Project Lore

They called us crazy, you and I! Those of us who paid a cool $40 just for the privilege to watch BlizzCon 2009 unfold live in front of our eyes, even as the leeches caught re-streamed feeds (of questionable quality) on other sites that shall not be named! Well, unable to attend the event myself, having such unbridled access to the proceedings from the comfort of my desk chair helped me bring the rest of you fine, up-to-the-minute coverage of all the news, but the promise of an exclusive in-game pet certainly didn't hurt. I initially lamented the regrettably long wait time (if I recall correctly, 6-8 weeks) between the event and the arrival of Grunty the Murloc Marine in my Inbox, but it ended up going by like a Summer breeze. It even arrived a little early, as it's actually only been a month since BlizzCon wrapped up. So if you purchased the live stream, either over the television through DIRECTV Pay-Per-View, or online through RayV, check your e-mail, as your activation code should be there by now. All you have to do is take that code and head on over to http://www.blizzcon.com/pet, click on the button, and type or copy and paste it into the dialog box. Keep in mind that a Battle.net ID is required to complete the transaction, so if you haven't linked your World of Warcraft account yet, you're going to have to do that first before you claim your prize. After that, log into the game and you should have an in-game mail from Master Handler Sylvester (an NPC who sends out all of the limited edition pets) which includes a Heavy Murloc Egg. Using the egg will add Grunty the Murloc Marine to your list of pets and will provide you with the Feat of Strength [The Marine Marine], as well! Grunty will leap from side to side with his gun at the ready, ever vigilant of impending Zerg invasions, and occasionally fire his rifle. Find a friend with a Zergling pet for even more fun!

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This is it folks, my last remaining coverage from this year's BlizzCon.  May I present to you the show in picture form - with captions!  Enjoy. The opening madness & SWAG. New and retuned leveling territories. Upcoming changes to The Barrens. Raid map, Uldum concept layout and art. Extended universe cases for Blizzard's titles. New racials and secondary profession's UI screen. New Rated BG queuing system & UI screen. Path of the Titan system and applicable changes to Glyph and talent trees. More raid layouts and planning. The first mocks up before they begin adding environmental art. Scripting, placement, pathing & spell tools.  Notice the Deep Breath possibility. Icecrown Citadel layout! Cataclysm raid layout, including The Firelands (Ragnaros) concept art. I beat Blizzard to announcing the secret guest - the company was not happy about that.  Apparently I type faster than whoever was manning the keyboard for them. Statues (Queen of Blades ftw) and a lot of computers! BlizzCon 2009's retro arcade.  Rock n' Roll Racing! Art, art and more art.  Sheep is dedicated to Treznor. So Long Anaheim!

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Note: The below information was covered as part of our Live Blogging & Tweeting during the show.  But the information is simply too important to be glossed over.  Here are the major class changes in one convenient, to the point package. Quick Synopsis Of The Upcoming System Guild progression was, without a shadow of a doubt, my favorite WoW announcement during BlizzCon 2009.  The crowd erupted when the snippet was splashed across the screen.  The bees nest was stirred further as the developers began detailing the progression tracks, rewards, and reward schemes.  The panelists had to stop speaking numerous times during the presentation as the crowd drowned them out with hoots, hollers and hoorays.  It seems that I wasn't the only player desperately seeking a reason to grow with a guild.  Prophetic vision placing that in the The Next Expansion column, rather than Wishful Thinking methinks. Cataclysm's Guild Progression basics:

• You're guild will earn experience by way of its most active members (top 20 guildmates contribute).  The "gate" is to limit the "grindiness", a reoccurring theme at this year's BlizzCon.  Limiting the amount of players who can contribute helps maintain a balance between massive guilds, and those with only a few dozen players.
• Guild contribution won't change your daily activity much.  You can contribute by doing the stuff you already do, be it dailies, professions, farming reputation, raiding, PvP (rated Arenas and BGs) or bum rushing Hogger.  Different acts will be weighed differently.
• The guild level cap currently discussed is level 20.  Guilds will receive talent points, much like the class talent points.  More on this below.
• Looking For Guild system being implemented.  The idea is to make it easy for a Raid Leader, Officer or GM to find exactly what a guild needs, or to post a casting call.
• Guild Achievement system is also incoming.  It'll act like today's system, but require that a certain percentage (75% discussed) of the attendees be a part of the guild.  Some current achievements will be recycled, but most challenges are to be new.
• A new paid service, guild transfer, was mentioned as a possibility.
• No, it's not going to happen.  There is still no guild housing plans.

Look At All Those Talents The current rewards for guild progression are too fluid, and numerous, to discuss in bullet form.  According to the Systems panel, guilds will have numerous rewards for sticking together, and not sucking.  First off is the guild Talent system.  Effectively a clone of the current class talents, but with convenience rewards.  The guild variety will offer no gameplay changing talents (no buffs or anything like that).  Instead it will focus on making things easier for a guild.  Bottom line, you're guild will never have to spec a certain way to beat a boss.  We'll be hit with tons of time saving abilities like grabbing extra money from mobs, mass resurrection, mass summoning, reduced durability loss and reduced repair bills!  Quite awesome right?  Sadly, I didn't call that last one correctly. On top of those guild wide buffs there will be a way to reward individuals a bit more, the vendor/currency system.  Users will gain guild currency as they earn XP for the guild.  They then can buy special items, including rare reagents (hello Frost Lotus), Heirloom gear, crafting plans, vanity items, guild standards, guild respects and guild bank slots.  The items are all bound to the guild, so if you leave the Totally Rad Guild, you lose access to the totally rad loot they have accumulated.  Leaving a guild is not as painful as it sounds.  If you join another guild, you get access to their perks right away. It remains to be seen exactly how easy guild leveling will be.  Those specifics were not detailed.  Numerous other titles, old and new, have had guild progression systems of varying success.  Some developers made it incredibly difficult to obtain.  Others tied the size of a guild to its success.  Yet others made it so easy and bland that the feature was lost, a common occurrence.  Worst of all, some demanded that a guild have certain attributes before they could continue advancing in content, disrupting the idea of choice. Hopefully Blizzard's track record of incredibly polished, not always innovative, design will prove to be successful once again. At least they are giving guilds yet another topic for drama, what to spec in!  I vote saving money spec.

