Project Lore

My second favorite holiday inside Azeroth is finally upon us. While I am not certain where the IRL version of Feast of Winter Veil ranks (“Awesome, more socks!” and the inevitable, “No Grandma, I'm still not married.”), I certainly love Blizzard's version of the holiday season. It's partially because of the fact that Winter Veil isn't tied to a religion, thus leaving no one out. In the end it comes down to presents and food.  I tend to appreciate both.

First and foremost, it seems that last year's gift, the Clockwork Rocket Bot, is just that, only for last year. This Achievement pretty much confirms that, and if that is not enough evidence for you, then how about this one? I hope you are prepared to deal with tons of cars under your feet because another new Achievement is based around Crashin' Thrasin' duels. That, is in turn part of the Winter Veil's arching Achievement for the the Violet Proto-Drake.

Ugg, my hands hurt from all that linking. Hit up MMO-Champion.com for an all-new mini-guide on Winter Veil's Achievements presented by Boubouille. If he doesn't dish the details himself, then rest assured that he links elsewhere.

I will attempt to snag the race car for sure, and continue on my trend of preparing scrumptious meals for my friends. Beyond that, I doubt I will purposely go after anything. That doesn't mean I won't participate though. Players on the Magtheridon server are sure to see insanely high-priced cooking reagents from my Auction House alt, as I attempt to abuse the supply and demand curve. I wouldn't mind unloading this Preserved Holly for a tidy sum either.

I do have a bone to pick with Blizzard though. I am no Achievement nut, but I do have a tendency to try and pick up as many vanity pets as possible. Yet you guys have designed numerous ways to make my collection efforts fruitless, such as forcing me to chose between Egbert and Sleepy Willy. While Egbert obviously won, I was upset that I lost the chance for a personal C'Thun-inspired Broggok mob. It is that reason that I wish for the Achievement nuts to have to make a hard decision as well. How about a Naughty & Nice achievement, 30 Points to those player who get less than 25 HKs over the course of Winter Veil, 25 Points for those with more than 200 HKs. Mmmm, moral choices.

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Mages, Death Knights and Hunters definitely need to be aware of Ghostcrawler's most recent posts. The face of the forums has tore it up over the last two days, announcing changes to all three classes that are sure to upset some, but will having others jump for joy.

Some of the changes he listed are now part of the just posted v3.0.8 PTR notes, which include a new mount-based Achievement, complete with an exclusive mount as the reward. Although this probably isn't exactly what the people QQing in the comments of this post had in mind, it is a start. An expensive start considering if you bought ground epic mounts for half of the required 100 mounts, you'd be dropping something like 5000g. And I don't think there are even that many available.  So let's just call it a crapton of gold.

I will just start this off with the bad news. Dorkins, prepared to be nerfed to the ground. Ghostcrawler's notes specifically mention that Hunters, PvE Beastmastery Hunters to be more specific, are doing too much god damn damage for Blizzard's liking. While the designers hoped other classes would catch up to them, they haven't, thus comes a series of nerfs. The developers figured the best way to hurt PvE damage, while skirting the PvP balance issue, would be to heavily modify Steady Shot and Volley. Ouch!

From the blue:

• Steady Shot – now only gains 10% of attack power as damage (down from 20%).
• Volley – reduced the damage by about 30% for all ranks. Note that AE damage from many classes is very high right now and we are looking at all of them. Volley in particular had reached the point where some hunters were using it to the exclusion of most other attacks.

Death Knights are getting the opposite treatment of Hunters. The changes to the newest and most populous class - for the moment – revolve around modify tanking a good deal, while reducing their defense capabilities for PvP. Those PvEers out there, specifically the ones who rolled a DK for tanking, should be excited. From my understanding of the changes, and the class, the PvP modifications aren't nearly the nerf that Hunters received on the PvE end.  Blood Aura doing double the healing...think I may go Blood when I return to my DK.

As for our faithful Blinkers out there, some of you will be happy to hear that you have a buff coming your way. I quantified that previous sentence with 'some' because the buffs only apply to those mages that are Arcane spec. To be honest, I do not know, and possibly have never known, a mage that was Arcane spec. Nonetheless, Blizzard will has decided that that particular spec needs a hand, going so far as to completley redesigning the Arcane Blast ability.

• Arcane Blast – overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 15/30/45%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks (and a 45% buff). You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.

