Talk:Zombie Apocalypse

We're now certain that the Zombie Apocalypse can be triggered by players just like the Rikti Invasion. I triggered one by turning in costume salvage to Annah just after midnight game-time. Note that I also tried handing salvage in to Granny villain-side between sunset and midnight and nothing happened. There may be a cooldown timer that we haven't yet been able to verify. But, as Zombie Man so astutely observed on the CoH boards, "The zombies unlive on!" --Eabrace 04:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

@.@ yeah... we're getting this on guardian too with seemingly the same trigger.. and there does seem to be a "won't count" timer, since only one was triggered when we tried about 2 min after. --Sleepykitty 04:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

follow up.. its longer than an hour. 2 hrs maybe? Le sigh.. got a wave at about the 70 min mark @.@ --Sleepykitty 04:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

From playing around with it just for a bit tonight, it looks like it's somewhere in the range of one to two hours. I tried immediately after one invasion ended (with Granny Beldam) and had no luck. I logged ran a mission quick and switched to my next villain just as the sun was coming up, so I waited around for nightfall before trying again. I waited until shortly after nightfall just in case night had something to do with it, but wasn't able to trigger it. When I switched over to hero side to try Annah, I triggered mine about two hours after the previous one had been triggered. Was the one triggered on Guardian triggered by Annah too, or were you able to trigger it with Granny? --Eabrace 05:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

o.o both where Annah. We had a couple ppl messing around with it on Champion and I think Pinnacle as well.. I assume all of yours triggered on the same side as the salvage was turned in? I think all of ours where (not 100% though). --Sleepykitty 07:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Every time we triggered one we got simultaneous hits on both sides. My hits were in Croatoa and Sharkhead. The one before me was in Founders and Cap.

Two more attempts this morning. One was just after midnight PCT (12:01 server time) villain side on Pinnacle. No dice. The second was just before midnight PCT (12:29 server time) hero side on Triumph. Zombies spawned in Eden and St. Martial. --Eabrace 11:48, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

^^;; err... guess what? I didn't have villain side events applied to a window.. opps... --Sleepykitty 20:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

o.o sooo... guardian just had 2 attacks per side with about 3 min space between their start times... oh, and both during the day too --Sleepykitty 01:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! OK, so night apparently isn't a requirement and apparently there is not a timer between events. At least one person on the forums claims that they were able to kick one off turning in salvage to Granny, too. Guy asked if it might not be handing in salvage on both sides that triggers the event. He may be on to something there. --Eabrace 19:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

@.@ wonder if anyone has tried coordinating an effort on test, to.. err.. test this >.> --Sleepykitty 21:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I was on Pinnacle for a bit tonight and observed two sets of zombie invasions within 30 seconds of each other (meaning there were two zones being invaded and 30 sec later another two zones, making a total of four). That gives more evidence ruling out a timer preventing subsequent events.

I created a couple of new characters, primed them with salvage, moved them next to Annah and Granny and then copied them to test so that I could try over and over again if I needed to. The first character handed salvage to Annah in the middle of the day and nothing happened. The second character then handed salvage to Granny, also in the middle of the day, and triggered zombies.

So:

• it would appear that we've eliminated time of day
• we also seem to have eliminated a timer that has to expire
• we've shown over and over again that Annah is involved in the event trigger
• we've been able to show that Granny is involved in the event trigger
• we've been able to demostrate that neither Annah nor Granny are able to spawn the event independently of other events
• Guy's hypothesis that salvage has to be handed to both Annah and Granny is at least plausible, but will need to be tested for reliable repetition

--Eabrace 07:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Logged in my brute on Test, and gave Granny the salvage. No apocalypse. Logged in my scrapper, gave Annah the salvage. No apocalypse. So just handing it to both isn't the trigger. -- Leandro 08:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Logged in a new copy of the brute and gave Granny the salvage -- instant invasion in PI and Cap. So it's either Annah first then Granny, or a number of trades no matter which you trade to. -- Leandro 08:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I tried on test this morning before I left for work. Only 20 people were showing in the Beta Testers global channel, so I'm thinking that was a good time to try it with a minimal amount of inadvertent interference from other players introducing unknowns.

I bounced back and forth between Annah and Granny about three times and handed the salvage to Granny one extra time, all with no events being triggered.

I strongly suspect that there is a chain of events that have to happen and that handing salvage to Annah and/or Granny is the last step in the process. It's still possible that it's only a matter of handing enough salvage to Annah or Granny enough times in a row to trigger the event, but I find that unlikely. If that were the case, that would mean that the time I saw the events triggered within about thirty seconds represented Annah and/or Granny being completely bombarded by people handing in salvage all at once. At the moment, I'm thinking (no evidence to support yet) that there's a second condition that has to first be met in order to prime the event before finishing off the trigger at Annah or Granny. I'm working from the assumption that it will be something commonly accessible by both heroes and villains and is more than likely Halloween related (at least loosely.) --Eabrace 15:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I traded salvage to granny 5 times in a row and the 5th time an apocalypse triggered in both Perez and Sharkhead. I think it's just a fixed number of times to any contact. The reason why you saw 2 one-after-another may be that Annah has a list and Granny has another -- it just happened that a hero and a villain reached the correct number at nearly the same time. -- Leandro 10:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Possible trigger

Just had this happen in 2 zones the exact second we completed the Katie Hannon Task Force. Would it be safe to mark that down as a potential trigger? Since Croatoa seems so closely tied to Halloween events, it would seem unlikely to be a coincidence. --LSRAgnarok 04:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, that is interesting. And you are right, it would certainly make sense! I would say it is safe to toss that in, as long as you also include some sort of conditional statement (may, probably, etc.). —Thirty7 04:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC)