Project Lore

Blizzard still expects to put out the Cataclysm expansion pack this year, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick announced Wednesday in the 2009 fourth quarter conference call on financial earnings.

During the call, Kotick discussed the “better than expected” financial results that Activision Blizzard has shown through 2009, and also spoke on what the company expects for 2010:

“For World of Warcraft, we expect to launch the next expansion pack, Cataclysm, and continue to grow our player base around the world. And finally, a much anticipated release of Starcraft II, which will also be available for download on the new Battle.net site. And that illustrates how we’re building significant digital capabilities, and that we we expect these to create new and unique opportunities for gameplay.”

This is a bit of a relief for me to hear after going months since the reveal of Cataclysm at BlizzCon. We had been told at that point that Blizzard anticipated a 2010 release for Cataclysm, but since then we’ve heard very little. Now we have at least another morsel of hope that we’ll see the expansion in the relatively near future (well, the next 11 months.)

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime expanded on the topic, adding that the development team is continuing work on the expansion, and is aiming for “a release in the back half of 2010.” As we already know, one of the big changes expected is the overhaul of the Old World, and Morhaime states that developers are trying to bring those areas up to match the team’s “constantly rising design standards.”

Of course, things can always change, and a lengthy disclaimer at the front of the webcast conference call notes that “forward looking statements” should not be taken as fact. But hopefully this will hold out as true. And to any of you who have seen release dates listed on gaming sites or Amazon or some such, I would warn you that until we hear it straight from Blizzard, those dates likely aren’t anything beyond a guess.

Some other morsels from the webcast:

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Groups tackling normal modes in Icecrown Citadel no longer will be limited by a fixed number of available attempts, Blizzard blue poster Daelo announced on the official WoW forums late Monday. Here's what was posted:

After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode. We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids.

A few hours later, Slorkuz expanded on the topic in the European forums:

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The past month or so of WoW, for many of us, has been so incredibly concentrated on Icecrown Citadel. And I don't really see that as a bad thing, but it's nice to change things up every now and then. Which is why I welcome Love is in the Air with open arms.

Something about collecting Lovely Charms and assembling them into Lovely Charm bracelets for each of your faction's leaders (I haven't tried it yet, but a couple of my guildies have had great success collecting charms by targeting dwarves in Ulduar while atop a siege engine), all in the hope of gathering up enough love tokens to make all of the fun purchases you desire (achievement aside, I'm eying you, Lovely Red Dress)... it can get monotonous, sure, but I've been having a blast and also working toward the What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been meta-achievement too.

And of course we also have that crazy apothecary trio that many of us will be taking down multiple times every day. Beyond the ilevel 226 amulets that drop upon each kill (most of my guildies have been picking up pieces for their off-specs), it seems everyone is hoping to get a lucky roll on a Big Love Rocket (nice, subtle name, Blizzard). I've yet to see anyone on my server riding a love rocket, much less seen it drop. But a couple of YouTube videos posted the few days proves it does, indeed, exist -- though perhaps a bit more rare (and sexy) than, say, the coveted Brewfest mounts.

From the video, it appears that the rocket, similar to the Magic brooms from Hallow's Eve, works as both a flying and ground mount, depending on where it's summoned. And the one who posted the video claims it's also a 310% speed mount. I really want one!

What are your goals for this festive, lovely event? Anyone get any of those rare loot drops yet, or are all of you simply still drooling as I am?

I'm sure most of you have noticed by now when running your daily random heroic that there have been a few changes to dungeons to make them run a bit faster. Patch 3.3.2 brought with it several changes that decreased the number of times a boss does a special move, making the encounters quicker and less annoying. And for anyone still working toward earning Glory of the Hero, the changes are bringing that Red Proto-Drake almost within our grasp.

Many of the changes also make their related achievements substantially easier. Let's take a look again at the recent changes that will affect achievements.

The Nexus

• For Chaos Theory: Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times, reducing the number of rifts that you have to fight through.

