Project Lore

So we have all had Wrath in our hands for a little over a week now. That was enough time for a few dedicated people to “beat the game” but I suspect many of us are a little behind the curve in that regard. I, myself, am on the verge of hitting level 80… and will likely have done so by the end of the day today. So I feel like I have seen a fair bit of the new content. Originally I had intended to grind instances all the way to 80, but quickly learned that was not the way to go. The XP per hour is simply much larger if you are questing. So ultimately I ended up questing for the majority of the leveling process. And, man, I am glad I did! I have found questing in wrath to be absolutely awesome! The new phasing mechanics really add a while new element to the game. While I have always enjoyed questing, there was never much tangible result other than a quest reward and unlocking the next link in the chain. Now you get to see the world change as the result of your actions. You get to witness time move on and realize things will never be the same as they were. It is great. I am not going to give out any spoilers here, but the epic quests that take advantage of it in Dragonblight, Icecrown, and even the DK starting area had me cheering at my computer monitor. Beyond the phasing mechanic, it seems to me the quests are all together better. You don’t see nearly the amount of kill X mobs for Y drops. They are more creative, more exciting, and all together larger feeling. The new vehicle mechanics play a big part in this, making lots of things possible that you were not able to do before. From time to time you get to step out of your character and control something of absolutely epic proportions. For me, so far, Wrath has been all I wanted and more. Now with hopes of seeing some end game next week I am anxious to see what the rest of the game has in store! What do you guys think so far?

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While there is plenty of serious news and questions coming out of the recent release of Wrath… there is a bit of a tangent I need to discuss. It is something awful that has cropped up that I have been blissfully sheltered from for the last several months. It is the reemergence of the DING. Let me just say I hate it when people say "ding" after they level, I absolutely despise it. With Wrath out and everyone leveling again our /g is once again filled with people begging for attention over their virtual accomplishments. There are certainly some dings that are less annoying than others. A pre-wrath ding 70 would get a "grats" from me. Now a "ding 80" will get the same, but that’s about it. It’s when people ding 47 or 64, or god forbid 12 that really makes me questions peoples sense of accomplishment and need for personal validation by reading a half-hearted “grats.” Personally, I have 5 characters level 60 or higher… now if I said ding every time one of my toons got bathed in yellow light, I would have annoyed my guild mates around 300 times now. With the recent experience nerfs leveling is really not that big of a deal. Sure, enjoy your new abilities, but don’t you don’t need to tell the whole world about it…. or even if you do find a better way to do it. I really don’t have a problem with people announcing exciting new gear, or a rare crafting recipe, or even a big purchase, at least that stuff is interesting to talk about. But do you really think I care that the number next to you name is one digit higher? Let me just say, I don’t. With the release of the achievement system every 10 levels is automatically announced anyway, so now there is no need for anyone to say ding anymore... ever. Please everyone, I implore you, stop saying it. It’s needy and annoying. If you happen to be a member of the Totally Rad Guild, just remember my ability to take away your guild chat privileges is just one click away.

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I’ve been trying to keep a healthy perspective on this thing. Sure, I called in sick on Friday, and sure I logged more hours this weekend than I probably did the past 3 weeks combined, but I’m having fun and fully expected to invest a lot of time during these initial few days. With everyone racing to level cap, it is very interesting to see how far various members of my guild are approaching it. There are some that are playing about the same as they did before, there are actually some that are playing less (waiting for things to settle down) but what I am noticing most is those that are playing more, much more. There is the guy I know who went 40 hours without sleeping, there is the one that did 3 levels in one sitting (and hasn’t logged since), and even the guy that took 2 weeks vacation to dedicate all day everyday to getting up to the cap. Now I’m not here to judge, like I said I have logged more than my fair share of hours over the last few days, but sometimes I just have to wonder. Where is the line for all of this? I hear people calling each other noobs for not leveling fast enough, or on the other side calling them nerds for playing too much. I cannot say what the proper balance is, but it is certain that there are strong opinions all around. What does it take to be the world first 80, or be the first to clear all the PVE content? Are we so competitive that we push our selves to the brink to beat that other guild, the others of your class, or even your friends? I know that this will all be very short term, and soon all will be back to normal, but in the mean time it’s a great time to learn a little about your friends and guildies. What about you? Are you feeling the pressure to level like a madman, or are you appalled by what you see going on around you? I wish I had a way to wrap this all up into a moral or a strong opinion either way… let’s just say I have found the last few days very interesting. Now back to leveling.

