Project Lore

Cataclysm is changing many things, but perhaps nothing moreso than player psychology. The thing you really have to be careful about, when deciding what information to reveal for an expansion that's still at least nine months out, is how that's going to impact progression from right now, up until its release. We've witnessed it before: the vast swaths of people who fret for the worth of their gear when Wrath was announced. Many had considered themselves burned by the instant upgrades they found when they first stepped foot into Hellfire Peninsula. All the goodies that they had earned through blood, sweat, and tears of high-end raiding; so many epics, just completely wiped out by a green or a blue won for killing a few basic demons. Blizzard took note of this and made gear scale differently in Wrath of the Lich King. I admit that I didn't find very many replacements for my Rogue's gear until I got into the 78-80 range. Sure, there's an innate thrill in obtaining cheap upgrades, but it surely isn't one that lasts very long. Even though I'm sure Cataclysm will continue this positive trend, the effects of itemization mismanagement are still felt. I was shocked to hear that one of my guildmates hadn't even heard there was going to be an expansion, but when words reached his ears, he briefly sighed and wondered if all of this neat stuff he'd be accumulating would be worth anything a year from now. Who knows? Maybe initially, but it never will in the long run. Even Icecrown Citadel gear will likely struggle to find a home with the equipment that drops from Blackwing Descent or Grim Batol. But I don't consider that to be a big deal anymore. I think a lot of people (and I know for sure that I have) accepted that as part of the game. It's always the effort I put into obtaining an epic that I appreciate more than the item itself (unless it looks really, really cool). cataclysm logo Cataclysm is already having its effect on players in other ways. One major issue is, of course, the controversial change to stats. Players are going to have to start wondering whether or not that extra Armor Penetration or MP5 is worth it on their next drop. In the end, this probably won't be a huge deal. All of these extraneous stats will be folded into the basic ones, so while you'll see certain things disappear entirely, you'll see others boosted greatly. I believe this is something that will resolve itself with time, but players react quickly and fiercely whenever they're confronted with such sweeping changes. For the record, I agree with Blizzard's decision, and I think their reasoning is sound (that most people can't eyeball legitimate upgrades on the spot). It's just going to affect player habits, and I think that's what really scares people. Naturally, we all fear the unknown, and while we know a lot more about the expansion than we did a week ago, it's done nothing but raise more questions. When nobody can provide concrete answers, the mob gets antsy. And that's when we get extreme claims of people quitting en masse or calling out Blizzard for ruining the game. The fact of the matter is that we've gone through this at least two times before, and the number of people who play WoW has only increased. We'll get used to the differences, and we'll get through it again. But until we can wrap our grimy mitts around our very own copies of Cataclysm, player habits are still going to change. There's a psychological effect associated with anticipation that causes people to fear until the worst of things are over. Think of it as a roller coaster. Right now we're going up the first hill, we're tensing up, we're worried about what's to come, but as we crest that hill and start to come down the other side, we'll let loose and enjoy ourselves. As I said earlier, I've come to accept a good many things about the nature of the MMORPG, and World of Warcraft specifically, but if there's one thing I know I'm personally going to have to change, it's this: I'm going to really have to pump the brakes on my habit of creating new alts. Right now, I'm working on a Paladin. It's Level 73. When I hit the level cap, that means I'll have five 80s. But I really want to experience all of the new and improved 1-60 content. I want to move along the new leveling paths, complete all the new quests, and see what Goblins and Worgen have to offer. One of the reasons I've never gotten an Alliance character past the mid-20s is because I hated having to jump around the world only to find a small pocket of quests available at each new location. Leveling a Horde character isn't a cakewalk, but Alliance just felt so much worse to me. Now that I have a race that I'd actually like to be, and the flow of leveling is going to be streamlined, I think I might be taking my first Alliance character to the cap. I just have to make sure that I leave some classes untouched until Cataclysm comes around! So what about you folks out there? Has the expansion already changed your playing habits? Do you think these are positive or negative changes? Are you worried about what's to come or have you already begun to accept what Cataclysm plans to offer?

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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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Ah, yes. All of your favorite Blues are back from their trip to BlizzCon, ready to tackle the never-ending Q&A session that is the official World of Warcraft forums. And those of you that didn't attend the convention certainly aren't scared to toss a few inquiries their way! Ghostcrawler was bemused that his sarcasm didn't come off very well over the internet when he unwittingly convinced people that Icecrown Citadel would be home to a whopping 31 different bosses (we now know it to be 12). Well, it seems that it doesn't work any better in real life, either. Ghostcrawler when he doesn't have to deal with the official forums. Referring to the top drop from the very same dungeon (the Legendary 2-handed axe, Shadowmourne) as a "Hunter weapon" didn't fly with the WoW community, apparently. Constantly fretting over nerfs and the unfair advantages of rival classes tends to keep the obsessive players on their toes. While I think most people got the joke, it seems as though GC still had to come right out and say it:

Anyone capable of using a two-handed axe can use Shadowmourne. The stat allocation may not benefit hunters or shamans as much as warriors, DKs or paladins.