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The last few weeks, I've become quite the little achievement whore. And since my main character wasn't around for the grand days of Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade, she has plenty to catch up on -- questing, rep, professions, dungeons and raids. In fact, some of my guildies with the same state of mind have started running old school achievement content on Fridays. it has been lots of fun - not only to see the content and old loot, but also to get that shiny message popping up saying that you've earned an achievement.

I also have a few alts, none of which have hit 80, and I've come to realize something: While I may love achievements on my main, I really don't care about what achievements my alts do or don't have. Sure, there are plenty of achievements that I'll get along the way if I level the way that I plan to, but other than those, I won't go out of my way to earn anything special.

It's a weird state of mind. I guess I think of it this way: If I've done the achievement once, I've already achieved it. Why go through the hassle again on an alt, unless it's something that I need to do to reach a completely unrelated goal in the game? We need to have a way to track achievements on multiple characters - not to tell us our total number of points, but instead the number we would have if we added up all the different achievements we've gotten altogether.

But I also can see another point of view:

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That didn't take long.

Blood Legion, a Horde guild on U.S. Illidan server, has earned the world-first 10-man Arthas kill, scoring The Fall of the Lich King and The Frozen Throne achievements as well as a Kingslayer title. And, from the looks of a screenshot they posted, the group also earned a little something extra... what looks like a giant, floating statue of Tirion Fordring. Ok.

So what does one normal-mode Lich King kill on the first night of its release mean? Well, I doubt that the fight is a walk in the park, or we would have seen more thrilled guilds announcing their success. There's still plenty of potential for other top-notch guilds to get their own realm-first 10-man kills, and then there's also the 25-man version, not to mention hard modes. And it won't be long, I'm sure, until we see more and more guilds making it to the Frost Wing.

So while many of us (including myself) aren't nearly to that point yet, let's dream a little. The WoW Armory now lists the Lich King's drool-worthy loot table for all four incarnations of the fight. And there's a little something for everyone:

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There's a few well-known lucky rollers in my guild, and let's just say I'm not one of them. Sure, I get my fair share of loot, but oftentimes it's by default (that is, no one else wants said loot). When it comes to my guild's 10-man groups, we don't use an intricate loot system -- we're all pretty fair people. Roll if you want something. If it's a bigger upgrade for someone else in the group, take that into consideration. And if you've already won several pieces of loot in a night, consider sitting out a roll. It's not a system that works for PUGs or guilds that don't share a sense of camaraderie, but it's great for my guild.

When it comes to 25-man loot, we usually use Suicide Kings (more on that in a later post). But this past weekend we were just having fun running some random stuff. I asked who wanted to run Onyxia since we hadn't done much dragon-slaying in awhile, and off we went. We wiped once when we tried it out with a 20-man group, then we filled the rest of those slots with friends of friends, and decided to just go with straight-up rolls for gear.

We got her down right away, and none of us were expecting the drop of all drops -- Reins of the Onyxian Drake. It was the first time that any of us had seen it drop. And thank goodness the raid leader had set it to master looter, because it's definitely one of those items that someone might deem worthy of a ninja.

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There's been one specific horse trampling his mark all over WoW news this week, and his name is Invincible. On the official World of Warcraft website Wednesday, Blizzard unveiled a page devoted to Arthas' horse along with the news that the Invincible Charger mount will drop upon defeat of the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel, on heroic difficulty. The site also goes into considerable depth on the history of Invincible -- in both life and undeath -- and just why he is so epic and frightening:

The mare Brightmane gave birth to Invincible as a young Prince Arthas watched with rapt attention. In the years following Invincible's birth, the horse and Arthas formed a bond that carried them across the warring nations of Azeroth, through the icy grip of death, and into the throes of battle. The stallion's coiled muscles were made for speed, and Arthas often felt that his mount flew rather than galloped across the countryside.