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iTZKooPA took us through the starting area of the Goblins, who have joined the stinky Horde, where as I will be bringing us back to the, ahem, better faction with the Alliance. I know you've been clamoring for this, so here it is: the hands-on preview of the new Alliance race, the Worgen! With the announcement of Cataclysm, the Alliance and Horde are once again receiving new races. The Alliance finally get a “beastly” race in the Worgen, which are a group of feral wolf-beasts. Those of us who got to attend BlizzCon 2009 got a chance to get some hands on time with the new race and their starting area and it is quite good! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) the demo we played started the Worgen off at level 6 (in the Cataclysm panel they told us they didn't want to show us exactly what happens with 1-5 just yet) and if you were at the event this weekend and saw a Worgen Rogue running around named “Projectlore”, well, more than likely it was me (a little more creative than certain other bloggers!). The demo started us off with your character, in Worgen form, in “The Stocks” with other Humans around your character discussing your fate. Some of the humans seem to think you are lost to your fate as a beast and should be killed, but a doctor runs up with a potion which allows you to be “cured” and appear as a Human again. This allows you to start your questing, and you have the ability to switch from Worgen form to Human form at will (although you are forced into Worgen form while in combat). Worgen also get a “sprint” ability on a three minute cooldown which increases their run speed for a short time. They also have a couple of static racials: Flayer, which increases skinning skill by 15, and Viciousness, which increases damage by 1%. The quests are designed to get you involved in the Forsaken invasion that is happening in Gilneas. The first couple quests involve finding a package, which upon completion starts a small cut scene showing you the Forsaken ships docked on the shore near Gilneas. You then go and kill them to advance to the next area, which involves Worgen in the basement of a shack where a mother asks for your help with finding her children at the farm nearby, and another asks you to continue to help kill the Forsaken. There has been a lot of care put into the starting zone, as Blizzard felt that the Death Knight area was really successful in engaging the player and getting the player really involved in their character (and I'm inclined to agree). While we only got a small taste of the opening area for the Worgen, we still witnessed lots of scripted events, phasing, and cut scenes which only get me even more excited for the new expansion. The area is well designed, and if this is any indication of how they're revamping classic WoW, there will be a fewer obnoxious walks to get to different places, which I am perfectly OK with. The whole of Gilneas looks absolutely stunning and I am really excited about what's to come in the later levels of the starting zone. Blizzard uses the weather effects extremely well here, as well, and I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the zone turns out. For players wanting a fresh start, there is a nice selection of classes to choose from including: Death Knight, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock and Warrior (only classes they cannot be are Paladins and Shaman). I am really hoping that, similarly to what they did with Wrath, they lock out Goblins and Worgen from being Death Knights at the beginning of the expansion, and maybe allow it later on in the life of the expansion. It would really be a shame if the first 85 worgen didn't even set foot in Gilneas because the brief taste we got at BlizzCon was so polished and well done that I can't wait to do 1-15 again (and I honestly thought I would never say something like that). I included some screenshots that will hopefully give a bit of perspective of what this great starting zone looks like! [gallery]

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Note: The below information was covered as part of our Live Blogging & Tweeting during the show.  But the information is simply too important to be glossed over.  Here are the major class changes in one convenient, to the point package.

Blizzard once again organized two class panels, and once again the later gathering repeated the earlier get together.  Instead of covering a snippet of each class the three panelists decided to dive headlong into two classes, the Warlock and Hunter.  These two DPSing classes were chosen because of the drastic modifications being made to them for Cataclysm's release.  A quick summary, Blizzard wants DPS classes to struggle with resource management less. Hunter:

• Resource change - This is by far the biggest change to Hunters, and possibly any class, since the game was released.  The class' current resource, mana, will be thrown out the window and replaced with Focus, an all new resource.  Focus is a lot like a rogue's Energy.  Hunters will regen during battle, with a maximum default pool of 100.  However the resource will regenerate slower than a rogue's energy on average.  It'll regen at a faster rate when using Steady Shot.
• Cooldowns - As a direct result of the resource change, Hunters will now struggle with cooldowns less.  Instead you will be fighting with gaining the appropriate amount of focus to launch an attack.  Get ready for tons of "Not enough Focus" error messages.
• Aspect of the * - Aspect of the Viper, as it plays now, will be gone, obviously.  It may come back in a different form, or Aspects may disappear all together.
• Ammo - They still promise to address this issue, but ammo will remain as an item, just a non consumable item.

Warlocks:

• Soul Shards - Here's the big change for the other WoW pet class, the shard mechanic.  For starters, shards will no longer take up bag space!  But that isn't as good as it sounds, because you'll be needing them less, and creating them easier.  Locks will only use a shard during combat (likely 3 per fight), and summoning your demon buddies won't waste one.  Shards will regenerate when out of combat.
• UI change - The shard mechanic is becoming such a focal point that Blizzard is changing the default Warlock frame to include a spot for (currently three) shards.  If you don't like shards "you play a Mage."
• Soul Burn - This will be your new spell, and the basis of the new shard mechanics.  Using the ability will burn a shard and empower your next spell.  Once triggered, nearly all of the following spells will behave differently (Death Coil -> longer, more powerful Death Coil, Summon Demon -> Instant Summon Demon, Fear -> Instant Fear, etc).  Soul Burn will have a 30 second, off GCD, cooldown.