So there you go. No need to whine (unless you like to run around in tights with a large wooden stick strapped to your back and make your pet do all the work). It might not even work for Hunters. But even if it does, it's certainly not an exclusive prize. Also, Nethaera is doing her best to keep eager players safe:

As always, when there is a beta, we will announce it. Please be wary of any and all claims of a beta or alpha for the new expansion being held.

Boubouille over at MMO-Champion says he's already received his first beta-invite spam, so let that be a warning to all of ya. If you see anything in your inbox claiming to give you exclusive access to the alpha, beta, or Cataclysm in any form, you might as well just go ahead and drag it to your trash can (or better yet, report the spam). With those caveats out of the way, we can see what Blizzard's saying about all of the interesting new systems they introduced over the past weekend. Here are the paraphrased highlights:

• On the simplification of stats: They were actually worried about oversimplification of items, citing that while some people enjoy doing the complex math associated with min-maxing their gear, most people took this information and just plugged it in on best-in-slot sites (like MaxDPS). In other words, they could probably get away with just giving equipment a name and some art if the trend continued. Folding extraneous stats back into the basic ones allows most players to eyeball which drops they want on the spot. (Amatera's conjecture: This doesn't preclude them from adding new stats again in the future, but this time they'll have a better understanding of how to do so without confusing players.)
• On the guild leveling system: Advancement is based on the Top 20 producers of the guild each day. If your guild is smaller than that, then everyone's contributions will count. Even if you think you've done a lot for the guild on a certain day and still don't appear in the Top 20, it shouldn't affect guild progression much anyway, and since you're doing the sorts of things you'd normally be doing to earn those points, it won't feel like wasted time, either.
• On the lack of new Draenei classes: They didn't think that any of the classes Draenei currently didn't have access to would fit them if they did. Ghostcrawler acknowledges that they have implemented some interesting new choices that some people would find hard to justify in the pre-Cataclysm lore, but maintained that the Draenei already have a well-rounded class structure.
• On changes to old zones: Bornakk says that while the terrain will not change for every zone (aside from those needed to be made to accommodate flying, of course), quest lines within them will be modified to allow for a more natural flow of leveling. Essentially, all those "bread crumb" quests that lead you halfway around the world will now send you, logically, to the hub in an  adjacent leveling area.
• On the new system of Reforging: Blizzard is reinforcing the idea of restrictions. This system is designed to make undesirable drops somewhat more desirable by giving players the ability to restructure its existing stats (the operative term here is "consolation prize"). This should not make said undesirable gear better than those designed to advance your class. Likewise, the best gear you can obtain benefits from Reforging the least, so that it cannot be extensively manipulated by min-maxers to break equipment progression.

So what do you guys think of this clarifications? Do they make you more excited? Have they eased some of your fears or have they made some of these new feature less interesting?

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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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I was lucky enough to get a round and a half of playtime with Cataclysm over the weekend, despite the lengthy lines. For both of my expeditions I chose a backstabbing goblin to ease my transition, and to allow me to experience the maximum amount of content in the short windows allotted to me.

The World of Warcraft: Cataclysm demo started off with my goblin near death, or so the debuff explained. A shock with jumper cables didn't manage to awaken my heroic avatar – he saved the people around him – but accepting a quest revived his spirits. I quickly learned that my level 5 rogue, quickly named 'Asffda', arrived in his dire circumstances thanks to an explosive payload from the local Alliance navy. I was then tasked with rescuing my comrades from their escape pods. The escape pods exploded upon interaction. Miraculously, the diminutive greenskins inside are able to survive the blasts. Blizzard forgot to announce their other racial, Immunity to explosive, I guess.

Asffda then paddled ashore to tackle other missions. Missions of pure goblin bliss. I collected a trio of quests at the first hub, only one of which was cheesy. Everyone single one of them was along the generic lines of “Kill 10 foozles”, but they possessed some unique goblin twist that made them amusing. One had me collecting tools, while the other one had me tossing explosive banana bunches at the local monkey population. An incredibly effective method of pest control.

Due to the amount of people in the starting areas (hello WoW in late November 2004), I decided to break away from the pack after bagging those quests. I spent the rest of my time taking in the sights, soaking up the rays in my new home and greeting the locals. A few things became quite apparent. First off, the Alliance is definitely put in a position as the absolute enemy from the get go. For starters, their dastardly navy nearly killed me. Compounding one's hatred would be the incessant attacks by the local SI:7 who inhabit the tiny island. The instigators even randomly attacked the local Orc Camp while I was having my gear repaired and feeding the vendors. The audacity of those cretins! Down with the Alliance!

/me clears head

Goblin culture was also expressed in the very environments that I traversed over my sessions. In true goblin form, the inventive creatures managed to train the local monkey population to help in their mining operations. Although they had just made camp, the cave looked well mined, and operations were running smoothly. I highly expect Blizzard to focus most of the early goblin experience on the race's fondness for environmental...shall we say, "enhancements?" Supporters of Al Gore they are not.

Speaking of environments, the water in Cataclysm looks pretty amazing. Considering how wet we will be (underwater dungeons!), it's a good thing that Blizzard updated the dual hydrogen compound's effects.

