Project Lore

The time for my first purchase with Emblems of Frost is coming near, and I find myself wondering -- what is everyone else choosing for their first shiny new piece of gear? I might be a bit behind the times. Sure, I've been collecting my weekly 5 Frost badges from the weekly raid and I completed the frost emblem-yielding quests for the new dungeons, but I've been slightly slacking otherwise with the winter holidays upon us and all. I've probably only done the daily random heroic (for 2 emblems of frost per day) about half of the days that I could have since Patch 3.3 came out. And my raid group, also as a result of the holidays, has only ventured into Icecrown Citadel once -- and only gotten past Lord Marrowgar at that. But somehow I've managed to round up a grand total of 45 badges since the release of Patch 3.3, and I've started looking longingly at that new gear in ICC. If you've been clearing ICC each week in both 10- and 25-man versions and also doing everything else, you should have probably about triple that amount. With new gear pieces ranging in cost from 30 to 95 frost emblems, players already are starting to get in on the new tier pieces and other armor. Here's the mind-twisting question: to save up for a really great piece of gear to start off the collection right, or to spend as soon as I possibly can. Usually I'm pretty good at holding off for what I need most. But in this case, it looks like the piece that will give me the single greatest upgrade in one quick purchase is a belt -- the haste-happy Vengeful Noose, which for a costly 60 badges would replace my well-worn Belt of the Twilight Assassin that I bought with a mere 28 Conquest badges long ago. If I work hard, perhaps I can get it by the end of this week. The next purchase may be a more difficult decision, but I'll probably go with the same logic: figure out which piece will give me the greatest stat boost per slot. Another deciding factor for me, which is unfortunate for rogue tier 10 gear (in my opinion, anyways) is aesthetics. If I want to keep my DPS on top, I'll have to forgo looking pretty. Which I'm not happy about, but hopefully my raid mates will be! How did you, or will you choose your first Frost emblem purchase? What else do you take into consideration before handing over those hard-fought-for badges?

I've only gotten into dungeons and raids since the release of WotLK, in the age of brute-force smashing your way through groups of elites, without much planning or group coordination beyond who tanks and who heals. Alright, maybe it's not exactly that cut and dry, but crowd control definitely hasn't been as huge of a deal in WotLK as it once was. That last couple of weeks have changed that. If you still want to power your way through a group of five or six elites in the halls of Icecrown Citadel, you'd better be ready to take a beating. If you want to play smart, it's time for you to dig deep into that old bag of tricks and pull out some crowd control. Let's start in the new heroics. The Forge of Souls has several challenging pulls of four to five mobs at once. And they hit -- hard. The Soulguard Adepts particularly can be a pain in the butt with a combination of Shadow Bolts and Drain Life. They're humanoid, so you have CC options aplenty, depending on what classes you have in your group. That also can make the pulls trickier for those AoE-happy groups that could inadvertently pull the mob out of its CC, so be careful of that. The FoS still is pretty easy to power through without the use of CC. But that gets a bit harder toward the end of the Pit of Saron, as you near the final gauntlet before confronting Scourgelord Tyrannus. Two particularly nasty pulls involve taking on five elites at once -- two Ymirjar Flamebearers, two Wrathbringers and a Deathbringer. An effective tactic my priest-heavy groups have been employing is shackling the Flamebearers, who do some heavy AoE damage that can be hard to heal through, and saving them to kill one at a time after the other three mobs. After killing those two groups of five, use the same tactic with the next two big pulls. CC one of the casters if possible, AoE down the big group away from him, then switch your attention once again. Effective, and usually less painful. Unfortunately, CC is tough to pull off in waves of mobs within Halls of Reflection. Especially in heroic, you'll just need a good group - a tank that can employ line of sight and hold aggro, dpsers that can focus fire down targets and keep their composure as the Lich King pursues, and a healer that can keep up with the massive damage everyone will be taking. That's all (whew). The most fun so far for me with CC has been in the first wing of Icecrown Citadel. The spider mobs between Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper once again pull in big groups, and with groups of 10 or 25 players, you should have plenty of CC options at your disposal. Unfortunately, I haven't yet cleared past the deathwhisperer (like the ghost whisperer but better) -- so you'll have to let me know where else CC comes in handy. Have fun with it. And make sure to use that rogue to disarm traps! (Another rarely-used ploy in the WotLK's play book). So if you didn't play your class in Vanilla WoW, make sure to take another look through your skills. You may find something really useful that until now you've never used before. Has anyone else also been pulling out crowd control tactics for the new Patch 3.3 content? Are you happy to see it make a comeback?

