Project Lore

Kil'jaeden The Beautiful One Will Feel My Daggers! I play a lot of video games.  Since 2008 rolled into 2009 I have conquered worlds, become a demigod, twisted my brain, shot an ostentatious amount of bullets, dismembered countless meatsacks, heard more four letters words than I care to admit and even created an army of plants to defend against zombies.  Dozens of titles have fallen before me, and I plan on completing dozens more.  Even though I play like a fiend - much to the chagrin of TV and movie advertisers - I still miss my fair share of video games.  Metal Gears, God of Wars, Zelda, Halos, Final Fantasies (still not final!), even Mario; I've missed one or more titles in today's most popular franchises. What does this have to do with World of Warcraft you ask?  Well, like many of the commentators on yesterday's post, I have missed my fair share of raid content.  Although my break from WoW during The Burning Crusade's days was short lived, it put me far enough behind the raiding curve (and the finding a good guild curve) that I couldn't catch up in time.  Karazhan was the only raid to feel my wrath (sorry). With this sad fact in my mind I have decided to do what I do with my other video games, head back into my library of plastic and visit what I missed in my spare time.  From here on out this brand spanking new column, Deleting Old Content, will chronicle my travels to content that many of you have played to death.  I won't be running it level appropriate, so I won't acquire the same insight the Questing series possesses.  Nonetheless, it'll be interesting to see how this old, old school raider reacts to TBC's content. Of course I am under the gun of Cataclysm's impending release so I better get to work (not because it'll be deleted, but because I'll be busy with that new content)! </sarcasm>  If anyone is on the correct side of Magtheridon-US (For the Alliance!) and wants to join me in some Illidan, Gruul and Kil'jaeden destruction feel free to shoot Solidsamm an in-game mail.  Now for the magic words, free achievements! This should be enlightening. /me packs for Penny Arcade Expo.

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"I'm Ron Burgundy?" One of the biggest side effects to the upcoming cataclysm is the destruction of Azeroth by Deathwing's return.  The Earth Warder - or Warderer for the overzealous, over caffeinated, under REMed writer - will return with a bang.  The leader of the Black Dragonflight will cut a hole in the world and leave a fiery trail from his exit wound across the Eastern Kingdom.  The effects of such a tumultuous event will be felt as far away as Kalimdor (no mention of major Northrend changes have been made), shattering The Barrens, ravaging the coastline of Auberdine and refreshing the Wailing Caverns.  It's only natural that the quests and tasks we've done over, and over, change alongside the world. To my knowledge no developer has abandoned old content entirely.  We players do it all the time though.  When was the last time you spent more than a few minutes running around Outland?  (Farming old achievements does not count!)  For us, it makes sense to move on to the new hotness for leveling, loot and a myriad of other reasons.  Being the efficient minded players that we are, we do just that. This, unfortunately, leaves the old areas crawling with tumbleweeds, bored mobs and unchallenged raid bosses.  Why shouldn't Blizzard nuke it and start over?  Nearly no one is using it, and to top it off, Blizzard is often ashamed of the archaic design ideas that the company implemented so long ago.  By combining the release of new races with Deathwing's destruction players will have a perfect reason to rerun all of the "new" zones, but that leads us to the bad - the disappearance of the old. This may sound contradictory to the good point.  That is because it is.  The removal of the old content, by way of the new stuff, is going to upset a lot of people.  Blizzard surely agonized over the decision to abandon all the vanilla WoW content, but that doesn't matter to the old school.  No matter what, those rose colored glasses will make players remember the "good ole days." *cough*Perhaps someone should archive the old dungeon content before it disappears?!  I wonder which site would be capable of such high quality hijinks?!  Any ideas?*cough* As a consolation prize, much of the old world raids will be returning alongside Cataclysm, albeit in an entirely new form.  Apparently beheadings do not kill dragons. The ugly is simply laziness.  I've seen, and heard, people claim that Blizzard isn't redoing anything, the company's artists are.  Subscribers to this philosophy believe that the massive changes will just be updates to art, textures and models, with little gameplay being modified.  I put the question mark in the title on purpose, as I have no fuel to add to this fire.  Are any readers out there capable of making a poignant case of laziness on Blizzard's part?  In my opinion, there are simply too many zones drastically changing, and too much raid content incoming for me to see the light. The keen-eyed readers will note that the post lost meat as I continued down the list of topics.  The Holmes-ish readers will then deduce my stance on the subject, which applies to my girlfriend as well.  I hate to see it go, but love to watch it leave.  What about you?  Feel free to leave my girlfriend out of your comments.

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