Posted by iTZKooPA on Friday, October 24th, 2008 - 37 Comments
Tags: blizzard poster, cdc, corrupted blood 2.0, corrutped blood, diseases, lich king, lich king world event, plague, world event
Remember that small issue Blizzard had with Zul’Gurub a few years ago? You know the one I am talking about. It revolved around one of Hakkar The Soulflayer’s abillities, Corrupted Blood. The ability was harmless to most high level players, causing a direct hit of 875-1125 shadow damage plus 200 damage a second after that. It wasn’t until someone managed to hearth to a major city with the debuff that the problems started. To lower level players and players not paying attention, the DOT could easily kill them, while spreading further.
Many servers were absolutely destroyed by the bug, with Blizzard running around to try and repair the damage. After the mess was finally cleaned up, the academics that focus on video games and/or contagious diseases became interested in the topic. Numerous academic outlets, including the Center for Disease Control (CDC), requested the data with hopes of using it as a model for real world research. A devastating bug in a video game may turn out to be good after all.
I am shocked and dismayed that so few people have put that little issue together with the current World Event going on in World of Warcraft. To me the events occurring now are clearly designed based on the accidental Corrupted Blood plague. For those of you who may not have noticed, various places in Azeroth have been delivered a package by someone, Booty Bay is considered to be the first. The packages began arriving hours after the Argent Dawn setup posts in all the major cities, warning all the citizens that the Lich King was coming. Oh, and said packages corrupt those around them with You’re Infected!
There are slight differences between the Corrupted Blood issue and the Lich King World Event though. Those differences are easily attributed to that fact that the designers did this event on purpose. The You’re Infected! debuff does no damage, it will simply turn you into an undead zombie should the timer run out. Getting hit by the zombie ability Mangle, will reduce your timer by a full minute, so mind those who hunger for brains. As of press time, most of the continent of Kalimdor on my server has been whipped clean of NPCs, cities and mobs.
I believe that Blizzard Poster Kisirani’s statements lead credibility to my thoughts. When a poster said that the plague was to easy to avoid – Argent Healers, Priests, Paladins and Shamans can dispell it – Kisirani quipped “It certainly does seem containable, doesn’t it? :)” Seems like a dead reference to how “easy” it should have been to contain Corrupted Blood. On the flip side, the crates have been appearing in more locations, as well as an introduction infected critters, such as roaches. Making it easier for the zombies to lay waste to Azeroth.
So what are you guys doing? Plundering your homelands while having fun conversing with the opposing faction through zombie chat or are you defending your castle? Perhaps you are trying to find out exactly who is behind this mess? Or are you still stuck on farming those Hallow’s End items?
Related Posts: Zombiefication Of The Azerothian Nation, Scourge Invasion As A Testing Ground, Braaiiins!!!, Episode 8.1: Blood Furnace, Blood Furnace Weekly Wrap Up,
By Itokii on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
So far i’ve been running around on my 70 Rogue hunting Zombies down.. Some people don’t like that
I plan to keep on killing and eating brains to see where this event goes.
I tried being a zombie once and it was fun, Swarmed Elwynn forest and I started to plague off in Eversong Woods.. That was awesome
By Harper on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I’ve really just been cursing the fact that leveling is difficult when all of the quest givers are dead.
By Naasuk(Andrew) on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Pease note: Every enemy scourge member becomes neutral while you’re a zombie.
By Barugaara on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Didn’t I just post a comment on “Braaaains” saying the same thing?
By Dodosu on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Well actually if u have an ally get a friend get curse froM SW and fly to westfall and make duel with him (ice block if mage) and kill all, they become zombie too! It is reallllyyyy FUN! I jsut prefer u one thing, dont try Duskwood. lvl 65 Guards Pop up :S And as a zombie u only have zombie abilities so impossibl to get 5 lvl 65’s in a time but easy to get 4-3 because all hits heal u
By Chacka on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I’m helping out zombie raid in Org to try infect Thrall, turns out boss mobs are immune to it (Vol’Jin is able to get it tho)
By unneth on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
just logged on today and discovered that the timer has dropped to 5 minutes
By jhez on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
on windrunner we’ve all been killing every NPC we see
it’s been fun so far!
By N00|3 on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
well… me and 4 of my guild m8s just started killing stuff on Eversong for fun and soon we had army of 200 zombies
it was rly rly rly funny tought soon we got ganked by T6 ppl… But it sill was rly fun 
By Furbalto on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I was goin to horseman on my holy priest, a bunch of my guildies were there, but they didnt know i had the debuff. So halfway through our first fight i turned into a zombie, used corpse explosion, and turned em all into zombies. really funny downing horseman as a zombie.