I'm well aware that the Horde legions on my PvE server are way outnumbered by Alliance players. Up until I hit 80, though, it didn't really bother me. My rare venture into battlegrounds usually would get evened out into comparable groups of forces battling it out, and I was too busy grinding to 80 to pay much attention to what would happen once I actually hit that level cap. Simply put, ignorance was bliss. That is, until I had the most fail-tastic Wintergrasp battle of all time over the weekend. I queued up for the battle, and was astounded upon entering the raid and finding that I was only one of 17 players representing the Horde. Only 17! And this was in the middle of a cold, Saturday afternoon. Our opponents apparently had many, many more players, as indicated by a whopping Tenacity -- that buff designed to offset an unbalanced WG battle -- of 10.We had 17 players, they had 120. Mission impossible. Needless to say, it was a massacre. We had too few players to even man and gun our few vehicles, much less defend those vehicles plus our workshops and towers, or try to mount any kind of strategy. It ended with the Allies closing in on our one and only graveyard,  killing us over and over again as we resurrected. Not fun. Perhaps the recent release of Patch 3.3 contributed to our ridiculously low numbers -- everyone was too busy grinding heroics or checking out the new ICC content to be bothered by a silly Wintergrasp battle. But whatever the case, it's my belief now, more than ever, that Tenacity isn't worth crap once it stacks higher than 3 or 4. It wouldn't really be a huge deal if not for the raiding advantages that the other side clearly gets -- more shots at Vault of Archavon, more emblems, more honor -- you see what I'm getting at. I know Khaz Modan certainly isn't the only realm with balancing issues. There are plenty of others out there that probably are worse off than we are. The problem is, with no incentives to transfer to, or even remain at, a server where your faction is outnumbered, the problem just gets worse and worse. I know of at least a couple of large raiding guilds that have migrated from our server to a more Horde-friendly server. And those free transfer services that Blizzard offers every now and then don't seem to be too effective without some kind of greater incentive (other than being free) to switch to a server that needs help. I suggest that Blizzard borrow an idea from Warhammer Online -- along with their free server transfers, they also offer something to help players make the decision to move: a "limited time" 20% experience and reputation buff. Perhaps this isn't the right formula for what to offer WoW players, but something along those lines definitely could help balance out realms. UPDATE When I wrote this earlier this week, it was pretty much a rant. But an announcement this morning makes it actually relevant to some news! Blue poster Bornakk this morning announced that factions that hold WG more often now will have some added difficulty if they want to keep it. Here's what what said:

We wanted to address some of the confusion we often see regarding the Battle for Wintergrasp. We will not provide exact details on how the system works to try and avoid abuse of the mechanics, but there is a system in place that can change how the battle plays out. When one faction defends more than the other, the system will give advantages like the ability to use catapults or siege tanks faster to the faction that is on the offensive. On realms where one faction is often able to defend the fortress and the other faction rarely defends, the system tries to help this balance by providing bonuses to the faction that rarely succeeds at defending.

So what do you think of this possible fix? And for anyone else has had issues with being on either side of an unbalanced server, what other ideas do you think WoW could use to help solve the balance issue?

