Project Lore

There has been tons of talk about 3.1, Ulduar, and the public test realms lately. So for the first time ever I have transferred my character over the PTR to look around. While I know that test realms are intended to, well, test the upcoming content, we all know that is not people's primarily motivation for going over there. The reason many players go is to get a leg up on the competition when it comes to raiding, research new abilities, and make sure they know exactly what changes they are going to make to their character when the patch hits the live realms. I have enjoyed being able to see the dual spec mechanic in person, am liking the built in outfitter functionality, and being the first to see things like the Argent Tournament has certainly been interesting. One thing I noticed is that there are certain people who seem to spend A LOT of time on the PTR. I have never been able to relate to this. Perhaps it's the same reason I have never been super excited about being a beta tester. For me there is a feeling that the time you spend is all for not. There is a certain impending doom knowing that as soon as Blizzard decides that their testing is finished everything will go away in the blink of an eye. So what is the point in investing the time? Any gear that drops from those Ulduar bosses is not yours to keep, any money you make from crafting new profession recipes is as good as gone, and any achievements you earn won't mean much when the server is cleared. Of course, the very hardcore raiding guilds are busy mastering boss strats so that they can knock out the world firsts, and there may be a few generous souls who want to help report every bug they see, but for the rest of you - what is the motivation? Isn't your time better spent on something you can keep (virtually)? I applaud you who are there to help Blizzard work out bugs, but for the rest of you, are you having fun?

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When a hunter happens upon a Spirit Beast in Sholazar Basin, the reaction is usually sublime and controlled; decorum is maintained at all times. Like this: "WWAAAAAAAHHHH IT'S MY SPIRIT BEEEEEEEEAST!!!" And then they gather their composure... and spittle-shriek again. Of course, this usually only happens once in a hunter's life as the Spirit Beast in Sholazar Basin is extremely elusive. Well guess what we did today: "WWAAAAAAAHHHH IT'S MY NEW SPIRIT BEEEEEEEEAST!!!" Blizzard has come through with a little-mentioned rumor, that a new Spirit Beast would be introduced. Now, in the latest version of the PTR, this rumor is a reality. Gondria has arrived.

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Before Burning Crusade hit the shelves, the raiding scene was very different. Raiding guilds would quickly abandon earlier raids like Molten Core once most items were being disenchanted and they wanted to spend more time progressing through new content. Since there was no value in running an easy raid and well-established guilds could just as easily run harder instances with a few ungeared players in their 40 man raid group to gear them up faster, Molten Core and all the level 60 dungeons fell into oblivion. Blizzard sought to change this in Burning Crusade. First, they introduced heroic dungeons, which offered all of the new 5-man dungeons with better gear drops and more difficult mobs. Additionally, all heroics dropped Badges of Justice, which were exchangeable for gear that was on par with raid gear. As more content as released, they wanted to keep heroics relevant. The solution was to add even better rewards for badges at the requirement of many more badges. Eventually, as Karazhan and Zul'Aman became PUGed more often than arranged, they added badges to them so that they stayed relevant to veteran players. Badge gear on par with some of the best raid drops would cost on the order of 150 badges, equaling dozens of heroics for a single piece, but players continued to run heroics. In WotLK, Blizzard adjusted this system slightly. With the introduction of achievements, heroics would have "hard modes", which would make heroics relevant and difficult to even seasoned players. Every raid has the same system as well, with a normal "10 man" version and a heroic "25 man" version. More importantly, Blizzard introduced a multiple tiered "badge" system. Heroics and the easiest raids, Naxxramas and Vault of Archavon, drop the first tier of badges, called Emblems of Heroism. These are exchangeable for entry-level raid gear. Harder raids drop Emblems of Valor, which are exchangeable for better raid gear. It was inadvertently announced in a post about PvP that a new tier of emblems is to be introduced in patch 3.1: Emblems of Conquest. One of the announcements that startled some players was that Ulduar would drop Emblems of Valor on normal mode and Emblems of Conquest on Heroic mode. The reason this didn't sit well with some players is that they view Ulduar on the same level of difficulty as existing raid content. Most players agree that raid content is much easier than it was in Burning Crusade and earlier and want it to be more difficult. The hardcore raiders have no use for Emblems of Heroism and their Emblems of Valor are looking to be barely useful already, and with the introduction of Emblems of Conquest and heroic Ulduar, Emblems of Valor will likely be less valued than ever. A common request is that emblems should be exchangeable at some fixed rate. For example, an emblem of valor could be bought with 5 emblems of heroism. Blizzard does not want to implement this because they want players who want better gear to play harder instances rather than farm easy ones. They don't want raiding to be a grind. Perhaps a better solution is to make existing emblem gear cheaper as new content is released. Then, that shiny 50 emblem sword might cost 20 emblems instead of 50 in later patches, and you've had an incentive to run a few heroics instead of just getting the next tier up. Another problem is the distinction of PvP gear. Right now, raiders can buy PvP gear with emblems. Without even setting foot in a battleground or arena, they can buy some of the best PvP gear in the game. While PvE players should have access to PvP gear, it shouldn't be that easy to obtain. Rating requirements might be required in patch 3.1 for the best PvP gear, even if you buy with emblems. The main reason emblems are important as far as a mechanic is that they mark which raids are on what "tier". Here is a list of what raids drop what kinds of emblems. Dungeons in the same grouping have similar drops.