What, you thought I forgot about the racials? Heavens no, I am simply saving the best for last. Rocket Barrage could be cooler, but it's pretty fun either way. The ability fires a single goblin-constructed incendiary device at your target. I forgot to check the range on it, but it may be useful as a pulling ability for melee classes. I just don't see it having much utility unless it scales to have multiple explosives. The Rocket Jump is where it's at. Triggering this spell on your utility belt will vault you into the air as your arc over some 20 yards. You can easily leap over foes in the way (I kept pulling aggro), vault to higher ground, across canyons or launch yourself out of the water. No matter what your end goal is with a lift-off, the character is beautifully animated with pyrotechnics, swinging arms and all. It's easily the most enjoyable racial in the game.

I really want to roll a toon for both of the upcoming races. Who else got to take a goblin for a spin? What'd you think? What class are you gonna roll? If I didn't already have a gnomish Death Knight, I'd rock that.

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And when I say "Project Lore," I really mean "myself." I don't want to speak for the rest of my fellow bloggers, but I made a great number of predictions in my series of Cataclysm Countdown articles, leading up to the events this weekend. While I still maintain that most of them were logical considering what we knew at the time, Blizzard threw a major curveball that negated many of my initial preconceptions. Lore Malfurion Stormrage, Lord of the Druids A lot of people predicted that Queen Azshara would be the big baddie, the number one villain, of Cataclysm. But she was rarely referenced in any of the panels, and was all but missing from the expansion's reveal. At first, I believed that she might be brought into the story as Cataclysm rolls along. Maybe you'd defeat Deathwing after the first patch or something, and then Azshara would rise from the depths, ready to challenge players in the wake of the Black Dragon Aspect's demise. But through all of the live feed interviews and panel Q&As, it's been brought to light that they have no plans at all for Azshara or the Maelstrom to be included in this expansion. The best we can hope for, it seems, are a few related story elements revealed in the Vashj'ir zone. Other lore elements, such as Thrall becoming the next Guardian of Tirisfal or Cairne Bloodhoof being framed for betrayal, were completely side-stepped. I'm not sure anybody even bothered to ask during the Q&A sessions. However, a few revealed plot details do cooberate these ideas. Malfurion, who is supposed to be key in turning Thrall into the next Guardian, has indeed returned from the Emerald Dream to defend the World Tree from Ragnaros, and it was also mentioned that Garrosh is the one behind the changes to Orgrimmar (Dark Iron reinforcements) and the creation of a new Horde base near Darkshore. They stopped short of calling him the new Warchief , but clearly, he is privy to some power and influence that he didn't have before. Azeroth Remade Oh yes, the old Azeroth is gone, but not quite in the way we expected it to be. Once again, the supposed inclusion of Azshara implied something happening with the Maelstrom, and a water-related apocalypse. We've yet to see how Deathwing's explosion into the world has affected every zone (my guess is that Blizzard has shown those that are farther along like The Barrens and Darkshore), but we do know that lava, fire, and large gutters literally burned into the earth feature far more prominently than any sort of flooding. And in places where water has affected the environment (Desolace), it seems more like a positive change. Likewise, if the world map used to display the new zones is any indication, we will not be seeing any large, sweeping changes to the coastline. In some places, there may be light flooding, or new estuaries formed as the ocean fills in ancient rivers, but we have not seen anything on the scale of Swamp of Sorrows being completely washed away or Durotar being destroyed. Then again, there is still plenty of time for things to change, and as development progresses, we may still see several classic zones undergo similarly drastic transformations. New Zones I sincerely thought that we'd see a lot of the South Seas and the Maelstrom open up with the expansion, but with Azshara being nixed, that no longer seems to be the case. The two zones which represent the area, The Lost Isles and Vashj'ir, are both completely new, previously unrevealed in the lore. It is reported that Kezan will make a brief appearance (I'm guessing in the 1-5 level Goblin content, before they are forced to flee), but that's about it. Instead, we received a rather large surprise. To supplement the opening of previously closed mainland zones like Uldum and the area near Grim Batol (now the Twlight Highlands), we're also getting access to the Elemental Planes. These were long supposed to comprise an expansion all their own, and while it's slightly disappointing that we'll only be able to see small parts of them (aside from Deepholm, which we'll get to see all of), they are an exciting and interesting addition. My biggest disappointment? Probably the distinct lack of anything related to Trolls! I suppose there's always a chance that Zandalar could show up in a content patch somewhere down the road. Kul Tiras was missing, too. Mention of the Alliance nation was nowhere to be seen, but the prison in the new PvP/daily zone Tol Barad was reportedly built by then. That's something, I guess. Raids The first article in my Cataclysm Countdown series dealt with potential raid content. I proposed six different raid zones: Nazjatar, The Rift, Zandalar, Grim Batol, CoT: War of the Ancients, and Blackrock Mountain. Without the Maelstrom, those first two are completely out. Zandalar, as I've already said, I lament the exclusion of. And the War of the Ancients is no longer as integral to the expansion's story as it would've been (though Deathwing still played his part). That leaves Grim Batol and Blackrock Mountain (specifically, Blackwing Descent). I suppose one-third of my predictions isn't too bad in the grand scheme of thing, and I nailed two of the four raids. Right? Right? Blackwing Descent 2D Concept I'm also glad that we got to hear some details about Icecrown Citadel, something I was afraid might get completely overshadowed by the expansion announcement. PvP Now I was way, way off here. I anticipated all sorts of new PvP options to be implemented with the expansion, but it seems that Blizzard is largely content to stick to their roots. We get a new Wintergrasp-style area (Tol Barad, complete with Vault of Archavon-style raid instance) and the promise of three new Battlegrounds. The first of which will be the Battle for Gilneas, a fight for control of the capital city's various districts. Though I cited Hillsbrad as the primary area of contention, it's nice to know that I wasn't completely off when I said that the Forsaken would be causing havoc in the area. The only other revelations we saw at the convention were the promise of new arena maps and ranked Battlegrounds. I suppose this is something we'll be hearing a lot more about down the road. The Right of Wrong My final article laid out several rumors to be wary of going into BlizzCon, and I think I scored on every one of those. The oft-cited list of expansion zone sets was completely disproved. Just like my own predictions, it's easy to assume what zones might be included when you think you know what the next expansion is about. Both "The List" and I considered the whole of the South Seas fair game, but that was when we all thought Cataclysm was simply code for the Maelstrom. Then there was Cataclysm's release date. As expected, no specific date was given, but it was made clear that StarCraft 2 was their first priority for 2010. Nonetheless, while Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime tried his best to side-step saying anything definitive, he couldn't deny that they were, indeed, targeting two releases for next year. Finally, we got confirmation on the status of the old Azeroth. It's gone. For good. Finito. You'll never be able to go back and, no, the new version of the world won't simply be phased over it. There is one, single Azeroth. But phasing will still be used extensively. Perhaps even more exciting is that Blizz has figured out how to phase terrain, something previously said to be a limitation. This means that phasing can make the play experience even more dynamic. I questioned the Globes of Ulduar and came away with a win. The artwork included in both the Ulduar raid instance and Halls of Lightning displayed a freshly sundered Azeroth, in several stages. Many of the zones have changed, but we have seen no evidence of any of them completely disappearing or being underwater. There was an awful lot of denial going around before the reveal. A lot of people read the spoilers and said that most of it couldn't be done. That Azeroth wouldn't change so drastically. That the new race/combinations were impossible because they didn't jive with the lore. Well, most of it ended up being true, proving that the developers are the true masters of their lore. But that doesn't make them appreciate their watchdog fans any less. Chris Metzen stated, in one of the live feed interviews, that there is so much lore to consider, that during heavy and rapid development, it is quite possible for them to miss inconsistencies, and that the fans do a lot to keep them in check. So that's it for BlizzCon 2009. We (I) got a few things right, and a lot of things wrong. I'm willing to admit it! In the end, I'm glad we couldn't predict everything, as that would've taken the punch out of many of the surprises they had in store. But I still hope that we end up seeing all the things I touched on somewhere down the line. For now, it seems like Blizzard has their hands full implementing all of the content they revealed over the past few days! As usual, keep your eyes on Project Lore. After all, the more you know, the more questions you have. And the more questions you have, the more they consume your mind. We are in for another good year of speculation!

