World of Warcraftplayers are getting somebig changes with the Shadowlands expansion, but a huge new pre-Shadowlands event is live on test servers. The event is unexpectedly causing massive mayhem by releasing a zombie horde that is turning Azeroth completely upside-down.
World of Warcraftis full of literally hundreds of zombies that are attacking and turning every NPC they run across into undead, and won’t even spare NPCs that normallygive out quests toWoWplayers. And if players get too close to the zombies, they too can be turned and get special zombie abilities, including a feature that lets them spread the zombie plague to more players.
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It’s important to note that this isn’t on theWorld of Warcraftlive servers, and only those using public test servers are affected. So if players want to not deal with a zombie horde or the possibility of their characters becoming zombies themselves, they can just avoid the test servers. But that won’t be true later this fall when the event launches on live servers and brings the chaos test servers are currently experiencing over to the rest of the game.
Some players are speculating that the event is playing out the way the devs intended, unless the devs wanted players to be unable to use the auction house, stores, or the bank as is the case right now. Fighting an overwhelming pack of zombies might be fun for a while, but many players find that part of theappeal ofWorld of Warcraftis the day-to-day dependability of things like crafting, dailies, and upgrading items. A skilledWoWplayer combines fighting with a lot of other activities, some of which just aren’t available with a horde of zombies constantly breathing down players' necks.
For players who aren’t excited about a constant zombie invasion in live servers,WoWdesigner Jeremy Feasel says that zombification is only active for a few hours out of every day, but that “player actions” can keep zombie interactions going throughout the rest of the day. That is good news for those active on theWoWsubreddit, where members of the community have teamed up to let zombies loose on whole areas of Azeroth outside the major cities.
The Shadowlands expansion will bring a lot of exciting new content to the game, but there’s stillstuff for players to do before Shadowlandsreleases. The pre-launch event includes a number of other things besides fight zombie hoards, including exploration in the freezing Northrend and a new story quest, so players won’t be bored waiting.