To sum it up, we have Hunters' PvE being super-nerfed with a buff in survivability for PvP. Death Knight's Blood spec is more attractive for tanking, with tanking mechanics relying less on cooldowns and a small nerf to their defense in PvP. Arcane Mages get a nice bump in damage, however, Blizzard is keeping a close eye on them to see if they become too powerful in PvP, or the class in general taking the lead in PvE damage output.

As for me, my two main characters have barely been touched. Fan of Knives is now better, but my rogue lacks the ability, so blah. Circle of Healing now has a 6 second cooldown, instead of just the global cooldown. That sucks, but I hated spamming it so much anyways.

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Lay off my score..

I have been meaning to discuss my stance on Achievements for awhile, and Bastosa has driven me to finally act. A few of my other posts have some morsels of thought on World of Warcraft's Achievement system, while I do find myself going for them from time to time, I feel that it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. Just a heads up before you read on, I know many of you out there are passionate about Achievements, your score and your rank in your guild or realm, so just remember that this is my opinion. On the flip side, I am happy to hear your thoughts on the topic as well.

My main issue with the system is not that it is a blatant rip-off of Xbox Live, but that it was designed with the sole purpose of keeping us sucked in. For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, making an entire system dedicated to keeping people logged in just irks me. But damn if Blizzard doesn't make it difficult to hate the implementation. As I have progressed through Wrath I have found myself checking on my exploring and questing Achievements here and there, while hating myself for doing so. I tell myself that I am just checking it to gauge how close I am to being done with the zone, but I know that isn't the only reason.

The system is growing on me because of its humor, depth, and the fact that I love statistics. For me, the single greatest accomplishment for the Achievement system is not its extension of the game, but that it hasn't ruined my experience. Yea, a few Battlegrounds have been clogged up because of the Warsong Gulch's Achievement, but it is not nearly as bad as all the stubborn people going for Said the Spider to the Fly in Gears of War 2 or Akimbo Assassin in Left 4 Dead on expert.  It can be done on any difficulty people!

While I may hate it less, I do not see myself re-running content just to brag to my friends that I did Deadmines at level 80.  Perhaps binding certain Achievements to a level range would make more sense.  Then again, I did love The Goonies...

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Unless you are living under a rock, you are undoubtedly familiar with the new achievement system Blizzard added with the latest expansion. I’ve touched on how much I enjoy the new system before, but I wanted to take a moment and dive a little deeper into it. I think it is no secret how much I like achievements, a lot. I am currently sitting at #2 in our guild for overall achievement points behind a certain draenei shaman who will remain nameless. During the lull between 3.0.2 and Wrath I really dove deep into these achievements, exploring the lands, running lowbie dungeons, and doing everything I could to knock them off my list while there was nothing better to do. Now that I have progressed past the initial stages of Wrath I am finding that they are filling a new void and giving me something else to go after. Now that I have finished all of the level 80 dungeons on regular and heroic, other than farming badges, there would typically be little reason to go back. Now I am finding myself wanting to run them over and over again, hoping that I can knock off some of those special achievements off the list during the boss achievements. I am finding myself responding to people asking me to tank with “only if we go after all the achievements.” Typically the response is “of course!” Some of the achievements I have recently knocked of are Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, Intense Cold, and Chaos Theory. I am trying to figure out where to go next, to me the achievements in AzN seem tough, but I like a challenge and think I will be trying for those next! It seems lots of people are really digging these new goals inside of our heroics. I know I can list a few personal faves. What about you, are you enjoying the new carrots? Or do you see them as just another time sink? Which ones have you got, and which ones seem impossible?

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Blizzard Entertainment gets their audience. This is one of the main reasons that their titles – all of them – are so incredibly popular. From clicking on mobs in their RTSs for the funny one-liners, exploding critters, or the Cow Level in Diablo II, the developer has created or honored pop culture for years. Their latest release, Wrath of the Lich King is no different.

All those level 80s out there who grinded their way up via quests have surely come across a few different pop references as rewards, NPCs, events, titles or achievements. You have Predator, Zelda, and even a somewhat subtle nod to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I could go on and on, especially when if we count achievements, as there are a ton of references hidden in those goals.