Emblem of Heroism	Naxxramas (normal)	Used for Heirloom items, iLevel 200 items, Savage Gladiator
	Vault of Archavon (normal)
	Obsidian Sanctum (normal)
	Eye of Eternity (normal)
Emblem of Valor	Naxxramas (heroic)	Used for iLevel 213 items, Hateful Gladiator
	Vault of Archavon (heroic)
	Obsidian Sanctum (heroic)
	Eye of Eternity (heroic)
	Ulduar (normal)
Emblem of Conquest	Ulduar (heroic)	Used for the next tier of raid drops, Deadly Gladiator

I personally think that this is a good design philosophy. I didn't get to see most of Black Temple or Sunwell because I couldn't spend enough time playing to raid that much. With all of the content being accessible in normal mode to all players but still having rewarding hard modes, the greatest amount of players are satisfied. What do you think? Is the emblem system working? Should 10-man content stay easy and 25-man be made hard or should everything be made difficult?

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A few weeks ago I dished out some controversial viewpoints on the upcoming Dual Spec.  In no way shape or form was I saying that the ability to easily swap specs wasn't a useful feature.  Hell, I know I could get some use out of it, especially when I decide to PvP again.  The reason for the post was to express my concerns for what the feature could mean for the future of certain classes in raiding, namely Mages, Warlocks, Rogues and Hunters - the non-hybrid classes.   Some agreed, a handful took offense, but everyone formed their own opinion, which we are entitled to. Many other bloggers out there brought up an entirely different point.  Would the additional of Dual Spec change the way that Blizzard designs Talent trees or encounters?  In short, these players were worried that Blizzard may do some funky things in the WoW's future.  Such as having one spec be the PvE spec and another dedicated as the PvP spec.  On the PvE side of things, the designers could envision a fight requiring the use of 10 tanks while every other encounter remains at the two or three mark.  The thinking behind such madness is simple, you can always just respec right after. Thankfully, Ghostcrawler put this one to bed.  In a post on the forums he flat out stated that "we are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist."  Greg Street for President! Blizzard will be ignoring the feature because they do not want to assume that everyone will purchase it.  In fact, they expect that only the more "high level" players will bother dropping the 1000 gold.  Instead of treating the mechanic as something the design team can play with, they are viewing it as yet another quality of life feature.  After all, it only stops players from hearthing back, dropping 50 gold and distributing their talent points after they are summoned back. Blizzard could have used the feature as a way to extend their options for encounter design, but have decided - at least for now - to stick with their current toolbox.  What do you think, should the company keep the extra hammer in there, or did the correct call get made?  Normally I would be all for new encounter mechanics, but I think such a radical shift would upset the majority of the populace.  Before you scream that they are placating the casuals, the decision is also sound from a design standpoint.  You shouldn't design something based on a feature that isn't available by default.

