Project Lore

Some of you may know SaintGermain in-game on the Moonrunner-US server. He's a good FFB mage that can rock the DPS charts, CC mobs into turtles and has one short week he's waiting for in September to earn a Violet Proto-drake. I've played him for awhile and enjoyed my time in-game. I've made a few friends and learned a lot about the WoW universe. Some of my greatest memories in-game were raiding SSC and getting that elusive Serpent-Coil Braid. Thank god there were only three mages there and it was just a quick /roll to get it. And winning it made my mana management so much easier. I also remember the chance to play in the WotLK beta months before anyone else with a few of the people here at Project Lore. Seeing all the new terrain and the texture was just amazing and it got me excited all over again to play WoW and level to 80. And the chance to get into Naxx, something that was only a dream when I started playing only a few months before TBC came out. That was going to be awesome. WotLK came out and I got to 80 in a few weeks. I joined a great new guild and we destroyed Naxx 25 over and over again. I even got The Turning Tide. Still waiting for the ring, but there's always something, right? WoW. It's been fun. And in real life, I've had the good fortune of being able create video content for you here at Project Lore.com. I've produced and directed almost 250 episodes and edited at least 200 episodes of Project Lore in the past year. In all that time, with all of those 90+ hours weeks I put in, I continued to do my best to make sure you got the best WoW video content on the web. Some of my favorite episodes you may never know about because I had to cut so much of it. Early on the guys enjoyed themselves and spoke like some people on vent tend to do, but that's far beyond the PG-13 atmosphere I tried to keep the show at over the past year. But wow, if you could see the outtakes. And some of the things that have made it to air - amazing. Goggins singing, Jimmy pulling, all of the guys dying in STV.  And what about the inventive way to take down Anub’arak? Or the famous sheeping of '08? Or that amazing wipe on KT? Epic. Wow. It's been fun. As you probably have guessed by now, this will be my last blog post. I'll be moving on from Project Lore, headed for a new adventure. I may not go the way of BRK or Phaelia, but I do know that I won't be at Project Lore. I'll still play Saint, maybe level up a few alts, maybe try RAF to really speed it up. I had intended to complete all of the 33 WoW Life Lessons for you, but as with life, sometimes things... well, you know. As far as the other WoW Life Lessons that I was going to share with you, they are always available for you... in life and in-game. I'm sure that if you're open to it, WoW will teach you whatever life lesson you may need at that time. And I am certain life will too. Yes there are jerks. Yes there are noobs. And yes there are mobs that you will never beat alone. But there are also pugs that rock, epic rollz and phat lootz with your name on it. And you won't even have to spend any DKP for it. And most important, there are groups/guilds/good friends out there in the world just waiting to find you that you can hang with, play some games and have some fun. I am confident that those who work at Project Lore will continue to do their best to bring you the WoW content that you want. They will try to make it happen for you. Just be kind to them, and click on a few ads once in awhile. This site may be free to you but it isn't free to make. And now my time is done. Another will pick up the torch. I will go my merry way off to my next adventure to gain rep with another faction and get some epic loot. Thank you all for the opportunity to share some shows with you. Take care and have fun. Saint.

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With patch 3.2 on the test realms and the Ulduar hype slowly fading, it seems like the live servers are more empty than usual. Not only are there less players overall, but there may be less gold farmers than usual. The game economy on each server is relatively small and sensitive to these temporary changes in player demographics, and right now the shifting player base on at least my server has had some serious effects on the economy. The first thing that I noticed are less raw materials at a higher price. Since there are less players on, there are less players running around doing dailies and quests that lead them to herbs, mining nodes, or dead animals to skin. On the flip side, there are less people spending hours and hours a week raiding than there were with the launch of Ulduar. Thus, the demand for things created by these materials - like elixirs, Ulduar recipes, etc, has also declined. The result is an overall smaller market that is overall easier to manipulate.  With less herbs (especially Frost Lotus) available on the auction house, I'm not able to make quite as many flasks, but they aren't all getting bought either. With less competitors in the market, I have made quite the pretty penny on flasks - though I am selling much less overall. Its a perfect opportunity to expand and explore into other areas. I recently picked up Engineering and I'm going to see how many of these Nesingwary 4000 the market is willing to buy. It makes me wonder how much of am impact gold farmers really have on the market and how many are really out there. Back in the vanilla WoW days, you could hardly walk into Tyr's Hand without seeing a dozen gold farmers gathering cloth and other baubles to sell in the auction house. It might be more subtle these days. Ever see those power-leveling services advertised in trade chat? If they are going through the hassle of advertising in-game, they are getting at least a few people to buy into it, and all those characters at their disposal gives them a great way to farm up cloth and materials while leveling those characters and dump it into the market. Where there's fire, there's smoke. Illegitimate services like power-leveling are likely a sign that gold farmers are still out and about on the realms in some fashion. With a steady supply of raw materials into the market from illegitimate players like gold farmers and hackers, many of the prices we are accustomed to are likely the work of a great supply. We are used to the land of bounty where we can go to the auction house and get almost whatever we want if we are willing to pay a reasonable price. If gold farmers leave the game completely, will this change? How negatively do these types of services actually impact the game? Looking forward, the release of patch 3.2 will bring an influx of players eager to jump back into heroics and all the old raids as well as the new Argent Tournament content. Start preparing now and stock up on potions, elixirs, eternal, and other materials. With epic gems and many new recipes, patch 3.2 will undoubtedly jump-start the WoW economy.

