[Calantus]

The zombie event really demonstrated that a lot of WoW players are far too tightly wound, and it's a shame that people are going so far overboard on a video game.  Sure, when wading through the seething field of bodies in Stormwind, I did utter the phrase, 'God dammit, some ass ate the bankers.'  But this was not a day-ruining catastrophe for me; I simply huddled in a corner for about thirty seconds and *poof* back came the bankers.  Problem solved.  Then I got infected, turned into a zombie, and kamikazed myself against a bunch of zombie-killing players.  It was fun, I did some unique quests, had a good time on both sides of the zombie fence.

When the olympics were out and there were rewards for going out on battlegrounds, people complained at all of the carebears infesting the PvP, or complained about having to PvP for prizes.  I went and played a bunch of PvP, had a really good time with it, died some, killed some, got a sweet pet, walked away happy.

Now that the scourge are invading, people complained at other people having the temerity to also want to kill the same undead things and competing for the same limited resource.  I grabbed random guildies and set out over two nights to put a sizable dent in the scourge population, did more unique quests, got a bunch of fun and useful loot, walked away happy, having gotten complete armor sets for three guildies and two armor sets for my hybrid ass.

In every case, some adaptation and receptiveness to trying new things carried me through the dark times with nary a scratch.

My server has a 500 person queue. Do TRY to imagine what kind of havok that many people could cause during that event. You got infected once? You only had to wait for NPCs once? Yeah, you have no fucking idea. I had to wait for the battlemasters to respawn 4 times. IN DARNASSUS. That was after I gave up on the Shattrath and IF battlemasters. Every time I went to HH I had to wait for NPCs to respawn. Every. Single. Time. 2 of my 3 leveling alts and my warlock were infected about a dozen times each, the third survived that fate by being a shaman but still got turned twice and my main about 4 times (priest). I had to wait for bankers, flight paths, quest NPCs, BG NPCs, and vendors constantly. All told I would have spent 2-3 hours semi-AFK waiting for things to respawn (but not completely AFK because I had to dodge zombies). It was a massive pain in the ass.

The ninja'fest at the crystals was also pretty stupid but it didn't anger me because hey, I chose to be there. Nobody said "Hey Calantus, would you mind getting fucked by ghouls whenever you enter a town? Alright, lets do it!" before making me choose between 'participating' or not playing at all.

Also, I was less angry before this thread. Some of the replies here are just ridiculous. I just came in here to rant for 2 sentences to get it off my chest until the stupidity just rolled forth in reply.

[Modern Angel]

I think you should be mad. The internet, both here and in WoW, is SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS

[WindupAtheist]

Then quit, you fucking pussy. Oh wait, you won't. Addict. Now shut the fuck up.

[Drubear]

Agree with C. on experiences. Ended up deciding to stay off my alts (who I was trying to get gold to from dailies on my main) because doing something simple like "getting gold from mailbox, buying new slots at the bank, getting extra bags from guild bank and installing to new bankslots " was literally taking an hour. And look! I even got to pay for death repairs! Fun!! (Clue: make zombie deaths pvp-like with no repair cost.)

Don't bother looking for the AD Healers - they're dead first! (Clue: they're far enough away to make getting to them a challenge - just make them unkillable.)

Don't worry that lvl 30's don't have a chance against a lvl 70 zombies so are basically just fodder (Clue: make all zombies one or 2 shottable lvl 5's to give more players some chance against them - my desire to not play fodder at 30 trumps your God Mode "needs" at 70.)

And the invasion? Ya, be sure to drop armor type specific gear (thank all that's holy they clued in to >>not<< doing class spec drops) rarely so soloists who can ninja will farm them over and over until they get "their" gear. (Clue: drop tokens instead and have them drop every time for everyone in the group to help push people (a) to group and (b) thru the content and moving on.) With the solo ninjas and raid groups monopolizing the spawns (not to mention the zig bugging out on our server last weekend) I just gave up attempting it. Maybe I'll try later when all the DIKU mouthbreathers have become bored >>and<< geared all their alts >>and<< got tired of running around ninja-griefing. One can hope.

And why make this a one time thing? Nothing is going to change in the world, you might as well make this an annual event for all those who're coming later and won't get to see it?

[Calantus]

I think you should be mad. The internet, both here and in WoW, is SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS

I'm angry because it's not serious business. When it comes to serious business you just have to deal with it because it's... serious business. This ghoul business isn't half as frustrating as some shit work has put me through but hey, it's my job. Sometimes you just have to deal with shit if you want to get paid. I have a much lower boiling point in gaming because I shouldn't have to deal with shit on my rec time, and I rant much easier because don't have to be professional or serious or avoid looking like a dick/crazy person. If I was red-faced-in-real-life angry I'd be too angry to go post about it on the internet.