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Welcome to day 2 of Project Lore's Blizzcon coverage! Unfortunately, the WoW panels this morning were not featured on the live stream, so we were unable to report on them live. However, here are some of the highlights from the panels: WoW Q&A:

• There will be more class-related hubs like Moonglade in Cataclysm, and it will be "MEGA".
• Phasing, especially with terrain phasing, will be somewhat backwards-sharable so you can help your friends or bring them into your phase.
• Probably still a limit of 10 characters per server in Cataclysm. The number of players with 10 characters on a server is still very small.
• Onyxia's level 60 version will no longer be accessible in patch 3.2.2. However, in Cataclysm, they want a lot of old content to still be accessible.
• Night Elf mages were controversial, but they like the idea of bringing in "fringe groups". It will be cool to be this Highbourne elf from 10,000 years ago.
• Thrall, as a shaman, is doing something new in Cataclysm.
• Hunters and Enhancement Shaman will share little gear in Cataclysm.
• Trolls and Worgen will get unique Druid forms.
• Although Armor Penetration will no longer be on gear, the concept will remain in the game to even out PvP for plate wearers, probably through talents.
• Guilds will be able to "craft heirlooms", for the entire guild, any slot. They will scale with level.
• Old world factions will become more relevant.
• Assassination might get buffed in 3.2.2 (woo-hoo!)
• Same-faction race changes will happen in the future.
• "Frostmourne has a.... unique fate. The encounter is going to be mega. Keep your hats on."
• Blood Elf/Draeni starting areas less affected by the Cataclysm.
• Battlegrounds experience will be tweaked. Alterac Valley XP is really high relatively and too easy to "leech"
• Racials will be revisited.
• New dances and dance studios are being developed actively.
• Northrend will be less impacted by the Cataclysm. Outland will be nigh unaffected, but it will have Archaeology implemented.

