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Hints of another world event soon
This morning Nethaera, a community manager with Blizzard, posted the following on the general forums: "Perhaps something will be occurring before [the release of Wrath]. I guess it's something we'll have to wait and see."This comes in a response to a question asking if there will be a couple more surprises before Wrath of the Lich King. Of course Neth is being her usual vague self here, not really committing to anything one way or another. But the comment does raise an eyebrow, and the fact that she even decided to respond to the question without a definitive "no" is good enough to speculate that there might be another world event headed our way.
Zombies are bad for the economy
It's a good thing the zombies are going away now, isn't it? For the past few days, I noticed -- or rather my money-making wife noticed -- that the undead throng was badly tanking Azerothian commerce. The reason is that a lot of players' bankers and Auction House entrepreneurs are low-level alts that succumbed easily to the plague and random zombie attacks. When a Level 65 city guard turned into a zombie, it would naturally aggro the low-level bank mules and auction house regulars, killing them instantly. It didn't help that most players-turned-minions-of-the-Scourge usually targeted the Banks and Auction Houses for infection. Actually, we even recommended it as the best course of action as a (not so) mindless ghoul.When the disease grew potent enough to transform anyone it infected within a minute, it became practically impossible to accomplish anything. Especially not with Argent Healers calling for a hasty retreat. Entire cities -- or key areas of cities -- were quickly transformed into ghoulish carnivals and it was simply too bothersome to do any business. As a result, players couldn't put anything up on the Auction House nor could anyone buy anything, either, slowing commerce to a crawl. My wife's daily Auction House profits of upwards 500 Gold dwindled down to nary a copper with her alt being unable to collect from the mailbox, move stuff from the bank, or scan the Auction House, as she died istantly to roving zombies.What's next in store for us? Did Blizzard really cave in to the demands of players who felt that the World Event disrupted their normal routine too much? Or is there something more devious waiting in the wings? I know my wife was so upset by being unable to conduct her business that she decided to hold off from logging in at least until the event died down. Now that the zombie infestation seems to be under control, perhaps business will pick up again. Or maybe not, depending on what Blizzard has prepared for Azeroth. One thing's for sure, these Dawn of the Dead-type events certainly take a bite out of the economy.
Argent Knight: My new best friend needs to level
One of the cooler things out of the zombie invasion is the quest rewards. The Argent War Horn stands as one of the most "epic" of all the rewards. This trinket will summon an Argent Knight to your side. He's got some spiffy abilities and stats. Let's take a look: HP - 2442 Mana – 2434 Damage: About 100 melee and about 150 crusader strike on a level 60 mob. He also has some spells: Heal: Heals a person for around 700, often times casting when the person is at 25% or lower health. Blessing of Protection: Target becomes immune to damage. Unknown when he casts this. Crusader Strike: A powerful attack that increases holy damage done to the target. The down side to this guy is that he's only level 60. That's kind of weird given that the trinket requires level 70 to use. I wouldn't be surprised to see his level increased to 70 in some future patch. However at the same time they might leave him at 60 just in order to keep this trinket as more of a joke item, rather then making it anything useful.
Zombie infection down to 1 minute
This just in... you now become a zombie after only one minute.After you kill a zombie infect player, creature, or NPC you'll become infected the plague that turns you into zombie. This plague now only takes one minute to increase your brain eating needs to epic levels.Does this mean phase five is about to being? Update: Yes, it appears phase 5 is beginning.We can't tell just yet, but we're all on the lookout for it. Phase 4 has brought lots of new rewards, events, and other fun things. Keep your eyes peeled, and if you see anything drop us a tip on our tip line! Update: Almost all Argent Dawn Healers are gone. The only ones in IF I was able to find were near the flight path and the King's room.WoW Insider likes us some braaaains!Thanks to the many people who sent this in!
Argent Dawn rewards during the Zombie invasion
Phase four of the zombie invasion has unlocked quite a bit of cool stuff in the game. Out in Light's Hope Chapel in Eastern Plague Lands sits an Argent Dawn Quartermaster. In order for him to even show you his wares, you need to complete the "Under the Shadow" quest from Commander Thomas Helleran who is nearby. There is also another quest called "Shadows of Doom" that you should complete along the way.For the "Under the Shadow" quest you need to collect 10 Necrotic Runes. These runes are an uncommon item (though they are very common in drop rate) which you can get from killing any undead / scourge mob around a necropolis spawn point. You can find the zones these necropolises are in by looking for a purple skull on your continent map. Be forewarned though, there's a lot of people farming these items and you'll be hard pressed to get any without a group.The "Shadows of Doom" quest requires you to kill an elite mob, a Shadow of Doom. These mobs don't hit very hard but are rather difficult to get a hold of unless you're in a group with a plan. In order to make a Shadow of Doom mob appear, you need to give 8 Necrotic Runes to a priest NPC near a necropolis spawn point – they're in the same area you'll pick up the Necrotic Runes from. To complete the Shadows of Doom quest, you'll only need to kill one Shadow of Doom. %Gallery-35369%
Skill Mastery: Zombie Explosion!