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I didn't have the heart to crop out the skull.

Blizzard Entertainment seems to be on a warpath with Wrath of the Lich King's first content patch.  The developer has promised players an insane amount of content including the addition of the largest instance to date, Ulduar, the Dual Spec mechanic, a built-in Gear Manager, and the Argent Tournament, just to name a few.  Not everything coming in v3.1 has been given the bullet point treatment however. The bloggers on Project Lore have found a few under-the-radar type of additions that we have clung to like a dork to his unopened figures.  Heartbourne gave us the Hearthstone cooldown reduction and Dual Spec price.  The first change was likely made to stop "ghetto hearthing" - the art of abusing an instance for a free hearth.  Juggynaut got hooked on his Legendary mace and the modifications to the Dual Spec feature before hitting us with the removal of the Black and Plagued Proto-Drake meta-achievement rewards.  Myself, well, I covered the Argent Tournament and the patches upcoming gear additions.  Which no one cared about apparently, or just didn't want to spoil themselves. Following in the footsteps of the Hearthstone's nerf and the additional of the Gear Manager, comes another quality of life change to World of Warcraft, the modification to the RaidID system. Blizzard announced their intentions to overhaul the archaic system a few weeks ago, but I don't think anyone, including Blizzard, expected it to be done for Patch 3.1's testing on the PTR. The RaidID system is Blizzard's internal way of tracking which instance a toon should be connected to.  The main problem that arose with the system was the lockout period.  Should a player that has cleared a raid or heroic enter into the instance first, followed by the other members of the party or raid, the unsaved players can get linked to the cleared instance.  This would then blow their lockout period.  Needless to say, this small issue pissed people off. A lot.  Zarhym's promise of "a better interface to warn players" has come to light on the PTR, but not as elegant as he hoped. BigRedKitty's screenshot shows us a dialogue box with a warning on it.  Basically, we have 15 seconds to get out of dodge if the instance is not what we expected, that is it.  The box does not appear to give you any details on the instance itself, so the "better interface" has yet to come to fruition by my standards.  Hopefully further upgrades to the system will be coming in the near future. Many of you probably never experienced this issue, or don't even care about the "fix", but you should.  In my opinion, it is Blizzard's application of these little tweaks that helps make them one of the premiere developers in the industry.  The company should be applauded for their attention to detail and willingness to correct their mistakes, especially when the issue only effects a small amount of the populace under certain circumstances.  Even if Blizzard does it in an iterative fashion when a more drastic change is called for, at least the ball is rolling.  Right?