It's been more than a week now since the release of Patch 3.3, and I'll admit something: I've been so busy grinding heroics for badges on my main (finished off my PvP set, woot) that I didn't even think of the wonderful potential that the new LFG system has for lowbies and toons that are still leveling. Then, I got this oh-so-interesting comment on my blog about rolling new characters from reader Uthers:

I recently started a new character and found out something rather interesting. The low level random dungeon rewards are surprisingly useful, for one, and for a two I got the Ragefire Chasms dungeon. On Alliance side. I'm not sure how many level 15 Alliance can honestly say they've gotten through Ragefire Chasm before the random dungeon, but it's almost pathetically easy now. I should imagine the same applies for Horde and the Stockades.

Interesting thought. So I logged into my level 22 blood elf Pixielocks to check out the LFG system on her. And indeed, the first dungeon on the list of the dungeon finder is traditionally Alliance because of the crap Hordies have to go through to get there -- Deadmines. I love the idea of every player getting the chance to see all of the game's content, especially early-on in the game when it can be tough to find a group when players are spread out all over lowbie areas. Instead of spamming the Trade channel, begging to get a run through a dungeon, lowbies instead can queue up and continue about their questing business while LFG does it's cross-realm thing. Once finished, you can go right back to whatever you left of doing. And I'm also a fan of the rewards for doing random classic dungeons -- instead of emblems and gold, characters get experience, a smaller amount of silver and a Satchel of Helpful Goods that scales with level. I am a bit curious about how likely LFG is to put a wide level range into the same dungeon. Razorfen Kraul says it's for level 22-32. Does that mean that my level 22 character could be put in a group with a bunch of level 30s? I suppose it does - and that could be interesting. But another part of me still feels very conflicted, too. Part of the fun of those low level dungeons lies just in getting to them. The proof of that lies within the Project Lore team's Horde alts venturing through raptor hell and meddling with tigers that, despite their hopes, can indeed cross bridges. None of that will matter anymore if you can just port to and back from dungeons in a snap. In fact, you probably could even park your lowbie in Dalaran and just run dungeons constantly to level, if you really wanted. I suppose that 's pretty much the same for heroics, too, but for some reason it strikes a bit harder for the classic dungeons. Perhaps when I actually use the tool on my alts and see how much time I save, I'll appreciate it more. I'm curious how everyone else feels about the system for their non-level-capped toons? Are you appreciative enough of the content that you'll still trudge through dangerous zones to get to that dungeon you want to run, or will you take advantage of bypassing that with LFG?

In commemoration of  the release of the final major content patch of Wrath of the Lich King, we've decided to stroll down memory lane to generate some of our own Top 10 lists. So between now and the probably still somewhat distant release of Cataclysm, we'll be taking a look back at the best (and worst) that WotLK brought to World of Warcraft. Let's start out with a fun one: The top 10 best boss battlecries (5-man dungeon edition). We have yet to see all that Icecrown Citadel has to offer in this category, so we can save the 10- and 25-man edition for another time. Let's get rolling.

10. "Soft, vulnerable shells. Brief, fragile lives. You can not escape the curse of flesh!" Oh, those cuddly vrykul have such a way with words. These ones were uttered by Sjonnir The Ironshaper in the Halls of Stone.

9. "The master surveyed his kingdom and found it... lacking. His judgment was swift and without mercy: DEATH TO ALL!" The first new dungeon makes its appearance on my list. Marwyn in the Halls of Reflection takes all of the Lich King's murderous malice and sums it up well. Out of all bosses here, he seemingly takes a LOT of pleasure out of killing, also telling players things like "Death is all that you will find here!" and "I saw the same look in his eyes when he died. Terenas could hardly believe it. Hahahaha!"

8. "I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires. The birth and extinction of entire species. Over countless millennia the foolishness of mortals has remained the only constant. Your presence here confirms this. My master has shown me the future, and you have no place in it. Azeroth will be reborn in darkness. Yogg-Saron shall be released! The Pantheon shall fall!" The somewhat long-winded Loken in the Halls of Lighting shows his eloquent side with a nice soliloquy. Perhaps he should have put that misguided passion into the heroes of Azeroth.