With the slightest touch of his heel, Arthas was able to convey his directions, and Invincible obeyed without question or hesitation. It was Invincible's unfaltering faith in his master that inevitably led to the stallion's death and unholy rebirth. On a cold winter afternoon as snow was blanketing the ground, Arthas was desperate to get away from the city even if it meant riding through harsh and unforgiving weather. Once outside, Arthas guided Invincible over a familiar jump, but the stallion slipped on slick ice, and the fall shattered his forelegs.With no way to save his companion, Arthas was forced to give Invincible a merciful death, and the prince carried that guilt with him for a very long time.

Years later, after the Lich King granted Arthas necromantic powers, Arthas returned to the grave where he had buried Invincible and raised his loyal servant into undeath. It was in this dark act that Arthas felt a sense of purpose. He believed that Invincible's death was not an accident; rather, it was essential to Arthas's destiny. Invincible was not bred to be a warhorse, but after he was brought back from the dead and made immune to hunger, pain, and exhaustion, he became the perfect steed for Arthas.

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Never before has a deep, demanding voice booming angrily at me through Ventrilo made me laugh so hysterically. But Samuel L. Jackson, of all people, stating in that signature big, bad voice of his, "THAT'S A 50 DKP MINUS!"... well, it's just too much for this girl to take without exploding into laughter.

No, I'm not buddies with the actual Samuel L. Jackson (although, I did take my picture with his life-size wax statue while I was in L.A. for BlizzCon... does that count?!) His interaction with my raid group actually came through a nifty little iPhone app that one of my guildies decided to share with the rest of us.

On the surface, iSamJackson isn't much different from other apps that allow you to interact with celebrity voices at the touch of the button. You pay a $2.99 download fee for either a "clean" or explicit version of the app, and in return get a collection of more than 150 Sam Jackson quotes delivered with his stylish swagger. But the best part is yet to come. The app also has two optional quote packs (for an additional $.99 each) -- Sports and "MMO pwnership." I'm sure you can guess which one makes it relevant to this blog!

Jackson takes inspiration for several of his quotes in the MMO pack from the infamous Onyxia wipe animation. So, while our raid leader quickly reviewed strategy for taking down Lord Marrowgar the other night, Samuel L. Jackson chimed in: "Do I really have to tell you NOT to stand in the fire?" (FYI - I'm paraphrasing these from memory). That got our attention, and the quotes kept rolling. "That's a 50 DKP minus!" And when we wiped while bringing down Deathbringer Saurfang because of some ranged coordination issues, Sam declared: "You know, up until the part where we all died, I thought it was going pretty good!" It kept our raid group in high spirits and laughing along with Jackson all night.

So would I personally buy the app? Absolutely -- if one of my guildies didn't already have it for everyone's amusement. It has definitely brought a lot of fun to the group, but I also wonder when the novelty will wear off. Perhaps if I still find it 100 percent funny a couple months down the road, I'll get it for myself, too. What would be GREAT is if, somehow, someone made the MMO-relevant quotes into a WoW addon.

Has anyone else encountered iSamJackson? What are your own impressions?

They're two of the signature moves of rogues and hunters: Tricks of the Trade and Misdirection. Both allow the two classes to dps straight out at the start of a boss fight without pulling aggro, and in fact can also help a tank build up their threat levels quickly from the start. But I had never seen a fight won solely because of the tactics of these two moves until last week.

My raid group had gotten through Lord Marrowgar in Icecrown Citadel, but hadn't quite reached the Gunship Battle shenanigans that I already happily told you about. Which left us taking on Lady Deathwhisper, and things were going great -- the Adherents and Fanatics were going down fine with the help of our two tanks, the deformed ones were getting kited around to avoid their hard hits, and the boss' mana shield was getting hacked down steadily.

Then right as we were finishing off the last of the mana shield, somehow one of our tanks died. With no battle rez in sight, we assumed that the attempt would be a wipe because usually two tanks are absolutely necessary for the second phase of this boss. She has a nasty, stacking debuff that essentially makes a tank lose the ability to generate threat, so the two tanks taunt off each other, ensuring that at least one tank is holding aggro.

Time to improvise.

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