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With Wrath upon us I thought I would take a moment to look back at all the great times I had with the burning crusade. Sure it may seem silly to wax philosophical about a video game… but I must admit I had some absolutely great times playing it. With WoW, I was a little late for the party; I never played “classic” WoW… so my burning crusade memories are my WoW memories. It seems long ago I first rolled my Draenei Paladin, found my self crashed on some rock, and didn’t have the foggiest idea what a talent point was. As a long time gamer I quickly picked up the mechanics, vanquished the evil on Bloodmyst Isle, and most importantly found a guild that I could truly enjoy the game with. It was about this point that I realized there is a whole WORLD outside those little islands I had grown accustomed to. I’ll still never forget the first time I set foot in Stormwind and realized truly how many people there were playing right along side me. I continued to enjoy the game leveling, grouping with whoever was nearby from time to time, and generally enjoying the whole questing scene. Then around level 45 or so I really discovered what this game was about. I hooked up with a few guildies around the same level and started leveling and instancing together. I installed ventrilo and got to know the people on the other end of those characters. Suddenly my guild was more that a chat room, it was a group of people that I could experience this wide world with. I continued to level, learned about tanking, healing, and DPS and next thing I knew I was level 70! I know its cliché, but this is where the game starts. I started running heroics, collecting badges and generally gearing up as well as I could. It was about this time I first heard about this “Karazhan” place, and began to understand what raiding is all about. I waited outside of Kara for hours and my guild slowly but surely progressed through the content. Finally after a few nights a spot opened up and I made sure I never lost out on a raid slot again. Seeing Kara for the first time was truly amazing. Before long we mastered that place, our raids progressed, and soon it was time to take on the High King. It was the impossible feat, being in a “casual” guild or a “fan” guild we weren't meant to raid, and many people made a point of letting us know we couldn’t do it. But we did, and I must say seeing that ogre king die, and putting on the T4 shoulders he dropped is my fondest WoW memory to date. Now I sit back reflecting on all the raids I've led from Moroes to the Illidari Council and can’t help but realize how thoroughly I enjoyed all this content. The bar is set high for Wrath, but if I enjoy half as much as I did TBC I’ve have many hours of great times in front of me.

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So this is it, there is less than a week left until the new WoW expansion changes our whole world. Some of us may be fully prepared to head into Wrath of the Lich King, but I’m sure there are many, like myself, that still have lots of preparation to do. Personally, I have been utterly neglecting the preparations I need to make to be ready for WotLK. With our guild up and raiding again, my thoughts have been directed toward BT progression and not into cleaning out my bank… but we are reaching the point where I need to get things in line to make the boat ride to Northrend as comfortable as possible. First thing is first. I just started going through my overstuffed bank and started getting rid of all the mats and consumables that will be rendered completely obsolete next week. Being and enchanter and engineer I’ve got more dust and gizmos than I know what to do with. I’ll kill two birds with one stone by clearing up some space and getting some much needed funds to help smooth over the leveling process. That takes me to the next point. I’ll need gold. I know I will make some along the way, but leveling professions, learning to fly in the cold, and buy BoE epics is going to be expensive. The more funds I have the better, and right now my funds are dangerously low. Then I’m going to have to take a hard look at my quest log. It’s high time to finish up those last quests that have been rotting in my log for months… either that or drop them. All I know is that when I hit the Fjord, I will want as few quests sitting in there as possible. At last I will soon have to tweak my spec for leveling, make sure I know what gear will be best for the process and park my toon in front of the boat the night drops. It should be a fun process, and I need to make sure by toons are ready to start the next chapter in there digital lives!

