- Sunday, 8 November 2009
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WoW virus eradicated
WORLD OF WARCRAFT players have been struggling with a bit more than a credit crisis since last week– they’ve had to cope with a zombie epidemic.
The online game which now has over 11 million players has been infected with a plague which was brought to an end today after a torrent of abuse from players who said that it was spoiling their gaming experience.
This 'undead plague' which was deliberately introduced by game creators Blizzard last week and was highly contagious and, left without treatment, would turn the infected into flesh-eating zombies.
Bizarrely, this epidemic was designed to provide information on how people would cope with an outbreak of a virus in the real world – although we don’t think flesh-eating zombieitis is something we need to research that much.
However, as the disease quickly spread through the game's lands of Azeroth, the torrent of abuse began, as players complained it was not only ruining their experience, it would also deter beginners as they wouldn't be able to find a cure.
Players did have the option of killing off and reviving their characters, but they would most likely be re-infected pretty soon after.
Not everyone was unhappy with the gameplay twist, however, as some have complete faith in Blizzard, saying that it only added to the realism of the game – yet the online forums were still flooded with unhappy zombies.
One fan of the plague, named Darkelement said, "I've never had so much fun as when I kill players who turn into zombies. They get so angry with me, but there's not a thing they can do about it."
Yet a more disgruntled opinion such as that held by player, Nadleeh is that, "I sure do love not being able to quest due to the flightmasters constantly being dead or because I got puked on and have to stop what I'm doing to go and get cleansed."
Blizzard replied to fans, stating that, "While we recognise that the event could prove to be disruptive at times, we hope you made the most out of it while it lasted. Part of playing in a ‘living and breathing world’ means that things are going to change from time to time. We meant no harm but only wanted to create a lasting impression on players."
The scientists who were supposedly tracking the reactions to the plague said that it was interesting to see that players did indeed react in a similar way to a real life crisis – some rushed to the centre of the problem to help the infected, while others were in it only to save themselves.
So, whatever your opinion of this disease, as of today it is gone – if only real life diseases were as easy to dispel. µ
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of the 11 million+ players a small (though very vocal) minority has complained about this event most have embraced it and much fun was had the event was intended to last only a week or so thats all theres more to come.
... and I really don't enjoy PVP, but I had a blast with the zombies. If it makes a return next year with the Hallow's End events, I won't complain. I think Blizzard could appease a lot of the people who disliked it however by making the "disease buff" a right-clickable dismiss. That is to say, this year if you right clicked on the spell icon, you couldn't get rid of it. If they made it so that you could "opt out" of the epidemic, I think that might appeal to more people. 

Still, I had a blast. It's an interesting time walking through capital cities with Zombies zerging the guards and fellow players who were really into it. 

Learn to live a little folks. ;) 

(Played EQ for 5 years, played WoW since about 3 months after it was released back yonder)
BRAAAAAAAAAAAINS

Translation:

I enjoyed it, the game is in a hiatus anyway, as none of the high-end raids are fun, challenging or useful right now, so a lot of people are levelling secondary professions, grinding for silly things like minipets or different mounts etc. A good ol' fashioned zombie invasion was fun. My bro' and I had huge fun farming zombies in a shop basement until we had a big enough crowd to loose on an unsuspecting Ironforge. 

Made a change, innit?
How disappointing...I knew it wouldn't be long before the cry babies ruined our fun. Nothing was better than being a zombie. It made WoW fun again. I would purposefully infect myself and thanks to a glitch as a paladin, I would bubble myself and instantly turn into a zombie and run a muck where ever I was. Me and a few friends utterly destroyed the low level areas of Westfall and Darkshire. Of course people complained because its a little hard to kill a level 70 zombie when you're a low level but comeon, it's no different then when the horde come and raid the low level areas you wait till some level 70's come to your defense....well ok, it is different because it was constantly happening but COMEON! Blizzard finally made something fun about the game and the babies have to cry and moan and get it removed :*(

seriously though...nothing was better than running into darkshire and every single NPC was a zombie...absolutely priceless
Actually, I thought the zombie feature was too gimped to be fully effective! Because as an infected zombie your HP would steadily drop, so that every time I was infected and began to try to spread the disease, I'd only be alive (or, rather, undead) 2-3 minutes. By that time my health would be so low from degeneration and combat that I was easily off-able by any mid to high level player.

I actually thought the zombies needed a buff! As it was, there was no risk of the infection becoming uncontrollable...And I would have liked to have seen a "28 days later"/"I am legend" type scene unfold.

Besides, they had Argent Dawn disinfection camps in ever major city - It wasn't a real issue to get healed if you wanted too.

It was an interesting concept and I applaud Blizzard for creating the event. Of course I'm of the mind that the world is too static in the first place. Many of the PvE players just want to be left well enough alone to do their quests, and thats understandable.
If you enjoyed the WOW plague, then Zombie Strippers is the movie for you. Look, I'll be honest, it's not great (I watched it with the wife and she laughed once or twice, mainly about the boob jobs) but it is streets ahead of Death Race.
Heck, I still can't get the last patch to successfully install. Tried reinstalling 6 times and am over it.

Why make it so hard to play their game?