Project Lore

[caption id="attachment_9295" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Tribute to insanity, AMIRITE?"][/caption] When I was in high school I remember my brother absolutely losing it.  He snapped, falling into a fit of uncontrollable rage and despair.  It's possible he's never been the same since.  It had nothing to do with his heart being broken, or being cut from the basketball team (he wasn't).  No high school-style earth-shattering moment at all.  He simply died in Diablo II, on a hardcore character, at level 82, because he was playing on a 56k modem. He selected this masochistic task because he had already beaten Diablo II countless times.  It challenged his mouse-clicking skills, and gave a true meaning to dieing in a video game for the first time (followed later by Steel Battalion).  Imagine if he took it further.  Not collecting loot, not grouping with other players, and not questing, then he'd be just insane right?  Neverdied, a now level 80 mage on Chimera is insane, and insanely dedicated. According to MMO-Champion, Neverdied hit level 80 with no deaths, quests, instances, BGs or Arenas, mounts, flight paths, professions or looting, and only 80 Achievement points (hitting level x).  The character was leveled Rogue style, good old fashioned grinding. Neverdied did buy equipment from the AH, something I am left scratching my head over.  If the toon had no professions and didn't pick up any loot, where did the money come from?  Was coin looting allowed, or was there a support toon involved?  Either way, it is an incredible achievement, something I will never attempt. Neverdied wasn't the first character that the player attempted to be hardcore on.  All of the careful planning and execution was made possible by the previous failed attempts (he had a warrior toon crater).  The community will never cease to amaze me at the different ways they can achieve random things in World of Warcraft. A collective 31900+ mobs were harmed in the making of Neverdied.

World of Warcraft has never been balanced, ever.  Since the beginning of time one or more classes have been considered stronger than the rest, until it was hit with the nerf bat.  Warriors, hunters, rogues, priests, paladins, druids, death knights, I am fairly certain every class has had their time to shine.  Due to the rampant issues, the term OP, or overpowered, entered into WoW's lexicon, and has remained a staple to this day. If every one of WoW's ten classes was designed to do the same thing the game would be very boring.  You can argue that the differences have become cloudy all you want, but the classes still maintain core abilities that others cannot recreate.  Mages are the masters of crowd control, rogues love to incapacitate, paladins live in a bubble and hunters are a big tease.  Each class has their perks, but some remain on a single track.  That's why I believe they deserve to be the best at what they do.  Not overpowered, but designed to excel at their sole purpose, DPS. In my ideal world, where gear and skill are equal, rogues and warlocks would top the DPS charts on most fights.  They'd be followed by mages and hunters, and then a menagerie of the other classes. No, stop it.  Scroll back up here.  At least read the rest of the post before you head to the comments section to tear me a new one! These four classes have been singled out because DPS is truly their method of choice.  They cannot perform any other aspect of the holy trinity, in any spec.  In a pinch, any of the unnamed classes can attempt to fulfill one of those other rolls. I'm not suggesting that their be a large DPS gap between these tiers either, just a noticeable one.  Something like 1.0% for the top tier and 0.5% for the second, both of which could easily be overcome by a more skilled or geared player of the other classes. Judging by the information on WorldofLogs.com, my pipedream is almost a reality, at least in ICC.  Rogues are in fact on top, oddly enough, in all the fights.  But the stab happy class seems to be a bit out of line with everyone else, doing a substantial amount of extra DPS.  This could be explained by excellent use of Tricks of the Trade swapping however.  Warlocks and hunters are maintaining good DPS, even if they aren't plentiful in terms of appearances.  Warlocks should ideally be a bit higher on average.  Even other classes are managing to be sprinkle themselves into the top slots.  If there's one class that seems to be out of whack it's mages.  The class is present, but well below the other three on average. Naturally, I may be a little biased since my main is still a gnome rogue.  What would your ideal DPS tier be?  I wish I could ask the same about healing, but I've realized that healing ranks for certain fights can change radically depending on the encounter.  Whereas a healing rotation may change for fights X, Y, and Z, a rogue will use the same rotation for pretty much everything.