By Togarox on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Ahh the good old days. I love the black plague days from ZA.
From what my lore tells me however, this event isn’t based or designed off of the ZA plague, it’s based off of the same plague that hit Lordaeron, of which arthas had to fight. From what Blizzard is trying to tell us is that Arthas aka the Lich King is recreating the past.
By Alayea on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I was playing WoW before the Zul’Gurub patch was released. Unfortunately, I was a much more casual player back then, so I missed out on the bug.
By Angelicslayer23 on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 1:14 am
I had a blast infecting Stormwind’s auction house NPC’s. The last thing anyone expects when they have their noses in the AH window is to be attacked by a zombie that was once a former AH person it was great. In meantime it is fun to converse with ally while on my hordie toon in shat attacking the peacekeepers. For once I have seen both ally and horde agree on something both factions like to do and I find it neat to team up with other allies and wreaking havoc in Shat and all the other places. The best part about being a zombie is not only the universal zombie language but trading with oposing factions for pets that another faction does not have is great. I will not be surprised if I see someone advertising as a zombie that they are selling the pets to mograte from one side to another
By Eric on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Corrupted Blood was sooooooooo much worse. You were litterarely walking on a carpet of corpses.
By Onaga on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I’m doing quests at ‘Light hope’s Chapel’ There are new quests. There is also one to complete in Karazhan!!!!
By Jordan on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
New stuff owns. Going around the world killing things, getting AD rep and a chance of EPICS. My server (Bronze Dragonflight EU) Got Rid Of the invasions in about two hours so it was fun competing for the elites.
By Heavus-Rexxar on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I think the timer differs depending on source: 2 min for roach, 10 min for xombie. Not sure though.
By Laucian on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
This Zombie event is a huge pain for anyone who isn’t yet 70. It takes HOURS to complete a quest because you have to dodge the bored lvl 70’s going around killing their own factions players and npc’s. Not to mention the other faction out hunting for the fun of it. I know I play on a pvp server, but it is rediculous when your own faction is boning you over.
By Cypher671 on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 12:18 am
I think it gets pretty annoying but I do look forward to the zombie raids. I want to raid SW and take out everyone in there with an army. They should have one day where everyone in the main cities gets infected and turns into zombies. Then we can wreak havoc and spread bloody chaos across the land of Azeroth. muhuhahaha.
By Tyrae on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I don’t like this zombie event, at all. I’m trying to level some alt characters (in their lower 20’s and 30’s) and it gets rather repetative.
Take quest(s)
Do quest(s)
Go back to questgiver/questhub
See it has been killed
Be killed by a ?? zombie in 2-3 hits
Be a zombie
Kill myself (with the explosion thingie)
Suffer durability damage (not like I can do anything at those levels)
Repair
Cycle starts again. Blizzard could’ve taken low levels into consideration a bit more, imo.
By grillbar on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 11:41 am
im a pala so i am one of the people who can removed the new debuff but i allway remember to ask people if they want it removed but all in all i dont really like the infect thing since all of the if bg npc where dead so was the ah and some other vital npc like daily quest givers in schatt.
the only thing that was fun what i did once we where 5x 25 raids groups who stood in shatt and got infected then when we turned to zombie we used the horde portal to ogrimar and killed everything in sight hilarius
By Nightvamp on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I’ve been getting pissed off witht he zombies i understand its fun for some ppl but lvling you just cant do it cos ppl like to hit the lower towns.
I spoke to a GM about this and the developers planed it this way you could say (cos of his job) when it will end but he did say IT WILL GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER…..
Bring on WOTLK and more quests and lvling more raids i can’t wait
By Toranus on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
As of yesterday on my server (Doomhammer) the entire Greengill Coast on Isle of Quel’Danas was zombied. Also Shatrath is completely overrun.
I love this event, cause you really get a sense that its becoming overwhelming and that we will all soon be infected and zombied.
By typhoonandrew on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
As my lowbie toon could not level, I just logged into my pally and killed and cured everyone I could find. It might be discouraged by the players who wish to zombie zerg, but my involvement makes it a challenge rather than an easy zerg.
By Phetamine on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
This event is quite irritating. Pretty much on Frostmourne you have a whole lot of idiots constantly going into the AH and making it totally unusable.. and on purpose as well..
