Project Lore

There's a few well-known lucky rollers in my guild, and let's just say I'm not one of them. Sure, I get my fair share of loot, but oftentimes it's by default (that is, no one else wants said loot). When it comes to my guild's 10-man groups, we don't use an intricate loot system -- we're all pretty fair people. Roll if you want something. If it's a bigger upgrade for someone else in the group, take that into consideration. And if you've already won several pieces of loot in a night, consider sitting out a roll. It's not a system that works for PUGs or guilds that don't share a sense of camaraderie, but it's great for my guild.

When it comes to 25-man loot, we usually use Suicide Kings (more on that in a later post). But this past weekend we were just having fun running some random stuff. I asked who wanted to run Onyxia since we hadn't done much dragon-slaying in awhile, and off we went. We wiped once when we tried it out with a 20-man group, then we filled the rest of those slots with friends of friends, and decided to just go with straight-up rolls for gear.

We got her down right away, and none of us were expecting the drop of all drops -- Reins of the Onyxian Drake. It was the first time that any of us had seen it drop. And thank goodness the raid leader had set it to master looter, because it's definitely one of those items that someone might deem worthy of a ninja.

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Thrall, Jaina, Varian, Sylvanas, Magni, these are all leaders that we hold some attachment to.  Wrath of the Lich King has brought new dynamics to the characters (and in some cases armor), shown new sides of their psyche, and reinforced others.  They are more than familiar characters to players thanks to trailers, quests, and in-game interactions, but that's only four of the ten leaders.  The rest, well they've faded into the limelight, retreated from the throws of war, usually the Third War, to live a life of relative peace.  Or Blizzard just hasn't bothered writing them into a storyline.

Ordered in relative uselessness, from least to most:

Cairne Bloodhoof - Cairne is the first good ole boy from the Third War.  Thanks to his veteran status he's seen as one of the wisest leaders of the Horde.  Like most wise people he takes an incredible amount of time to make a decision - we assume he's busy weighing all the complexities - which have put him at odds with quick-to-decide people like Garrosh. Cairne hasn't done much for players lately, but he's been grooming his son for eventual leadership.  An act that has many people wondering about his immediate future.  This reason alone keeps him somewhat relevant.

Tyrande Whisperwind - Her elfen complexion drew me to the Warcraft 3 box like you wouldn't believe, and later art only reaffirmed her sex symbol status in Warcraft lore (just don't look at her high school picture).  It should be no shock that brothers fought over her affection in their early years.  The love triangle between herself, Malfurion and Illidan was a driving force in Warcraft 3, one that went unrequited until Illidan's demise in The Burning Crusade.  Something she wasn't a part of.  The leader of the night elves hasn't been a major player in the lore since Malfurion became trapped in the Emerald Dream, which was before WoW was launched.  She's made cameos - the battle against Eranikus and a spot in the WoW comic - but nothing serious.  We may be stuck with emo Tyrande until the Emerald dream finally opens.

Vol'jin - As the leader of the most under-played race in the game it's not that surprising that the witchdoctor is underutilized.  Outside of a couple of quests and a cameo in the Battle for the Undercity, Vol'jin has been largely ignored by the writing staff.  It seems that his sole purpose is his little bromance with Thrall, the savior of him and his people during the Warcraft 3 campaign. 

Gelbin Mekkatorque - The exiled leader of the gnomes is easily the least useful racial leader in the game.  He has little background, had no known place in the earlier wars and continues to suck at fending off the Horde invaders.  He even allowed his once prosperous city to be usurped by Thermaplug thanks to his unwillingness to ask for aid from the nearby dwarves.  I guess it only makes sense that the most useless leader is the leader of the race with the least lore.  It's worth mentioning that we know more aboutThermaplug, Mekkatorque's former adviser, than the deposed leader himself.

I'm not suggesting that we simply kill off nostalgic cast members to get things moving, as LoreCrafted has, but something needs to be done.  These are the leaders of entire people, and yet Saurfang and Garrosh receive far more face time and global impact than the entire list.  I hope the reboot of WoW via Cataclysm gives these heroes a new drive.  Frankly, they've been without a storyline, central role or even a major side quest, for far too long. 

Could Velen and Lor'themar have been included in this list?  Possibly, but they were a large part of The Burning Crusade and have had some impact on the world since we headed to Northrend.  Those four, not so much.

This is it. The final "act" of Wrath of the Lich King concludes with the epic battle against Arthas, and upon the final blow, we get this epic cinematic. It seems like Arthas gets his last moment of redemption. We get to see his admission of suffering. Terenas confirms what Uther said in Halls of Reflection about the need for a Lich King to prevent the Scourge from sweeping over the land. With the Helm of Domination in hand, Tirion nearly commits to accepting the position of Lich King, before Bolvar cries out to him. Bolvar is badly burned and mutilated, and asks Tirion to allow him to bear the burden of restraining the Scourge. Tirion hesitates, and tells Bolvar that his great sacrifice will not be forgotten. Bolvar tells him to tell the world that the Lich King was killed, and Bolvar Fordragon died with him. He dons the helm, and becomes the new Lich King. Script:

With Arthas fallen, Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination at his sides, the ghost of Terenas Menethil II appears. Arthas: Father! Is it... over? Terenas: At long last... No king rules forever, my son. Arthas: I see... only darkness... for me. Arthas' hand falls from his father's as he dies. Terenas brushes his eyes closed as Tirion approaches. Terenas: Without its master's command, the restless Scourge will become an even greater threat to this world. Control must be maintained. There must always be a Lich King. The ghost of Terenas dissipates. Tirion shields his eyes, then notices the Helm of Domination on the ground. He lifts it and looks into its eyes. Tirion: The weight of such a burden... it must be mine, for there is no other- Bolvar: TIRION! You hold a grim destiny in your hands, brother. But it is not your own. Tirion glances at the Frozen Throne and sees a badly burnt and mutilated Bolvar Fordragon laying against the ice. Tirion: Bolvar! By all that is holy... Bolvar: The dragon's flame sealed my fate. The world of the living can no longer comfort me. Tirion approaches Bolvar. Bolvar: Place the crown upon my head, Tirion. Forever more, I will be the jailor of the damned. Tirion: No, old friend. I cannot- Bolvar: DO IT, Tirion. You and these brave heroes have your own destinies to fulfill. This last act of service... is mine. Tirion holds the helm up to Bolvar. Tirion: You will not be forgotten, brother- Bolvar: I MUST BE FORGOTTEN, Tirion. If the world is to live free from the tyranny of fear, they must never know what was done here today. Tirion nods and slowly places the helm onto Bolvar's head. The Frozen Throne shakes as Bolvar's eyes glow crimson and his voice deepens to the growl of the Lich King. Bolvar: Tell them only that the Lich King is dead... Ice encases Bolvar as he finishes his transformation. The Lich King: And Bolvar Fordragon died with him. Now, GO! Leave this place, and never return.

Tirion stated that saving Bolvar was a great opportunity for the Horde and Alliance to rebuild ties. With Bolvar inheriting the position of Lich King, it does not seem that this was accomplished. Was Bolvar corrupted as Arthas was? Bolvar does not seem to take up Frostmourne, and he is encased in the ice of the Frozen Throne. It seems that he will be a benevolent ruler and restrain the armies of the Scourge from running amok.

Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff.

World of Warcraft has been available for more than five years now.  That amount of time has enabled me, someone who's never been into alts, to not only roll one, but two alternative characters to level 80.  Add my mule and then the Auction House character and I have a grand total of five characters with over 30 days played each (mostly idle time on the bank and AH toons).  My point is this, I log in and out of my characters a lot.  I am talking about five to ten times a day.  That's why I wish Blizzard would implement a /relog characterName command.

It's an incredibly simple request that would do nothing fancy.  You'd simply type /relog Goggins, or any other toon's name, and the game would log you out of your current avatar and into the requested one in a seamless step.  No need to hit the selection screen and double-click.  You'd go from logging out to logging in.  We'd still have the option to hit the character selection screen through the old /logout, or the initial login, but how often do we really need it?

I figure that every relog wastes anywhere between a few seconds to thirty seconds, depending which computer I am playing on.  Compile five to ten relogs at ten seconds a piece over the course of five years and there's a lot of lost time there.  It's a simple request that would save me, and likely many players, a large chunk of time in the log run.

Frankly, I can't see any downside or possible abuse to it.  Can you?

Once the holidays wrapped up I found an incredible amount of time to dedicate to gaming.  Not only were family obligations wrapped up, but Ms. iTZKooPA has been incredibly busy searching for a job, everywhere.  She's basically been out of the house since the new year, giving me an obtuse amount of unimpeded free time.  A sizeable amount has been dedicated to gaming, with the majority of that time going to World of Warcraft.  Apparently so much time that my subconscious has even gotten in on the fun.

Yes, I dreamed about WoW the other night.

It wasn't just a rudimentary dream where I was my character, or some crazy fantasy about putting on my wizard hat and robe.  It wasn't a fantasy at all, or even in game.  It also was not a short dream that I remembered because of some unusual details.  The dream managed to creep out of my subconscious, causing me to be ever so slightly stirred from my sleep.  This ultimately led to a restless night.

/me sips his caffeine-laced beverage.

What was the dream that I remember so vividly, that caused such distress, and is worthy of a blog post?  Why it was about Patch 3.3 and the addition of Dungeon Finder tool.  My subconscious apparently thought it was an excuse for everything I could have done wrong since its release.  The only parts that I can remember clearly of the flowing dream had me late for work (a job I had when I was a teenager no less) and miss a wedding (my brother's, who isn't married).  In both cases I tried to levy the Dungeon Finder, and my attachment to running all my characters on it everyday, as a perfectly acceptable reason for my actions.  I'm sure there were crazier excuses levied, because the tossing and turning went on and on.  It was a surreal pseudo-nightmare experience.

It certainly wasn't my first dream about WoW, let alone a video game, and it probably won't be the last.  But it was the first dream that was about a video game, but set in the real world.  The most ironic thing is that while I was slipping in and out of consciousness, I decided to write a blog about it.  Oh you crazy brain.

Cool story, right bro?  Anyone else dream of WoW lately, or at all?



There's been one specific horse trampling his mark all over WoW news this week, and his name is Invincible. On the official World of Warcraft website Wednesday, Blizzard unveiled a page devoted to Arthas' horse along with the news that the Invincible Charger mount will drop upon defeat of the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel, on heroic difficulty. The site also goes into considerable depth on the history of Invincible -- in both life and undeath -- and just why he is so epic and frightening:

The mare Brightmane gave birth to Invincible as a young Prince Arthas watched with rapt attention. In the years following Invincible's birth, the horse and Arthas formed a bond that carried them across the warring nations of Azeroth, through the icy grip of death, and into the throes of battle. The stallion's coiled muscles were made for speed, and Arthas often felt that his mount flew rather than galloped across the countryside.

With the slightest touch of his heel, Arthas was able to convey his directions, and Invincible obeyed without question or hesitation. It was Invincible's unfaltering faith in his master that inevitably led to the stallion's death and unholy rebirth. On a cold winter afternoon as snow was blanketing the ground, Arthas was desperate to get away from the city even if it meant riding through harsh and unforgiving weather. Once outside, Arthas guided Invincible over a familiar jump, but the stallion slipped on slick ice, and the fall shattered his forelegs.With no way to save his companion, Arthas was forced to give Invincible a merciful death, and the prince carried that guilt with him for a very long time.

