Project Lore

I'm sure most of you have noticed by now when running your daily random heroic that there have been a few changes to dungeons to make them run a bit faster. Patch 3.3.2 brought with it several changes that decreased the number of times a boss does a special move, making the encounters quicker and less annoying. And for anyone still working toward earning Glory of the Hero, the changes are bringing that Red Proto-Drake almost within our grasp.

Many of the changes also make their related achievements substantially easier. Let's take a look again at the recent changes that will affect achievements.

The Nexus

• For Chaos Theory: Anomalus will now use the Create Rift ability only once, down from 3 times, reducing the number of rifts that you have to fight through.

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Here's a nifty little announcement that got me even more excited for Patch 3.3. On the forums yesterday, Blue Poster Bornakk announced that Emblems of Conquest will be replaced with Emblems of Triumph as the main drop from dungeons as of Patch 3.3. Here's his words exactly:

General reminder: Things can still change. The current plan is to make Emblems of Triumph the "base" of emblems so everything that drops Emblems of Conquest would be changed to Triumph and then the new raid content would drop the new highest emblem along with things like the heroic daily and such.

He just had to add that addendum that "things can still change," reminding us that this may not still be the case come the full release of the patch. But it makes sense to make the higher-tiered gear more readily accessible with the coming of Icecrown Citadel so that more players will be able to participate - which I would say is good all around. I can understand how some people are upset that this makes it easier to get gear that they had to farm like hell to get in the past few months. But, you also have to keep in mind that the addition of the much higher-level gear that drops from all the new content will give players something new and shiny to work toward. So, if farming is what you enjoy - have at it. As things currently stand, Emblems of Conquest are much easier to come by, and they allow players to purchase items more around the iLevel 213-226 range. Emblems of Triumph, which now drop from daily heroics and certain higher-level content, will be the new easy ones to come by, instead allowing us quicker access to the level 232-245 gear available. Personally, I've been drooling over the Arena Season Six set (iLevel 232) Furious Gladiator's Vestments. They're not the best raiding pieces out there in the game right now, but damn they'd look hawt on my female blood elf. Up until now, the cost of 50-75 emblems of triumph a pop has been too expensive and time-consuming for me to get any pieces (except for the legs, a lucky 25-man VoA drop). Another big piece I've been looking toward - the iLevel 245 Mark of Supremacy to help me out where my hit rating is lacking. What does everyone else think of this change? Do you also have items you're scoping out come the implementation of the new system?

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Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff. Is Violet Hold The Bastion Of Wrath's 5-Man Content? I love WoW's PvE content, but there's no denying that it can get boring.  Doing the same runs over and over for weeks on end do nothing but show us how repetitive things can become.   After the first few virgin runs we fight through the monotony mainly for a chance at some glorious rewards.  Thanks to hard and heroic modes, and quick content patches, raiding has become less repetitive, but our heroic dungeon farming is no less mind numbing than ever.  Considering how much time we now spend in heroics, thanks to the vastly improved badge system, don't you think party-based PvE deserves content diversification?  What to do... We already have heroic and non-heroic versions, so that's out of the picture.  Hard modes could be done, but would be placed on farm by anyone who raids in a matter of weeks.  Not the best return on one's development investment there.  That's out.  What else can be done to make five man dungeons a little less stale, a little more enjoyable? Ignoring our insatiable desire for loot and badges, one way to keep an instance fresh is already implemented by Blizzard in Violet Hold (and later ToC).  Boss mob rotation.  In VH the party is given a random chance to encounter three of six possible bosses before they tackle Cyanigosa.  It's a small change, but the randomness forces players to stay on their toes even after they start to outgear the dungeon.  Extend this idea further, apply it to multiple dungeons, and it'd give us a little boost in content. For the lore and item junkies out there, new bosses can offer both.  Many instances can simply have lieutenants written in as taking over a former leaders' position, or perhaps the vacuum left by a leader's demise allows a new faction, race or species to subjugate the rest of the instance's denizens to their will.  It's true that in the long run the change would be like Diablo II's "dynamic" map system, where you could easily remember all the map layouts, but the longer we can extend that notion the better. I've mulled over the problem of the lack of 5-man heterogeneity for ages, with multiple audiences, and outside of making entirely new dungeons more frequently, a dynamic encounter assignment has been the best thing I've come up with.  Does anyone have any other bright ideas to make five man content less repetitive likes their big brothers? Do you agree that that VH offers a bit more play before it becomes repetitive?  Everyone likes new encounters right?