[caption id="attachment_9273" align="alignright" width="225" caption="To tweet or not to tweet...Photo By L. Simon"][/caption] It finally happened, I opened a booster package of the WoW TCG and found my very first loot card!  For the first time I have a foil card in my grasp, one that cost me at least $100.  I don't care that it's one of the most worthless cards of the Scourgewar series, a super common.  The fact that its laying on my desk means I finally, finally got something back for my investment. Not only is the card monetarily worthless, but Tiny (Alliance/Horde) is the last piece of loot from Scourgewar that I wanted.  Being an avid pet collector I would have much preferred either the "pet" Kite or the Spectral Kitten.  Both of which would raise my pet counter.  Instead I am stuck with a meh horse.  A mount, something I could not care less about.  If the raptor was obtainable for me then maybe I'd give my tired Mechanostrider a break, but that isn't the case.  So the card has remained unscratched. In the spirit of Winter Veil I am leaning towards simply giving the card away.  But to whom?  A guildmate would be an obvious choice, or perhaps a bit of bribery to my guild master or raid leaders.  I am new to the guild, so I could use all the help I could get, but I don't want to get known that way.  Instead I've decided to give it to the person I've been playing WoW with the longest.  Someone who I've meet in real life a few times, and can always count on having a good time with, even if it isn't productive.  It just so happens that he's an avid mount collector, so this somewhat elusive and new mount may just make his holiday. There is a chance, however slim, that he already has the uneventful horsie.  Should that be the case, you definitely should pay attention to my Twitter account.  If it comes down to it I will scratch off the card and post it there to award the reader with the fastest fingers. One of these days I'll actually find someone to play the trading card game with...

[caption id="attachment_9252" align="alignright" width="298" caption="Snow flurries count as action, right?"][/caption] Tokyopop returned to the forefront of Warcraft's extended universe by releasing its ninth Warcraft related manga, World of Warcraft: Death Knight, two weeks ago.  The book marks the first in the line of class-based stories, and artist Rocio Zucchi's first major undertaking.  Writer Dan Jolley has had numerous cracks in the business, even penning a Warcraft short for each of the first three Warcraft: Legends collections. Death Knight tells, and retells, the story of Thassarian, the first of his kind to break from Arthas' grasp and rejoin the Alliance.  Thass is by no means a stranger to WoW players, acting as one of the main quest givers during a death knight's fight for freedom.  The upside to that is that Thassarian's known lore allows Jolley and Zucchi to recant an incredibly brutal story.  Jolley's tale is one full of action.  Not long battles of wit and spell casting mind you, but confrontations of well executed strikes that result in a quick, and grisly deaths and dismemberment.  Even chickens were beheaded. Much of these battles follow previously known atrocities committed by Arthas and his minions.  The sacking of Lordaeron, the battle at Light's Hope Chapel, and Frostmourne Cavern are all retold from Thassarian's perspective, with each being a key moment in death knight's life.  Key moments that anyone familiar with today's lore can easily detail.  By and large the only new chapters of the story are Thassarian's beginnings.  His love of the farm, duty to his family and ambitious military career are the few poignant aspects of his life not previously known to lore nerds.  For a lorejunky like myself, the only redeeming quality of the later chapters is Jolley's interpretation of the Lich King, how he speaks with and controls his minions. It's quite apparent after reading WoW: Death Knight that Jolley's creativity was handcuffed by Thassarian's standing lore.  Rather than being able to craft any character he wanted, he was constrained to using specific events, interjecting small bits of lore and details as he went.  For those that have focused on the current lore, and death knights especially, the story is largely known.  But Jolley's dialog, and the few aspects of new lore shine through and continue to show us that he's a capable writer in our favorite universe.  Capable enough that he should be crafting his own stories, in short or long format. Zuchhi's freshman outing wasn't constrained like Jolley's, enabling her skills to highlight Jolley's action-packed tale clearly and efficiently.  I never once had to rescan a pane to understand the art, a common issue I have in action manga. World of Warcraft manga will continue with Richard Knaak's June 2010 installment, WoW: Mage.  Little is known about the plot, but it has been disclosed that Mage features Kirin Tor's Dalaran, and (sadly) Knaak's pet character Rhonin will be in the title, but (thankfully) not the main character.  Mage will be followed by WoW: Shaman, that has no known author currently.  Tokyopop has stated that Shaman, another 2010 release, will tie-in with Cataclysm.