Years later, after the Lich King granted Arthas necromantic powers, Arthas returned to the grave where he had buried Invincible and raised his loyal servant into undeath. It was in this dark act that Arthas felt a sense of purpose. He believed that Invincible's death was not an accident; rather, it was essential to Arthas's destiny. Invincible was not bred to be a warhorse, but after he was brought back from the dead and made immune to hunger, pain, and exhaustion, he became the perfect steed for Arthas.

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It's with an unusually heavy heart that I report that earlier this week Sega announced the company's intentions to shutdown the PS2 and PC servers for Phantasy Star Universe.  PSU is being shuttered on March 31, after just over three years of being the second MMOG to come from the Phantasy Star world.

Ironically, the sequel to the first wildly successful console MMOG will continue to live on Xbox 360, including additional content past tomorrow's update.

Tomorrow, January 29, will be the last day that gamers can create a new account on the dieing platforms, and it will coincide with the launch of the "long awaited" MAG+ event.  From that day on, the game will be free-to-play.  Unfortunately, it appears that Sega is not opening the game to new users.  So we won't be able to see what we missed, be a part of closing events, or possible get sucked into the 360 version.

I really enjoyed that last few hours of Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, two titles that I played during their respective launches.  Although I never played Phantasy Star Universe, I do wish I could be a part of its sign-off.  That's because I did play its predecessor, Phantasy Star Online.  In fact, PSO is the MMOG that I cut my teeth on back in the Dreamcast days.  I even carried over that casual addiction to the Gamecube version ($$$), going so far as to purchase the system's super-rare broadband adapter.

For those unfamilar with Phantasy Star Universe, it's a third-person hack-n-slash game set in a science fiction universe.  It's not like WoW at all, being far closer to a Diablo meets Mass Effect title, with MMOG aspects.  The irony here is that the game is fully playable in "network" mode or as a single-player experience.  I may pick it up to rekindle the desire to slaughter rappies since the price of the PC version is almost at rock bottom ($13.53).

Phantasy Star Universe had one expansion, Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus.

According to Sega, the affected server platforms aren't being shutdown due to production costs of new content, or lack of subscribers, at least not directly.  The main culprit is the spread of the population, which is mostly on 360 now.  Sega should attempt to merge the game's databases and offer a move to the 360 version if at all possible.  I'd bite if I had a soon-to-be-dead character.

Phantasy Star Universe GM Edward@Sega told Escapist, "If you've played on PC/PS2 recently, you also likely know why we are shutting these servers down," he wrote. "The population is simply too low for us to be able to continue to support this platform."  He went on to say that the 360 version's content should now catch up with the Japanese edition of the game, thanks to the singular focus.

Did anyone else try either incarnation of Phantasy Star MMOG?

I managed to quarantine Heartbourne somewhere between brewing his latest sugary beverage to be featured on Protip (available in stores soon!) and geeking out on lore. I refused to let him leave until he answered the tough questions that needed to be asked. It's why hit Protip videos were late last week, honest. ProjectLore: We know where your name came from, but why did you start playing WoW in the first place? Heartbourne: I've been obsessed with Warcraft since I was in middle school, around the time WC2 Battle.net Edition came out. I was an avid Warcraft 3 player and was ranked on several ladders. Being a total lore nerd since the WC2 days, when the lore was much more obscure, the RPG incarnation of WoW sucked me in. I skipped high school the day it came out and ninja'd a Collectors Edition from Best Buy (as in I ran in and grabbed it; I still paid for it!).

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The barrier has finally come down.  Blizzard has admitted defeat.  The company is now selling WoW gold.

/me reads the rest of the announcement.

Oh, that kind of gold.  Like the Activision-Blizzard merger, Blizzard has simply taken my breath away with its latest business venture.  In an effort to expand the World of Warcraft brand to as many people as possible, Blizzard will begin selling collectible coins.  Yes, thanks to DC Unlimied the extended universe has branched out to the QVC lover in all of us.

Starting June 23, players, and coin collectors, will be able to get their mitts on two Collectible coin sets.  If you guessed an Alliance version and a Horde version, you'd be correct.  Dare I ask which faction has the better collectible set?

