Project Lore

Project Lore and pals take on Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight in Karazhan. What will this Death Knight have in store for Project Lore, an icy reception or an easy kill?  Find out on this episode of Project Lore. As Karazhan is a 10-man raid, the guys wrangled in five members of the Totally Rad Guild to help them out. Here are the armories for everyone involved: DrDark, Lylelovett, Goggins, Dorkins, Xenophontos, Manifesto, Talonni, Bastosa, Wyche, and Wilx. Everybody is ready for all of the bosses, so let's see how things go. Remember that our subscribe page has links for Project Lore all over the web. You can use our Episodes RSS feed or Twitter to find out when new episodes are out, and don't forget to join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace. More boss fights through Thursday at Noon Pacific, and Alexis will wrap things up on Friday at 3pm, so tune in!

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The Project Lore gang brings along five of their friends and heads into Karazhan. First up on the agenda is to head into the servant quarters to take on one of the animal bosses. Will they survive the mysteries that lie ahead? Find out on this episode of Project Lore. Since Karazhan is a 10-man raid, the PL boys managed to find five other members of the Totally Rad Guild willing to head in with them. Here are the armories for everyone involved: DrDark, Lylelovett, Goggins, Dorkins, Xenophontos, Manifesto, Talonni, Bastosa, Wyche, and Wilx. They are all in it for the long haul, so get ready for some awesome content from Project Lore! Our Subscribe page has links for you to follow us on your favorite sites. Use the Episodes RSS feed or Twitter to find out when new episodes are out, and join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace. The Boss fights premiere every day through Thursday at Noon Pacific, and Alexis will wrap things up on Friday at 3pm, so tune in!

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This guide for this week's bosses has been posted! Project Lore is finally taking on a raid instance, as many of you have requested. For the next few weeks, we'll see the guys bring five of their friends to take on Karazhan and all of its bosses. Starting at the bottom and working their way up, the Project Lore gang will be seeing the bosses through Maiden this week. Check out our guide for those bosses, and let us know if you've got any tips or secret tactics that aren't in there. DrDark is finally back, and Juggynaut has brought Xenophontos. Here is this week's schedule! Episode 9.1 - Noon PDT on Monday, September 29th Episode 9.2 - Noon PDT on Tuesday, September 30th Episode 9.3 - Noon PDT on Wednesday, October 1st Episode 9.4 - Noon PDT on Thursday, October 2nd Episode 9.5 (Wrap-up) - 3pm PDT on Friday, October 3rd Take a gander at our subscribe page to find us all over the web, and use the Episodes RSS feed or follow our Twitter to find out when new episodes are out! Project Lore is also on MySpace and Facebook, so please be our friend!

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Midnight and Attumen the Huntsman

Abilities

• Shadow Cleave: Cleave attack for around 4000. Nobody other than the tank should be hit by this.
• Intangible Presence: A curse that reduces chance to hit with melee attacks, ranged attacks and spells by 50%. This should be dispelled, especially if the tank has it.
• Mount: When Either Attumen or Midnight is at 25%, the two will combine into a mounted. This begins the final phase. The combined form will take on the higher of the individual health pools. Attumen and Midnight must be in line of sight (LoS) to use this ability. If they are not in LoS, Attumen will despawn and the encounter will have to be reset.
• Berserker Charge: After Attumen is mounted, he periodically does a charge on a chosen target, damaging and causing a knockdown effect. Avoid this by standing close to Attumen.

Strategy

Phase one of this fight is very short, and consists of the group bringing Midnight to 95%. Once this occurs, Attumen will come out to protect his steed and attack the group, beginning phase two. Once this happens, a second tank should pick up Attumen and separate the two to avoid cleaving other people. Warriors can disarm Attumen and spell reflect his curse to decrease his melee damage. DPS should continue to focus on Midnight. Anyone who can remove curses should be doing so. Once Midnight is down to 25%, phase three will begin. Threat resets at this point, so allow the main tank to build up a lead before DPS starts to go all out. Hunters can help with this by using Misdirect. In addition, all DPS should stack behind Attumen in order to avoid taking any charges. Attumen keeps all of his other abilities, so continue countering them with disarm, spell reflect, and decurse.

Moroes

Abilities

• Vanish: Vanishes without dropping aggro.
• Garrote: A physical DoT applied to a random player character after Vanish. Deals 1000 damage every three seconds for five minutes (100,000 total damage). Can be removed with Stoneform, Blessing of Protection, Iceblock, etc. This can be beneficial for tanks in order to avoid Gouge and Blind, as healers should be able to deal with its relatively low damage output. The debuff is normally removed once Moroes is killed.
• Blind: A poison-based disorient effect that lands on Moroes' closest non-tank target. This should be removed from anyone who gets it, especially tanks.
• Gouge: A physical stun on Moroes' current target. Breaks on damage. Moroes attacks the target with the second-highest threat while his primary target is stunned.
• Enrage: At 30% health, Moroes Enrages, increasing his damage.

Other Notes

Moroes comes with four adds. There are six possible adds that can spawn with Moroes. They are:

• Baroness Dorothea Millstipe (Shadow Priest) - She has Mind Flay, Mana Burn, and Shadow Word: Pain. Her Mana Burn is especially dangerous to healers, but she easily killed. She should be your first target.
• Baron Rafe Dreuger (Retribution Paladin) - He will use Seal of Command and Hammer of Justice. Not a significant threat, he can be crowd controlled or simply off tanked and saved for vanishes.
• Lady Catriona Von'Indi (Holy Priest) - She will both heal and dispel buffs on party members. As a clothy, she is another candidate for killing quickly.
• Lady Keira Berrybuck (Holy Paladin) - She casts Blessing of Might, Divine Shield, Holy Light, and Cleanse.  Her cleanse will remove CC effects from other enemies and Blessing of Might will increase damage by others as well. These can be troublesome for the group, and it is often best to shackle her.
• Lord Robin Daris (Arms Warrior) - Whirlwind and Mortal Strike are his main abilities. He should be shackled and left for the end of the fight if possible. Alternatively, he can be tanked and killed early.
• Lord Crispin Ference (Protection Warrior) - Shield Wall, Shield Bash, and Disarm. The easiest of the adds to handle, he can be off tanked quite easily and killed during vanishes, or he can just be killed before you start to attack Moroes to get him out of the way.

Strategy

Depending on your add lineup, you will need to decide how to handle each enemy during the fight. Initially, both of your tanks will need to build threat on Moroes, since he will attack the second highest threat on his list during gouge and blind. Priests shackles are the most effective means of CC, while Hunters traps and Paladin's turn evil can also be used effectively. When fearing, be careful not to cast it close to the exit of the room, since the encounter will reset if any of the adds leave the room. The first kill target is often left without a true tank since many of the clothies are quick to go down. Again, depending on group composition, anywhere from zero to three adds are controlled when the DPS starts on Moroes. Once Moroes vanishes, DPS can turn to any add that is being off tanked. Garrote targets should be identified, and the Debuff should be removed from healers using Blessing of Protection (BoP). Those who are able should use a self-removal ability (Iceblock, Stoneform, Divine Protection) to avoid the damage. Others can simply be healed through the DoT. Once Moroes dies, his adds will not despawn, but they can be forced to do so by running out of the room.

Maiden of Virtue

Abilities

• Holy Fire: Consumes an enemy in flames for 3500 fire damage, burning it and inflicting additional 1750 fire damage every 2 seconds over 12 sec. Targets a random person not in melee range, counting pets. DoT portion should be dispelled immediately.
• Holy Wrath: AoE chained holy damage, inflicting more damage for every target it hits. Spread out to avoid this
• Repentance: Puts all players in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 12 sec. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Also deals 1500-2000 holy damage. This affects all players.
• Holy Ground: Waves of virtue emanate from the caster, infusing nearby ground with holy power, for 240-360 holy damage every 3 sec. 12 yards. Silences for 0.5 seconds every 1 second, preventing non-instant spellcasting.