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I know feelings were very mixed, but I personally thought that the scourge invasion has been awesome. I loved the whole zombie thing, it was unique enough to really get attention, and it completely changed the world (…of Warcraft) for a few days. Furthermore, it was short enough that it didn’t get a chance to get really annoying. The necropolis attacks have been great fun as well. I loved flying from zone to zone looking to the skies for piles of undead to blow through. For me, the opportunity to pick up some one time only rewards has been very satisfying. It may be my Paladin bias, but I think it was all well executed and most importantly fun. All that being said, I’m worried. This event that started so fast and furious had all the potential in the world. But now it’s all but stopped. Sure, zones are still being attacked, but nothing new has happened in quite a while. Most people got their runes and have moved on. The world event felt so alive when every new day brought a new stage in the invasion, and a new phase of the plague, but now most people don’t even noticed it is still here. This has all been a bit disappointing to me. I am assuming that something else will happen, but when it does it had better be epic. I feel that so much momentum has been lost during this lull that it risks turning the event from a huge success to an utter failure. Right now things are just plain quiet. In my mind great world changing events shouldn’t start suddenly build up insane momentum, stop overnight, then pick back up a week and a half later. In the end I guess we will all have to wait and see. Perhaps this is all part of Blizzard’s master plan, or perhaps there was a bit too much QQ so they decided to take a break. Either way I would appreciate an explanation, or at the very least a new development. Come on Blizz, get us excited again! Northrend calls!

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So I, like everyone else it seems, have been victim of Blizzard’s recruit-a-friend program. With TBC wrapping up, it seems like the perfect time to level some alts with a big bonus. So like many others I have made friends with myself and started dual-boxing. But I don’t want to talk about that today. What I want to talk about is my experience leveling again. Like my good friend Juggynaut, I too (against my better judgment) recently decided to bring my new toons into Stranglethorn Vale. Being that I rolled on a PvP server I knew the risks… but I also knew there were plenty of kill quests that were ripe for dual-boxing, so I went anyway. As I expected I got ganked, and ganked a lot. So much in fact that after about half a day of leveling there I ended up throwing my headset across the room, yelling some choice profanities, and swearing I would never go back. I’ll reiterate, I fully expected the PvP central that STV is famous for. The reason for my frustration was not one, but several 70s that thought it was great fun to come kill my poor level 35 characters over and over and over again. Not only that, but after they killed me they had no issues camping my body and waiting for me to res to kill me again. Now as I’m sitting there with my ghost hovering over my corpse waiting for them to let their guard down for just a moment, it occurred to me… how are these people having fun right now? I really don’t understand it. I enjoy PvP as much as the next guy, and understand what comes with rolling on a PvP server. But seriously, who enjoys camping characters 30 levels below them for hours on end? It just seems sick to me. Are they really that hard up to feel "leet"? There is no challenge for them, there is nothing to be gained, pretty much the only reason to do it is to be a huge jerk. Seems crazy to me, but its clear LOTS of people do it. So I ask, why? Do you participate in the STV scene, or at least have insights as to why this is fun for people? When I’m on my 70s, my priorities are elsewhere, just saying.

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So I’m sure many of you have heard, the Paladin heyday is over. We are getting hit with the Nerf Bat… and HARD. Being the token Project Lore Paladin, I thought I should weigh in on this. First of all I should clarify this nerf is aimed mostly at Retribution. Ret was buffed beyond belief in 3.0.2, and I will admit, probably to a fault. The most obvious overbalance being in PVP. I have heard tales of retadins taking out 4-5 opposing players at a time, bubbling, taking out a few more, laying on hands, and going back again. They have been accused of being unkillable and dealing way too much damage. I’m not going to argue that things are right, in fact I’ll agree that they are very wrong. I must say this whole ordeal as been hard to take as a Paladin. In WoW you grow a certain attachment to the class you play, it becomes part of your identity, and I can’t help but take a lot of the recent criticism a bit personally. There has been massive QQ over what pallies can do. It has gotten to a point that other players are getting angry over it. People are accusing us of being “cheap” or being “cheaters.” This is way out of bounds for me. We are playing our class! We didn’t hack the game to get over powered, it just happened! Sure, I know lots of us have been making the most of it, but I don’t think we are doing anything wrong. Regardless it seems that the chaos is coming to an end. Looking over the list that our good friend Ghostcrawler posted, there are quite a few changes coming down the pipeline. Some of which have already been hotfixed into the game, and a few more that are going to hit in upcoming patches. While I understand this is all part of the class balancing act, I do have a concern, namely the 20% damage nerf to seals and judgments. Consider me a bit selfish, but I can't help but worry that the nerfs to ret are spilling over into the other trees. The Judgment/seal nerf will affect my threat as a tank, no doubt about it. Given, Blizzard acknowledges it, but I think they need to find a way to prevent it, not say they will look into if there is a big problem. They have stated they are very happy with the way Prot has shaped up, so why mess with the formula to teach another spec a lesson? In the end reading over patch notes gives us a very poor idea of how the game play will actually shape up. We are just going to have to wait until we can play these changes to know if they have done too much, not enough, or got it right. All I know is that I will be paying very close attention.