WoW Game Systems Panel: Rated Battlegrounds:

• Rated Battlegrounds will award arena points.
• Every week will feature a battleground. It will align with the weekend holiday battleground.
• It works like arena; if you win a battleground, you gain rating and arena points. The number of arena points you can get from rated battlegrounds is related to your rating from the previous week so it doesn't encourage grinding.
• If you lose a a battleground, you do not lose rating. This is to prevent the unlucky loss/group from affecting your rating.
• This system will reward ranks like the old honor system and will have seasons. Titles are awarded at the end of the season based on player ratings.
• Rated battlegrounds will have unique rewards like epic ground mounts and Guild Achievements and Guild Experience out of it.

Tol Barad:

• Tol Barad is an outdoor PvP zone like Wintergrasp and plays similar to Isle of Conquest.
• It will probably be south of Hillsbrad.
• There will be a limit on the number of players in the zone during battles, like Wintergrasp.
• There will be control points and whichever side captures them all first controls the zone for awhile.
• There is an instance that can only be entered when your faction controls Tol Barad
• The controlling faction will have access to additional daily quests. Regardless, both factions will use it as a major daily quest hub.
• There will be Tol Barad marks of honor.

Guild Advancement

• They want players to be in guilds to progress with their friends and other players.
• There will be guild experience that will be gained by doing different tasks and achievements.
• There will be 20 guild levels.
• Examples of ways to gain guild experience is killing a raid boss, fighting in rated battegrounds, arenas, leveling professions, and gaining reputation ranks.
• In order for a guild to get credit for a boss kill, you need 75% of the raid members to be in the guild.
• Every time your guild gains a level, the guild gains some talent points. There are guild talent trees that apply to everyone in the guild.
• Some example of talents include reduced repair costs, mass resurrections after wipes, removal of reagents for raid buffs, et cetera.
• One talent increases the gold drop from monsters, another summons the entire raid.
• Guilds can respec for a price.
• Guild experience is converted into some sort of guild currency. These can be used to buy things like guild battle standards and new "bind to guild" items like heirlooms, mounts, etc.
• If someone leaves the guild, the stuff they got from the guild's achievements gets returned to the guild bank.
• Guild currency can be used to buy replacements for reagents. For example, instead of using standard herbs for flasks, you can buy replacement reagents with guild currency.
• Guild Achievements will be like player achievements. Examples include having a legendary weapon in the guild, having grand masters in every profession, et cetera.
• There will be a "guild news feed" and the Armory will get some RSS support!
• You will be able to browse your guildmate's professions much easier. The guild UI will be completely redone, search-able, and filter-able.
• The extra gold from talents that players loot will go into the guild bank.

Mastery

• Talents will be less about "+x to stats" and more cool things you want to do, like abilities or effects.
• The more points you put into a tree, the more stats you get related to that spec. For example, Rogues will ge tMelee Damage, Hit Chance, and Armor Penetration in the combat tree, while Subtlety will see more Melee Damage, melee Haste, and Energy Regeneration .
• Mastery will be a new itemized stat that will increase the gains that you get from talents. Thus, gear will be useful for more specs and classes more easily.

Path of the Titans

• Path of the Titans will be how your character progresses when they are at max level.
• The main reward of the Path of the Titans will be the "Ancient Glyph", unrelated to Inscription.
• These paths will have you align with a different Titan cult. These are not class specific.
• Rewards are glyphs, vanity pets, and other such things.