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Dorkins continues his rep grind with The Oracles in the Sholazar Basin. He beats his drum and changes into something fierce... something strong... something wet? Find out what in this episode of Project Lore.

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Even Hoover (And His Library) Is Worried Saying there has been a bit of speculation surrounding the next World of Warcraft expansion would be an understatement.  For months now players have been looking ahead even though we aren't even on the second content patch (of four).  Blizzard added fuel to the speculation fire when it was noticed that the company is trying to trademark the term "Cataclysm" for use in games and products.  The early July news sealed the deal for many players; BlizzCon 2009 will usher in the MMORPG's third expansion. What if that doesn't happen?  What if Blizzard jut sits on the company's figurative hands in 2009 instead of following up the Diablo III announcement?  Why bust in on Arthas' reign?  After all, he is the most popular villain in all of Warcraft.  What if the announcement turns out to be the in-the-works, hush-hush, this-isn't-the-MMORPG-you're-looking-for title we know they are working on?  What if, heaven forbid, no game is announced?  After all, they are already working on four games (and the expansion), two of which should be out "soon," Diablo III & StarCraft II.  Shouldn't they focus the marketing on those titles that are first in the schedule? Let's assume that Cataclysm isn't announced, or that it doesn't pertain to WoW.  What would that mean for our favorite MMORPG? Should things go down that way, I believe it could upset the disenfranchised players.  Judging by conversations with friends, guildmates and the comments here at PL, there appears to be many players at different stages of quitting.  Many are just enjoying the Summer, others are taking a break between patches, and some see Call of the Crusade as a lore-less filler patch with nothing for them.  If BlizzCon disappoints then these members may be "taking a break" a bit longer than the developers would like.  Should things go down that way we may see the subscription numbers drop for the first time.  Perhaps even below 5 million (China's 6 million are barred from WoW still)!  Unlikely, but scary. That's just one possible scenario.  To all the speculators out there I pose you this, what if...?

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Follow The Tips Or Be Eaten By Each And Every Maw Combat, Assassination, Sublety.  Backstab, Mutilate, Sinister Strike.  White, yellow, green damage.  These are all important things to consider when you are trying to maximize your DPS, but they aren't the only things.  Not by a long shot.  The stab-happy class (and all other classes) also needs to keep stats like Hit, Expertise and Critical Rating in mind as well.  Then there's the act of standing behind your target at all times, timing a Slice and Dice refresh, popping the various cooldowns to maximize total output, sharing the wealth effectively and dropping a Vanish at the most appropriate time.  In short, the class that many players believe to be incredibly easy simply isn't.  Maximizing a rogue's abilities is as difficult as any other class in WoW. Here's the thing, one's raw DPS isn't the only thing that matters.  Adding to the already complex task of DPS is other raid mechanics.  Staying alive, reducing the healing required, spreading out and minimizing incoming damage.  These are all highly important tactics that every raider should be trying to master.  PvE encounters will become far easier for each member that masters their basic role - DPS, Tanking, Healing - and these "secondary" tasks.  Achieving outside the box is exactly what separates the casual raiders from the hardcore, and I don't mean in time spent. It'd be impossible for me to discuss what every class can do outside their normal role, but here are a few for my favorite class.

