Project Lore

Lilyterrain's final adventures in Azeroth went out with a whimper, or perhaps a fart.  Barely hours into her career as a hunter, sans pet taming abilities, and the character was left for dead, never to be seen again.  I chalked up the loss of a subscriber to Blizzard's inability to grab Lesley with a compelling story in the early going.  Sure there were quests for her to tackle, but few of them were more than a collection or kill quest, let alone interesting enough to grasp her brain stem and demand its undivided attention. Due to the very nature of the early levels, how fast you get out of them, it makes sense that Blizzard didn't spend an obscene amount of time creating memorable stories.  Why invest money into something that players will complete in a few hours?  To leave a good impression on new characters of course!  Leave it to a commentator to prove myself, and various other readers, wrong, at least partially.  {swc}Ebek.Frostblade (known in the future as Ebek) was the first to point out that there is a sense of cohesion in the opening territories of the game. Paraphrasing from the comment:

• Humans:  Initially the race is worried about a Kobold threat, only to realize that VanCleef and the Defias Brotherhood, a disenfranchised group of blue-collar workers that rebuilt Stormwind, are far more troublesome.  Arguably the earliest, least subtle and best starting chain in the game.  WoW.com & WoWWiki have fantastic wrap-ups of the whole ordeal, one that stretched into vanilla WoW's endgame.
• Dwarves:  Players will continue the civil war with the Dark Iron clan while battling pockets of Trolls in their lands.
• Gnomes:  No longer secretly battling the Troggs that managed to take over Gnomeregan.  Even though the race is playable there is not much known about Gnomish culture outside their affinity for invention.  Chalk it up to the destruction of their capital city, which caused the pint-sized race to be scattered across the lands.  Starting alongside the Dwarves, you'll likely encounter a mess of trolls and dark iron mobs.
• Night Elves:  Young Night Elves battle with demons attempting to taint nature, an aspect the Night Elves hold dear.  Sound familiar?
• Draenei:  The spacegoats attempt to make contact with the rest of the Alliance while they recover their own people from the crash and clean-up the ecosystem that their ship, Exodar, tainted with foreign energies.  The story actually makes the MMO staple kill and gather quests quite logical.
• Orcs:  Orcs continue to fight for survival in Azeroth, which to many of the clans means defeating the Shadow Council that have tainted and controlled the noble creatures.
• Trolls:  The most diverse, and least played, race remains close to the Orcs who rescued them.  Thus, you pretty much go through the same things as the green skins.
• Tauren:  The Horde's nature lovers will tackle the wild bristlebacks before moving on to two factions they believe are defiling the world, the Venture Company and Bael'Dun.  Tauren players enjoy the most impressive early experiences for the Horde thanks to quest pacing, introduction to reoccurring factions and the art design of the opening lands.
• Undead:  In a twisted variation of the Draenei's starting quest (although this obviously came first), the Undead are also trying to find their place in the world.  Severely isolated from their un-trusting allies of the Horde, the Undead are left alone to fight pockets of the Alliance sooner than any other race.  As if that weren't bad enough, members of The Forsaken remain in constant struggle against their former master, the Lich King, and his Scourge.
• Blood Elves:  Although destroyed by Arthas during his initial campaign across Azeroth, the area around Silvermoon City is strikingly gorgeous.  The rapid rebuilding of the once decimated land is thanks to the race's heavy use of magic.   However, players will quickly come across numerous abominations of the magical kind in the fabled woods.

Ebek does have a point.  There is a semblance of a story in each of these zones, but most of them are entirely unremarkable and that is the issue.  Generally speaking, the content is little more than fleeting connections to land that surrounds your "birth."  Aside from the human struggles with Van Cleef, a questline that eventually leads you to Onyxia, not a single opening story will follow you past level 10.  The homogeneous experiences also offer little incentive to start alts outside of class boredom or to fill a role in a guild. Why is it that the humans alone are guided into such an awesome questline?  The rest of us struggle with monotonous grinding, while they are off saving diplomats and putting down rebellion.  Heck, for the most part the connections between the early racial quests are far to subtle to reconize while you are doing them!  We are hit with so much information up front, especially new players, that subtlety isn't the best route. The next time Blizzard adds a playable race (Pandaren please) I want to see two changes.  Mostly, I want the player to be handed a lengthy quest chain that will follow him throughout the game till the late levels.  Rather than forcing players to bounce all over creation, phase the chain so it can be completed in numerous towns.  Roaming NPCs anyone?  As for the chain's direction, it should be used to show the history of the applicable race at the get go, before moving in the direction of the current main conflict (ie Arthas for Wrath).  Second, the opening racial cinematic should set the stage for the quest clearly.  If Blizzard had grabbed Ms. iTZKooPA's attention with the opening machinima, shown her race's importance to her from the start and strung her along with interesting plot points as she became accustomed to the game, I think she'd still be playing instead of labeling MMORPGs as a chore.