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12:50: Hello, and welcome to Project Lore's live coverage of the World of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids Panel. I, Amatera, will be hosting today. Currently, we are 10 minutes out from the start of the show. I wonder if they'll concentrate on Cataclysm or if we'll also get some details on what's going on with Icecrown Citadel. 12:57: Let's recall what we know so far. Raids include: Grim Batol, The Firelands (with Ragnaros!), and an unnamed one in Skywall, the realm of the Air Elementals. There are level-up dungeons in Uldum (City of Tol'Vir, Halls of Originations), two instance in the Abyssal Maw (in Vashj'ir), and at least one accompanying both Grim Batol and Skywall. Let's not forget about Blackrock Caverns, or the heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines! 1:00: The panel is now starting. Seems like it will largely be a Q&A session. 1:00: They're going to talk about how they actuall create raids first. Then there will be previews. 1:01: Every dungeon starts with any idea and a story is created around it. They also consider whether or not it would be fun. Then they create the dungeon in 2d to lay out the dungeon map. "Where are people going to go? Where are bosses going to be? What is the flow?" Grim Batol 2D Concept 1:03: They show the 2d version of the Grim Batol dungeon (presumably the 5-man). Also, Icecrown Citadel! There will be at least four floors according to this map. They will cover ICC in this panel. 1:05: Now they're showing the Halls of Origination in Uldum. It will not be a linear dungeon, you will have choices as to how you want to proceed. It will be a huge dungeon, with 7 bosses (emblems ahoy!). 1:05: After the 2d phase, they "block it out" in 3d. This is when they consider scale and whether or not they can fit creatures, bosses, and all of the other neat things that can go in a dungeon within the space. 1:06: After that, it goes to the artists to begin on a template. They're showing a "block out" of the Uldum Dungeon, as well as Icecrown. There is very little detail in the environment at this point. 1:07: Then they move on to Dungeon Interaction, things like doors and elevators, destructible objects, widgets to interact with during boss encounters, etc. They have to work closely with the art team to make everything look cool. 1:08: The art team helps with developing concepts and set pieces. The blacksmith room in Utgarde Keep is the result of this process, for instance. Concept art for ICC, Abyssal Maw are shown. Abyssal Maw 2D Concept 1:09: There will be an elevator in Abyssal Maw that will fill with water and push players up to the next level. 1:11: Encounter design, like most things, starts with brainstorming. "Can we do vehicles on vehicles?" It turns out they could, so they knew they had to do Voltron, which resulted in the awesome Mimiron encounter. 1:13: They try to figure out how they can provide you with a variety of experiences in the same zone, and what makes encounters cool. They use an internal tool called "Wowedit" to handle creature placement, spell creation, etc. They are using Drak'Tharon Keep as an example. 1:14: They're showing how Wowedit can be used to set creature paths. There's a series of dialog boxes used to tune to the new Onyxia encounter. "Looks like the Deep Breath is set to random!" they joke. Hardy-har-har. 1:15: Once all that is done, they playtest internally. The encounter team playtests a lot before anybody else even sees it. Then they send it off to Quality Assurance, and finally the PTR. They assure the audience that they DO listen to all of the feedback from the PTR, even if they can't reply to it. Now to Cataclysm content! 1:17: They want FOUR full raids for launch, including one called Blackwing Descent. Abyssal Maw is first. Blackwing Descent 2D Concept 1:18: There will be a vortex in the center of Vashjir which will actually pull players down into the Abyssal Maw. There, they will find two 5-man dungeons. There will be windows in the dungeon through which you can look out into the ocean. Creatures will swim by, there will be new water effects. 1:20: Abyssal Maw is non-linear. You go to the right or left side. This is a 78-82 dungeon, it will be one of the ones you visit first in the expansion. They show some art of one of the boss rooms. "Imagine where water elementals would live, that's with this looks like." Lots of windows make the dungeon feel open. Next will be a video of Abyssal Maw. 1:21: It was just a teaser. Go watch The Little Mermaid, and you'll have a good idea of the decor. Now Halls of Origination. It is the first of two 5-player dungeons in Uldum. You're inside an ancient temple. WoW's take on Egyptian style (so it's not exact, but inspired by). Also non-linear (I sense a pattern here). Halls of Origination 2D Concept 1:23: "Brann's got to be there, right? What will he find this time?" It looks huge, like Ulduar mixed with the great pyramids. Green, runed energy cables run along the roof. The super weapon is around here somewhere. Now another short teaser. 1:25: On to Blackrock Caverns, old zone, new instance! Blackrock Spire is inspiration, but it is not a copy of it. The story is that this is a second base for Deathwing. There's a giant, underground hole created by Deathwing that links Grim Batol to Blackrock Mountain. Completely new art, loot, and creatures. 1:26: They're showing a 2d layout. This one is actually linear, expected since it's more story-based. They want it to look like things are going on forever in the background, bridges, tall structures, lava floes. Video preview incoming. 1:27: Now we get to look at raids! And maybe a few surprises... first Icecrown Citadel. 10-25 player raid, they joke about the 31 bosses again. There will be TWELVE bosses, this is confirmed. 1:30: You'll get to fight Sindragosa and the Lich King, of course. The dungeon will have waypoints like Ulduar. The Frozen Throne itself sits on a spire that you'll be able to see even from the entrance to the raid. On the second floor, you will get on your faction's AIRSHIP and race the other faction to the top. This encounter will have you bombarding the other faction's ship, defeating their invaders, and then taking rocket packs over to their ship to kill their bombardiers. Icecrown Citadel 2D Raid Concept 1:32: There will be THREE 5-man dungeons associated with this raid, a la the Coliseum. ICC video prview. Looks great. Surprisingly not ALL icy blue. There are green, glowing tubes and a red room with rib-shaped sconces. Sindragosa is shown idling in a room (looks like Sapphiron). There will be 8 bosses throughout the 5-man dungeons, and you will have to do the dungeons in order the first time around for story reasons (some faction heroes will show up, like Jaina). 1:34: Now Cataclysm raids. They show a shot of Nefarian's room Vanilla WoW. But there's a new portal now! Which leads to Blackwing's Descent. Since you can fly to this room now, it's easy to get to. Neferian, and perhaps a few other old "friends," will appear in this dungeon, but like Blackrock Caverns, art, loot, etc. will be new. The Firelands 2D Concept 1:36: The Firelands, you take the fight to Ragnaros. It is an outside 10/25-man raid instance, and you will get to fight Rag at his full power. A huge globe of magma and some erupting volcanos are shown in concept art. Onto the Onyxia 5th anniversary raid. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until November, even if it's on the PTR now (guess some of us were wrong about that!). 1:38: There are a few new mechanics to the fight, but it will still "feel" like the old Onyxia fight. Maybe a couple of new skills. "You'll need more DoTs, for sure!" New and updated loot. Tier 2 helms and what not. We've already covered most of this with the dungeon's pre-BlizzCon announcement. 1:39: The Brood of Onyxia mount will be very rare. It's an epic flying mount, of course. They're showing shots of the stats on old loot, and what they look like now. The stats are, as expected, greatly increased. They also have slots. Some of the old loot is splintered into different drops to support new or changes specs since the original encounter was released. A couple weapon drops from Molten Core are also added to the loot table. 1:41: They're showing the Onyxia Whelpling pet. Anyone who logs into the game during the 2-3 week anniversary event will find this in their mailbox. The Whelpling looks cute, she tries to use Deep Breath every once in awhile but fails. Onyxia Whelpling 1:42: A big surprise! Cross-server LFG! Basically the way Battlegrounds work right now, except you will be able to PuG with people on other servers within your Battlegroup. They may do it for raids in the future, but for now it's just 5-man instance. You can flag yourself as a Leader in the new LFG system, and if you do this, you will actually get a reward for completing the dungeon. This will encourage experienced players to help newbies through these dungeons. This feature is tentatively set for 3.3.0. 1:45: The presentation is over with, now Q&A. First question, of course, the "Additional Servers Cannot Be Launched" issue. They are working on it, it's being deployed right now on the rest of them (not right now, but they are doing it server by server... all should be perfect in a month or two). Also, the new LFG system might be able to pull other party members right into the dungeon, without having to summon. 1:46: Will we see any other remade raids? The answer is that Onyxia is a special case, probably won't happen very often. 1:47: Are they going to bring reputation back into raids? There are plans for it, but no real details. It is something they want to do. Next Q: Everything feels like an AoE fest, or are we going to see some chances for single-target DPS to shine in non-boss encounters? 1:48: They do try to add variety in boss fights, but they may still be changing some of the trash. Next Q: Are there any plans to bring back C'Thun or Ahn'Qiraj? A: No current plans for this. They reinforce that although old baddies are brought back, they are entirely new fights. 1:51: Q: Are the nerfs and tune-downs what they wanted Hard modes to be? (I don't totally understand this question.) A: They don't make content to be un-beaten. They're always looking at feedback, they play the game themselves, too. 1:52: Q: Will attunement quest lines come back? The answer is: maybe. It just comes down to what feels right at the time (I imagine this means whether or not the story is important enough to accessing related content). They want everybody to be able to see anything. 1:53: Q: Will we get an Arthas death cinematic? A: Definitely. 100%. He will have a fitting end. Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel 1:54: Q: How extensive is internal testing? Did anyone internally beat Yogg + 0? How will Coliseum Hard modes compare? A: It's hard for the dev team to do 25-man raids, but they do 10-man. QA usually handles 25-man raids, and they were NOT able to complete Yogg + 0. This is why harder stuff is sometimes rolled out on the PTR to see if high-level raiding guilds can complete the content. 1:56: They're going to try not to be as hard as Yogg + 0, but future content will still be tough. Q: Are there any plans to extend to Nazjatar and see Azshara. A: There may be some related story content, but apparently, Azshara will NOT be a part of this expansion! 1:57: Q: Will we go back to Wyrmrest Temple (for raids like Obsidian Sanctum)? A: Possibly. We'll see. Next Q: Something about bringing back other old raids again (seems to be a repeated question)? They give the same response as before. The Q&A is over, and with it, the Dungeons and Raids panel. Thanks for sticking around with our live feed! Stay tuned to Project Lore for more updates throughout the day!