The thing is, we have known Blizzard to be a witty bunch of nerds for a few years now. What I have enjoyed the most so far is the fascination the quest developers had with making us pick up crap. Most of us probably came across a poo-based quest back in The Burning Crusade, but in the first two territories in Wrath, I came across a pair of them.  My initial experience with the substance was for Iggy “Tailspin” Cogtoggle (another pop reference). Just an FYI.  Wolves howl when they drop the kids off at the pool, not at the moon. Second time was more “fun,” as the goal was to literally scare the shit out of Darkclaw Bats using firecrackers.  Pyrotechnics and cowpies, awesome.

I would like to believe that there is a reference in that quest too, as I learned the definition of Guano from one of the greatest movies of all time. That is probably a stretch, but please, do not call me a looooooooooooooooooo-seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer. I had to.

To top things off, whoever designed these quests is sitting at their desk snickering to themselves, "I am totally getting millions of people to play with animal droppings."

Unlike some of my ProjectLore cohorts, I have not dinged 80 yet. So let me know if I get to play with brown clay later on!

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I don't know about you guys, but I have enough turkey left in the fridge to make open-face turkey sammies for a week. Coincidentally, that is the perfect meal to eat while you are slaving away at those XP bubbles or taking down your next heroic. Quick and easy to prepare, with little need to devour it in a timely manner. Damn, I am hungry now.

I knew it was going to be fairly difficult for me to get a lot of play time in during the holiday, so I came up with a different kind of Warcraft-based goal. Rather than do a mad push to level 80 (which, I did my best at anyways) or get trampled at Walmart, I decided to try and sign up that 11,000,001st subscriber to World of Warcraft.

My brother was my first target, seeing as he is a retired hardcore raider. The numerous Priest changes, a demonstration of the differences between vanilla WoW and Wrath with my Holy alt, and general curiosity drew him towards the dark side. After playing for a bit, and seemingly having fun, he put the laptop down and walked away muttering something like “QQ in the channels and guild drama is why I left in the first place.” Damn you new Barrens Chat!

My younger cousin (who can now out bench press me...) was my secondary target. He took up gaming during the GoldenEye days, and has played most big titles since then. The little punk is by no means a hardcore gamer, but he is certainly not casual either. One would think that World of Warcraft would be on his PC gaming rig, and it was! It turns out that he had joined an Azerothian race without consulting me. Sad fact is that his friends set him up, having him roll the opposing faction so they could corpse camp him for hours as he tried to level. He didn't make it past level 20 before his experience was ruined, and has sworn off the genre entirely. I'll have to work on him further.

At this point, my hopes were dashed and the family get togethers had all past. With no more targets I sat down with little old SolidSamm to work his way towards level 80 and noticed that I had caught the attention from one of the last people I would expect, my girlfriend. “Your guy is so little” she said. “Yes,” I replied, “but he can do big things.” I quickly ran off to find the biggest mob in Dragonblight and showed her how rogues like to do it.

Perhaps, just maybe, I can suck her in? Tips, tricks, strategies and secret potions are appreciated. How many of you managed to ding level 80 over the holiday break? Or did you have alternative goals like I did?

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If you haven’t been over to the Armory lately, you should definitely check it out. Blizzard has just done a major update which displays all of our achievements and game statistics along side the typical gear and reputation information. Reviews have been a bit mixed on this. I, for one, think it's great, but there are those that would argue there is now a bit too much information available to anyone interested enough to look it up. For me the armory has always been an invaluable tool when deciding if it is worth my time to go along on that PUG heroic. You can check out the groups gear and see if they are up to the task. It can also be very useful when filling out raid slots. I remember a few slow raiding nights where we almost took a few people in quest greens into The Eye because they claimed to be “geared.” A quick Armory can usually let you know really quickly what you are dealing with. Now the new Armory goes a bit beyond that; not only can you check out a persons gear, you can check to see if they have cleared that heroic before, or any heroic, or if they have ever earned an emblem of heroism. You can even see if what raids they’ve done, how much gold they’ve earned, and how much their biggest heal has been for. It’s all amazing really. I’ve heard arguments though. Is it really good to have the amount of gold you have earned out there? Doesn’t this make you a target for gold farmers, or beggers in Stormwind? While I personally like it, and don’t feel like I have much to hide. It still begs the questions. How much available information is too much? What do you think? Are you digging the new armory, or wanting your privacy back?