Click to read more ...

Last week you guys might remember that I wrote a bit about my love of the Dragonblight zone and all of its lore-tastic quest lines. And I should have known I can't sneak anything past you guys! As several of you pointed out, I excluded from my post the major Wrath Gate cut scene and epic event that follows. Well, that's partially because I hadn't finished that quest line yet. But it was also because the quest line was so grand that I thought I'd dedicate an entire separate post to it. **Possible spoilers for anyone who hasn't played through WotLK content!!** You have to work to get to the awesomeness. As a Hordie, I worked through four quest lines to prove my worth: Into the Fold, Victory Nears, Strength of Icemist, and The Forsaken Blight and You: How Not to Die. From there Overlord Agmar offers The Kor'Kron Vanguard:

The time has come, the moment is now - our elite soldiers at the Wrathgate need you. The son of Saurfang awaits your arrival at the Kor'kron Vanguard. Go now, northeast to the Wrathgate.

Another quest line later, some Scourge defeated, and the fun begins. Start in-game cinematic. I'll admit it. the first time I saw this was before I did any of the questing. But the second time, after all that work, left much more of an impact on me. We (who aren't DKs) get our first in-game glimpse at the Lich King, and it's an epic one at that. Both Bolvar and Saurfang Jr., along with a ton of their accompanying forces, get fandoozled by the Scourge (who are parading as the Forsaken). I knew those creepy apothecaries were up to something sinister! After the scene ends, everything has changed. In place of Bolvar and Saurfang Jr. stand Alexstrasza and Korialstrasz, who you met in previous questlines in their humanoid forms atop Wyrmrest Temple. Those who still are alive are running around screaming, mourning the dead. And you're left to inform either Saurfang or King Varian Wrynn of the casualties, and deal with the remaining aftermath. I've heard that some thought the cutscene was a rip off Lord of the Rings - and I can definitely see the resemblance. But regardless of where Blizzard drew its inspiration, I think this was a huge step in the right direction. The movie gets both Alliance and Horde energized for the big event to come, which is another big WIN for Blizzard - The Battle for the Undercity. Whether you're battling Varimathras alongside Thrall and Lady Sylvanas for the Horde or smacking up Grand Apothecary Putress with King Varian Wrynn and Lady Jaina Proudmoore for the, in this case, ill-informed Alliance, the battle for the ruins of Lordaeron is one of the most entertaining events I can recall for many reasons. Not the least of which is getting constant buffs that transform your character into a badass as you battle hell-minions who obviously are confused about their place in Azeroth. But there's also a ton of great lore in there for those of us who love the storytelling aspect of WoW, and we see some insight into the current relationship of Horde-Alliance. The phasing of areas we usually see much differently was pretty damn neat, too. I had a difficult time tearing myself away from the computer after all that excitement. Blizzard's movie site explains a bit about their thoughts behind the cinematic that triggers it all:

One of the design goals for Wrath of the Lich King was to elevate storytelling in World of Warcraft to new heights. Northrend is brought to life by engaging quests, memorable characters, beautiful environments, and the introduction of a brand-new feature: in-game cinematics. The first of these cinematics, The Wrath Gate, is now available for viewing and download on the Wrath of the Lich King website.

Now since this is the "first" of the "cinematics" (plural!) I really hope that means more of this is to come in the future. I'm not sure whether they're considering the Ulduar cinematic to be another of these, since it's really more of trailer than anything resulting from quests. But at least it adds on to the storyline, too. And Blizzard has put out plenty of trailers in the past, but the in-game Wrathgate morsel really seems like more of a reward and motivation to me. It may be unrealistic knowing that cinematics have got to be pretty expensive to make. But I can't help it - I just want more! Don't you!?