These are class changing rewrites in my opinion.  Exciting ones at that.  I did enjoy my previous huntard, but haven't played one since returning to WoW.  I dabbled in a Warlock back in the day, but the shard fiasco really annoyed me.  There's a good chance my Worgen will be a Warlock, instead of a my previously planned Druid. Of course, my class decision is just a predication based on information for something that will see many iterations before the "2010" release.  It's in quotes not only because Morhaime said it, but because I doubt it'll happen.  One wrong move and I could just as easily swing back to a Worgen Druid. What do you think of these major class changes?  Warlocks have always complained about the shard stuff, a drastic change there isn't too surprising.  But the Hunter stuff, that really took me by surprise. The class changes were followed up by the overhaul of statistics and itemization during the panels.

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Grunty Going Nuts Just shy of a year ago I had a gripe.  I know, hard to believe, but I did.  Blizzard had dropped the ball with vanity pets, and I wanted it fixed.  The gist of the ancient article is that the most recent non-combat pets lacked animations.  The beings, the Spirit of Competition and hard to get Archangel Tyrael, would simply be.  No movement and little, if any, interaction.  In the case of the Diablo II buddy (released to attendees alongside the Diablo III announcement) it was a missed opportunity of epic proportions.  Tyrael flat out ignored mini Diablo, his arch nemesis. Blizzard seems to have learned from the mistake.  Grunty, the space traveling Murloc decked out in Tier Terran Marine gear does battle with the Zergling.  The Zergling was part of the Collector's Edition for the original World of Warcraft, so coming across a toon with the insectoid may be difficult.  Given the chance, you should travel to the ends of Azeroth to see this far reaching space battle take place on our humble planet/dimension/time.  Here's the flip side. Even though BlizzCon 2009 attendees didn't get a beta key, or access to the Diablo III beta it seems, at least we have this consolation prize.  Even if it is far more common than any other BlizzCon pet before it. Onyxian Whelping's First Appearence Let us not forget the upcoming fifth anniversary of WoW itself.  Forget a shot at an Onyxia mount, I'm not a masochist.  Even if I was, I'd take a cute companion pet any day of the week.  And that's exactly what the incoming ("sometime in November") Onyxia Whelpling is.  It's animation you ask?  Why the little bugger tries to Deep Breath, what else?  Even cuter is a failed attempt, where rings of smoke billow from its mouth instead. What a magnificent time to be a vanity pet collector.

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As Amatera detailed for us live during BlizzCon, and Heartbourne has expanded upon a bit, too, it looks like we'll be getting a ton of new dungeon and raiding content in the third expansion. Continuing along the same topic, I recorded a bit of the panel at the convention so you all can hear exactly what developers had to say about the new content. And best of all, right here is where you can see a ton of artwork on the new content and several quick sneak peek videos that Blizzard unveiled live Saturday. Cut into three YouTube-sized video portions. Take a look: The video pretty much speaks for itself if you want to watch all the way through the three parts. But here are some of my thoughts on what we saw at this panel:

• Abyssal Maw - Beautiful updated water graphics, lots of pretty underwater colors for this dungeon on the sea floor. I wish the teaser would have shown a bit more! Dueling Naga should be fun. And, it's "something we've never done before."
• Halls of Origination - Looking forward to another 5-player dungeon, and one built by the Titans at that. I'm digging the Egyptian-like concept art and glowing blue-green ceilings. And what about that "secret weapon...?" Sounds interesting.
• Blackrock Caverns - It "reinvents" the fan favorite of Blackrock Spire, which I'm sure a lot of players will really dig. The graphics look promising, with lots of glowing reds and flowing lava.
• IceCrown Citadel and Dungeons - Sounds huge and epic, and I was happy to hear in the Q and A session after the panel that Blizzard is planning to do something special when Arthas goes down... they didn't elaborate, but hinted that we'll see some cinematics. Also, the whole rocket ship scenario with Alliance and Horde battling it out sounds like a lot of fun, and something we haven't seen a lot of in the past. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing what Sindragosa brings and how Blizz wraps up all the loose story ends.
• The Firelands - Fighting Ragnaros at his "full strength" (So, what, he'll be the size of a skyscraper?)? Could be intense. Beautiful concept art and the keep has some neat architecture.
• Onyxia - That new Onyxia-inspired mount looks amazing, and the whelpling almost (but not quite) as cute as a baby murloc :). I like the updated loot tables that are based on the original drops. Nostalgic. Watch out for the "little bit" more Deep Breath randomization.