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And I thought the possible announcement of in-game prizes was an exciting enough reason to start following Warcraft on Twitter! Not but a few minutes ago was a new, tantalizing hook posted to the game's page, and it says the following:

The mysteries of the Abyssal Maw are starting to take shape… #WoW

What we currently know of the Abyssal Maw. Just when you thought it was over, they reel you back in! But what could this really mean? For the uninitiated, the Abyssal Maw is the Plane of the Water Elementals, which we recently learned we'd be visiting in the next expansion. As yet, we only know of one portal to the alternate dimension, a swirling whirlpool in the center of the new zone, Vashj'ir. We also know that it will contain at least two leveling dungeons for 80-85 level players. So, does that mean we might be learning more about this unexplored area in the very near future? The Abyssal Maw was highlighted heavily in various panels at Blizzcon, perhaps indicating that it is one of the pieces of fresh, high-level content that's the furthest along in development. And that means it may also be the first that we get an extensive preview of. It hasn't even been a month since the expansion's reveal, and yet the time seems ripe for Blizzard to start peeling back the veil on Cataclysm little by little. Very little else can be gleaned from this brief tease, and there's no way that we can confirm at the moment if anything is true. After all, there's always the possibility that this might pertain to the comic series or the TCG,  but we'll keep our eyes glued to Twitter for any further information, which we will no doubt bring to the rest of you! Speculation is always fun, though. Readers, what do you think this strange message might mean?

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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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As Amatera detailed for us live during BlizzCon, and Heartbourne has expanded upon a bit, too, it looks like we'll be getting a ton of new dungeon and raiding content in the third expansion. Continuing along the same topic, I recorded a bit of the panel at the convention so you all can hear exactly what developers had to say about the new content. And best of all, right here is where you can see a ton of artwork on the new content and several quick sneak peek videos that Blizzard unveiled live Saturday. Cut into three YouTube-sized video portions. Take a look: The video pretty much speaks for itself if you want to watch all the way through the three parts. But here are some of my thoughts on what we saw at this panel:

• Abyssal Maw - Beautiful updated water graphics, lots of pretty underwater colors for this dungeon on the sea floor. I wish the teaser would have shown a bit more! Dueling Naga should be fun. And, it's "something we've never done before."
• Halls of Origination - Looking forward to another 5-player dungeon, and one built by the Titans at that. I'm digging the Egyptian-like concept art and glowing blue-green ceilings. And what about that "secret weapon...?" Sounds interesting.
• Blackrock Caverns - It "reinvents" the fan favorite of Blackrock Spire, which I'm sure a lot of players will really dig. The graphics look promising, with lots of glowing reds and flowing lava.
• IceCrown Citadel and Dungeons - Sounds huge and epic, and I was happy to hear in the Q and A session after the panel that Blizzard is planning to do something special when Arthas goes down... they didn't elaborate, but hinted that we'll see some cinematics. Also, the whole rocket ship scenario with Alliance and Horde battling it out sounds like a lot of fun, and something we haven't seen a lot of in the past. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing what Sindragosa brings and how Blizz wraps up all the loose story ends.
• The Firelands - Fighting Ragnaros at his "full strength" (So, what, he'll be the size of a skyscraper?)? Could be intense. Beautiful concept art and the keep has some neat architecture.
• Onyxia - That new Onyxia-inspired mount looks amazing, and the whelpling almost (but not quite) as cute as a baby murloc :). I like the updated loot tables that are based on the original drops. Nostalgic. Watch out for the "little bit" more Deep Breath randomization.

And last but not least, the cross-server LFG sounds like it will be incredibly handy for PUGing. Plus, I'm really looking forward to the prospect of playing with some of my friends on other realms! And we don't even have to wait for Cataclysm; it's hopefully set to come out in patch 3.3. So what does everyone think of all this new content? Sounds like we'll have a lot to keep us busy. This is the last of my video posts covering BlizzCon - I hope you've enjoyed them! There's still a ton of information to comb through, so look for more in the coming weeks.

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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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The inability to launch instances this late in Wrath of the Lich King has always been odd to me.  Like many of the people in my guild, and likely a large part of the WoW populace, there is almost no reason for me to enter any 5-man dungeons.  That isn't to say that I don't do it here and there, but my frequency in no way compares to Solidsamm's marathon sessions during the early days of level 80.  I am sure many of you agree (that is until Call of the Crusade drops with its Emblem changes), and yet, just as many of us continue to get the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched" when trying to open an instance.  This is an especially painful message after having just attacked a raid full of Horde. Logic would state that if less people are running dungeons there should be more "room" on the instance servers.  According to Vrakthris it isn't that cut and dry.  But one should never apply logic to system architecture and computer programming.  There are a numbers of reasons why this isn't a one-to-one situation.  For example, if instances are given some sort of weight (5-man = one, 10-man = 2, 25-man = four) depending on how stressful they are on the hosting machine, then the server could theoretically be just as full as ever. Whatever the real design flaw is, it appears that Blizzard's architecture people have found a solution.  According to Wryxian, over on the EU forums, the recent extended maintenance and server restarts are directly related to fixing the instance problem.  Wryxian explains that "each group", presumably each Battlegroup, has to come down not once, but twice for the fix, and that things do not always go smoothly. I haven't located a post that mirrors the undead crocodile's statements on the North American forums, but it's probably safe to assume the same thing is happening here.  After all, my server was down for some extra time this morning, including a reboot during my Drakuru battle (I died!).  With Call of the Crusade's background downloading initiated, the fix may come just in time. I've had to deal with it more and more recently, but the wait hasn't broken my spirits.  Getting a group still remains far more difficult.  How bad has the stubbornness of the instance server been on your realm?

