All Outta Bubblegum

So, who doesn’t love zombies?

Something in me gets the feeling that after this week, it might be more people than it otherwise would be. Welcome to the Invasion.

I love it; I loved catching the Plague for the first time and wandering around the SSO area with my tiny army (incidentally, you can complete quest objectives while zombified, but it’s sporadic in a way that suggests it’s a bug). I love the fact that as a zombie — so long as you keep attacking — you’re practically unkillable. I love the fact that zombification breaks the formerley impenetrable faction barrier. I love the sense of creeping doom as the infection spread, getting gradually worse and worse. And I love the fact that the whole thing progresses until the Plague Is All; forget your quests, forget your dailies, forget your levelling. The Lich King is here and you will pay attention to him, whether you like it or not.

Because that’s the thing. I was out trying to do my SSO dailies last night and, damn, the whole island was overrun with pockets of zombies. The Greengill Coast (my favourite early-Invasion place to spawn a large army) was unrecognisable, the Argent Dawn was nowhere to be found, the boats in the harbour were overrun and I lost about 7 gold on repairs from all the times I got zombified and subsequently died. And yeah, I got frustrated. I was ganking mobs with a viciousness I normally wouldn’t even consider thanks to the shortage of anything living, and I wasn’t the only one.

“Fucking zombies!” I thought. “I’m just trying to do my fucking quests! Why the hell would Blizzard make such a pain in the ass world event?”

And then I thought, shit. That’s the whole fucking point.

The Lich King does not give a shit about your dailies. He does not care that you’re only level 10. Your repair bill brings nary a tear to his eye, and don’t even try and talk about your raid. The only thing, in fact, that the Lich King cares about is killing you and everyone like you. And yeah, that sucks. It’s going to get in your way. It’s going to stop you doing what you’d normally be doing.

So why don’t you do something about it?

Stop bitching and start killing. Group up and practice your kiting. A lot of zombies in an area? Then take those bastards down; the fate of the world depends on it. What’s your pathetic 10 gold in comparison to that?

And that’s why I love the Invasion; because it works on a meta level, too. Players are getting angry and frustrated that there’s something in the world they can’t directly control. And it’s amazing how complacent we all are, really. How set in our routines and our rituals, and the second they get disrupted we all go whinging to mommy.

Or a GM.

I was talking to another player today who wondered whether GMs would start to descend magically from the sky to cure everyone of zombification, a la the Corrupted Blood incident. In some ways it’s a cogent parallel to draw because Blizz has obviously used that as a model for the spread of the Plague. CB taught Blizzard that it could be done, but that was an accident and this isn’t; it’s engineered to decimate cities and disrupt gameplay. It’s designed to make you work together, either to stop the Plague… or to spread it. There will be no GMs descending from the sky tonight, boys and girls; this time, you’re on your own (well, on your own with the help of the plot).

So the next time you see someone complaining they’ve been zombified? Tell them to relax and enjoy the show. You can grind SSO every day, but the Invasion?

That’s once in a lifetime, baby.

(Though, I do rather wish Blizz had gotten rid of durability damage for zombie death… but I guess you can’t have everything.)