And last but not least, the cross-server LFG sounds like it will be incredibly handy for PUGing. Plus, I'm really looking forward to the prospect of playing with some of my friends on other realms! And we don't even have to wait for Cataclysm; it's hopefully set to come out in patch 3.3. So what does everyone think of all this new content? Sounds like we'll have a lot to keep us busy. This is the last of my video posts covering BlizzCon - I hope you've enjoyed them! There's still a ton of information to comb through, so look for more in the coming weeks.

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Look up. See those guys in little boxes? Playing World of Warcraft? I know you miss them. We all do. But when site founder Alex Albrecht and his buddy Jeff Cannata aren't busy filming Project Lore, they spend their time on a little program called the Totally Rad Show (or is it the other way around?). Well, if you've been itching for your fix of these two handsome and very talented men, then you're in luck! The latest episode of Totally Rad features segments filmed live from this past weekend's BlizzCon (on a side note, does anyone ever actually call it Blizzard Convention? That just sounds weird...), which means you get to hear your Project Lore favorites rap about Cataclysm for the very first time, as well as a few of those other games shown at the event. If you don't recognize these guys, then you haven't been on Project Lore enough! They talk about the pre-show leak, several of the new features, and the surprising changes made to Azeroth. Jeff goes so far as to call it World of Warcraft 2, a sentiment I have to admit that I agree with. Well, maybe more like WoW 1.5 now that we know not every zone is going to get such a massive face lift, but the fact remains that Cataclysm represents a major overhaul of the game in more ways than one. Overall, it seems like the guys are really excited for the expansion, going so far as to say it rekindled a somewhat waning desire to play through recent raid content. Alex seems pretty enthralled with the ability to play as Worgen or go back into Deadmines at 85 (in fact, the crew's first time through the dungeon is currently replaying on Project Lore if you haven't caught it yet). Even Totally Rad's third pillar, Dan Trachtenberg, seemed intrigued with the prospect of getting back into the game. If you want to hear their thoughts on WoW, skip ahead to the 29-minute mark, but there're plenty of other cool (dare I say, rad) things in the episode. They include a review of Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Ponyo, the newest entry in the Wolfenstein series, and a segment on Epic Games' wonderful Metroidvania-inspired Shadow Complex (just finished it over the weekend, myself, and I can confirm the awesome). You've already heard so much of what we on the blogging side think of Cataclysm, but share with us your reactions to Alex and Jeff's, err... reactions to BlizzCon in the comments section!