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As we head into Day 2 of BlizzCon, why don't we just take a moment and reflect upon everything we learned during Day 1? Electricity filled the air during the Opening Ceremony, as Mike Morhaime and Christ Metzen danced around the announcement of Cataclysm until the very end, yanking the audience along like a wooden duck on wheels. But when it landed, oh boy, did it! Deathwing's ugly mug. Many of MMO-Champion's predictions came true, but sadly few of my own. Hey, I thought there were a lot of good ideas, but many of them were also heavily dependent on Queen Azshara being the main attraction, not Deathwing. As it turns out, he's the one that causes all of the mayhem and destruction, not the Maelstrom (though it is still featured prominently several times during the trailer). So there's still someone, or something, kicking around down there in Nazjatar, but Blizzard is holding those details close to their chest. Moving into the World of Warcraft Preview Panel, we learned all sorts of new details about the features revealed in the trailer. We were given a look at how many current zones transformed, as well as shown previews of what the seven new ones might look like. Perhaps one of the most interesting things to come out of the Preview Panel was the fact that we would be visiting all four of the core Elemental Planes, with the Earthen one, Deepholme, being the primary hub area of the expansion. New game systems such as Guild Leveling, Mastery, Path of the Titans, and the secondary profession of Archaeology were touched upon, but further details on those were left for future panels, such as the Items, Classes, and Professions Panel. And nothing, not even the reveal of the expansion, commanded as many pops and boos from the crowd as that panel did. The world you run around in is exciting and everything, but players really do feel like they own their characters, so when you mess with those, you're always going to get some extreme reactions. The Archaeology Logbook Sure, we learned a little bit more about the nature of the Goblins and Worgen, as well as what's going on with Path of the Titans (using Archaeology to find artifacts around the world, you can turn them in for character progression awards for further customization), but the real meat of the panel was the class changes. Warlocks, for instance, will no longer have to farm Soul Shards. They'll get three at the start of any given fight which can activate Soul Burn, a spell which modifies and boosts the rest of the Warlock's playbook. Hunters are also receiving a major change: no more Mana! Instead, it will be replaced with Focus, a mechanic that functions much like a slower version of the Rogue's Energy (unless you use Steady Shot, which actually makes it regen faster). Shockingly, Blizzard is planning to chuck a good number of existing stats in the game in order to make the core ones look more attractive. Mp5, attack power, spell power, armor penetration,  and defense are completely gone. Their impact will be integrated into other corresponding stats, while others like Block and Haste will be modified to compensate. People might complain that this makes itemization less interesting, but like many aspects of the expansion, it really allows Blizzard to get back to basics and rebuild things from the ground up (hopefully better the second time around!). The night ended with a series of contests intended to champion fan creations. Hosted by comedian Jay Mohr, the highlight was, of course, the Costume Contest. With what seemed like a hundred different Elves (of both the Blood and Night varieties) and at least five versions of Alexstrasza, WoW fans dominated the competition, but in the end, it was a fantastic Diablo III Mistress of Pain costume that took the grand prize. Unfortunately for those of us at home, the live feed only covers a single WarCraft panel today, but it's an important one: Dungeons and Raids. We'll be live-blogging that one, just as we did those yesterday. Fellow blogger iTZKooPA, will be covering some of the others via Twitter, so keep an eye on him. We'll bring you summaries and all the essential news as quickly as we possibly can!