[caption id="attachment_9235" align="alignright" width="195" caption="Guess we won't see this anymore."][/caption] We knew that WildStorm and Blizzard were changing up the structure of the monthly World of Warcraft comic, splitting the Horde and Alliance stories, but no one expected it to be completely canceled.  According to IGN's comic gurus, WildStorm and Blizzard have decided to axe the monthly installments in favor of full-fledged graphic novels.  It's unknown if the faction split that was previously announced will roll over to the graphic novels.  We also don't know if we are going to see those stories played out, or if the novels are going to move in a different direction.  We've requested a comment from WildStorm and will get back to you with any information. What do we know?  Well, the the monthly serial will wrap with World of Warcraft Special, reportedly available now, and StarCraft's tale will end with late January's issue #7. I, and many other readers, expect to be quiet happy with the change.  I've never picked the issues up on a monthly basis previously, preferring the hardcover, single installments to dozens of flimsy, easily destroyed pages, so the one-shot deal is right up my alley.  I also expect that the artists and writers will be given additional time to craft their tales and plan their art.  Hopefully that will end the mixed reviews between readers.  WildStorm tends to agree: "While WildStorm and Blizzard loved the stories being told in the regular monthly comic-book series, we decided that the graphic novel would be a more suitable medium for the tales we wanted to tell next," said Hank Kanalz, VP & General Manager of WildStorm. "The larger format will give our artists and storytellers more room to explore Blizzard's rich, varied worlds and flesh out the characters that inhabit these places" (emphasis mine, on both accounts). In other WoW-related comic news, the popular web series The Guild is reportedly moving to the colorful format thanks to Dark Horse Comics.  Issues are due out in March 2010 and are penned by Felicia Day. Maybe Alex can get a cameo in there too?

[caption id="attachment_9215" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Guild hopping must be stopped!"][/caption] One of the much ballyhooed announcements at this past BlizzCon was Cataclysm's inclusion of Guild Achievements and Guild Talents.  The features are being implemented for one reason, to return guilds to the long-standing and well-respected structure that they were in vanilla WoW.  Since then, and more specifically since Wrath of the Lich King, the strength and draw of a guild has waned. The social structure was once required to get anything done.  Now, guilds are more of a tool of convenience, helping to do the job instead of being required.  Because of that fact players jump from guild to guild at a moment's notice, ninjaing and being complete assholes as they go. Cataclysm's upcoming guild features can change that, but the requirements need to be strengthened. The last anyone heard, the benefits from a guild's talent tree will apply as soon as you are made a member.  Why not levy these perks against members, specifically against those who just hop around on the guild pogo stick.  Instead of giving a brand-spanking-new member access to those sought after game modifications, cheap repairs, guild summons, etc, let's give guilds the ability to withhold them for awhile.  Give GMs and officers the power to only enable the benefits if a player has remained in the guild for x months, achieved a given guild score (awarded for contribution to a guild's success), or been assigned a specific rank.  Everyone knows that you pay for work after it's done. Guild Talents are a fantastic idea.  No longer will guilds be just a social setting, or an ends to a means, but something that players are able to grow alongside and help contribute to.  However, if members aren't required to do something to gain access to the perks, then there's nothing to stop them from continuing to bounce from guild to guild.  Conversely, if the perks have a pre-requisite, members will be more apt to settle any differences and disputes in guild, rather than running to a new home. What other measures would you like to see Blizzard put in place to lower guild member turnover?