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Since World of Warcraft was released, the hearthstone has been one of the most important items. It allowed characters from level 1 to teleport back to an inn to rest or to a capital city to trade. Since then, the game has changed significantly. Shattrath and Dalaran are wonderful hubs, but they lack auction houses and make it difficult to do business. Thus, the faction capital cities, especially Orgrimmar and Ironforge, stayed populated. However, its not easy to get from the faction capitals back to Dalaran. Most players who aren't mages or shaman rely on their hearthstone to get back to Dalaran. The hour long cooldown on the hearthstone has limited how players use their hearthstones as they might want to save them if they want to return to Dalaran after visiting a capital city. One of the solutions behind this was called "ghetto-hearthing". Since the number of players inside a given instance is limited, if a player is in a group in an instance and gets removed, they are teleported to the hearthstone's homepoint and the cooldown on their hearthstone is reset to one hour. Thus, if you make a group with someone and enter and instance, you will trigger the "ghetto-hearth" upon leaving the group. Players in Orgrimmar could use Ragefire Chasm to ghetto-hearth, and players in Stormwind could use Stockades. If you were out and about adventuring in the world, you could likely find a nearby instance to ghetto-hearth in. Well, patch 3.1 is changing this mechanic. Among other large changes, the "ghetto-hearth" will now take players to the nearest graveyard without resetting their hearthstone, and more importantly, hearthstones will have a 30 minute cooldown. The implications of this are interesting. One of the major convienances of shaman and of mages was easy travel, and this lessens it significantly as now everyone can get around more easily. Scribes and their Scrolls of Recall are also relatively less useful. These scrolls were a major incentive for me to make an scribe. It is unclear if cooldowns on other items like Band of the Kirin Tor or such spells will be changed or left alone. I hope to see them reduced as well to keep their relative usefulness intact.

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Project Lore has been hitting Patch 3.1 pretty hard this week.  It all started on Tuesday when the servers went down for general maintenance.  This allowed Blizzard to pop v3.1 onto the PTR and post the official patch notes.  As the week has rolled past, various bloggers have plugged their thoughts on the big picture, small but exciting details and incremental changes.  Today we will give you hard information on the ninja implementation of the Argent Tournament and a first look at some of the upcoming gear. We didn't get many details when the Argent Tournament was announced on Tuesday.  Basically, all we knew was that it would be organized by the Argent Crusade, and would open up new daily quests with a collection of rewards from gear to mounts.  After much poking and prodding by the community, Blizzard Poster Zarhym laid the groundwork for the tourney .

• The Argent Tournament is a permanent event .  It will not disappear like the Naxxramas/Wrath Invasion or end upon completion like the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
• Players will begin working with the Crusade to construct a massive, instanced, none PvP-based, coliseum.  It'll be added in a later patch indefinitely - think Isle of Quel'Danas mechanic.
• The event is currently in Icecrown, but Blizzard is still working on the content.  So it may not be relegated to a single zone.
• The tournament itself will launch with Patch v3.1.  Additional content will be forthcoming in subsequent patches.
• Blizzard has given a reason for such a tournament when a war against the scourge is progressing.  The Crusade believes that their competition will breed the best warriors and filter out those who can lead.  Coupled with that, it unites all contenders behind a single banner and purpose.

Courtesy of MMO-Champion, I present you with the Argent Tournament's collection of banners and tabards.  The gear and mounts can be found individualy in this meta post, but don't get too giddy.  Some of this stuff will cost hundreds of Champion's Seals - the new currency being launched with the tournament. You also may want to take a peak at the Tier 8 weapons and sets that Boubouille and co. have dug up.  Everything looks awesome, so long as you ignore the diamond-shaped 2h sword series and the atrocious Druid set.  My personal aversion to Blizzard's interpretation of daggers continues however.  In my opinion, daggers should be very small blades, not the size of my arm - or SolidSamm's entire body - but they new ones do look cool.  I just wish they were more compact. Can I get an Amen on the Druid set being awful?  I know they are earthy and all, but come on.  That is probably the most ridiculous set of shoulder armor I have ever seen.  On the flip side, I absolutley love the Rogue set.  The helm and the rest of glowing aspects of the collection make it simply badass.  I can't wait to fail at collecting it.  Why a stealth character would want to glow is beyond me though...