7. "Tiny creatures under feet, you bring Garfrost something good to eat!" If you haven't been to the Pit of Saron yet, make sure you go soon and pay Forgemaster Garfrost a visit. I like him because he seems not so much evil -- just hungry, enslaved and stupid. Upon bashing his own food sources (which would be you) with a boulder, he yells in disdain, "That one maybe not so good to eat now. Stupid Garfrost! BAD! BAD!"

6. "We fought back da Scourge. What chance joo be thinkin' JOO got?" Gundrak's Moorabi has a point. And a sexy accent. And he gives you a HELL of a time as you try for that stupid-luck achievement Less-Rabi. But he'll die in the end.

5. "You spoiled my grand entrance, rat. Did you honestly think that an agent of the Lich King would be bested on the field of your pathetic little tournament? I've come to finish my task. This farce ends -- here!" Perhaps it's not so much the Black Knight's words that put him on my list, but the mini-event in which he flies in and disrupts the Trial of the Champion. Plus, if you've done any of the Argent Tournament quests, there's some pretty intriguing lore that leads up to his death.

4. "Your heartbeat is music to my ears... I am nowhere. I am everywhere. I am the watcher, unseen." In Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom, Prince Taldaram's vampiric ways and flame sphere ability are annoying. But he invokes the calm and collected exterior of a proper blood-drinker when addressing his enemies.

3. "You invade my home and then dare to challenge me? I will tear the hearts from your chests and offer them as gifts to the death god! Rualg nja gaborr." Another vrykul appears on the list! This time it's King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle, who wants to rip you apart more than any other. His violent nature continues as he screams, "Ranulf of the Screaming Abyss, snuff these maggots with darkest night!"

2. "I'LL PAINT MY FACE WITH YOUR BLOOD!!" Utguard Keep's Ingvar the Plunderer, yet another vrykul, tells us about his creative plans for our entrails. This also has become a great battlecry among guildies (as popularized by Scott Johnson of The Instance) and is just a fun thing to yell at random crowds in Dalaran. It would have been atop my list if not for the appearance of the Lich King in Halls of Reflection. (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

1. "There is no escape! Succumb to the chill of the grave! Another dead end..." How could the Lich King NOT be at the top of the list? This first time you face him in HoR, you’re mostly just running away. But his confident yet totally pissed off manner of steadily following your retreat is terrifying. No, you will not down the Lich King in a 5-man dungeon. You can only run away. A fitting lead up to the battle ahead at Icecrown Citadel, and yet another way for Blizzard to up the tension factor for the climax of WotLK. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say at the very end.

WoW Cataclysm is probably still a long way off. But I know the very first thing that many of us will do upon picking up that glorious next expansion already is decided: we'll roll either a Goblin or Worgen, depending on our faction of choice and possibly also which we like better aesthetically. But for many of us, we already have a legion of options for doing just that: Roll a new toon. Pick a new race and class combination that you've never tried before. Run all the quests and dungeons that you've skipped over in the past. Actually read through the quests so you get a feel for what you're fighting for. I'm sure there's going to be a few of us who can say they've rolled each race or each class at least once. But have you truly played through each one well enough to learn their homeland? As iTZKooPA detailed a bit back, he's got a group together who all rolled classes they've never played and are running low-level instances together. I happen to play the warlock in that group, and let me agree with him: So far, it's been a blast. If you're going to do something similar, you should do it now. As we've been informed, the Cataclysm is going to cause huge changes and upheavals within Azeroth. Some starting areas may get completely revamped not only in their looks, but also in their quests and the level of monsters within. What better way to really experience the full effect of all those changes than by better getting to know what Azeroth is like before those changes come? Perhaps this little reminder of what's to come will get you motivated: So, anyone else thinking of rolling anew before the new content comes out? I suspect we'll all be enthralled with Patch 3.3 before long. But in what likely will be a long stretch between that content and the release of Cataclysm, think of rolling something completely new. For me, I think I'll choose a gnome mage and better get to know that Alliance side that I'm always picking on!

