Plague
On the 'normal' gaming front: we hit level 40 over the weekend, mostly by whacking wolves and owlkins in the Hinterlands, and we also closed out some quests in Stranglethorn Vale. With level 40 we've been able to switch some of our armour to Plate, which of course has been a great help.
Also, since I've been neglecting my fishing skill so that it was abysmally low on skill points, I took a break from questing to go fishing. In just a couple of hours I visited Crystal Lake and Stone Cairn Lake in Elwynn Forest, moved to Lake Everstill in the Redridge Mountains, spent a little while in the Forlorn Cavern in Ironforge, then flew up to Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills and by the time I'd finished there I'd pushed my skill level up from 5 to around 140. I'd also managed to catch around seventeen Oily Blackmouths and a handful of Firefin Snappers - Kate needs these for her Alchemy.
However it's not been at all easy. Things have been made very difficult by the Zombie Plague.
It started around Friday night; we first saw it in Mudsprocket, where some of the NPCs were infected. Suspicious looking crates, giving off iridescent green fumes, appeared in Ironforge and there were also roaches - again, giving off green fumes - here and there around the city. Anyone opening one of the crates or killing a roach contracted the infection.
Once infected you have a few minutes at most to find a cure; the cities have Argent Healers around and all you have to do is stand in their light, and also as a Paladin I'm able to cure the infection, but it doesn't always work - sometimes I have to try five or six times and even then it isn't guaranteed.
If you don't get the cure in time, you die and then come back as a zombie. In this state you're immediately marked as a hostile so any NPCs nearby, such as Ironforge Guards, will attack you - and when they do, they get infected too. Since the guards and many of the other NPCs are usually pretty high level, when they turn they're damned hard to kill and they attack anything around them, spreading the infection.
Luckily the zombies have a limited lifespan, if you can call it that - maybe five minutes, then they die properly.
Very soon the infection spread to the other cities and many of the towns. Stormwind became a no-go area, and Goldshire - being on the major road route out of Stormwind - was bad too. Southshore, for some reason, was badly hit. Other towns in more remote areas aren't so bad - Gadgetzan didn't appear to have been hit too badly, for example, and neither was Aerie Peak when we were there.
There are also... things... floating above the capital cities. Huge pyramids of dark stone or metal, dripping green infection from skull mouths on their sides. The first one we saw was above the Gates of Ironforge, then one showed up over Stormwind, and then there was another one over the Exodar. There's probably one over Darnassus by now and I suspect the Horde capitals have their own. Nobody seems to know what they are or where they came from, although it's certain they have something to do with the plague.
By yesterday evening Stormwind appeared to have hit critical mass - the NPCs going zombie, infecting the other NPCs and so on, dying and respawning to get infected again in an endless self-sustaining spiral. I don't know how long it'll be before Ironforge goes the same way - it may already have happened.
It's part of the game's storyline and a lead-in to the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion that's coming out in a couple of weeks. As such I can live with it, and I could probably get used to it until it ends - presumably the infected crates will be cleared away and things will return to somewhat normal.
What I won't put up with, though, is the infantile, schoolyard bully behaviour of some of the players. Using the argument that "it's part of the game", these inconsiderate pricks are going into populated areas and deliberately getting themselves infected, then deliberately avoiding getting cured - to the point of getting abusive with other players who try to cure them. When they turn zombie they infect as many NPCs and other players as they can manage, specifically targeting the auction houses, the banks and the inns.
I've heard that some of these juvenile bastards are carrying the infection into the starting zones, picking on low level characters who aren't able to defend themselves and who in many cases are new players. If the forums are anything to go by, players who've just paid money to sign up are coming into the game for the very first time, only to be killed and turned zombie within minutes, and they have no idea what's going on or that this is not normal for the game. That's a great first impression.
It's basically because of these stupid, childish, destructive assholes - the kind of dumbfucks that get into the whole game atmosphere by picking character names like "Wazzuuup" or "HordeKilla", and whose idea of fun is to wreck things with no thought for other people, that it's virtually impossible to actually accept the plague as part of the game and play as if it were a crisis for players to deal with together - which might actually be fun.
Instead, it's the ultimate Player-vs-Player setup, with the players that want to actually play the game in a struggle against the halfwits that play just to spoil things for everyone else and call it 'fun'. Stormwind is basically cratered; it's not safe to hit the auction house or the bank, or get essential class or profession training, or simply go to a vendor to clear junk out of your pack. Half the time you have to think twice before even going into an inn to get out of the game while getting the rest bonus.
I'm reading in the forums about people setting up vigilante-style groups to go into the cities and cure anyone they see infected, and kill every zombie they can find. If I was high-enough level I'd be tempted to join them, but at the end of the day it shouldn't be necessary just because of a minority (I hope) of destructive kiddies.
In fact I'd wholeheartedly support Blizzard setting up a new class of game realm just for that style of gameplay; in addition to Normal/PvE, PvP and RolePlaying realms they could have Asshole realms where people can and should pick the most stupid names they can think of and where everything in the game world can be destroyed by the players, right down to reducing the cities to rubble. Maybe then these dopey cunts would be happy.
It's a game. It's supposed to be fun, but right now it isn't as much fun as it was and should be. That's sad, and I hope it isn't going on much longer.
Update: CURED
I just read a headline saying that the plague should have been cured, just within the last couple of hours. Apparently there will be some remnants of this episode, including the Necropoli - which I'm guessing are those dark pyramids floating above the major cities.
I'll be glad to see the back of this but when all's said and done it's a bit of a shame, really; it was a chance for the players to show a little communal effort in helping each other. Instead it became a showcase of how a minority of immature assholes who probably destroyed their toys when they were little kids can, given a little freedom, ruin something that should have been fun for everyone. Shame on you, you little snotnoses. People like you don't deserve fun; you don't know the meaning of the word.