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MMO-Champion has been bringing the thunder this morning with tons of news that has been cascading out of the public test realm. With a build of patch 3.1 live on the PTR, players have been given the first full look at an almost overwhelming number of changes and additions to the World of Warcraft. Big, drool-worthy news for Paladins, Priests, Druids, and Shaman is that a legendary One Handed Mace looks like it will be making its way to those classes' hands eventually. The classes mentioned will have the ability to collect 40 Fragments of Val'anyr and combine them, creating Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr, which begins a quest, eventually rewarding Val'anyr, Gavel of the Ancient Kings. Here's to hoping there's a version which certain enhancement shaman might be able to use. Players have also discovered that inscribed versions of the Kirin Tor rings (the ones that cost 8000g and teleport you to Dalaran) are available for an additional 1000g. These rings will be item level 213 and require the original ring to purchase. Finally, MMO-Champion revealed that new mounts and pets are being added into WoW, including Mimiron's Head, which summons and dismisses a rideable mechanical gnome head! This thing reminds me of Bowser's clown faced aircraft from Super Mario World. A full list of the pets and mounts can be found below. New Pets

• Spring Rabbit - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Spring Rabbit.
• Plump Turkey - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Plump Turkey.
• Teldrassil Sproutling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Teldrassil Sproutling.
• Tirisfal Batling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Tirisfal batling.
• Dun Morogh Cub - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Dun Morogh Cub.
• Durotar Scorpion - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Durotar scorpion.
• Alarming Clockbot - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Alarming Clockbot.
• Elwynn Lamb - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Elwynn lamb.
• Mulgore Hatchling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mulgore hatchling.
• Ammen Vale Lashling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Ammen Vale lashling.
• Strand Crawler - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Darkspear Strand crawler.
• Enchanted Broom - Right Click to summon and dismiss your enchanted broom.
• Argent Squire - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade squire.
• Mechanopeep - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Mechanopeep.
• Argent Gruntling - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Argent Crusade gruntling.
• Curious Gorloc Hatchling - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Gorloc Hatchling.
• Curious Wolvar Pup - Right Click to call or shoo away a Curious Wolvar Pup.
• Gorloc Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Wolvar Orphan - Right Click to summon and dismiss the orphan you've agreed to look after for Children's Week.
• Murkimus the Gladiator - Right Click to summon and dismiss Murkimus the Gladiator.
• Sen'jin Fetish - Right Click to summon and dismiss your Sen'jin fetish.

New Mounts

• Aquatic Riding Ray - Summons and dismisses an Aquatic Riding Ray. This is an aquatic mount.
• Swift Stormwind Steed - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Stormwind Steed. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Azuremyst Elekk - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Azuremyst Elekk. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Darnassian Mistsaber - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Darnassian Mistaber. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Great Mulgore Kodo - Summons and dismisses a rideable Great Mulgore Kodo. This is a very fast mount.
• Turbostrider - Summons and dismisses a rideable Turbostrider. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Ironforge Ram - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Ironforge Ram. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Sen'jin Raptor - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Sen'jin Raptor. This is a very fast mount.
• Forsaken Warhorse - Summons and dismisses a rideable Forsaken Warhorse. This is a very fast mount.
• Swift Orgrimmar Wolf - Summons and dismisses a rideable Swift Orgrimmar Wolf. This is a very fast mount.

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Taking a gander over at the World of Warcraft Public Test Realm (PTR) site will reveal what many people realized extremely quickly. The PTR Character Copy page is once again live (EU Version Here). What does this mean? Well, Patch 3.1 including certain parts of the new Ulduar raid should be testable soon. We still have no idea when the PTR will actually be available for testing. Some people are speculating as soon as tonight, other have their money on Monday. No official word on an actual time or date has been released, but according to Bornakk, if we have a little patience, we'll see it soon(tm). Unfortunately for many of us, the Character Copy queue filled up in no time flat. It looks like those of us who want to test out some of the new changes or get a sneak peak at Ulduar will have to keep checking back to see if the queue empties out a bit. Right now the average wait time is sitting at 4 days, but hopefully we won't have to wait that long to see the feature re-opened. Last time the PTR Character Copy feature was available, copied characters ended up being deleted and Character Copy was disabled. That was shortly after some of the new 3.1 class changes were announced.  Still, if you manage to get a character copied, I'd say it's worth taking your chances.

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