Along with all the new content that each of the major WoW content patches brings, it seems that Blizzard also is putting more and more emphasis lately on players continuing to enjoy and benefit from the older content, as well. Patch 3.3 continues along this tradition in a very big way. First, we've got the implementation of Frost badges for the newest, shiniest vendor-bought gear yet. But it'll take a while for even the best-geared players to gather enough of those to actually redeem them. Then, there's the upgraded emblem drops from heroics. Instead of Emblems of Conquest, now all heroic dungeons completed through the new Daily Random Dungeon finder will drop two Emblems of Triumph. In case you missed it in those long and detailed patch notes, here's exactly how the new system works:

• The Heroic Wrath of the Lich King Daily Random Dungeon option will award two Emblems of Frost no more than once a day.
• The normal Wrath of the Lich King Daily Random Dungeon option will award two Emblems of Triumph no more than once a day.
• Continuing to complete Wrath of the Lich King Heroic instances using the Daily Random Dungeon option will award players two additional Emblems of Triumph each time.

So that means, if someone were to go absolutely ALL OUT in one day and complete all 16 heroic dungeons (including the three new ones) plus one random regular dungeon, here's what they'd get.

• 2 Emblems of Frost for that first random heroic.
• 30 Emblems of Triumph for the remaining 15 random heroics.
• 2 more Emblems of Triumph for the first regular random daily.
• And all that's in addition to one emblem you get per EACH of the 60 heroic bosses.
• Add it up, and that's 92 Emblems of Triumph just for running random dungeons. In one day!
• ...Then, have someone else start forming groups so you can bypass the dungeon lockout period (I wonder if that'll get fixed...)

Not that I would recommend trying to cram all that into one day, but I'm sure someone out there is going to do it, if it hasn't been done already. Here's what I do recommend: It seems that love it or hate it, the emblem system probably is going to stick around for a while. So if there's still Triumph gear that you need, or reputation that you need to grind (also purchasable with Triumph badges), you may as well take advantage. Chain up random heroics whenever you have a free 30-45 minutes in game. Especially if you're pairing that with continuing regular 10- and 25-man ToC, Onyxia and VoA runs, they'll add up pretty quickly. My personal goal is to get that full PvP set. I wasn't really planning on it, but I'm not going to let my emblems go to waste, either. Got the helm, just 250 badges to go! As for my remaining Conquest badges, I'm downgrading them all to buy gems for my new gear. Sad in a way, but it works. Anyone else planning to stock up on Triumph badges now that they're easier to come by?

Fishing is casting its lines into changes coming for Patch 3.3. In addition to that handy-dandy weekday Kalu'ak Fishing Derby that will be coming to a server near you (and bringing heirloom rings along with it), we'll also see a more subtle change that I can only now begin to appreciate after recently fishing up a Weather-Beaten Journal and learning how to Find Fish. You see, like cooking, fishing is another profession that I've been putting off leveling, and in which I am only now beginning to immerse myself. What, exactly, is said change? Well, buried within the Kalu'ak announcement, Blue Poster Slorkuz added this little nugget:

...in patch 3.3.0 you never catch trash from fishing pools, regardless of skill.

I guess that means I don't have to worry about activating my special fishing hat between fishing nodes, since my skill level either way is irrelevant, as long as I aim my cast correctly. It seems like a pretty innocent change. Personally, I'll be happy to be carrying around less driftwood and sickly fish in my bags, and perhaps taking a little less time to complete certain fishing dailies, if I can find the right fishing node. But as expected, there's always a down side to changes as well, and some players on the WoW forums are questioning whether the boost to finding fish is going to drastically change the auction house market for our scrumptious catches. One player suggests that Blizzard takes delight in ruining others' fun by making fishing and the leveling process too easy while they had it harder. Blue PosterWryxian fires back that Blizzard often doesn't know how players will react until they actually make the announcement, so simply talking about upcoming changes isn't trying to trample on anyone's parade. The discussion continues, and Wryxian confirms how the new mechanic will work:

The change coming in 3.3 means that instead of getting a grey item from a pool, you will instead be guaranteed to get a fish of the same type as the pool, irrespective of your fishing skill level. Yes this will mean a character with level 1 fishing skill can fish up a Deep Sea Monsterbelly, for instance. Currently you need around 480 fishing skill to start fishing Deep Sea Monsterbellies from one of their pools. ....Those who enjoy fishing for fishing's sake can do so and get some useful rewards while doing it, or at least stuff they can sell. Those who only level up fishing so they can get high level fish can now get what they want (the fish) without having to put in the time investment first.

