Project Lore

Protip is short video series with various tips and guides. Leave a comment to let me know what you want to see in future segments. Follow @Heartbourne for notifications of new videos!

Protip continues our Winter Veil coverage. Today, I open presents and grab the achievement Simply Abominable for killing the Greench.

Ah, Silvermoon city. Home of the highly effeminate blood elves. A magical city, where housework is performed by magical brooms and there are more inns and mailboxes than perhaps any other Horde city. Its no surprise that Silvermoon is a little more magical during Winter Veil. Around the various inns in Azeroth, you may find a pair of "Winter Revelers" flirting under the mistletoe (I use flirting generously; they really just stand there). Players can then /kiss one of the revelers to receive a special seasonal item, like Mistletoe or Snowflakes. Most inns have one reveler of each sex.

The same couple last year

However, if you head on down to Silvermoon for the holidays, you may notice two male revelers under the mistletoe. Its unclear whether or not this was a mistake, but it definitely happened last year as well. The pertinent question here is not if these are gay Winter Revelers, the question is why they changed to green suits and dropped the hats from last year. Blizzard has traditionally been very friendly and accommodating for its LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) players, especially relative to other online video game providers like Microsoft. There have been hints of some LGBT characters in WoW, and one of the biggest guilds in all of World of Warcraft exists as an LGBT-friendly guild. In case you haven't picked up on any LGBT characters in your WoW experience,  check out this roundup done by Michael Sacco at WoW.com:

Question, though more of a curiosity than anything, really: Are there any gay/lesbian/bisexual or even transgender/genderqueer characters in the Warcraft lore?

Officially? I don't think so. There are a few characters that people tend to question in terms of sexuality, though.

Readers point out that Sentinel Sweetspring at Stars' Rest in Dragonblight is flirting openly with another female Sentinel. Skyguard Khatie will also ask your character on a date, regardless of your gender. Even Maiev Shadowsong and her female lieutenant, Naisha, are insinuated to be an item in WarCraft III.

Chromie, the Bronze dragon, had a dragon model in the Culling of Stratholme named Chronormu, which is a male name, but Chromie's mortal form is a female gnome. That model was renamed to just "Chromie" to match the gnome form, though, so the world may never know. I think it was probably just a typo.

It may seem like there's a ton of heterosexual "main" characters (because there is), but remember that the world is populated more by players than NPCs, and players' real-life backgrounds aren't something Blizzard has a real hand in. And even then, we don't know the story behind most NPCs, either.

I'm not sure we'll ever see an "out" main lore character, but times are changing, at least in the real world. We'll see.

As with all of our posts on Project Lore, discussion is encouraged, but purely hateful or "flaming" (the irony!) comments will be moderated.

WoWFlix is a column featuring videos from around the web related to World of Warcraft. If you find something you’d like to be featured, leave a comment or send a tweet to @Heartbourne. You may be familiar with the lyrical stylings of Ryan Myers, author of such hits as "Action Bars", "Clint Felwood", and "All the Ninja Raiders". It was recently performed by EmberIsolte, who has a magnificent voice, especially as far as most amateur WoW singers go. RavenSylpheG made a machinima for it, making this a great collaborative effort between three very talented people. Its a step up from when Ryan performed it himself: You can grab the mp3 from Ryan's site.

Protip is short video series with various tips and guides. Leave a comment to let me know what you want to see in future segments. Follow @Heartbourne for notifications of new videos!

Moving on with our Winter Veil coverage, I grab the achievements Scrooge and On Metzen!

Protip is short video series with various tips and guides. Leave a comment to let me know what you want to see in future segments. Follow @Heartbourne for notifications of new videos!

Protip starts off with Winter Veil! I hope you are excited as I am. In this first episode, we get acquainted with the quests, achievements, and lore involved with Winter Veil.

WoWFlix is a column featuring videos from around the web related to World of Warcraft. If you find something you’d like to be featured, leave a comment or send a tweet to @Heartbourne. Nyhm is back! And he's got a great and timely video called "Nerf You". The song criticizes the constant complaining players do after a new patch, and the accompanying video is an entertaining montage of imagery and lyrics that make the song fun and easy to follow. Its probably not going to be Nyhm's highest production work or his best video, but its another quality video that makes me chuckle. Any Nyhm fans in the audience?

