Project Lore

My fellow blogger Bastosa recently posted a nice article on the grind to level 80. It will be interesting to see how well the 5-man instancing team sticks together. From my previous experiences, running with a group of friends over and over caused us to become a bit competitive.   One evening, we called it a night after a few productive hours of grinding XP.   Well, we woke up to see that our Mage had stayed up all night to get three levels higher.  It wouldn't have been the end of the world if he wasn't six levels higher than the lowest person, and refused to come back and help us. The Mage's overly competitive nature basically killed our group. Bastosa's logic – that a group leveling together in instances should create skilled raiders down the road - is sound nonetheless and I hope it works out for them. For me, I will be going the same route as a few of the commentators, questing and exploration. Here is the major difference though, I will be leveling my newly acquired level 59.99 Priest instead of my faithful Rogue. Thanks to the Refer-A-Friend benefits, my buddy and I managed to level up a new set of alts to level 59.99 in under three days playtime. For the moment, we are both enjoying our never-before-played class and do not feel like stopping. By the time Wrath of the Lich King drops on November 13th, my new Priest should be 70.  At that time I hope to have enough experience under my belt as a healer – yes, also my first healbot - to begin healing in all of the new 5-man instances. Heck, if all goes well and I ding 70 with time to spare, I will probably start a tank on that server.  People always need a tank.  We have to burn those extras hand me down levels somehow. This isn't to say that I am abandoning my Rogue. I have been roguing since day 1 and have no intention of stopping. Yes, there have been ups and down through that time. Rogues were overpowered to begin with, causing us to be nerfed left and right. C'Thun was incredibly annoying as a dagger Rogue.  Gruul is just annoying, and I still have little group utility (that will change with the Echoes of Doom patch). It would be nice to say that I will try to co-level the characters on my main server.  Trading back and forth to get the most benefit from Rested XP, but honestly, that is just a pipe dream. So what about you guys? Sticking with your main? Taking this opportunity to switch your main? Re-rolling Death Knight?  Or experiencing the new content with an alt first? Bastosa, best of luck to you and your group. Be sure to update us when you ding level 75. I can't wait to do the Heigan dance again – the pull to him...not so much.

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SK-Gaming announced yesterday that the guild is splitting up.  No, no, the guild isn't dieing by any means but splitting into two distinct guilds, a PvE and PvP guild.  First, let me hit you guys with some details. The organization actually started way back in 1997 with the Quake franchise.  Later, the team transitioned to Counterstrike, where they received most of their fame, and has lived on in all things competitive gaming since.  The company runs various teams for numerous games including Counterstrike, Warcraft III, and World of Warcraft.  SK-Gaming has been a part of World of Warcraft for only a few months, since they teamed up with Curse shortly before the launch of Sunwell Plateau.  So, now you know some background on the team. The break-up is more than name only.  There will not be a SK-Gaming PvP guild and PvE guild.  Instead the teams will be completely separate, as the SK-Gaming brand wants to focus solely on e-Sports titles, of which they consider WoW's Arena ladder to be one of them. The decision speaks a lot for Blizzard's e-Sports hopes and the ability to manage two vastly diverse playing styles.  It should be pretty apparent that WoW is now an accepted e-Sports franchise.  I mean with millions of dollars in prize money being offered by various tournaments, how could you disagree?  It also should show just how drastically different the gear, playstyles, management and mindset need to be for players to be that hardcore in both aspects of WoW. For their part, the Curse/SK-Gaming PvE guild was the most dominate in Sunwell, with a combined five world first kills including Kil'jaeden.  So it isn't like the team wasn't working out.  They likely just did not feel comfortable surrounded by all the e-Sports guys, as it was reportedly their decision to leave.  There is also the issue with content generation.  How is a sponsored company like SK-Gaming supposed to keep people coming back after the newest PvE content is cleared?  There are things  they could do like training videos (we have that covered) or joke raiding videos, but that may not keep their members happy.  Perhaps that is why they have reformed under the new banner of “Put Your Name Here” and continue on with their previous benefactors, Curse Gaming and World of Raids. What does this mean for PvE?  Probably nothing.  Guilds, including the "splinter" PvE guild, will still race for world first kills, content will get cleared and then another dull period will ensue.  Same old, same old.  Life will go on, but as recocered hardcore raider, the changes interest me nonetheless.

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The United States stock market has been more random than a raid against Gruul in recent weeks. Since the House shot down the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout bill – glad they did by the way – the market has become even more tumultuous.  The Dow Jones had a record decline of nearly 800 points after the bill's failure, followed by an increase the next day from short-selling. But analysts have found one market that seems to be a bit insulated from the crashing economy, video games.

It is no wonder why world renowned economists are claiming that Azeroth's economy is currently the strongest economy in the world. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke states that “Azeroth's economy is the strongest market that I have seen in years. Inflation is low and well managed by Blizzard, consumers are spending at incredible rates, and goods are being bought and sold within days of creation. The current market trends in Azeroth could not be more polar opposites to the rest of the world.”

Secretary of Treasury and guy who is incredibly sure of himself Henry Paulson believes that “The economy in Azeroth is fine. No problems there, of course I did say the same thing about the US economy recently. But, this time I mean it. Put all your gold in Goldman Bags, they will be just fine.”

Mad Money's Jim Cramer exclaims that “HOLY COW, I HAVEN'T SEEN AN ECONOMY THIS HEALTHY SINCE I BEGAN SHOUTING AND THROWING THINGS ON TV. THE MAINLAND OF AZEROTH IS RAKING IN THE DOUGH WITH THE TRADE DEFICIT HEAVILY IN THEIR FAVOR. IF YOU COULD BUY STOCK IN AZEROTH I WOULD RATE THEM ALL A “TRIPLE BUY,” BOOYAH!”