By now you must know that it is inevitable. The zombies are here and they are growing in number. In time, you too shall become one of the Scourge, and Azeroth shall feel the icy tendrils of the Lich King's will. There are quite a number of ways to serve the Lich King, but by far the most insidious and shows the most loyalty is the self-sacrifice of a minion to Zombie Explosion!. If you are but to do one thing for the Lord Arthas, it is this. Explode and infect the world around you.It's important to know that You're Infected!, the disease that turns unwitting players into subservient members of the Scourge, now has a 2 1 minute duration. This is a mere fifth tenth of the original duration and gives players very little time to rid themselves of the infection. The radius of Zombie Explosion! has also been increased greatly, allowing you, for example, to explode inside Orgrimmar's Auction House and infecting everyone inside it. Use this spell in Auction Houses, Banks, and in front of heavily crowded Mailboxes for optimum effect.The best way to wreak as much havoc is to quietly get infected (you can kill a Plagued Roach or click on a Conspicuous Crate), and situate yourself in a densely populated area. Some players will try to rid you of the disease, so be wary of Priests, Paladins, and Shamans. The moment you turn, start casting Zombie Explosion!. Don't bother with anything else. It is a four second cast spell, with pushback extending that to five, so you must try to get it off as quickly as possible. There is nothing subtle about this ability... it is simple, it is devious, and best of all, you explode in a symphony of rotting body parts and noxious green gas. All hail the Lich King!
Breakfast Topic: How do you tag necropolis mobs?
It was an interesting time in Azeroth yesterday. Thousands of people on each server showed up to fight against the scourge invasion. The masses were tagging mobs left and right, all in hopes to get some elusive Necrotic Runes.All this open PvE fighting has brought up an interesting question, one that many people have some strong feelings on. What is the appropriate way to tag mobs? Is it okay to camp spawn points and AoE immediately in order to grab some scourge? Is it okay to take away another person's Shadow of Doom? What about if you accidently tag something you shouldn't have? Do you give them some gold in exchange?I have to admit, after trying for over two hours to summon a Shadow of Doom and tag it, my group decided to go a different route. We went to a new spawn point, summoned all four, and threw out as much AoE as possible. Our thought was that doing this would mean we'd at least be able to get one Shadow (we ended up getting them all). This of course upset everyone else that was there – but we had tried for a while before hand to get a single one. And we did summon all the Shadows ourselves.While this might be a questionable activity to some, it's what we did. But what would you do? How have you handled, and will you handle, tagging these mobs?
Prince Menethil's steed and the empty grave
The chaos of the plague has most everyone's attention right now, but the world event potentially brought something a little less easily noticed as well. Just off the road to the Scarlet Monastery, there's an old grave that appears to have recently been dug up. As far as I can tell, it has appeared on servers on either the 19th or 20th or October. It's possible it went in with patch 3.0.2, but if that's the case then nobody noticed it until a couple of days ago. I find that unlikely. Either way, if it did crop up on the 20th, that means it predates the plague by a few days, and may have actually been the kickoff of the whole thing.So what is this grave? According to the gravestone, Prince Arthas Menethil's steed was buried here. The horse, named Invincible (which was apparently a lie), seems to have been dug up recently. By the Scourge, or by someone else? Probably the Scourge, but anything can happen. It's fantasy after all. Drunken Dwarves might have dug it up on accident thinking it was the skeletal remains of a Titan or some nonsense.I look forward to seeing what comes out of this, because the words on the gravestone don't give much away. It's very short and sweet, telling you what's there and little more. I guess that makes sense, It's a gravestone/memorial and I doubt the Scourge would spraypaint "ARTHUS WUZ HERR" across the stone. If you want to see what's engraved upon it, just take a look behind the link below.[ Thanks for the tip, Joseph! ]
Breakfast Topic: Is the Zombie event too PvP for PvE?
First of all, let me be clear. I love the Zombie Invasion. I have spent hours trying to zombify towns and won't be satisfied until all of Orgrimmar is hungering for brains. I adore the comaraderie with my fellow players when turning each other into zombies and defending ourselves against those do-gooder paladins and priests. And I love that this is a pre-expansion, lore changing event.But there have been complaints. Someone I know thinks this is the worst thing to happen to WoW. Her specific complaint is that this event is allowing players to "grief" their own towns on PvE servers. She believes that the zombies should not be able to prevent people from completing quests -- even if it is only temporary.What do you think? Should the PvP component of the event be removed for PvE servers? Or do you find that the fun outweighs the drawbacks?
Zombie Fighting 101
As you probably already know, there are zombies everywhere. Fortunately, you won't need to go to extreme lengths in order to fight them, such as grafting a chainsaw to yourself as a replacement hand. On the other hand, boomsticks will serve you well. Before we go about the strategies of how to fight legions of undead, it might help to read on all their abilities as well as some of their nefarious strategies for growing their numbers. Obviously, we won't need to tell you how to fight NPC zombies... they're mindless. But those crafty players-turned-zombies must be smote with righteous fury!Move fasterThe good news is that Azerothian zombies, just like in most movies, move slow. Just be sure to stay farther than 21 yards away from them as they have Retch! a ranged spell that will slow anyone within the area of effect. This is the smoky green cloud on the ground you see in all those screenshots. They can also summon a burst of speed using Lurch! so don't be too confident that they won't close the distance. That ability also frees them from movement impairing effects so trapping them or slowing them isn't a guarantee you'll be able to stay away from them. The idea is to kite the zombies, because getting into melee range with them is a very bad idea.
The plague grows...
Reports have been coming in from all over that the sinister powers behind the zombie infestation has taken their onslaught to the next level. Conspicuous Crates have begun appearing in major cities as well as Plagued Roaches, critters that infect you when killed. The crates with a grain icon stamped on the side initially appeared in Booty Bay, but have since been distributed to more populated areas all over Azeroth. This is eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of the plague in Warcraft III, where Arthas Menethil fought to stem the tide of the plague but ultimately lost. It seems like Mike was right -- things are indeed taking a turn for the worse. Some readers have also pointed out that although chillingly similar, the source of the infestation might not be the Lich King, after all. As players may well know, the Forsaken's Royal Apothecary Society have been working on a new plague on their own, too. Who is truly behind this dastardly plot? Only time will tell. It's certainly something for all of us to chew on. In the meantime, might we encourage you to try out some other things you can chew on... like braaaaaiiiins, perhaps?