If you've been watching The Guild, you know Bladezz is by far the best character. With season three just concluded, what better time to pick up an obviously real Bladezz blade? Alex agrees, its the perfect doll/knife. You can check out other obviously real things from The Guild with cool cameos, including the Clara Momma and Me Cookie Jar: Tinkerballa Doll: Vork Unbreakable Bank: And Zaboo's Fantastic Pheromone Spray: If you want actual real things for Christmas, check out Project Lore gear at Jinx and The Guild's stuff, also at Jinx. How many Project Lore shirts do you own? Submit a comment or tweet me a picture and we'll have a picture roundup if we get enough!

Its been an unsolved mystery for years. Who are the Pandaren, where is Pandaria, and when is Chen Stormstout going to arrive and bring Pandamonium? We've seen references to the Pandaren through the life of Warcraft and WoW, most recently in the form of the in-game pet. Samwise, one of the most illustrious Warcraft artists throughout the years, shed some light on the current state of the Pandaren in an interview on the official World of Warcraft site. Here are some highlights:

A lot of people may not know the illustrious history of the pandaren race and their introduction in the Warcraft III expansion. Can you give a brief recap of how you got the idea for an anthropomorphic panda race and how they eventually came to be included in the expansion?

I might never have had the idea if it weren't for my brother's fantastic skill at mangling up words and phrases. "A flash in the pants" or "at the end of my wit" are some of the classics in my brother's repertoire of manglings and mash-ups.

We were all off on a weekend desert trip and come evening everyone was grouped up around the fire. I was off doing something and my bro, who already had a few Stormstouts in him, said something like "Dude, you're like one of those panda bears -- you're never cold." I said "Do you mean a polar bear?" He muttered something like "I said polar bear" or whatever, but from that moment on, I was judged and labeled as: The Panda.

Some years later I did a Christmas picture for my family of a panda bear with a cub sitting on his shoulder in tribute to the new daughter who had joined our clan. That was the first panda picture I did.  For some reason, one of our webmasters asked if it could be made into a Blizzard wallpaper. People seemed to like it well enough so that when April Fools came around we announced that the pandaren were going to be the fifth race for Warcraft III. People got excited by the announcement, and seemed to be let down when they found out it was just a joke.

...

The sculpting of Chen is special to me as the Pandaren was originally just created for my family and friends. It was done just for fun, as a joke. To have this personal piece of art become a page or two in the massive volumes of Blizzard Entertainment lore is an honor. And to have it embraced by so much of our community is a really great feeling. Some still think of the Pandaren as the Aprils Fools gag, while others think they should be the next race for World of Warcraft (Horde, naturally :)). But whatever your views, just remember this... if my brother was a better speaker then the pandaren race might never have been born. Cheers to you brother!

The Pandaren are sprinkled throughout Warcraft history, but with a non-combat pet, several TCG cards, and of course the new exclusive pandaren figure all releasing within a short time, are we getting close to something bigger?

You mean like car seat covers?

Thank you Sammy!

For Pandaria!

(read the full interview at worldofwarcraft.com) Samwise and a lot of the Blizzard "visionaries" have been going more and more public with their ideas and though processes, especially with WoW's fifth year anniversary just passed, and its nice for Blizzard to be dropping these bits of information now and then.

Pandaren model, left is beta, right is release

For those of you not in the know, Pandaren were first introduced around the time of Warcraft III. A lot of the concept art had hidden pandas in them, and various missions in the Reign of Chaos Campaign allowed you to unlock easter eggs with things like a hidden Pandaren image. Most notably, Illidan's blades had a panda face on them, which turned from happy to angry when he shifted into demon form (his blades were later changed to be the Blades of Azzinoth in WoW). When Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne was in beta testing, the Pandaren Brewmaster was revealed as a neutral hero. Its model changed significantly before release, from a Japanese samurai look to a more Chinese appearance. Chen Stormstout played a crucial role in the Frozen Throne campaign "The Founding of Durotar." Chen is referenced by a quest in the Barrens in WoW, and a child in Stormwind telling stories insists they are real. There is a persistent rumor that there is a law in China that prevents depictions of violence against pandas, preventing Blizzard from adding the Pandaren into WoW. This is just a rumor; there is no such law, and I have heard that there is another MMO popular in China that features playable panda people in a PvP environment. The takeaway lesson is that the Pandaren are just a running joke. As much as we love them, they are not consistently in the lore and only make cameos once in a great while.

