Late last week Blizzard spiced up the World of Warcraft just ahead of its Wrath of the Lich King expansion launch, to better prepare players for the coming scourge incursion: a zombie plague. The plague may be blighting the experience for some players in a way Blizzard might not be hoping for, however.
Players can become infected with this new ailment either through random encounters or contact with a zombified player. Fortunately, special healers are on hand to help cure players of the disease. The disease itself does grant players with some exclusive zombie abilities like infecting other characters (even NPCs) and they can attack players of any faction, so we can imagine the intention is all in good fun... assuming your idea of fun includes killing and infecting other players as a zombie, or getting killed in turn. Players killed as a zombie are restored to their "normal" status when they return to the game.
Unfortunately, some players feel the fun has overstayed its welcome. If they're not the ones being killed thanks to the zombie madness, then it's the NPCs for once. As a result, players in need of NPC services are out of luck. The zombification has become more than a little inconvenient for these players, whether they are grinding or questing.
Blizzard itself is at least listening to the complaints, and have publicly responded in their message boards. A moderator's addressing of player issues may be cold comfort, however:
As I have stated, if this was planned to last any longer than it is, we would have been a great deal more leery of the wide-reaching effects of the plague. This has been anticipated; I respect the concept that some people dislike it and we'll certainly take that into account, but this was an event meant to impact players in all walks of life and routines. I am in no way stating it was perfect, and should we do something like this again the feedback both for and against will be taken into account when changes are made, particularly pertaining to lower level players. This event absolutely was meant to shake up the status quo of the average WoW day, and in that it's been successful.It will still continue as planned, but for those of you less than fond of the plague, you don't have much longer to wait.
While some WoW players are always going to take their grinding more seriously than others, it doesn't help that some zombified players online feel they have an official excuse to grief others now, even on non-PvP servers. Then again, 'tis the season for zombies. Even Call of Duty 4 and Grand Theft Auto IV are getting zombie mods of their own!