Each set comprises of three coins of differing sizes plated in precious metals (that means the coins are just wrapped in the precious metal).  The set will feature various faction leaders set in a fancy box and topped off with a faction emblem.

Alliance coins:
Gold: Varian Wrynn
Silver: Magni Bronzebeard
Copper: Tyrande Whisperwind

Horde coins:
Gold: Thrall
Silver: Sylvanas Windrunner
Copper: Cairne Bloodhoof

Does it need to be said that this strikes me as incredibly odd?  Sure, we use gold, silver and copper coins in the game, but I...I don't know.  Collecting coins just isn't my thing.  They are right up there with stamps and commemorative Elvis plates.  I'll stick with my vast collection of slowly corroding retro games, thank you very much.

The only thing that doesn't surprise me is the continued neglect to gnomes and trolls.  The two factions should really just splinter off and make a new faction called "Emo."  I doubt anyone would even realize that they'd left.

Not my cup of tea, but I am sure the sets will sell out anyways.  Even if they are "on sale" for $59.99.

*Note* I realize this happened last week, but I just came across it.

I've been sitting on an Authenticator for months.  Despite receiving a free one as part of my BlizzCon 2009 goodie bag I didn't enable it until two weeks ago.  My delay was partly because I feel that I am an incredibly secure computer user.  I don't head out to fishy sites, I have all sorts of security measures, and, here's the big one, I am the only person that uses the computers that I play on.  Friends and relatives that are not as careful as us, using our otherwise secure computers is a huge culprit in the account security world.  It wasn't until my equally paranoid and security-minded officer was hacked that made me enable my Limited Edition BlizzCon Authenticator.

It only took two weeks for something to go wrong with it.

Okay, that's a bit of a white lie.  Something didn't actually go wrong with the Authenticator per se.  It simply locked me out of my own account.  You'll notice that when I mentioned who used my computer it was actually plural.  That's because I play on multiple machines, two in my house, one at work, and one at my parents house (basically, wherever I spend most of my time has a WoW installation ready for me).  This was the second reason I was resistant to applying my littleRSA token, I knew I'd forget it somewhere eventually.  That's exactly what happened yesterday.

/me thanks C'Thun that it wasn't a raid night.

My mental lapse got me thinking 'What information do I need if something actually happens to my Authenticator.'  Luckily, there's an app FAQ for that. 

Blizzard simply tells you to call in (1-800-592-5499) to verify certain information about your account to resolve all Authenticator issues.  If you can do so, then it's all honky dory.  But what if you can't because that information is outdated, such as college students who move all the time (six times in five years for me).  Keeping the phones numbers, addresses and apartment variables all in order can be a bit difficult alongside a busy class load.

Here's what we need to do to expedite any claim:

• Write down the Authenticator's Serial Number somewhere, this is "the most important thing." Unlike passwords, Blizzard will actually ask for this.   According to the rep, the iPhone's or iPod Touch's Serial Number will change when the item is updated.  She suggests that you remove the Mobile Authenticator from your Battle.net account before the update, and re-apply it after with the new Serial Number.
• Make note of your WoW CD keys.  I have a file on paper and on my computer (encrypted) with CD keys to my most beloved games.  That way I can image the disc and reinstall whenever I need to without digging through boxes or worrying about busted game discs.
• Be sure your Battle.net information is up to date.  This means your phone number, physical address, e-mail address and billing information.  A Customer Service rep may also ask for your World of Warcraft information, which may or may not mirror your Battle.net stuff.  Unfortunately, WoW account information can no longer be changed as far as I can tell.
• Oh, and don't forget the answer to your Secret Question.

It's really not all that much, but it's something we can easily forget to do during our busy lives.  Especially since when we think of World of Warcraft, we think of playing it, not any other "frivolous" activity. 

Think of the maintenance like wearing a helmet when riding a bike.  You may never need it in your life, but if you do, the time spent putting it on every time makes it more than worth the trouble.