A Tribute to Addons is a column featuring new, cool, or useful addons. Send a tweet to @Heartbourne or @Projectlore with your suggestions, or leave a comment. Now that patch 3.3 is live, we finally get that feature we've all been waiting for: the ability to see which quests we have completed. You will need to use an addon that can actually interface with this new API call. Today, we look at two of these: EveryQuest and QuestHelper. Prior to patch 3.3, EveryQuest kept track of what quests you have completed and provided lists and filters to find quests based on different criteria. The drawback was that unless you had been using it since you completed your first quest, its data on your completed quests would only include the ones you completed after its first installation. As of patch 3.3, this is no longer the case. Its got a simple and easy to use feature to import your completed quests from the server. Simply go to your interface settings after installing the addon: EveryQuest now knows all about what quests you have completed. There are a couple things to keep in mind here. Some quests aren't actually "remembered" by the game, especially "breadcrumb" quests. For example, look at the quests that EveryQuests claims I haven't completed in Hellfire Peninsula: I have completed Falcon Watch, but it was a rather inconsequential quest. It simply led me to the town, and the server doesn't count it for the Loremaster achievement or apparently for anything. The quest led me to others, which I completed, and for players who did not complete "Falcon Watch" but completed the subsequent quests would be unable to go back and do "Falcon Watch". As such, the policy for these quests seems to be to simply not recorded them as completed. Everyquest is simple to navigate and great for finding things like what quests you should get before heading into a dungeon. Its become part of my questing repertoire. Most players are familiar with QuestHelper. Its a popular addon that shows quest objectives on the world map and calculates an efficient route to completing several quests at once. One feature that has blossomed in patch 3.3 is the ability to see questgivers on the map. With the integration of what quests you have completed, it has reached a whole new level of utility. Type /qh incomplete to populate your incomplete quests and show the questgivers on your map. The drawback here is the lack of data of prerequisites. There are a lot of quests that are no longer available, like the Ahn'Qiraj war effort, and long, outdated quest chains that most players are uninterested in. With more advanced filtering and data, addons like these could evolve into a whole new level of gameplay assistance. Imagine a QuestHelper that knew if a quest that you turned in led to a new quest, and recommended you turned it in before going into a cave so you could complete multiple quests at the same time. Are you using this new feature to pursue Loremaster?

If you paid the vendors inside of the Icecrown Citadel a visit, you may have been overwhelmed by the amount of new items available. With new patterns and gear being sold across dozens of vendors for Primordial Saronite, Emblem of Frost, Mark of Sanctification, and heroic Marks of Sanctification, it might be a little unclear how to begin obtaining tier 10 gear. There are three levels of tier 10. The nomenclature is a little vague, but there is the entry level iLvl 251 version, the upgraded iLvl 264 version, and the heroic upgraded iLvl 277 version. You might hear these referred to as tier "10.251", "10.264", and "10.277". In order to obtain any piece of tier 10, you need to spend Frost Emblems to buy the entry level 251 version. You can currently obtain Frost Emblems from Icecrown Citadel bosses, the weekly raid quest, and by using the LFG tool to do a random heroic dungeon once a day. For a full set, you will need a total of 405 Frost Emblems. You may want to check out the sets to decide which pieces to get and how desirable the set bonuses actually are:

• Death Knight (DPS / Tank)
• Druid (Restoration / Feral / Moonkin)
• Hunter
• Mage
• Paladin (Holy / Tank / Retribution)
• Priest (Healing / Shadow)
• Rogue
• Shaman (Restoration / Elemental / Enhancement)
• Warlock
• Warrior (DPS / Tank)

Head	95
Chest	95
Legs	95
Shoulder	60
Hands	60

When you desire a 10.264 piece, you will need the corresponding 10.251 piece and a Mark of Sanctification corresponding to your class. As long as the mark matches your class, you can use it to upgrade any 10.251 piece. For example, Rogues, Mages, Druids, and Death Knights will need a Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification. There are 3 types of Marks of Sanctification to cover all ten classes, the Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification, Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification, and Protector's Mark of Sanctification. They seem to drop from the final boss of each wing of Icecrown Citadel, and its presumed that they will only drop from the 25-player raid and 10-man heroic "hard mode" version. Trading in the items to upgrade them will likely cause you to lose your gems and enchants on the item. Similarly, the tier 10.277 pieces will require a Heroic Mark of Sanctification and the corresponding tier 10.264 piece. The Heroic Mark of Sanctifications drop from the last bosses in each wing of the heroic version of the 25-man Icecrown raid. Keep in mind that players can only engage in heroic encounters if someone in the raid has defeated Arthas, and as that encounter will not be available for many weeks, it will be awhile before anyone can get any tier 10.277. Have you started saving for tier 10?