Strategy

There are two major things that will end up killing people in this fight: Holy Fire and Repentance. Holy Fire can be absorbed by Shaman's Grounding Totem. If it is cast on a party member, the DoT portion of Holy Fire should be dispelled immediately. As a magic effect, it can be removed with Dispel Magic, Cleanse, Cloak of Shadows, etc. Repentance can take ranged DPS and healers out of the fight for 12 seconds. Paladins who are healing should keep Blessing of Sacrifice on the tank or a melee DPS character to break themselves out of the Repentance. They can also use Divine Protection during the stun to get out of it. Other healers can either hop into the Holy Ground before Maiden casts Repentance, have the tank pull Maiden towards them to use the Holy Ground to break it, or load the tank up with HoT spells. If all else fails, potions, healthstones, and other cooldowns, will often save the day, and off-spec healers who are in melee range can run out of the Holy Fire to avoid the silence and cast a few emergency heals. Before beginning the fight, give all melee DPS dampen magic to lower the damage taken from Holy Ground.  Ranged DPS and Healers should run around the outside of Maiden's room to claim spots around the edge of the ring. Once she is engaged, each Ranged DPS and Healer should move to stand alone between a pair of pillars in center of the room, on the outer edge of the black marble steps that lead to the area Maiden is standing on.  She should be tanked where she stands. This positioning will allow all healers and dispellers to maintain line of sight while keeping out of her Holy Ground. Melee DPS should position themselves as far away from each other as possible to avoid multiple jumps from Holy Wrath.

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Project Lore finished the rest of Utgarde Keep in the Wrath of the Lich King beta this week. They headed out to the terrace where they finished off Ingvar the Plunderer. After that they took a break and got their hair cut in Ironforge. Remember that stuff in the beta is constantly changing! Here's each episode's link in case you missed something: Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.13 Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.14 Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.15 Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.16 Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.17 Project Lore WotLK Beta 1.18 (Wrap-Up) Between Pirate Day and Brewfest, there's been a  fair amount of seasonal holidays to distract from the lull that has come before WotLK. Speaking of Wrath of the Lich King, we heard a couple of interesting tidbits about mounts in the expansion this week as well. Random Heroes can't seem to wait for exotic pets, or giraffes at the very least. SaintGermain keeps the Life Lessons coming, and we got some good tips for playing WoW at work. Next week will mark another huge milestone for Project Lore - we are starting our first raid on the show. Karazhan will be running for the next three weeks. With tons of bosses and a lot of great lore behind them, you guys are in for a huge treat. Stay tuned because we'll have the schedule for you on Sunday! Remember that you can find out all of the happenings here with the Episodes RSS feed, the Blog RSS feed, or Twitter, and join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace! You can head to our subscribe page to find us on some of your other favorite sites, too. Also, remember to get over to the Lore Store to grab yourself a Project Lore T-Shirt!

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I mentioned in yesterday's post about Bejeweled that I had more to say on the topic of dual-gaming. First let me define the term. Dual-gaming is simply playing two games at the same time. Be it via an addon like WoW Bejeweled, spinning to the TV behind you or having a Nintendo DS by your keyboard. I have actually been doing this for year's, mostly the spinning to the TV or having a handheld nearby variety of dual gaming. But this past weekend I entered into a new age of dual-gaming, dual-gaming on a single computer. I am sure many of you have heard of multi-boxing. That is the art of running multiple instances of World of Warcraft (or other MMOGs) across multiple computers. The users would then control all of the toons via various scripts and third party programs (remoting into the other computers and such). Blizzard Entertainment has even said that they see nothing wrong with multi-boxing. But that method is different than what I strive for. Instead of running it across multiple computers I decided to try multiple games on a single machine. Why the hell would I do this?

• Most of all, I wanted to be able to play multiple MMOGs at the same time. While queuing for an AV, trying to find a 5-man group for heroics or waiting for the raid, I could spend that downtime grinding in Warhammer Online or blasting away the aliens in Tabula Rasa. Vice versa, while playing WAR or TR, I could be scanning the auction house looking for deals or simply socializing as I get through the tedious parts in those games.
• I like challenges, specially when I think I can defeat them.
• My buddy (who helped me tweak and setup the box) wanted to see it done.
• I needed an upgrade anyways.
• And let us not forget, I am a huge nerd – and not the candy coated sugar kind.

