How I Survived (And Thrived) During The Zombie Invasion

I stayed the hell away from everybody.

Actually, I happened to be working on getting my hunter to level 70 during most of the event, which meant hanging around in places like Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley.

It turns out that in a zone where most people are busy trying to accomplish something and are high level, trying to pull the zombie routine gets the crap beaten out of you the moment you show up.

Really.  I’ve never seen people so cooperative and focused than when dealing with some zombie-tard trying to mess with their carefully laid plans.  Obsessive-compulsive rage for the win!

And when it came down to it, Shattrath wasn’t so bad.  But most everybody there could put up a fight, and your typical griefer isn’t looking for a fair fight.

Back on old Azeroth though, it was a disaster… or a lot of fun, depending on your level.

I rolled a new character to play with a friend who has been unimpressed with the idea of MMOs in the past.  Of course, he picked the weekend when Blizzard gave noob griefing the green light.  After less than an hour and many deaths, he was done.  I might get him to try again in 4 or 5 years.  Maybe.  Well, probably not.

Reactions to all of this have varied. The word “whiner” seems to come up a lot when there are complaints about the zombies.  These are often from people whom I suspect aren’t being killed by zombies whose levels show as ??. (That means “more than 10 levels higher” in WoW.)  Of course, a good chunk of the time, I would characterize those responses as “counter-whines” really.  Lame rationalization seems to be one of the defining human characteristics.

It has been pointed out that giving players the ability to grief noobs without consequence pretty much guaranteed that it was going to happen.  I mean, we’ve all heard about Ultima Online, right?  So what was Blizzard thinking?

Lume the Mad (not who you think) has a particularly good write up on the whole thing.

But it appears that we’ll wake up tomorrow and find the zombie menace gone.

Then we can all sit in the auction house in peace without having to constantly restart the auctioneer AddOn because the auctioneer keeps getting killed.

Dartan’s Portable Hole

Every game has its 1337 players, the people who have to have the best gear, slay the biggest mobs, or say they have been everywhere.  In TorilMUD, Dartan was one of those people.

One day I was standing at the Turning Point, one of those locations where people would meet.  It is a spot just outside of Waterdeep and was a common place to hook up with people who were outcast from the city.

Dartan walked in and stood there for a minute, then asked if I could do him a favor.  He wanted me to hold his bag for him while he logged on another character, then hand his bag to that character.

I’m not sure why he asked me.  We were not pals or anything.  I would well him places if he asked, but I did that for almost anybody.  I’d certainly never grouped with him.  I wasn’t in that league.

Still, there was nobody about and I think I had a general “nice guy” reputation.  I wasn’t likely to take his bag and run away. (I’m sure the gods would have made me give it back if I had.)

Naturally, Dartan didn’t just have a bag.  He had a portable hole.  The only one in the game, at least at that time.  You had to be part of a group that slayed Tiamat and then you had to win the roll for it.  Like most of his equipment, there was nothing better to be had.

Dartan carefully closed his portable hole before he handed it to me, then camped to go get his other character.

Of course, as soon as he disappeared, I opened it, looked inside, and closed it again.

Talk about a pack rat!

Of course, I would be too if I had a portable hole!  I kick myself for not doing “exam hole” so as to get a reading on how much it could hold.

So what does one keep in a portable hole?  Click below to see.