"History of WoW: Plague of Zombies": description, characters, passage

The game WoW remains the most popular role-playing MMORPG in the world for many years, which confirms the Guinness Book of Records. For more than ten years she has been keeping and not letting her fans go. During this time, developers have released many add-ons, but none of them can compete with the most unpredictable and interesting event in the history of "WoW" - "Plague of Zombies". This addition will be discussed later.

Prehistory

It all started on October 22, 2008. Agents of the Order of the Silver Dawn arrived in the glorious cities of Ogrimmar and Stormwind with a terrible news: The Lich King Ner'zhul wants to demonstrate to his enemies that he has returned, and this must not be allowed. This Boss, who lives in the citadel of the Ice Crown, can telepathically control his army of walking dead, sweeping away everything in its path. The prisoner in his icy throne Ner'zhul created a virus of a strange plague, after infection of which people turn into submissive zombies. Together with Dalaran, recruited by the human sorcerer, he creates the Scourge - the most powerful faction of the undead - and with his help he dreams to destroy the world of people.

At first, none of the players paid much attention to this threat, because the Lich King had previously attempted to conquer the world, but she was defeated. And no one imagined what this new invasion of the Scourge would be like in the world of WoW. The plague has not started yet, but the players have frozen in anticipation of new adventures.

The beginning of the apocalypse

It all started quite innocuous. Players began to find strange boxes in the Pirate Bay, and everyone who ventured to open them was infected with a strange infection. A debuff appeared, and the timer counted down 10 minutes. If during this time the player did not use a special spell or took an antidote, then death awaited him. And of course, a strange life after death in the guise of a zombie. On the second day of infection strange boxes began to appear in other large cities of the WoW universe. The plague was gaining momentum - now the danger was borne by plague cockroaches, from which it was also easy to get infected. The epidemic grew stronger and took a large scale. Now, in order to be cured, you had half the time, and the disease itself was difficult to medicate. But it became much more interesting to play.

The World Pandemic

It was the third day of infection - the epidemic was progressing. In areas of low-level locations, NPC zombies began to appear, attacking all those who were seen. When injured by such an opponent, the player also contracted the disease, but now he had only two minutes to recover. The whole day passed in battle with these mobs, which were gaining more and more strength and became smarter and more agile. In the evening, the Scourge turned to full power, and many players realized that coping with the infection would not be so easy.

Tears, pain and complete delight

To understand what was happening at that moment, you can, if you read the comments of some users. "My friend and I just managed to finish our business in Outland, when something incredible began to happen. I and my friend have already reached the 70th level and decided to go to Stormwind. And then everything was like in a movie. The chat was bursting with messages like: "What's going on, damn it?", "What's this for a plague of zombies?", "SOS, need help to protect the bridge, a wave of zombies on the way."

After buying a few things, my friend and I jerked to the rescue. Oh, it was a fierce battle. We were expected as Marines in the film "Stranger". Everything looked exactly as it should be in the best films about the zombie apocalypse. The line of defenders gradually receded, many were infected. First we managed to hold back the enemy near the gate, then we retreated to the bridge, into the tunnel, and eventually everyone got infected. Having merged into the crowd of the dead, we entered Stormwind. Everyone seemed to be mad, and I had not seen so many tears before. I would gladly take part in such a venture once again. "

What did the plague bring?

Many moments of the patch 1.11 were transferred to a new Scourge intrusion into the cities of WoW: items, quests, bonus bosses, dungeons, rewards. For example, you could meet Prince Tenris Mutnevy Blood. You could find him in Karzan. With this boss fell a rare loot: the cub's cub (rare pet) and Arkonite reaper - one of the best, according to users, not the legendary weapons in WoW. These things can only be purchased now from players at a black auction.

Culmination of the epidemic

As in the past invasion, flying ziggurats contributed to the spread of the epidemic on the continent. There were also new characters WoW, due to which the disease spread. Plague rats were able to infect city guards who reached the 70th level, and it was not easy to kill them. Veders, able to help cure the plague, became less and less, which made it much more difficult to find antidotes. The third day can be called a turning point, because up to this point everyone thought that the epidemic is just a funny situation. Some players sided with the Scourge and started happily infecting other users, because it was insanely fun. Others, on the contrary, in every possible way prevented the spread of infection for the same reason. But by the evening of the third day, the epidemic has placed absolutely all the key locations of the WoW world on its knees. The quests are postponed until better times, all the forces go only to fight the disease.

Zombies are power

Of course, the epidemic has given many new tools for fun. Players who help spread the infection, organized special raids, bringing even more chaos to the world. In the role of zombies, users got new opportunities, and it became much more difficult to overcome them. Unique abilities:

• Mangle. This ability reduced the enemy's armor, and the debuff was summed up. Also, the target infection timer for each use along with the passive "Take" decreased by 15 seconds. A single target had no chance against large groups of zombies, so in a few moments the undead army was replenished.
• Buuee. Excellent skill, helping to slow the target, heals all friendly zombies around, which is very useful, because the plague takes away small portions of HP every second.
• Attracting a howl - spell, helping to assemble into groups of all turned into zombies NPC. Very useful skill, after all converts long stood on one place.
• Nyam is a PvP-trinket-based ability, and also increases the speed of movement by 100%. This skill did not introduce an imbalance, because the usual speed of a zombie reaches 50%.
• The explosion of zombies. When using this skill, the corpse exploded, but infected everyone in the affected area.