Anyone who's completed Wrathgate knows exactly why Varimathras, Sylvanas' second-in-command, and Grand Apothecary Putress have disappeared from Undercity.  After such a betrayal it's expected that the rest of the Horde would become a little weary of The Forsaken, thus replacing the abomination guards with orc defenders.  We knew the change was coming too.  But we didn't know that the changes, adding orc guards and Bragor Bloodfist, would break the continuity of one of the Horde's earliest questlines. It turns out that the change wasn't entirely phased, causing the abom guardians to disappear from the game for Wrathgate veterans and level 10 players alike.  Yet the early plague-creating quest from Varimathras (getting the books from RFC) is still available from a new orc NPC (to preserve the quest for the lore achievements).  Thus, the change has caused a paradox for lowbies.  Why are we tasked with retrieving the books from Ragefire Chasm if Varimathras already has them, as evidenced by his disappearance? Blizzard took the easy road on this one.  Rather than spending the time to phase all of the NPCs, abominations, Varim and Putress pre-Wrathgate, orcs and Bloodfist post-Wrathgate, the developer dropped in an unexplained replacement for Varimathras, and had orcs unstich the aboms.  Okay fine, maybe phasing all of that would have been too time consuming, or difficult.  At the very least the book quest should have been modified to skirt the paradox by asking for different, less volatile items. Who knows if the early parts of this memorable quest line will remain in Cataclysm.  Maybe that could explain the laziness.  I think that with all the players re-running old content Blizzard would be careful not to break continuity.  Especially when it could have been so easily avoided.

[caption id="attachment_9158" align="alignright" width="227" caption="Hot elves like it on top."][/caption] I talk about World of Warcraft a lot.  I'll discuss it at parties, gatherings, business meetings, anywhere that I believe it's reasonable to mention or interject.  I may hide it from my girlfriend, but I, for some odd reason, don't mind bringing it up with complete strangers or colleagues.  For every person that's interested, or at least feigns interest, I get one that asks "Why do you play that [adjective] game."  Sometimes they are misinformed, sometimes they are disenfranchised players and others are fans of other MMORPGs.  No matter what their background is I hit them with the same five reasons. Social: I play this game because other people play this game.  Any MMOG isn't worth its collection of 1s and 0s without a stable community, something WoW has in spades.  That isn't to say that I am just sticking with the comfortable bandwagon. WoW's community has connected me with countless longtime friends that I've remained chummy with inside and outside the game.  No other game in my long thumb-based career has approached the amount of comradery that WoW has delivered.  And it's a great place to keep up on your Internet memes. Story: Illidan's release, the Night Elf love triangle, Rexxar, Archimonde, The World Tree, Shifting Sands, corruptions, Gnomeregan's collapse, dragons, and the murders of heads of state, these stories are what pulled me to Azeroth.  If it wasn't for the numerous branching, continuing and ever increasing storylines I may not have come back to WoW.  I knew I could just read about the content as it was deployed and discovered, but experiencing it in the RTS series left such an impression on me that I felt I had to kill Illidan myself to really experience it.  Nothing delivers Blizzard's stories better than being in the middle of them. Challenge and Encounters: I play video games on the hardest default setting for a reason, I like the challenge.  Unfortunately, its isn't something that is exclusive to WoW, so challenge is lower on the list because it's easily replaceable.  Any one of the dozens of quality games that come out a year will offer an alternative to downing the latest boss or soloing something that isn't supposed to be soloed.  At least it (some) challenge does remain in WoW, unlike many of today's games.  That being said, the encounters themselves, rather than the difficulty they pose, is quiet an attraction itself.  Again, the aspect is marred, because even a fantastic encounter like Herald Volazj loses its luster once it is on farm. Cost of Entertainment: Many people balk at a monthly fee, but it it turns out to be a relatively cheap form of entertainment.  Seriously, WoW pays for itself. Time Invested: This isn't a reason to play, but a reason that keeps me playing.  I've already invested many days in WoW, spent hundreds of dollars on the game and its extended universe, and what feels like eons on lore, number-crunching and writing.  I feel that I am time committed to continue playing until the other reasons I play fail to keep my attention. What brought you to World of Warcraft initially.  And more importantly, what keeps you coming back for more?