• Minimization of incoming damage - Yes, yes, of course killing the target will reduce its DPS to the fullest extent.  By show of hands how many of us can kill an elite target inside 10 seconds?  No one?  Thought so.  In the midst of burning that mob down be sure to interrupt incoming damage as much as possible.  Kick spells - but prioritize which you kick - stun whirlwinds, Blind stray mobs.  Sap.  Every class has a handful of tools to make life easier on the healers, use them.
• Spreading out damage - You have to be careful with this one depending on your class. Especially considering that this mostly comes up during a breakdown in an encounter.  During these hairy times spreading the damage across multiple players can be the difference between a catastrophic failure and a messy recovery.  For a rogue the idea is to save any squisher class from being pummeled, while bringing the mob to a tank.  Liberal use of Evasion and Cloak of Shadows are key.  By reacting quickly you can save other raids members, give healers time to react and focus on the tanks while reducing the tanks incoming damage as the encounter returns to normal.  Saviors just need to watch our for their own well being, as heals won't likely be coming their way.
• Staying alive - Blaming the healer is a fun past time, but barring a complete wipe you could have saved yourself.  If you were one of a few deaths during an encounter it's on you.  Sorry.  Perhaps you should have potted, moved away from the pretty spell effects that were nearby or eaten some food for that extra stamina.  If all else fails Sprint or Vanish.
• Dealing with AoE - Previously rogues couldn't do much with AoE.  We'd just stand there and take it, interrupting when applicable.  And we couldn't return the favor.  Very annoying.  Now we have two new tools at our disposal.  For incoming AoE damage - as seen in numerous Ulduar fights - we should be spamming a tried and true ability, Feint.  A 50% reduction in AoE damage is a sweet buff to the old school spell.  For dishing out AoE we have Fan of Knives.  FoK is best used with slow weapons.  If your energy is going to be dedicated to FoK during an encounter then switch to your slowest, hardest hitting pair.
• For the love of all that is holy - Enchant, socket and fill out all of your glyphs with something!  None of this "waiting for a better piece of gear to enchant" or "need to find a good gem."  Get a placeholder at least!

With many experienced raiders part of the readership I know a fair amount already grasp these concepts.  But I hope each of you learned a new trick, or at least remembered how important these tactics are.  If you already knew this information, then I am sure you have something to add.  Let's hear it.  Examples for other class tactics would be appreciated as well. Remember folks, we each have roles, but we can all make raiding easier, more efficient and, most importantly, faster by performing outside our narrow view of the world.

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I'm sure most everyone who's gotten through the WotLK content can relate. You've been in Northrend for a while and cruising through the journey to level 80. And finally, one of those landmarks that you've been waiting for -  Level 77: the level you become eligible to train Cold Weather Flying. And if you play it right, it's also a transition to some quick leveling. I've been questing in Northrend since level 68, so I skipped over expert and artisan riding that became available at level 70. But regardless, flying has been something I've really been looking forward to. Leading up to hitting 77, I had been questing in Zul'Drak, then headed back to Borean Tundra to catch some quests I missed earlier. When I dinged, I headed straight away to Dalaran and paid a visit to Hira Snowdawn at Krasus' Landing to buy the skills, and Dama Wildmane in Shadowmoon Valley to pick up my swift purple wind rider. About 7,000 gold later, I was ready to fly. The only problem? It takes some getting used to. I summoned the wyvern and started off with a jump. Flight practice. I tried aiming for the top of a tower in Shadowmoon Valley, and started the flying climp up. Much, much faster than I anticipated, I had overshot the roof and was hovering above it. I changed tactics and decided to aim with the mouse. Just like swimming. I aimed again, and touched down on the tower. Not too bad. I got the hang of getting around, but still am perfecting the art of picking out the perfect spot to touch down when near mobs. And running off the side of a cliff still makes my stomach flop over as I expect to start falling. But the wind rider's got my back. For now, the act of flying is still somewhat of a luxury for me because it's still so new. But I know soon enough, it'll become just another aspect of the game that I take for granted - that's the natural course of things. I remember how paying for my first trip between flight paths also seemed pretty magical, and quickly was only a means to get around. Especially with all the changes to mounts coming for patch 3.2, it seemed the appropriate time to reminisce a bit about the thrill of first flight. Do you all remember your first jaunt on a flying mount?