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Undeniably one of the best aspects of attending BlizzCon for us WoW fans was the chance to play the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm demo. Take a look here to see a little bit of gameplay on the new races, narrated a bit by me (don't mind the short little bit on Frostmourne while I was getting my camera set), and scroll down below for my thoughts! For both races’ demos, we start off with the level 5 characters in a bind. As iTZKooPA detailed, the Goblin has fainted and needs revival, while the Worgen has been taken hostage and faces an angry mob of humans who have him in a medieval pillory. But (surprise!) in both cases you regain control of the characters and move along to some pretty standard low-level quests of collecting shiny things hidden in the area around you and killing random creatures. The demo only allowed choosing either race as a male. We obviously have an idea of what the female Goblin will look like from released screenshots, artwork, and based on how they’ve appeared in the game thus far. But I am still incredibly curious about how the Worgen female will look. So far, the only thing we really have to base that on is the Worgen female mask found through data-mining, and who knows if that will even end up being an accurate picture when the game comes out. Another note on appearance: Goblins look downright mean. I scrolled through every available facial expression combination, and it seemed each was a varying level of permanent scowl. Granted, Goblins have a lot to be pissed off about right now, but can’t at least one version have a smile, or a smirk, even? Perhaps they’ll add one in before all is said and done. I guess I shouldn’t fret since I’ll roll female anyway! As for the Worgens – they all have pointy teeth, obviously, but they didn’t all look as angry. Perhaps all that fur makes them soft on the inside, too. Blizzard is also leaving plenty up to speculation, since the Cataclysm demo obviously was not the complete game. I mention this in the video as well, but another unknown is the dance that each race will perform (or any of their other emotes for that matter). One of the first thing I tried out while on both characters was a /dance, but to no avail. Only when the Worgen was in human form would he dance, and it was the usual Saturday Night Fever groove. The world map wouldn't zoom out beyond just the zone view, either, and based on panel discussions it sounds like they’re still working on the exact placement of new areas and how the post-Cataclysm map will appear. So other than seeing how the characters move, and what kind of quests they're up to at level 5, it's hard to glean too much from the gameplay. Regardless, it was still an awesome opportunity to get an up-close look at how the new races will play. So how are you guys feeling so far about what you've seen of gameplay? The video can be difficult to discern at parts -- some of the screens were too bright for my camera to handle -- but I hope you've enjoyed getting a bit of a sneak peek!

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BlizzCon held some pretty fun events this year for fans to watch, including a live raid event with Premonition, the guild known most recently as the first guild in the U.S. to achieve Alone in the Darkness. Coliseum style, the guild took on several bosses at once as they came in five waves. And a very large audience looked on, making for a crowded venue but also a lot of fun as everyone cheered on Premonition. They were successful at downing the first few sets of bosses, then had some trouble when they focused on Thaddius first in his set with fellow Naxx bosses Patchwerk and Anub'Rekhan. The team wiped on that first try, then re-set, this time focusing on Patchwerk first. That proved to be more successful, and they downed the group. But that sneaky team at Blizzard had something clever in store for the final fight. Hogger. Yes, the mighty level 11 elite Riverpaw gnoll chieftain from Elwynn Forest (he's actually Arthas in disguise [/silly]) made his appearance as an upgraded level 80 elite. As you'll see, he wasn't exactly an easy fight: Another pretty standard attraction at the convention was halls of artwork created for WoW. As a neat addition this year, Blizzard also displayed a group of showcases full of "n00bz." Blizzard handed out 225+ of these neat little figurines as complete blanks to select employees, and many of them wound up on display at BlizzCon. Here's a quick video I took so you can see them for yourself. I narrated a bit along the way, and paused at some of my favorites: A final note on the N00bz - part of each BlizzCon goer's swag bag included an exclusive StarCraft II "Raynor" figure. It's part of a new series of collectible Blizzard-inspired toys. Hopefully we'll see more of these soon. Among my other fave sightings at BlizzCon, I can't fail to mention being dazzled by Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild. As you can see, I went in full fan-girl mode to get a signed cast photo (for my husband, really!) and a snapshot with Felicia Day, since I've also loved her in Dr. Horrible, Buffy and Dollhouse :). Unfortunately, I failed to shoot video of the crew, so you all will have to settle for the lovely photo of Felicia and I! At least the memory will live on in my heart... I just wish I was as lucky as iTZKooPA, who was being inadvertently followed by the Guild cast. Lucky guy! Well, this turned out to be a bit of a random look at some of my fave random sightings at BlizzCon 2009. Hope you've enjoyed it. Let us know what you think!

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