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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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I'm not sure if you've noticed, but Hallow's End is here in the World of Warcraft. With all of the new achievements in the game, there are tons of people heading to the Scarlet Monastery to kill the Headless Horseman for his rings, helm, sword, or mount. It seems like the hardest thing to get for the long list of Hallow's End achievements, other than all twenty masks, is the squashling pet. I'm one of the many people in the Totally Rad Guild who, once the twenty mask achievement is removed from the meta achievement requirements, only needs that pet in order to complete the Hallow's End world event achievement and get the Hallowed title. I've seen that pet drop maybe five times in the past few days, and the last one I rolled a two on. That's ok though, there's still a lot of days left in the holiday. The Horseman, though, is starting to feel a lot like that other farmable holiday boss, Coren, from BRD just a few weeks ago. I've got every single drop off of the rider without a skull that I want, including the Horseman's Reigns (which I rolled a 100 on the first night of Hallow's End). I feel like it's really only a matter of time until I get that pet. Of course, that's how I felt about the Kodo Mount, and I never got that drop. Although, as much as I would have liked a kodo, the Headless Horseman's mount is about a quadrillion and five times cooler to me. I personally never really participated in the world event quests until now, but the seemingly improved rewards that have been creeping into the game have made it worth my while. While browsing through the hundreds of achievements, these useless points really encourage players to go out and experience all of the world events that Blizzard puts together so well. My only worry is that every time one of these new holidays comes up, we'll have another flavor of the month title. Right now, it seems like at least half of the people I see are in the Jenkins family. I'm sure after the Hallowed achievement is changed, most of those people will that one up. I'm sure it's only a result of new titles and achievements having just been implemented, but I look forward to seeing all sorts of new titles around, instead of everyone having the exact same one. Either way, I am loving the holiday season in WoW so far.

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If you were paying attention to the new guild calendar that was added with patch 3.0.2 you should have noticed that Hallow's End started this Saturday.  This year's Hallow's End will keep players busier than usual, thanks to another Echoes of Doom addition, Achievements.  The latest patch added the first group of Achievements to the game, 21 of which are focused on my favorite of the seasonal holidays (even in real life).  Unfortunately for us, it is not 21 unique quests, as a few of them are Horde/Alliance mirrors of each other. For those out to get the easy Achievements, Hallow's End has a few of those to offer.

• The Mask Task – Grab one of the 20 masks available and put it on.  Cake.
• Check Your Head – Grab the [Weighted Jack-o'-Lanterns] and throw them at all the races.  This is obviously easiest if you do it in Shattrath City or a Battleground.  Oh, but be sure they don't already have the buff, or you won't get credit.

Then you can go completely the other way, and be out to get those difficult Achievements that the system is really all about.

• Tricks and Treats of Azeroth – This is a travel heavy quest that sends you all over Azeroth, including an expedition to Outlands.  Think of it as Children's Week...on steroids.  The good thing is that if you complete this, that means you completed three other Achievements, Tricks and Treats of Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor and Outlands.
• A Mask for All Occasions – Well, a quest based on random drops is never fun.  This is topped off by the fact that you have to collect all 20 masks.  You will basically have to farm the Innkeepers each hour for their [Treat Bag] if you want this Achievement.
• Sinister Calling – Sinister Calling is perhaps the most sought after Achievement without people even knowing it.  The object is to snag a [Sinister Squashling] and a [Hallowed Helm], two items that players have been farming since they were added to the Headless Horseman's loot table.  This is another Achievement that if managed, will score you additional bragging rights, the Bring Me The Head of... Oh Wait Achievement.
• Hallowed Be Thy Name - For only the truly insane.  You basically complete all the the Hallow's End Achievements for this and it scores you the title of The Hallowed.  Completing this is also part of the all Seasonal Achievement, What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

My personal favorite Achievement, and the only one I actually care about, is rather easy (and will also score me the  Bring Me The Head of... Oh Wait Achievement), Out With It.  Out With It is based on the age-old adage that if you eat too much candy, your stomach will get upset.  Easily achieved by winning the common drop for the Headless Horseman, Tricky Treats.  Then just eat them until you get the Upset Tummy debuff.  Why do I like it?  Why, because it is funny, that is why. As my gamerscore for my Xbox 360 shows, I have never really cared about Achievements, but Blizzard is making them creative, difficult, or interesting enough to force me to strive for some of them.  If only they actually benefited you characters in some way... For more information on all of the Hallow's End Achievements, head over to the Hallow's End page on WoWWiki.

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