So now that the zombie invasion is over and gone, we (those who survived) have a moment to sit back and consider who was behind all of this chaos. At first…we might point the finger at the Lich King. That seems obvious enough right? Nope…guess again. Kel’thuzad? After all it was he and his minions who set the plague loose on Andorhal even before Arthas had turned. Nope not him. Not even Ner’zhul who was Kel’thuzads puppet master before Andorhal. The secret lies in the nature of the plague. Think back. What other event within the history of WoW resembles the zombie plague? How about corrupted blood?
Back in September of 2005, adventurers who tested their luck against Hakkar the Soulflayer found that if their pet recieved the corrupted blood debuff. They could desummon the pet and resummon in a town thus bringing the plague with them. Once in town the deadly affect of 200+ nature damage every 2 seconds that spread to nearby players and NPCs would devastate towns. Lowbies would last for less then 5 seconds and fully geared level 60s only had around 6000 HP back then. Auctioneers and Bank NPCs were never up for more then a few seconds, bones scattered the ground and I can even recall the Mighty Warchief Thrall succumbing to the epidemic. This was such an unexpected result, it became the topic of much discussion on how virus and diseases can spread and even became the subject of a few studies. It even has its own wikipedia entry.
So why do I bring this all up? Its more then just a coincidence. In a long forgotten interview, Jeff Kaplan had something interesting to say about that event…
…did you catch that? Thats right. “We had some angry customers calling us saying they just died, but it did give us some ideas for some possible real future events.” Deja Vu anyone? Remember all the angry forum post about the Zombie infection? Remember how no town was safe if you wanted to avoid a corpse run? It seems that this little event had its seed planted in Kaplan’s head OVER THREE YEARS AGO!!!
So who’s the mastermind? Yep…you can thank Hakkar for giving us a reason to lead the charge into Northrend. The Lich King had nothing to do with it! ;-p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqQ1n01SDm8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoN4nCaULGo
Euripedes November 6, 2008 at 5:26 am
Somehow, I’m not surprised that trolls had a major hand in this.
Honestly, is there anywhere trolls aren’t involved in some fashion?
isheepthings February 2, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Thats very true…my first zombie encounter was in Thousand Needles in Freewind Post.
I just thought it was kinda cool how there seems to be no doubt in the connection with quote I found.