Project Lore

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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With Wrath upon us I thought I would take a moment to look back at all the great times I had with the burning crusade. Sure it may seem silly to wax philosophical about a video game… but I must admit I had some absolutely great times playing it. With WoW, I was a little late for the party; I never played “classic” WoW… so my burning crusade memories are my WoW memories. It seems long ago I first rolled my Draenei Paladin, found my self crashed on some rock, and didn’t have the foggiest idea what a talent point was. As a long time gamer I quickly picked up the mechanics, vanquished the evil on Bloodmyst Isle, and most importantly found a guild that I could truly enjoy the game with. It was about this point that I realized there is a whole WORLD outside those little islands I had grown accustomed to. I’ll still never forget the first time I set foot in Stormwind and realized truly how many people there were playing right along side me. I continued to enjoy the game leveling, grouping with whoever was nearby from time to time, and generally enjoying the whole questing scene. Then around level 45 or so I really discovered what this game was about. I hooked up with a few guildies around the same level and started leveling and instancing together. I installed ventrilo and got to know the people on the other end of those characters. Suddenly my guild was more that a chat room, it was a group of people that I could experience this wide world with. I continued to level, learned about tanking, healing, and DPS and next thing I knew I was level 70! I know its cliché, but this is where the game starts. I started running heroics, collecting badges and generally gearing up as well as I could. It was about this time I first heard about this “Karazhan” place, and began to understand what raiding is all about. I waited outside of Kara for hours and my guild slowly but surely progressed through the content. Finally after a few nights a spot opened up and I made sure I never lost out on a raid slot again. Seeing Kara for the first time was truly amazing. Before long we mastered that place, our raids progressed, and soon it was time to take on the High King. It was the impossible feat, being in a “casual” guild or a “fan” guild we weren't meant to raid, and many people made a point of letting us know we couldn’t do it. But we did, and I must say seeing that ogre king die, and putting on the T4 shoulders he dropped is my fondest WoW memory to date. Now I sit back reflecting on all the raids I've led from Moroes to the Illidari Council and can’t help but realize how thoroughly I enjoyed all this content. The bar is set high for Wrath, but if I enjoy half as much as I did TBC I’ve have many hours of great times in front of me.

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Isn't that the story of my life? This time, though, they want my friends to play a game with me. From the official World of Warcraft site:

With the new Recruit-A-Friend program you can earn an exclusive Zhevra mount, receive a FREE month of game time, and gain access to other exciting in-game benefits. From the moment your friend creates a character and starts playing you’ll both earn triple the experience when grouped together and have the ability to summon one another from anywhere in the world. Also, for every two levels of experience your friend earns, they can grant one level of experience to one of your lower-level characters.

The Recruit-A-Friend program is really stepping it up. A free month of playtime was nice, but an in-game mount? Free levels? TRIPLE XP? Sounds like they are aiming for the 20 million subscriber mark. Of course, the triple XP and free levels only work up to level 60, according to the FAQ, but this sounds like a great way to bring a friend, roommate, or SO (significant other) into the game. These bonuses should get all of your friends to the Burning Crusade content quickly. Then you can help them burn through it and get them ready for WotLK. I'm sure Blizzard is counting on you to convince your friends to pick up BC as well as WotLK, whenever that comes out.

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While we all wait for our WotLK beta keys (except for Alex, that s.o.b.), it's fun to speculate about how long exactly we will have to wait to hit Northrend with the force of two spirit wolves. Hmm, I guess that doesn't really sound very intimidating. Just you wait, though. You won't want to mess with my spirit wolves. Anyway, I don't know many players who aren't looking forward to getting their hands on some Wrath of the Lich King content. Apparently it is news that somebody mentioned that Blizzard still plans on releasing Wrath of the Lich King before the end of the year, but not before October. Word on the street is that Blizzard is aiming for a November release, which makes sense plenty of sense. Of course, WoW's first expansion, The Burning Crusade was also planned for a Q4 release in 2006, but it managed to get delayed into Q1 of 2007. So, with no official release date confirmed, when do you guys think the much anticipated expansion will be released for real?  My randomly assigned guess is November 18, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it come out a bit later than that.

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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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