Such skills have made the walking undeath a mighty force, thanks to which the plague spread more and more. Zombies began to pose a real threat to any user. It was impossible to hide from them. Even a small group that constantly debuffed, slowed down the enemy and cured herself, was a danger from which it was difficult to escape.

Playing for the dead man was incredibly fun, and the variety and abilities of skills contributed to the collective contamination of tactical depth. A well-chosen and coordinated group of zombies could quickly and easily cut out any metropolitan city. Another advantage was the opportunity to use any portal, even if the city belonged to the faction of the enemy. Many players experienced a great delight from this: "I and two of my friends have organized whole massacres in Ogri. One of us broke into any crowded place, whether it was a bank or an auction, and exploded himself, infecting everyone around. Further the others rushed in and bitten a non-stop of all, to whom they could reach. And under the influence of the debuff, infection came after one bite. What happened next, and so it is understandable. It is a pity that everything ended so quickly. "

Fight against the crowds of the dead was no less fun, the main thing - pick up a strong weapon. WoW gave users a unique opportunity to feel like a fighter against the world evil. Despite the fact that a close-knit defense team could resist the waves of zombies for a long time, the forces were still unequal.

Truthfulness of the situation

People began to take positions. Important Venders died one after another, and the cities were emptied. Few survivors of this meat grinder saw before them only abandoned deserted streets and mountains of corpses, both recumbent and walking. The whole economy of the world was completely paralyzed, because all auctions became places of mass graves. Anyone who has remained alive and not infected has strayed into numerous groups. While holding weapons at the ready, the players tried to survive far away from the densely populated areas.

The atmosphere of this event makes a huge impression, so it was authentic. Universal hell was felt exactly as it was with a real zombie apocalypse. Large and small incidents led to total chaos. Left4Dead seemed like a child's play. The fourth day brought even more destruction to the world of WoW. The levels of zombies increased, they received amplification, and it became even harder to kill them. The disease could be cured only within a minute after infection. The plague grubs did not stop attacking the city guard. The world swiftly rolled into the heat.

Perturbation of users

But many players did not find this event so amusing. The main reason for the violent outrage of admirers was that the user strongly depended on the game world and the NPC, which were not as strong as it turned out. For example, the player has run out of reagents necessary for the operation of the portal, and the seller of these same reagents is dead, so you can not teleport in any way. If you want to go to BG, then you need to speak with the master of the arena. But if he's dead, then there's no one to talk to. Acuity added that the NPC could get sick with the plague, while the player was in the arena. You contemplate the boot screen and at the same time get your dose of infection. And all because teleport back to the place where they were called to the arena, that is, directly to the hungry zombie.

Perturbations would be less if the plague did not come to the cities simultaneously with the event in honor of Halloween. Their joint output has brought even more disappointment for WoW fans. Quests can not go through the crowds of dead, and accordingly, you can not get all the rewards and achievements of this event.

End of the epidemic

If this apocalypse happens in the present time, it would not have produced such a grandiose effect. Over the last update, players have gained much more independence than it was in those days in the WoW universe. Chet, who protects from the attacks of the dead, did not help, and there was no possibility to fly at that time. So there was no way to take and escape from the epidemic. Now you can sit on the mount and fly away from the land, swarming with hordes of zombies. At that time, there was no such opportunity. So, some missions were not feasible, which caused a protest from the majority of users. But this is probably what the developers expected, never before had the players had such a furious desire to betray the painful death of the Lich King. We can say that the mission of the event is accomplished with interest.

The fifth day of infection brought new quests, the horde began to make attempts to create a vaccine against the plague, and the Alliance began to develop new weapons that can shoot down flying ziggurats. The sixth day brought victory over the infection. Adepts of the Silver Dawn found a cure and stopped the apocalypse in the world of "WoW." The plague was defeated, but the memory of it will forever remain in the hearts of the fans.

Unprecedented success

The epidemic of plague attracted a lot of attention to the studio Blizzard from the press, including not having any relation to the gaming industry. All this information noise helped to significantly raise the WoW rating and collect the maximum number of subscribers at the time of WotLK. It is because of unpredictability and originality of the idea of plague that the majority of players express discontent with the pre-patch event "Invasion of the Iron Horde". After all, the zombie apocalypse has set a high enough bar with which it will be difficult to compete with any new update.

For a few days the game turned into a completely new WoW. The versions put forward on the user forums gave even greater acuity to the sensations. So, according to one of them, the developers themselves can not cope with the plague epidemic due to miscalculations and programming errors. And how long this will continue, no one knows. The event was remembered for not being similar to any of the earlier versions. Players liked this uncertainty, because nobody knew what would happen next.

Another plus of the epidemic was the opportunity to choose the side in the conflict. The player had to decide whether he would seek funds from infection or take the side of walking dead. Users could gather in raids and reconquer cities from the undead or, conversely, devastate everything in their path. Whatever side the player took, he still received invaluable experience and a huge portion of fun, if he wanted to participate in this event. The company Blizzard can at any time repeat something similar, but the question arises: will it be possible to create something that will surpass the zombie apocalypse that entered the annals of the history of WoW?