Click to read more ...

Well it has come down to this, the final level. I am fairly certain that I am going to be the last player at ProjectLore to hit level 80, but in all fairness, they play the game for a job. I write about the game for my job. My original goal was to hit the level before the holidays, enabling me to get some raiding in before the new year. Then it was to have it done before my birthday, which was yesterday (Thanks for the awesome weekend Lesley). I guess all those trolls are right, I do fail in an epic manner. New goal equals this week!

I may not have hit 80, but over the weekend I busted into my final stretch to immortalizing SolidSamm as one of the millions of toons to hit the level cap. After watching my second to last ding go off, I quietly logged out of the game and pondered his immediate future. On recommendations from friends and guildies, the little rogue will skip out on all of the quests for the lower zones, heading straight to Storm Peaks and Icecrown to finish out the experience bar.

Many of you may be wondering why a level 79 character hasn't already been in these zones, and that is a legitimate question. Being a hardcore PvEer, I have been tackling every quest I have come across, interesting or not. No ? has gone unanswered as of level 79. Due to this incessant questing, I spent most of my time in the lowbie zones – Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak – going wherever those NPCs lead me. With 80 coming in just a few hours and my guild waiting for me to join the raiding ranks, I am abandoning Dragonblight and delaying my personal quest to complete all of Northrend's quests, in favor of starting my Sons of Hodir questline for the shoulder enchant.

Don't worry though, my escapades won't stop me from reporting on any fun quests that I came across. Icecrown's many phasing quests are supposed to be awesome and I will be running through them in short order. On top of that, I do plan on returning to questing between my reputation farming, heroic runs and raiding.  Those of you in my boat, how do you plan on heading to 80?  Do you have any special celebrations for when you join the ranks of the raiding elite?

Before I go, I have to mention Blizzard's newest WoW product, the The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. When I originally heard about the book, I figured it was another cash grab by Activision-Blizzard, but after previewing the first chapter, they had me sold. Hopefully some of our thoughts on the cinematic are confirmed.

P.S. Amazon is offering a nice discount on the book right now.

Click to read more ...

Yesterday at the Leipzig Games Convention, Blizzard gave the world the first look at Wrath of the Lich King's cinematic trailer. The trailer initially blew me away with its fantastic animation, beautifully crafted landscapes, epic music and spot on narration by Arthas' father, King Terenas Menethil. Then a friend and I began discussing it and finally, comparing it to previous Warcraft trailers. We decided that it's lacking in content. I have seen all of Blizzard's cinematic trailers, for all their titles - heck, I even own the Blizzard Entertainment DVD Collection. This allows me to see the progression of their craft. Since the release of Diablo II, the technology, art, and design of their cinematics have always been groundbreaking. Especially the technology. But what is a cutscene without story? Arthas' turn in Warcraft III still resonates in my mind as one of the coolest things I have seen from the game industry. Was it an original twist? No, but the video's presentation made it amazing. But that comparison isn't entirely far. After all, that cutscene was just that, a cutscene. What I am actually discussing is a cinematic trailer, so let us compare apples to apples. In the original World of Warcraft trailer Blizzard introduced us to everything. The classes, the races, the setting, the landscape. The trailer told players what to expect - an epic struggle. The Burning Crusade cinematic featured a cocky Illidan Stormrage daring us to come out and do battle with him. Shortly after being told that "You are not prepared" the cinematic shifts gears, introducing the new playable races. What does the Wrath of the Lich King offer us? It shows Arthas crossing a frozen lake in Northrend shortly before he plunges Frostmourne into the ice. We see the release of a large dragon (probably Sindragosa) that then stirs Arthas' undead army as it passes overhead. An epic presentation but it doesn't lead us, or the story, on, as previous trailers did. Heck, even the Sunwell Plateau trailer (basically machinima) pushed the story forward. And where is the action that the other two presentations had? Sorry Blizzard, but for all you put into the presentation, you left the story at the door. I don't enjoy or expect the formulaic movie plot of build up, climax and close in my video game trailers. Your previous formula of slight build-up and a lot of climax always had me on the edge of my seat. Ultimately, those previous trailers lead me to want the game (which would present the close) that much more. Stream the trailer here, download the high resolution version for PC or Mac or an alternate mirror for streaming and download can be found at FileFront.

Click to read more ...