The majority of the current subscribers to WoW probably remember, at least, the event precluding the arrival of Wrath of the Lich King (the third expansion to World of Warcraft), and how the zombie invasion was one of the most epic, yet annoyingly redundant events after created by a gaming company within its own gaming world.
While exciting, the event itself became nothing more than a giant gankfest for the majority of players on almost all of the realms that Blizzard currently had at the time of its manifestation. The idea of destroying the scourge while avoiding the plague itself was simple enough. The only problem with this design were players who purposely got corrupted and didn't get cleansed by the Argent Dawn. And then proceeded to go to lower level areas and infest the players who didn't know any better. Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Well, it couldn't have been that bad, there are a lot of areas in the game." I wish it were so..
I was playing my rogue down in Duskwood. Running from Raven Hill back to Darkshire with some quests.. When out of nowhere, a mob of ghouls ransack the town. And chase me around the landscape. There was no chance, I eventually died and joined their ranks. At first, this event was intense and fun. Really fun. Defending the cities, fighting back the scourge, getting infected and finding an Argent Dawn member to cleanse you, rinse repeat. But once the event kept going for more than a week, it was a giant gankfest griefing match. Ugh..
With the event starting pre-Cataclysm, it's more of a giant waste of time then it is anything else. But, let's do a little background before we get into the final phase..
PHASE 1: Stop the Twilight Cultists from defecting innocent citizens of Stormwind/Orgrimmar. While also heading to random areas and taking down rifts in "space" where elementals are spawning from.
-- Cultist quests take about 5-10 minutes. It's really just a lot of running and talking to people, nothing fancy.
-- Rifts spawn once an hour. For.. 15-20 minutes. You have to down rifts of all four types to get a Feat of Strength called 'Tripping the Rifts'.
PHASE 2: Get the tablet from the dwarf/orc at the harbor/zeppelin and help Ironforge/Orgrimmar was some angry minor-elementals.
-- I will admit, the tablet fights are pretty cool. You use a crystal to gain elemental powers and then blast away elementals with their polar opposites.
-- Running around dropping a totem on mini-elementals is kinda dull. Especially since the CD is longer than it takes to come upon more of them.
PHASE 3: Go mess with the cultists again, who think you were captured, and then go to Outlands.
-- Screwing with the altars was pretty amusing, especially the things the cultists say.
-- Talk to Thrall on the Elemental Plateau. Only good part about this part is PvPing on the Plateau. Cause you have to avoid getting one-shotted by the elemental giants while you're at it. >.>
PHASE 4: Stop the Elemental Invasions of Stormwind and Ironforge/Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff.
-- This is where the event gets retarded and boring. The invasion itself happens every 2-3 hours, woo wait time. After that, you have a 5 minute window prior to the event to start reinforcing the towns. I don't know about Horde-side, but in Stormwind you throw down sandbags and in Ironforge, you set up wall barricades. When the window is over, whether you've finished reinforcing or not, BOOM Rifts with Elementals. This is where it gets dumb. In Stormwind, the rifts are your primary problem, and they are definitely a problem. They're elites and they hurt. In Ironforge? Elementals are pansies. You also have to save citizens from crumbling rocks using a totem. I'm guessing since they added in that little extra feature, the mobs got to be weaker.
Here's the kicker. When that 5-minute window ends and the rifts finally do spawn. You have an hour. Whether you complete the event or not. You have an hour. You also have only what's left of that hour to fight the four elemental bosses you were protecting the cities to actually get to.
Not sure if Blizzard's intention was to piss people off with crappy timer events, but it needs to either be extended or be over with. Cause this stuff is retarded.
Oh, and before I forget.. Pilgrim's Bounty starts Sunday. Get your turkey.
