Project Lore

One of the features of World of Warcraft that really pulled me into the game was the seamless transition between zones. I had just stopped playing Final Fantasy XI, which had a dismal loading time between zones and really made the world feel disconnected. There was no way all of those zones would fit together on a world map. WoW's seamless transition between zones offered a great level of immersion. The few loading screens were either from crossing continents, which felt justified with a picture of a world map, or for instanced dungeons. Going through a portal and getting instanced really felt like I was being removed from the world and placed elsewhere; if I looked out onto Silverpine from Shadowfang Keep, I couldn't see other players or even monsters wandering the world like I would if I was outside. It made instances where you observe the outside world, like Scholomance (or recently Oculus or Utgarde Keep), a little confusing at times until I reminded myself I was still in Azeroth. Fast forward to the release of Burning Crusade. I was ecstatic to play a Blood Elf, but one thing that took me out of the game was zoning between Quel'thalas and the rest of the world. The transporter to Undercity and portals into Silvermoon weren't a big deal since they took some time to load anyway, but simply walking into Eastern Plaguelands requiring a loading screen to go from the new "Burning Crusade instance" to the Eastern Kingdoms seemed unacceptable. Additionally, for players in the Draenei and Blood Elf cities and starting zones, player arrows on the minimap showed up when players were in other Burning Crusade lands, like Outland, but not nearby in Eastern Plaguelands! I was convinced it was one of the reasons by beloved Silvermoon city wasn't more popular and why I spent so little time there, even compared to the Undercity. This got me thinking forward to Cataclysm. With flying mounts now allowed in Azeroth, unless Wintergrasp-like flying restrictions are put in place, most of the world is going to have to be one big chunk of an instance. Blizzard will have to make sure that the Ghostlands border with Eastern Kingdoms is ironed out and remove the instancing restriction. Acherus will probably now be accessible to non-Death Knight players. The Draenei areas will likely be brought into the fold as well. Some areas like the Echo Isles and other distant zones may not have to be accessible by flying mount to the main continents. The implications of this are interesting. The Burning Crusade starting zones were instanced because they wanted the new starting quests to be exclusive to people who bought the expansion to sell more games. In addition, Jewelcrafting, the new profession at the time, only had starting trainers in Silvermoon and the Exodar, so players had to have Burning Crusade to train for it. The question that now arises is: what will happen to this Burning Crusade exclusive content? Will owners of only original WoW now be able to train in Jewelcrafting and do the Blood Elf and Draenei quests, and even maybe make Blood Elf and Draenei characters? Perhaps Burning Crusade, and maybe even Wrath or Cataclysm, will be rolled into the original WoW. The start-up cost to get into WoW is getting price prohibitive for getting new players, and players starting anew will already be experiencing the new post-cataclysm world. These new players would be "free riders" on the Cataclysm content, so why not include all the expansions, at least through Wrath, to new players? If they are getting the content anyway and it entices them to stay longer, they will make more money on subscriptions from enticing players to stay anyway. What do you think? Is it time to roll all of the old games together?

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As you may have noticed, today's featured video is not from the Halls of Lightning. For some reason, the Project Lore offices seem to be pretty much empty. There must be a bug going around, because everyone called in sick. So, today we'll be expanding on Bastosa's look back at fond memories of the Burning Crusade by featuring my personal favorite episode of Project Lore, the infamous Netherspite kill. Enjoy today's look back while you wait for your Wrath of the Lich King to patch, or on your short break from leveling. Of course, we will be back tomorrow with the final episode from the Halls of Lightning, and the Weekly Wrap Up will be available on Saturday at Noon PST.

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So Tigole, aka Jeff Kaplan, confirmed on the official Blizzard forums that leveling from 60-70 is going to be faster once WotLK hits, similar to the way that 20-60 is now faster than it used to be. This is a great example of how Blizzard is really listening to its community. The acceleration from 20-60 came long after BC was released, but it was embraced by most of the community. Blizzard improved the questing process by leaps and bounds in the Burning Crusade, but players still had to get through the long grind to 58 to see most of the new content. This time, Blizzard is allowing players to have an easier time through older content to get to the shiny new stuff. I can't wait to see what kind of new quests they're going to have in Wrath of the Lich King, and this is just one more improvement to help keep my attention. This may also make more people consider rolling Death Knights right away. Genius!

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