Project Lore

Blizzard recently developed a new feature on their website that allows players to see maps and read background information on raid bosses: The Bosstiary. Currently only Ulduar is available, but I imagine they will add all future raids as they are released and add the missing ones that were introduced in Wrath. I really like the Bosstiary. One of the things that got me to abandon Final Fantasy XI for WoW back in the day was the feeling WoW gave me of an intentional path for my character. I felt like there was a reason I had to kill 50 raptors to level up: they stole our silver! Even with examples of terribly justified quests like the raptors stealing our precious silver for no reason, I felt like I was part of a story or at least a world. I kind of lost that feeling when I hit level 60. I didn't really know why I was killing random fire lords in Molten Core that I had never heard of, and even with the questline to get the Aqual Quintessence, I was very unmotivated. Blizzard has improved on this over the years, and I think the content patch trailers really add to the role of the raids in the world from a lore perspective. However, there is still a lot of explaining to do on why we are killing bosses that are introduced to the lore for the first time in a patch without much background (who are Emalon and Archavon anyway?). Enter The Bosstiary! While there is only a sentence or two about each boss, it does add insight that we might not otherwise have. For example, Auriaya is Ulduar's archivist. While some things are heavily implied, like Razorscale actually being Veranus, its nice to see Blizzard filling out the lore as they go. What do you think? Is the Bosstiary worthwhile?

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