Looks like both sides have valid points. How does everyone with maxed out fishing feel about the changes? What about those of you, like myself, who are just getting on the boat?

Among  all the changes coming to the World of Warcraft when Cataclysm is released, one that it seems players are really looking forward to is the ability to use flying mounts in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Not only will that capability allow us all to get around the Old World much, much quicker, but it also will ease the difficulty of maneuvering through (or over) zones of the opposite faction. And when it comes to PvP and arranging raids on enemy cities, flying is going to simplify getting your For the Horde / Alliance achievements. Not only will you be able to show up in enemy cities with virtually zero warning, but also you'll be able to shrink the amount of time between cities, which also then lessens the enemy's time to get organized at the next city. This is all fine and dandy, but how about enjoying more of a challenge: Aim to get in your raids (or at least one final one, if you already have the achievements) before Cataclysm hits. For me, one of the fun aspects of raiding enemy cities is the downtime. When 30+ Hordies board the Auberdine boats to Darnassus, Stormwind City or Azuremyst Isle, and others aboard dare do nothing beyond yelling warnings upon our arrival -- to me, that's excitement at its finest. And running through the unfamiliar enemy territory, hacking your way through guards and the scant brave PvPers, with virtually no idea where you are going -- that just adds to the hilarity. Another reason to get in your raids now: we still only have vague ideas about how the cataclysm will change much of Azeroth. While we know the cities will be redesigned to appear more 3-D for flight, and some may undergo style changes, it's still unclear whether all the cities will remain standing, at least in their full former glory, after the cataclysm. Any changes that cities do incur could also change the way they're raided. So get in your raids, earn that Black War Bear and represent your faction with pride. It's certainly not the challenge that it once was, but you can still have fun with the raids by limiting the number of people in your group and ambushing the hell out of the other side. Good luck!

A while back, my fellow blogger iTZKooPA clued all of our wonderful readers in on how the Project Lore bloggers each chose our toon names (and in return, many of you shared your own stories with us, too). But sometimes, our names are long and, for whatever reason, they end up getting shortened considerably by our in-game friends. And those awesome names we painstakingly chose can get warped into something else. Let's take my many "Pixie-" based names for example. Pixiestixy, Pixielocks, Boypixie (on the PTR) -- they all inevitably get shortened to just "Pixie." And I'm fine with that. But then there's my main. Up until recently, I played almost exclusively with RL friends, so everyone just called me by my RL name. But then Locomomo joined a new guild, and my new crew still is split over what to call me. Some say "Loco" (crazy), and others say "Momo" (peach). I prefer the latter, but I suppose Loco fits me too, at times! So I decided I'd try to steer everyone to calling me Momo by creating an alt Pally named Momochi. But in the end, this may just add to the confusion because if I ever get her to level 80, then I won't know which toon friends are referring to if they just say "Momo." It's more confusing than I realized! Then, there's my husband. His main used to be called Horadric, as a tribute to Diablo. He liked the name, but not quite enough to adjust to people calling him that in guild chat and while on vent. Even worse - shortening the name led either to people calling him "Ho" or "Hor" -- neither great options. I went with "Hora," but I seemed to be the only one. So he changed his toon's name to Rolorolo, a double version of his nickname IRL. Now everyone just calls him "Rolo." It works. I suppose if you have a relatively short toon name with two syllables or less, you probably don't have to worry too much about what your nickname will become. But if you tend to the longer names, think first about what your nickname could become. You don't want to be stuck known as "Hor"... or do you? Has anyone else had interesting or unexpected nicknames stem out of their toon names?