Outside of the new dungeons, the most talked about aspect of Fall of the Lich King has to be the revamped LFG system.  Combined with the new daily heroic setup, the Dungeon Finder feature has been a raving success, changing the way that millions of players participate in World of Warcraft.  By that I mean wasting far less time trying to find groups.  Saving time is simply awesome, but should it be taken a step further?  Should the realm walls come down altogether by means of cross-server pre-made functionality? Pre-mades already exist for the PvE players out there, we simply know them as guild runs.  I'm sure many players have already found capable tanks, DPS and healers from the Dungeon Finder that they'd love to continue to play with.  My raid leader has already passed an olive branch to a few players from other realms, going so far as to tempt them with phat loots to make the leap to our realm.  Okay fine, our guild.  None of them have bit - the IRL cost always being the excuse - but if a cross-realm pre-made option existed, then the players who want to play together could. [caption id="attachment_9135" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Pre-Mades would certainly taste better than Midtownlunch.com's dish"][/caption] The ever touchy issue of PvE and PvP balancing rears its ugly head here as well.  PvP pre-mades have been the bane of non pre-mades since the beginning of time.  Pre-made groups hardly ever lose in PvP, to the point that beating one is a joyous, often told occasion.  If the same scenario from PvE land, the gathering of the best and most complimenting players in one group, were to become the standard in the competitive gameplay side of WoW, then the outsiders would cry foul.  However, it'd be easily repeated by either side.  Plus, being a part of an epic cross-server pre-made vs. cross-server pre-made battle royale would be the closest thing to real war for many participants. As it stands now the walls have already crumbled.  The segregation between servers is more of a fence than a wall.  We can speak with these foreigners.  We can easily find out what's going on over there.  We can judge whether or not the grass is truly greener.  We've already been given a taste of what a closer community can accomplish.  Now we just need the ability to organize our microchasm of a Battlegroup into a far-reaching server to maximize our time spent in game. Hopefully when Blizzard finally implements the @name based friendlist (allowing us to friend a player, not a player's character) we'll see cross-server pre-mades become a reality. Sure, it'll lower one of Blizzard's lines of income, server transfers, but the company always stated that the fee is there to prevent abuse first, and cover overhead second.  And, the company will still have transfers outside of Battlegroups to nickel and dime us with.

[caption id="attachment_9020" align="alignright" width="317" caption="Obviously You Need Droves Of Bugs. Large Bugs."][/caption] This week saw the not-so-surprising launch of the Fall of the Lich King.  Coinciding with its release was the not-so-surprising downtime of my main's archaic server, Magtheridon-US.  The one upside to the lengthy instability was that I managed to tackle most of my patch day goals.  Solidsamm is in a new guild, my AH alt has already made hundreds of gold (surprisingly, Rhino Meat was in huge demand and became my best seller), I touched up on some lore during the patching process, and only one of my add-ons was outright broken.  Even though I managed to get the basics done, I was still meet with plenty of personal downtime.  During these uninteresting stretches of time I began to wonder what makes a patch memorable. Surely, Patch 3.0 was an entertaining patch.  Even though it had some people at odds with the zombiefication of the Azerothian nation and broke damn near every add-on, it reinvigorated the community.  It brought people to World of Warcraft in droves, new and old players.  It reintroduced people to long forgotten lore and rekindled our interest with the fallen Lordaeron.  Most importantly, it introduced us to something different, the new zombie gameplay mechanic, even if it was only for a short time. So what is it that makes a patch "good?"  Is it being able to play on launch day?  Not having to upgrade our add-ons?  The ability to bring in new players, while tempting the old?  Does a good patch extend beyond the direct mode of digital interaction?  Will it lead us to expand our knowledge of Azeroth, or just introduce us to new dungeons, raids and experiences? For me, nothing has come close to touching Patch v1.9, The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, that just so happened to answer all of the above questions with emphatic "yes."  It fascinated players months before its release thanks to the lengthy quest that preceded it.  It redesigned an entire zone, introduced the Old Gods to the world for the first time, opened two new raids, featured numerous factions and had the most epic serverwide event to grace World of Warcraft.  The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj had me go to sleep at 2:00AM, only to wake up at 7:00 AM to be a part of the gate ceremony, scripted event and celebration.  That is something I'll never forget. Fall of the Lich King certainly has a lot going for it right now, but I don't know if Arthas' death will be able to overcome the unforgettable server event that had players, and factions, working together on for months.  What's your favorite patch so far, and why?