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I just picked up a new iPhone 3GS, and I must say I am really enjoying it. I've used a few WoW applications on it that aren't very good, but now Blizzard has released their second official application - the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Once you login using your Battle.net credentials, you can access all of the armory in a very slick interface. You can see your gear, achievements, stats, and pretty much anything else that you could see in the full version of the Armory. In fact, it seems a lot faster than the web version of the Armory (even over 3G), and the interface is a lot easier to use. The home screen allows you to choose from your characters or bookmarked characters. You can quickly switch between them with a beautiful "page-flip" animation. Searching allows you to quickly find characters, items, guilds, or arena teams to view. The item view is wonderful and detailed showing where items can be obtained, their full stats and description, as well as disenchanting data. There appear to be notifications with the calendar feature, which could end up being extremely useful. I've been trying to find an easy way to get my armory calendar in Google, and having my iPhone let me know when its time to raid solves the problems entirely. Other features include a leaderboard for achievement points among your characters and bookmarked characters or guild, talent calculators, and armory news directly in the application. This replaces all of the other WoW applications I've been using and it does a much better job. Check it out at the official armory site! What do you think? Will this replace your alt-tabbing to evaluate players in-game, and do you really need the Armory on your phone?

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I'd like to take a moment on the one year anniversary of Project Lore to address the fans in order to let you all know what's up with the us and what you can expect in the future from Project Lore. We're going through some changes here, which you may have already noticed. Over the next few months, you'll see the site and video content evolve, and in the end we will be an even better resource for you to find your favorite WoW content. We've heard your concerns about Project Lore and understand that you love the show for the same reasons we love it - embracing WoW culture and the interactions between players that make the game what it is.  Over the summer you can tell we've taken a little break from the bigger scale videos but rest assured that we want to give you a Project Lore Ulduar run just as soon as we can. In the mean time, be sure to check out the live streams of Ulduar runs that will be happening during the week and will start being featured here on Project Lore. They're going to be improving and becoming more interactive as time moves on, so watch our Twitter feed and check the site to see when they'll be happening. On one final note, we want to thank you all for your support over the last year. Without the fans, there would be no Project Lore, and we would never have made it for one year. Here's to the second year being even better!

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There's so much going on here, that there's little room left for any of the real action! Where would we be without the advent of add-ons? In the dark ages of pre-packaged interfaces and a serious lack of Peggle, that's where! Every time I get back on the PTR, I find myself tossing curses left and right, having the default UI foisted upon me once again and not knowing where any of my buttons are. It's not that what Blizzard gave us was bad, it's just that it ended up being so ultimately... standard. With a surprisingly open policy towards modification (of the non-cheating variety, of course), one might think that Blizzard predicted, nay nutured, such a robust add-on scene. Visit one of the many sites that feature these applets for download, and you'll see thousands. Certainly, many are nigh worthless or badly programmed -- the pinnacles quickly stand out -- but they're there nonetheless. You can't deny the response the community has given. But as much as I'd like to believe or pretend otherwise, I really am a creature of habit at heart. Change scares and mystifies me more than I care to admit. There are certain add-ons that I play with every day and would dearly miss the moment they stopped working. But there are others, even very popular ones, that I've tried my damnedest to learn using, to no avail. They feel too bloated, have too many customization options, profiles that somehow end up changing setups on my other characters when they shouldn't, or they just end up making my interface look like Satan's ass after a trip to the Indian buffet. These are add-ons that can work quite well in ideal circumstances, but I never seem to be privy to them. As a reference for what I still use: X-Perl Unit Frames, Titan Panel, Recount, Deadly Boss Mods, and AtlasLoot are my bread and butter. The first is largely for cosmetic changes and the ability to drag frames around, the second is for convenient and easy-to-access information that stays largely in its own space, the third is for measuring my DPS, the fourth is for reading timers on bosses, and the last is simply a luxury that stays out of my way until I need it. As I've already made clear, there are others out there, though. I see videos or screenshots of other players' user interfaces and ooh and aah about how pretty they look, I figure out what they are, go download them, and attempt to set them up in the game. It is only near the end of this process, after fiddling with configurations for awhile, that many of them simply offer me no added functionality. In fact, they sometimes decrease it. One add-on that I tussled with for awhile was IceHUD. You may have seen this one before. It's got those cool, curved bars (though there are options for several shapes) that hover just to the sides of your character, like a protective bubble of pure, strategic data. It took me awhile to get everything squared away, adjusting the spacing and size of each bar, as well as attempting to create custom ones that monitored certain timed abilities on my rouge (like Slice and Dice or Hunger for Blood). And even then, I wasn't happy. I realized two things very quickly that I never took notice of before: One, I had already trained myself to look into the corner of the screen to find out things like health or energy. And, two, the area that the bars occupied was a huge visual dead zone for me. I was used to finding my vitals elsewhere, and I would get lost in the middle of a fight, because I simply didn't know where they were. A similar thing happened when I installed Elkano's BuffBars, a sleek set of timers that you could stack together on one side of the screen or the other. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought I could save space and make my interface look cooler if I could get rid of the gaps between the normal buff icons. Likewise, I could have the add-on name them for me, so I would actually know what half of them were. But I had the same issue. I was looking for things in certain places and not finding them. I ended up having to chop up the bars into smaller sections and take the time to ensure that pertinent info would be sorted into the correct columns. Once this happened, I had already divorced the add-on. It was time for BuffBars to go. Another revelation: the reason why I didn't know what some of those buffs were was because I honestly didn't need to. I knew what the ones I needed to find looked like, so it ended up being better just leaving in the defaults. What all of this amounts to is something called information overload. My experience is not like everybody else's, and certainly other players can glean more from these add-ons than I can, but I'm sure that we all have some installed that just infuriate us every time we load them up. Quest Helper? Pshaw! I know where most everything is by now and that GPS arrow just got annoying, urging me in directions I didn't want to go. Bartender? OK, I do use this one, but every time I change my bars on one character, it seems to change those on others, causing me to lose icons (and many times, not realize it). There are a lot of important things that Blizzard's default UI doesn't supply us with, and they know it. The demand for certain applications has caused them to release versions of their own, such as the recent Equipment Manager or the upcoming modifications being made to the Quest Log (skulls for important mobs or goals on the map, anyone?). But going overboard with add-ons can quickly lead to fatigue. Too much useless information prying its way into your eyeballs, scrambling important messages as they make their way to your brain. My advice? Scale it back a bit. Relax a little. You can have convenience without sacrificing that all-important data. Take a look at what your class or characters really need to pay attention to and largely restrict what you install to those add-ons that focus specifically on that sort of information. Be wary of sweeping cosmetic changes that end up obscuring instead of clarifying. My interface isn't beautiful, but it is usable. Yours can be like that, too! In fact, I'd like to hear your success stories, as well as the failures. What does your user interface look like? Have you found a happy medium with your add-ons, or are you currently suffering from too much information? What popular add-ons have you failed to connect with? Please school me on your experiences in the comments section!