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Incoming! The short answer is that Boubouille scored.  The data mining machine, who used some other resources for his recent discoveries, received almost a perfect score during yesterday's opening ceremony.  Nearly every World of Warcraft detail that had been disclosed by MMO-Champion.com came true.  Nearly ever one. There's absolutely no way I can take away from the sleuthing that went on to find out Cataclysm's particulars.  Sure, I didn't believe them all at first, but Blizzard confirmed that the company is simply crazy.  Crazy enough to reinvent what MMO gamers, not just World of Warcraft players, will expect in future expansions. Here's what MMO-Champion had spot on:

• Worgen & Goblins - WoW.com independently "confirmed" this before the event ever happened, but it was Boubouille and his mask discovery that sparked the rumors.  The new races' racials definitely sound OP as announced.  However it was later confirmed that all the other races will have their racials revamped.
• Level cap raised to 85 - Seems an arbitrary choice, but Blizzard wants players to focus a bit more on the content leading up to level 85.  Not just the idea of getting there.  Of course that won't stop many people from being level capped week 1.
• Azeroth revamp - The lands as we know them will indeed change drastically.  Barrens is split in two (double the Barrens Chat?!), Grim Batol is now Twilight Highlands and various other lands, coastlines and jungles will radically change.
• Flying everywhere - Yes folks, we will be able to fly everywhere in Cataclysm.  This even includes Wintergrasp.
• Class combinations - Data mining discovered the new possibilities and they've all come true, even Night Elf Mages.  Solving the 2:1 Horde to Alliance druid question is the Worgen's ability to offer a self-standing holy trinity.
• Unfinished original content done - Uldum and Mount Hyjal will both be arriving as part of Cataclysm.  Blizzard stated that Hyjal was never completed because it was impossible to do what they wanted previously.

There's really only one thing I can say Boubouille missed the mark on, and that's the main protagonist of the third expansion.  Deathwing is, without a shadow of a doubt, the bad guy in Cataclysm.  He's the force that lays waste to the lands as we know them.  Not an erupting Maelstrom as so many speculated.  QueenAzshara and her Naga buddies are definitely around, they have a new island to themselves just south of the Maelstrom, but they'll be a distraction compared to The Earth Warderer. "That is their (Goblin) mount" We've also got some additional details that no one guessed.

• New Secondary Profession - Archaeology (a word that will be often misspelled) will be added to WoW.  It'll be the first secondary profession that plays like a gathering profession.  No, fishing doesn't count.  After collecting from nodes of ruins and such, players will be able to discover rewards.  The mechanic to discovery hasn't been disclosed, but the possibility of a mini-game (Bejewled?!) was mentioned.  We will be able to track ruin nodes, and other gathering nodes at the same time.
• Mastery system - A new mode of progression.  The Mastery system is going to work alongside Talents to offer additional character customization, and it won't be class restricted.  This means a Priest can pick up the same Mastery skills (or whatever they are to be called) as a Rogue.  We are going to find out more details during the WoW Game Systems panel at 10:30 PST.  I'll be covering it via Twitter, and I expect it to be live blogged here as well.
• Heroic Deadmines & Shadowfang Keep - We heard dungeon revamps were coming, and now it's official.  These particular dungeons will use the same art and models.  To spice things up these assets will be mixed with new encounters and fights.  We'll hear more at today's Raids & Dungeons panel, which I'll be covering as well.
• Ragnaros - He's indeed back, "bigger and more pissed."  How much bigger can the developers possibly make the Lord of the Fire Elementals?
• So much more - Changes to fishing, Blackrock Spire is back, new PvP zone, rated BGs and the Alliance loses Southshore!

Consider me excited.  What do you think?  Good, bad, lore buster?  Anything that truly shocked you? For the StarCraft II players out there; I'll be sitting down for a StarCraft II interview later today. @iTZKooPA with your questions.  I'll select the best ones and work them into my own queries.

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