I havnt been able to use it all day and they just keep affecting the main NPCs
Good on blizzard for trying but just another epic fail
By Drem on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I had fun today. Rezzed about 50 times, lost my precious 5g on equipment repairs. My infection to zombie timer was 30 seconds. As for hunters having an advantage — I fired on a plague roach at max range (I’m lvl 37) and became infected.
I pay a subscription fee to play a game not spend 90% of my time in wisp form because zombies have overrun all the safe zones.
Yeah, I’m lovin’ the Zombie Plague thing — boo Blizzard!
By Luminaa on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
This event is great =D lvling isnt too hard… a lil bit annoying when the NPC is dead i find its mainly the Cities getting the most badly hit.. so quest hubs going largely unhit XD
first day on my server it was already kicking about most of the major cities i think it took 2 hours for like 20 zombies to make it to iron forge and now its really quick to get infected…
now its Kind of ‘28 days later’ ish running away from a swarm of angry Zombie /lurching around the streets of SW…
im currently standing on so man corpses i cant see the floor outside the AH…
also i dunno if you get zombied quicker if you get re-infected… i been stood curing and healing myself then like 3rd infection and i’m zombied…
definately a fun and exciting build up… but agree that Low levels are pretty much screwed >_>
By Mark DeMan on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Success Rates for Paladin Cleansing is not 100%. I had to cleanse (Purify) 3 or 4 times on myself to get rid of it, and afterwards I found i could not always cure higher level infected people, I am lvl 49.
It is annoying but strangely compelling and I did notice the relation to the ZG blood corruption.
This could be a goverment experiment request to assess the effects of a virulent strain on a populous. THEY are watching you. ;P
By Deathadder on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I love this thing. However, I’m getting sick of my entire server bitching about it in trade chat. I got into a huge argument with an officer of my guild about it. I dont see the big issue. Mostly its the big cities getting hit, and the only time the lowbies get hit is when they wander around Org.. (which is their fault anyways, they should be out levelling) For 70’s to bitch, its kinda pointless. theres plenty of things for them to do. And seriously…. Just relax and have fun
By Darkxjimmy on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I was pissed at first because the zombies can lock the pvp gear hut and you can’t open it unless your a zombie…sad…
By Tomeliot on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I find this event to be a P.I.T.A. there have been several times when I went to go train my inscription up and they were all dead, or went to go get the PvP daily and everyone was dead so I couldn’t even enter a BG.
Now as a Pally I try to cure pretty much anyone I see with it on, but my cures are not effective and they seem to be getting less and less effective as this thing goes on. I couldn’t even get it off myself once and got zombified. I just hope this “event” doesn’t last for the whole time until the Expansion comes out… thats TOO long!
By Allenok on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Im fairly indifferent about it. Ya, Ive been turned once or twice, but its not big deal. Im not lvling an alt right now, cuz I could see how that could be frusterating. But Ive been able to go to do HH with my toons and stay clear of all the mayhem on my flyer in Shatt. I just wish people would stop bitching about it in trade. Its a world event, people, have some fun. It will be over in a few weeks.
By Enteri on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Honestly I thought it was kind of funny at first. However it is becoming an annoyance. I have trouble getting into BG’s because the battlemasters are all dead. Sometimes I log on, see there is nothing to do and log off. I should be seeing the overall picture and how this will all make sense in the long run, but all I can think is that I can’t get myself that 25000 axe for my op ret paladin because the zombies have ganked the bg masters.
By tulula on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 11:04 am
It is going to be very interesting to see where this goes cause the plauge is down to less than a minute for infection. It does suck though cause like everyone else i have ran around as a zombie, but like alot of people now I just want it over with but it will probally stay untill LK
By David on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am
it was fun at first… now its annoying.
By Haileigh on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
this gets annoying when the auctioneers get killed during a transaction. grr!
watch blizzard put a stop to it…. ONLY if you get wrath of lich king. would be awesome marketing!
By lishuss on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
i had to listen to half the server of The Scryers piss and moan about the event. whining that they were going to quit WoW and all that jazz.
but, personally, i loved it. sure it sucked trying to buy stuff int he AH only to have the auctioneer turn into a zombie and start swiping at you was kinda annoying but the whole ordeal helped me finish the southshore daily that was going on.
Horde wasnt dropping stink bombs so we got a little group together, got us all infected, and raided Tarren Mills. sure enough, after about half an hour, they were piling in to Southshore.
win/win