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Community Spotlight On LoreCrafter.com's Catalysm Ideas I, like many of you, absolutely love Warcraft's lore.  We've been talking about it much lately, ranging from various quests and zones all the way to the predicted reveal of the upcoming expansion.  To be completely honest, the lore is what I spend most of my time on.  I read about the universe all over the place, from manga and books to various websites and blogs.  I spend hours a week raiding, leveling and farming.  Yet, I'd wager that I dedicate almost an equal amount of time pouring over the many resources available.  And we need so many due to the immense size and scope of the universe that Metzen and his underlings have created for us to play in. I simply can't get enough of the lore.  Lunches, "smoke breaks", waiting for things to install.  I steal every moment I can to absorb the seemingly endless amounts of information, stories, conjecture and background to Warcraft.  It's this very reason that I have between 15-20 sites on my RSS feeder dedicated to this single purpose.  And one of them really caught my eye, and teased my brain, recently, LoreCrafted.com. Let's be clear, the latest series of posts by Tharion Greyseer are complete and utter speculation on the aforementioned upcoming expansion.  Over the course of a couple of weeks Tharion crafted a recap of what could be coming from World of Warcraft v4.0 and beyond.  The author even took the time to include Blizzard-esque role playing introductions for each patch, crafted a possible world event focused on rising seas and the incoming Naga swarms from the Maelstrom and addressed other popular expansion theories. I don't dare recap the entirety of the posts for fear of "spoiling" those who want to remain clean, and to force you to check out the excellent posts.  The information contained within is indeed pure speculation, and unlikely to be spot on, but it makes Cataclysm sound pretty interesting.  Not to mention complex if the intertwining lore aspects come to fruition.  Upon completion of the series I did enter into a surprising state of depression.  Reading the synopsis made me realize how formulaic the expansions can easily become. Who else dedicates unsafe amounts of time to reading Warcraft's past?  Have any of the non-Warcraft III players gone back and read about The Frozen Throne and the current lore?  May I recommend just playing it?  Enjoy the community spotlight? Interesting tidbit.  According to WoWWiki the bonus campaign in TFT, featuring Rexxar, was created to showcase the Orcs, because they weren't a large enough part of the story proper.  I guess that answers the 'what is the Horde doing' question I posed earlier.

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