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I’m sure everyone has noticed, the new world event is going on right now. Blizzard is now providing us with the reason we all need to charge into Northrend, and the reason is simple: A ZOMBIE ATTACK. Awesome. I am super excited as I missed the world event for BC. I'll just say: I think this is going to be really cool. It is obvious that this is an evolving event, and I can only imagine where this is going to go. It all started with a crate showing up in booty bay turning somewhat willing victims into zombies. Players get infected by the crate and in 10 minutes time if no action is taken, the turn into full fledged zombies with a whole host of new abilities. During the “infection phase” players can be cured by Argent Dawn healers in the major cities or by friendly (or unfriendly depending on how you look at it) priests and paladins. Now it is clear the plague is getting stronger. On the second day of the event crates and plagued critters are showing up in all the capitol cities. Additionally the infection is becoming harder to dispel, priests and pallies now usually have to try multiple times to remove the infection. While it will likely start affecting our play style some, I am very interested to see where this thing goes. The idea of my Paladin fighting off waves of undead zombies controlled by other players is just too cool to be ignored. I can only hope this whole ordeal will involve some sort of cool reward for participating such as a tabard like players received last year. Of course I want a souvenir from the great zombie attack of '08! While I did run around as a zombie for a little while earlier today I haven’t really had a chance to fully explore the zombie side of things. It appears that after a few days it may be unavoidable. While that may be bothersome to many players I am just along for the ride at this point. This event is only going to happen one time ever, so I intend to make the most of it. How about you? How are you enjoying your “zombie time?” Are you avoiding the whole scene, or are you running around feasting on delicious brains?

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I’m not sure if it’s the recent holiday events, the new achievements system, or something that has been here all along, but it seems the whole world is going crazy about mounts. People want them, want to show them off, and are going to extremely lengths to get them. The most obvious example is the holiday mounts. Groups of dedicated people are spending hours everyday farming the latest seasonal boss and hoping they will drop the latest mount. First it was the Kodo/Ram now it’s the Horseman mount. I’ll admit, I am one of them, and because I don’t have luck like Juggy, I imagine I will be in SM everyday for the rest of the event. It doesn’t stop there however! It’s just the tip of the iceberg. With the new achievement system in place lots of folk in my guild have spent tons of gold and farmed tons of rep  to buy every mount they can get their hands on. The goal is the 50 mount achievement, and yet another mount. (A very cool one, given). While we are on the topic of achievements, the other reason the whole world is farming away inside SM this week is to make sure they get the squashling and the Hallowed title. Not a mount, I know, but guess what you get if you finish all the seasonal event achievements? You guessed it: another mount. The problem actually predates the newest batch of content. People have been mount obsessed long before this. Rare mounts are certainly nothing new. On the extreme end, there is a friend of mine in my guild that has soloed Stratholme several times every day for the last few months. The reason is the Baron Mount. Rumor is that it is the lowest drop rate in the game, and from the stories I’ve heard I believe it. This is one for the truly dedicated, or truly insane (sorry, Feralface). Then of course there is the Huntsman Mount, The White Hawkstrider, The Anzu Mount, The Ashes of Alar, The ZG Raptor and Tiger, and the now inaccessible Bear Mount. While given mounts are really really cool, is it really worth all this time we put into farming them? The are (usually) cosmetic, they don’t improve our ability to down a boss. The are vanity items, but then again, perhaps that is their appeal. What about you? What lengths have you gone to to get a mount? Or are you just happy riding around on your boring faction mount?

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