Need an opinion from a real person, someone you know? Well, Solidsamm of Magtheridon agrees with the eggheads. “I can't believe this market. It is ripe for the picking. The auction house is truly a buy-low, sell-high market right now. I picked up a few thousand Netherweave Cloth for just over 250g, transmuted it to Heavy Netherweave Bandages and vendored them for close to 400g. That is almost 150g in profit with no risk! And with Wrath of the Lich King coming soon, things can only get better!”

Editor's Note: Not all quotes are real.

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First things first, this post will contain some information that many players may consider spoilers.  The information presented later in this post will only be discovered by most players once Wrath of the Lich King goes live. So that is your warning. I actually haven't managed to get myself into the beta, despite my best efforts.  This is coming from someone who has been in the previous two closed-beta sessions, so I feel a bit left out now.  Thankfully, my closest World of Warcraft buddy did manage to snake his way into the beta and has kept me up to date on things I need to know.  Over the weekend he pointed me to the small image you see to the right.  As any WoW player knows, those little foot icons are flightpaths. The image only shows the horde friendly flightpaths, so you can safely assume that there are at least 50% more.  At first glance I thought this was an incredible amount of nodes for the island of Northrend.   That is until I compared the size of Northrend to Outland and the other major islands.  The small picture  does not do the new island justice since it is not to scale, but Northrend is probably two to three times the size of Outland.   For a more appropriate picture check out the upcoming World Map. But my original surprise at the amount of flightpaths still stands.  There are more nodes crammed into Northrend than either of the original islands.  What makes even less sense is that players will be able to us flying mounts in Northrend, so why the need for more nodes than before?  I guess the one saving grace is that Blizzard will not allow players to use flying mounts on the island instantly.  Therefore, players will still be forced to explore the island before taking to the skies. Oh and as proof of the island's size. the route selected in the picture – Dalaran to Borean Tundra – takes about five minutes to complete.  Just enough time to get some dual-gaming in.  Does anyone else feel that Blizzard is eroding exploration by making it so easy to get around?

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Tuesday morning has gotten me yet again. Another week goes by where I try to login to World of Warcraft before work and check on my Auction House stuff, do some general bank clean-up and perhaps have a few minutes for some quick dailies. But today is Tuesday, and that means that nothing can be done in Azeroth from the morning to mid-afternoon.  When I was a kid I hated Tuesdays because I had CCD after school, now I have a new, non-religious reason to hate them!

(Sidenote: I was going to define that term for you, but I actually do not remember what it means.  I do remember that the kids jokingly called it Catholic City Dump though.  Plus two internet points to anyone who knows what it really stands for!)

After wallowing in self-pity for a fews minutes I always try to find something else to do.  Before I head off to work I almost always get annoyed a second time. It isn't that I think Blizzard is trying to ruin my chances at epic flying mounts for my alts – I know that is exactly what they are doing – that annoys me, but the fact that I never remember it is Tuesday. Yes, yes, I know they put up the message on Monday night, but honestly, who remembers anything from the day before?

After snapping out of my depression I have a few things I tend to take care of during those long hours of waiting. Naturally, one has to check out the numerous WoW-related blogs like:

• WoWInsider
• MMO-Champion
• World of Raids

I would add ProjectLore here but I kinda work for them, so I see the stuff all the time. You guys should definitely make sure to check us out!

Then you have all the WoW-related comics:

• Shakes & Fidget
• Dark Legacy Comics
• Flintlocke
• Looking For Group

Finally, I move on to real life stuff like checking my email, my stocks (so depressing as of late), play with my four crazy ferrets, and play other video games. Then I try to login again...it never works.

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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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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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The annual celebration of Oktoberfest began over the weekend.  Brewfest, as it is known in Azeroth, is another fun filled seasonal celebration like the earlier Harvest Festival.  Those of you that may have been disappointed by the lack of stuff to do at this year's Harvest Festival definitely need to check out Brewfest. The Brewfest offers much more than paying your respect.  The latest seasonal even even gives players a reason to venture back to Black Rock Depths.  Those of you who participated in the Brewfest last year likely have the old 2007 tickets.  Fear not, for those tickets can be turned into the 2008 tokens via one of two NPCs, Belbi Quikswitch for the Alliance or Crest Blix Fixwidget for the Horde.  Be aware though, this year's tokens are not savable for the 2009 Brewfest so use them all.  For all of those out their who fancy Achievements, you should purchase the "Brew of the Month" Club Membership Form.  By the time the form runs its course, you will unlock an achievement for the 2009 Brewfest. Probably the biggest change to the Brewfest this year is the removal of a purchasable item. Previously, players who saved up 600 tickets could purchase the Brewfest-exclusive mount, but that ability has been removed for the 2008 celebration.  Players who wish to score the mounts will now have to return to Black Rock Depths with a daily quest called [Insult Coren Direbrew].  The drop percentage has been reported to be as low as 2-3% and as high as 15%, so good luck.  Regardless, Direbrew has some pretty good loot – especially his trinkets - for characters that don't regularly run Karazhan or own Season 2 PvP gear or better. Direbrew has proven to be a fairly easy boss and very farmable.  For starters, you need to complete [Welcome to Brewfest!] and then [Save Brewfest!] before you can get the daily.  Once everyone has the daily quest, your group can summon him five times without having to switch up the line-up.  Then, have someone switch to an alt with the quest or look around for a new player entirely.  Naturally, having a Warlock around would make the whole process go faster.  You only need to be level 65 to start the quest, although tanks and melee should be 70. Brewfest 2008 will end October 4.  See you in BRD!

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