Also, since I've been neglecting my fishing skill so that it was abysmally low on skill points, I took a break from questing to go fishing. In just a couple of hours I visited Crystal Lake and Stone Cairn Lake in Elwynn Forest, moved to Lake Everstill in the Redridge Mountains, spent a little while in the Forlorn Cavern in Ironforge, then flew up to Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills and by the time I'd finished there I'd pushed my skill level up from 5 to around 140. I'd also managed to catch around seventeen Oily Blackmouths and a handful of Firefin Snappers - Kate needs these for her Alchemy.
However it's not been at all easy. Things have been made very difficult by the Zombie Plague.
It started around Friday night; we first saw it in Mudsprocket, where some of the NPCs were infected. Suspicious looking crates, giving off iridescent green fumes, appeared in Ironforge and there were also roaches - again, giving off green fumes - here and there around the city. Anyone opening one of the crates or killing a roach contracted the infection.
Once infected you have a few minutes at most to find a cure; the cities have Argent Healers around and all you have to do is stand in their light, and also as a Paladin I'm able to cure the infection, but it doesn't always work - sometimes I have to try five or six times and even then it isn't guaranteed.
If you don't get the cure in time, you die and then come back as a zombie. In this state you're immediately marked as a hostile so any NPCs nearby, such as Ironforge Guards, will attack you - and when they do, they get infected too. Since the guards and many of the other NPCs are usually pretty high level, when they turn they're damned hard to kill and they attack anything around them, spreading the infection.
Luckily the zombies have a limited lifespan, if you can call it that - maybe five minutes, then they die properly.
Very soon the infection spread to the other cities and many of the towns. Stormwind became a no-go area, and Goldshire - being on the major road route out of Stormwind - was bad too. Southshore, for some reason, was badly hit. Other towns in more remote areas aren't so bad - Gadgetzan didn't appear to have been hit too badly, for example, and neither was Aerie Peak when we were there.
There are also... things... floating above the capital cities. Huge pyramids of dark stone or metal, dripping green infection from skull mouths on their sides. The first one we saw was above the Gates of Ironforge, then one showed up over Stormwind, and then there was another one over the Exodar. There's probably one over Darnassus by now and I suspect the Horde capitals have their own. Nobody seems to know what they are or where they came from, although it's certain they have something to do with the plague.
By yesterday evening Stormwind appeared to have hit critical mass - the NPCs going zombie, infecting the other NPCs and so on, dying and respawning to get infected again in an endless self-sustaining spiral. I don't know how long it'll be before Ironforge goes the same way - it may already have happened.
It's part of the game's storyline and a lead-in to the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion that's coming out in a couple of weeks. As such I can live with it, and I could probably get used to it until it ends - presumably the infected crates will be cleared away and things will return to somewhat normal.
What I won't put up with, though, is the infantile, schoolyard bully behaviour of some of the players. Using the argument that "it's part of the game", these inconsiderate pricks are going into populated areas and deliberately getting themselves infected, then deliberately avoiding getting cured - to the point of getting abusive with other players who try to cure them. When they turn zombie they infect as many NPCs and other players as they can manage, specifically targeting the auction houses, the banks and the inns.
I've heard that some of these juvenile bastards are carrying the infection into the starting zones, picking on low level characters who aren't able to defend themselves and who in many cases are new players. If the forums are anything to go by, players who've just paid money to sign up are coming into the game for the very first time, only to be killed and turned zombie within minutes, and they have no idea what's going on or that this is not normal for the game. That's a great first impression.
It's basically because of these stupid, childish, destructive assholes - the kind of dumbfucks that get into the whole game atmosphere by picking character names like "Wazzuuup" or "HordeKilla", and whose idea of fun is to wreck things with no thought for other people, that it's virtually impossible to actually accept the plague as part of the game and play as if it were a crisis for players to deal with together - which might actually be fun.
Instead, it's the ultimate Player-vs-Player setup, with the players that want to actually play the game in a struggle against the halfwits that play just to spoil things for everyone else and call it 'fun'. Stormwind is basically cratered; it's not safe to hit the auction house or the bank, or get essential class or profession training, or simply go to a vendor to clear junk out of your pack. Half the time you have to think twice before even going into an inn to get out of the game while getting the rest bonus.
I'm reading in the forums about people setting up vigilante-style groups to go into the cities and cure anyone they see infected, and kill every zombie they can find. If I was high-enough level I'd be tempted to join them, but at the end of the day it shouldn't be necessary just because of a minority (I hope) of destructive kiddies.
In fact I'd wholeheartedly support Blizzard setting up a new class of game realm just for that style of gameplay; in addition to Normal/PvE, PvP and RolePlaying realms they could have Asshole realms where people can and should pick the most stupid names they can think of and where everything in the game world can be destroyed by the players, right down to reducing the cities to rubble. Maybe then these dopey cunts would be happy.
It's a game. It's supposed to be fun, but right now it isn't as much fun as it was and should be. That's sad, and I hope it isn't going on much longer.
Update: CURED
I just read a headline saying that the plague should have been cured, just within the last couple of hours. Apparently there will be some remnants of this episode, including the Necropoli - which I'm guessing are those dark pyramids floating above the major cities.
I'll be glad to see the back of this but when all's said and done it's a bit of a shame, really; it was a chance for the players to show a little communal effort in helping each other. Instead it became a showcase of how a minority of immature assholes who probably destroyed their toys when they were little kids can, given a little freedom, ruin something that should have been fun for everyone. Shame on you, you little snotnoses. People like you don't deserve fun; you don't know the meaning of the word.
Labels: Games, Human Paladin, WoW
posted by Pete Ford at
10:15 AM
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