As you can see in the screenshot above, things went pretty well. I decided to test it on WoW and WAR, since I play them the most. Both are running in windowed mode (the most taxing way to play but really the only way to do this), and you can see via my taskbar that I have a bunch of other crap running as well. WAR doesn't report its performance so I had to use FRAPS to get its FPS. With WAR as the active window, the machine was able to run both of them at a solid 20-30 FPS. Plenty good for gaming, although not the most ideal if I was raiding. I also tested the setup while playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition and WoW. I had Auctioneer scanning the Auction House for deals as I ran around as the White Wolf slaying various beasts. The box ran without a hitch. Unlike the double MMOG test, The Witcher: EE was running in fullscreen while WoW was windowed on my other screen. For both tests, all the titles had their graphics settings to the highest level and highest resolution the screen could provide. Incoming nerdiness. For those who are wondering what hardware I am running:

• MSI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit GPU– This is an overclocked X2 running at 780MHz and is currently the best and most expensive card on the market. The card is tested and OCed by the manufacturer which is awesome.
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Processor– Overclocked on air to 3.0GHz.
• Corsair 4x1GB DDR2 PC2 6400 RAM – Ram running at 4-4-4-12.
• Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000RPM SATA Harddrive – God, I love these drives.
• EVGA nForce 680i Ultra SLi Motherboard - An okay motherbord.

Now I should be able to review PC games twice as fast!

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Earlier this week WoWInsider broke a story involving PopCap Games, makers of the popular, casual title Bejeweled. Why would a WoW blog be covering the casual games market? Well, PopCap Games has decided to take that downtime we have in World of Warcraft and convert it into color matching time. The casual developer has employed Moongaze, creator of numerous in game game addons including Besharded, Bombsweeper and Bust-a-shard. Moongaze was tasked with porting the popular puzzler into WoW as an addon which will be released for FREE next week. I myself have dabbled with dual-gaming, as I like to call it, before and will have more on that subject and its challenges tomorrow. That being said, the addition of a new time sink and distraction in WoW may be the end to fast raiding times and skilled PvPers. I can see it now... 24 raid members to the tank/hunter, “Pull, please.” “Hold on, I have a huge chain going on with a big multiplier” says the distracted gamer. Someone else pulls, the tank doesn't notice and the raid wipes. Tank screams “WHY THE HELL DID YOU PULL?! NOW I HAVE A 50 GOLD REPAIR BILL!” Rest of the raid laments, leading to the the bank getting looted, the guild collapsing, and 10 members quitting WoW all together. Me, dramatic? Never! Along with breaking the news, WoWInsider managed to score a beta copy which they seem very found of. Early this morning they posted yet another Bejeweled-based story, an interview with PopCap's T. Carl Kwoh and Moongaze. The Q&A session is lengthy and it's because the two interviewees happened to be a bit long winded rather than a whole lot of questions being asked. Anyone interested in Bejeweled, the addon community or why the heck they thought of the idea should venture over. Who else is going to check out Bejeweled when it launches next week? I should mention that playing Bewjeweled - and being skilled at it - is the object of some Achievements.  That'll definitely get you Achievement nuts to look at it.

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It's Wednesday, which means we've got another Random Heroes for you! Here are links to last week's comic and all of the Random Heroes comics.

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Back when World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 I was a lowly Pre-Junior at Drexel University.  Let me answer your first question.  A Pre-Junior is a year later than a Sophomore but a year before being a Junior.  It was a five year program.  Really, I swear, five years.  At the time I was an aspiring Computer Science and Mathematics major, which meant that I spent a bit of time on my computer(s).  But I still had to pay the bills between my studies so I picked up an IT job for Drexel's computer department.  That is where it all began, playing WoW while on the clock. Jobs obviously, and rightfully so, frown upon the idea of playing video games while you are on the clock.  Some bosses even frown upon playing the game during lunch which is unfair in my opinion.  Why is it that I can read the newspaper, watch TV or bother other people at lunch but I can't play a video game?  Don't give me the company resources crap, it doesn't hurt the computer and at max takes about 30 kb/s of bandwidth.  My boss at Drexel was one of those bosses who hated gameplaying, in all forms, while at work.  So I had to get crafty. There are actually numerous things you can do to play WoW at work.  The most difficult is probably to get the game installed and patched.  Depending on how locked down your computer is, this can be quite a task.  You may get lucky and have free reign over your machine.  Sometimes imaging the CDs/DVDs and then mounting them with Daemon Tools, will do the trick.  Worst case, you will simply have to figure out (or reset) the administrator password, which could get you in serious trouble. As for actually playing the game, here are a few tips:

• Most important, play in Windowed mode.  WoW is highly optimized for Windowed mode, allowing you to hide it behind other applications quickly and easily.
• Having your back to the door is a major problem and should be remedied immediately.  Make up some excuse like you “need a change of scenery” or can “get more workspace” to get permission to move your office around.
• On the same track, your entire office/cubicle/desk should be set up in a fashion to provide cover for your addiction.  Use a tall printer to block line-of-sight to the screen if possible.  Put your in/out boxes in the way.  Anything you can possibly think of to slow people down, or lower their visual range.  (If you have one of those short cubicle walls, good luck.)
• Stack recent delivered items, files, books, etc by the entrance to slow people down.  If asked why you do this say “So I don't forget about them before I leave.”
• Dual monitors can help immensely.  Keep work on the screen that is most readily visible to intruders and WoW on the other screen.
• Set the task bar to auto hide so no one can see what is open down there.
• Alt + tab and windows key + D key combinations are your friends.  If WoW, WoWHead, and ProjectLore are covering your monitor real estate at the moment then hit the windows key + D and everything will be minimized (hit them again to restore).  Placing a work window behind WoW will allow you to alt + tab (switches the focused application) to it to hide just WoW.
• Set your desktop to an active desktop and place a work-related website as the background.  This will allow you to use  windows key + D and look somewhat active to a casual observer.
• I have been told that a messy desk makes you look more productive, so mess it up to hide your unproductive distraction.
• Play with no sound and no headphones.
• If you know the intruder is going to need your time or have to look at something on your machine then kill the process instead of minimizing.  To do this hit control + shift + esc to get the task manager up fast.  Select WoW.exe and hit end task.
• Setup some sort of code, distraction system or warning sign with other like minded people.  A bird call, a whistle, a ball of rubber bands being thrown 40 feet into your face.  Anything to save each other's asses is worth it.

Remember, if you get fired for playing you can only blame yourself.  I'm just trying to give you some helpful pointers so you DON'T get fired.  Do your job, then play WoW while you wait for your next assignment.  You manager's job is to manage, not yours. I know you guys have more tricks and tips for getting away with WoW at work.  Let's hear them.

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Ugg, maintenance day. What a waste of perfectly good play time Tuesday mornings are. Doesn't Blizzard know that the morning is when I do my Auction House browsing and such. Anyways, since there isn't much going on in the game right now I figured I could hit you guys with an update on Wrath of the Lich King and the load of mounts that are being added with its launch. MMO-Champion has a screenshot for all but one of the mounts, so its best you head to their post if you want to see more. At the moment there are 32 new mounts by my count, a few of which we have known about for some time. However, 32 is a bit of an inflated number since many of the mounts are simply different colors of each other. Currently, there are actually only eight drastically different models split up into seven categories. Category and model breakdown:

• Others – Windrider and Gryphon
• Bears – Four Assorted Bears
• Mammoths – Eight Assorted Mammoths
• Proto-Drakes – Seven Assorted Proto-Drakes
• Drakes – Seven Assorted Drakes
• Tailoring – Two Magnificent Flying Carpets
• Engineering – Two Hogs

I am less than thrilled about the Alliance version of The Hog, the motorcycle that I raved about before. My second choice would be the BlizzCon Polar Bear (aka Big Blizzard Bear), but we all know how that went. So now I am on to my third choice for a ground mount it seems. I guess I will just have to settle for ridiculousness and put my Gnome Rogue atop one of the many Mammoths. Why is it ridiculous? Because my character is smaller than what he would poo.

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