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World of Warcraft saw the opening act for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion unfold last night with a full-on zombie apocalypse. Allowing players to both fight off and become flesh-eating ghouls themselves, this divisive, game-wide event pits brother against brother in what's shaping up to be the MMORPG equivalent of the American Civil War -- only with brain-eating corpses instead of hardtack-eating Confederates. As stalwart supporters of all things undead -- we'll even be focusing on the topic on next week's episode of 1UP FM -- we thought it was a pretty righteous way to escalate player anticipation for the next chapter of Warcraft. But what does the community at large think? We trolled the official World of Warcraft forums to find out just that.

The consensus appears to be that while some of the players are just as enthused as we are about the increase in brain consumption in their MMO of choice, just as many feel that the zombie outbreak event is actually getting in the way of the game they're paying to play. Take this surprisingly well-constructed argument from Ravth, for example:

"Let's say someone *doesn't* want to participate, as some of my guild's leveling alts did not. Unfortunately, they are FORCED to participate, even passively. They are affected by this, both in terms of being physical attacked by not only "Alliance" zombies, but also by their own faction. This contradicts the very nature of a PvE server, where you only have to fight people by your own volition."

Others are welcoming their newfound zombie overlords with open arms. Driven by the novelty of the experience, many players are actively seeking out infection, often with the intent of attacking their own faction. Some simply embrace the outbreak as a pleasant diversion from the repetitive endgame grind. One such player, Seiferalmasy, summed up his feelings nicely in this thread:

"The pre-WotLK world event is amazing. We infected all of Stormwind, Lakeshire, Goldshire, and were working on Ironforge before I logged. The Scourge Invasion in 2006 lacked a lot of things to do, it was plagued with problems, and simply wasn't fun. Giving players the reins to do it themselves was a great move."

In any case, the zombie outbreak is an inescapable reality for World of Warcraft players, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. Whether you support the walking dead or smite them, there are a few threads that are sure to make the zombie occupation of Azeroth easier on you. Bornakk's Zombie Infestation Survival Guide gives a basic, Blizzard-sponsored rundown of what to expect from the event, while Synel's post on zombie misinformation offers numerous suggestions for would-be brain munchers and zombie slayers alike.

With Wrath of the Lich King still several weeks away, the zombie plague isn't expected to end anytime soon. In fact, things are more than likely going to get much, much worse. Kisirani -- a Blizzard developer -- posted this rather ominous response to a player complaining that the undead infection was too easy to dispel: "It certainly does seem containable, doesn't it? :)" Another Blizzard poster by the name of Nethaera replied to a zombie-related thread with, "Yes, this is all there is... Nothing more to see here." You can probably draw your own conclusions, but it looks like this is just the start of a much bigger event.

Blizzard developers have previously hinted that they'd love to introduce sweeping changes to the world environment -- such as the outright destruction of capital city Stormwind -- but the guaranteed backlash from players proved too much of a deterrent. Although this event is a baby-step in that direction, the reaction from subscribers has already been so volatile that it begs the question: In a genre where stagnation and repetition are a tremendous concern, how do you please a fan base that's totally averse to change?