[kildorn]

Set textures/models don't match properly, especially the shoulders and gloves, and particularly for non-plate.  As you may or may not have recognized, that's the Judgement texture, but the gloves are wrong on all sets, and the shoulders are only matching on the plate.

I find your experience curious - several times me and friends have had a shadow stolen, to the point where we pretty much gave up on using our own runes to summon them and just started grabbing them when other people spawned them (which has worked with about a 35% success rate).

The ninja method I've seen most frequently is hunters putting down traps where the shadows spawn. Once they become hittable, trap goes off, they're tagged.

When they spawn they're targetable but not attackable.

What I did for mine was stand there after summoning and SPAM SW:Death until it went off. Then McMac's pet tried to tank it.

I may have had decent luck due to healing other people taking their shadows, so maybe they were being nice about not jacking mine <3

[fatboy]

Geez....you guys bitch and bitch and bitch some more.   I can't believe I actually agree with WUA in his short but sweet last post.

Yeah....this was a major PITA.  Major.  But it was a FUCKING INVASION last I checked.  What did you expect?  A couple of level 5 zombies that y'all could 1 shot and flex?

I had the same pains as you.  My bank alt was dead before Org even rendered on login.  What did I do?  Spend an hour like the one person noted trying to get from the mailbox to the bank with about 400 (mostly level 70) zombies in the way?  

No.  Time to think outside the box.

For mailbox and bank access....fly to Gadgetzan or Ratchet where there is no zombies.  For the AH, fly your bitch ass to Silvermoon or Exodar....not nearly the zombie population there.

When something doesn't work, try something different.  Work it out.  But make sure you login to f13 and bitch about it.    

[Triforcer]

I had the same pains as you.  My bank alt was dead before Org even rendered on login.  What did I do?  Spend an hour like the one person noted trying to get from the mailbox to the bank with about 400 (mostly level 70) zombies in the way?  

No.  Time to think outside the box.

For mailbox and bank access....fly to Gadgetzan or Ratchet where there is no zombies.  For the AH, fly your bitch ass to Silvermoon or Exodar....not nearly the zombie population there.

This.  I'm always amazed that everyone here believes in evolution, when (judging by the inability to do the above that some here have exhibited) it would be so very very unkind to them.  I saw posts exactly like we are seeing here 9 years ago, that began with "I tried to get through x-roads and I was ganked.  Then I tried to get through x-roads SIXTEEN MORE TIMES IN A ROW AND WAS GANKED EACH TIME."

....sigh. 

[WindupAtheist]

"HEY THIS DOOR IS LOCKED SO I BEAT MY HEAD AGAINST IT FOR 3 HOURS AND NOW MY HEAD HURTS!"

"Why didn't you go in through the window?"

"...FUCK YOU!"

[Polysorbate80]

For once being on a low-pop server worked in my favor. Solo'd three entire necropolis crystal thingies, two right next to Gadgetzan and another spitting distance from the chapel in East Plaguelands.  12 shadows, 5 rare spawns.  3 plate legs, no goddamn chests :P

Didn't even bother to loot half of the mobs on the last go-round, and I still have a few hundred runes after buying all the vendor shit.  Probably throw them away on those overpriced potions.

[Nonentity]

I got the tabard on my warrior, which is all I really wanted, to get one step closer to the sweet tabard of the achiever.

Since that tabard is so awesome, I have to decide whether I want to spend my UDE points on the trinket that turns you into an ogre, or go for a few of the tabards to make that achievement easier.

DECISIONS.

[Xanthippe]

My server has a 500 person queue. Do TRY to imagine what kind of havok that many people could cause during that event. You got infected once? You only had to wait for NPCs once? Yeah, you have no fucking idea. I had to wait for the battlemasters to respawn 4 times. IN DARNASSUS. That was after I gave up on the Shattrath and IF battlemasters. Every time I went to HH I had to wait for NPCs to respawn. Every. Single. Time. 2 of my 3 leveling alts and my warlock were infected about a dozen times each, the third survived that fate by being a shaman but still got turned twice and my main about 4 times (priest). I had to wait for bankers, flight paths, quest NPCs, BG NPCs, and vendors constantly. All told I would have spent 2-3 hours semi-AFK waiting for things to respawn (but not completely AFK because I had to dodge zombies). It was a massive pain in the ass.

The ninja'fest at the crystals was also pretty stupid but it didn't anger me because hey, I chose to be there. Nobody said "Hey Calantus, would you mind getting fucked by ghouls whenever you enter a town? Alright, lets do it!" before making me choose between 'participating' or not playing at all.

Also, I was less angry before this thread. Some of the replies here are just ridiculous. I just came in here to rant for 2 sentences to get it off my chest until the stupidity just rolled forth in reply.

Why didn't you try Exodar?  It's always the least populated capital on my server.

500 person queue for your server?  I'd transfer if I were you.

I just don't understand the moaning and complaining, even after you explained it.  You could have turned off your previously planned agenda, and played with being a zombie.  You could have been a zombie killer.  But don't you think that it's just a little ... rigid? perhaps, to insist upon things being the same during a world event?

[Kitsune]

My server has a 500 person queue. Do TRY to imagine what kind of havok that many people could cause during that event. You got infected once? You only had to wait for NPCs once? Yeah, you have no fucking idea.

Stormrage is very much a high-traffic server, being one of the original launch servers.  I got infected dozens of times and had to wait for NPC respawns on several occasions, the example I mentioned was simply that: an example of one zombie encounter of many.  And yet, my day was not ruined.  It was not ruined because I'd gone through and found out the locations of all of the healers, and so would simply haul ass over to the closest one as soon as I was infected.  Even in the final stages of the event, there were still a couple of healers per city in the high-traffic areas, so being infected only wound up turning me into a zombie perhaps one time of ten.

[AcidCat]

I don't get why anyone would be trying to do normal stuff during the Zombie invasion. Being a Zombie and causing trouble was a lot of fun while it lasted. What kind of person can't set aside their routine for a couple days to run around as a crazy Zombie? I just don't get some people.

[Modern Angel]

I don't get why anyone would be trying to do normal stuff during the Zombie invasion. Being a Zombie and causing trouble was a lot of fun while it lasted. What kind of person can't set aside their routine for a couple days to run around as a crazy Zombie? I just don't get some people.

Because I hate grinding in MMOs. I bitch about lame, cookie cutter design all the time. WAIT, WHY ARE YOU BREAKING MY ROUTINE FOR THREE DAYS!?!? FUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK NERDRAGE!

[Dren]

I was fine with the event even though I didn't really participate much.  I did play the anti-zombie guy on my Paladin for a bit, but got bored and moved on after about 15 minutes.

The invasion slowed me down on most everything I did.  I just did other stuff.  Overall my feeling is that it was a great idea just not done in the best way.  I couldn't help but be amazed at the dynamic this created though.

I have to admit that I certainly got pulled into the immersion of it when there were piles of bones everywhere, very few players or NPCs to be seen, and me looking around every corner trying to find the zombie mob and avoid it.  The atmosphere in towns now that it is gone can be felt quite well now.  It now feels like there is *something* missing.

My experience wasn't the same as most here it seems though.  My high population server had an invasion going on in most every town at all times to one degree or another.  Yes, Exodar was mostly empty, but there would still be a zombie here and there.

No, we didn't have healers because our "zombies" were smart enough to make that their first target on an all out attack.  I'm amazed to hear people could actually get healed by them.  Ours were always gone.

I expected the event to not last long just due to the amount of NPC killing that was going on.  People predicted weeks while I figured days, so I looked at it differently than most.  It would have been nice to at least have some idea on how long it would be just to keep the noise down.  Yeah yeah that's immersion breaking and all...

It was fine.  I'd like to see them investigate doing something similar on a long term basis, but just figure out how to make it a bit more voluntary (at least on Normal servers.)  Make important NPCs "cured".  Allow people to choose whether they are "cured" or not.  NPC zombies can only be as high of lvl as the zone they are in at the time, etc.

In fact, I was thinking they would go that route once the "cure" was found.  Still have the plague and zombies around, but have more tools to work with to fight them.  Oh well.

[Phred]

No, we didn't have healers because our "zombies" were smart enough to make that their first target on an all out attack.  I'm amazed to hear people could actually get healed by them.  Ours were always gone.

Ours too. Plus the bands of zombies waiting in port in areas like the Stormwind mage tower to convert people before they even loaded the city was kind of lame.

I expected the event to not last long just due to the amount of NPC killing that was going on.  People predicted weeks while I figured days, so I looked at it differently than most.  It would have been nice to at least have some idea on how long it would be just to keep the noise down.  Yeah yeah that's immersion breaking and all...

I think the "planned" length of 3 days is a bit of revisionism as I notice the server motd still says the zombie invasion is going on.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Well the necropoli count as the invasion too. It's kind of funny when you compare the two events, one a very static typical mmo encounter that the only complaint is camping spawns where the other was an event that actually made you sweat as you looked around corners for a safe place to bank.  Side to side they don't even compare as for as immersion is concerned.

Also I admit I ported to org and camped the portal entry for a good hour and killed a couple dozen players but none actually sent me an angry tell (this was on the last day of zombie madness) so I don't feel like 'too' much of a douche.

[WindupAtheist]

There's a purple skull icon over Eastern Plaguelands. Whenever I go there I see lots of people coming and going and turning shit in and getting tabards, then I go out into the zone and ride all over hell and I don't see jack shit.