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It's been a solid eight months since Blizzard introduced its Recruit-a-Friend system and this week, I know of at least two more accounts they've roped in. One is legitimately one of my RL friends from college who finally caved to playing WoW for the first time out of general boredom. I'm hoping it keeps him entertained enough to get a paid account. And the other is my husband, determined to take advantage of the triple XP to get at least two new level 60 characters - a druid on his new account (which he then plans to transfer), and a shaman on his main account. Now how am I affected by that? Well, it's my DK who is running his new shenanigans through dungeon after dungeon. So he rolled his two Taurens and had one /follow as they leveled to 10 within an hour - triple xp for both the new account and the one its linked to (only up to level 60) is grand. Meanwhile, I quickly leveled my DK (who I had not really touched since completing my initial quests in The Ebon Hold and getting in good graces again with Thrall) to 60, so I could get Death and Decay and some AoE power. Now, I'm certain there are more efficient methods to achieving the quickest-as-possible leveling results. But I'm going to share how we've been going about it. We started off with running the Wailing Caverns to level 20, then Scarlet Monastery to level 40. Pull a group of mobs, bring them back within xp range of the alts, Death and Decay and spam a few spells - mainly Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Corpse Explosion, and Unholy Blight. I'm not a DK expert, but it gets the job done. And despite the difference between the DK and the alts' levels, the triple xp (which unfortunately doesn't seem to stack with rested xp) more than makes up for it. He's actually been doing the bulk of the work - we're on different work schedules, so when I'm not around, he's multi-boxing with his two accounts and my one. It's quite a site. Four days in, and he's got both alts to level 40. Once they're to the level 60 cap for the xp, perhaps we'll start a new pair. The levels come so fast that it seems a waste not to! Now, there is a cost. In order for the characters to be transferable, you have to buy the game and upgrade to a paid account (however, your main account gets a free month for this, so the account costs basically cancel each other out). Then there's the transfer fee. But even if you decide not to transfer, the characters you level up on your main account still get to keep their levels. I guess it could be a game killer for some, but for people who cringe at the leveling process and just want to get to end-game, I say it's a fun and productive way to pass the time in those long hours when we were waiting for 3.1. And although I'm not much of a mount collector, I really want that damn Zhevra! I know a bunch of us here at Project Lore already have taken advantage of the Recruit-a-Friend bonuses - who else has? And how do you view the system - as a game promoter or destroyer?

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MMORPG designers are a crafty bunch.  The genre may be relatively new, but by using design philosophies from single player titles, mainly standard RPGs, the minds behind MMOGs learned to keep a players entranced quickly.  Blizzard has nearly perfected the art of retaining its player base by implementing the relatively ancient knowledge of past video games into World of Warcraft.  They don't even hide their lifting of another company's ideas, as evidenced by the blatant use of Achievements, which is their most recent addition.  In all fairness, damn near everyone from Sony to Valve is ripping that off due to Microsoft's highly praised implementation. The massive flattery of the Achievement system is simply because it works.  The added goals, no matter how fleeting they may be, add to the longevity of any and all titles.  It was only a matter of time before MMOGs began implementing them in full force.  And what a powerful force they have become.  However, the age old catch - just gotta get this next mob/drop/quest/level - continues to drive my elongated playing sessions. I spend most of my time during my journey to Exalted for my third Northrend faction completing the group's half dozen daily quests.  But I always queue up for various Heroic dungeons, especially those that may have some piece of gear for Solidsamm.  Being of the overpopulated DPS archetype, I often grind through the dailies, get annoyed at never finding a group in under an hour and log off for the night or afk to make dinner before the raid.  Well, that is what used to happen.  Lately, right as I go to log I get ninja invited or join this or that party/raid. My original intention when I sign on these days is to complete an instance quickly.  Doing dailies is supposed to be the distraction during group formation.  After waiting so long, then getting ready to log, the late invites and formations can be hard to stick with.  In the end, it isn't any fault of Blizzard's that I hang around past my personal time limit.  Even after admitting that to myself, I can't shake that nagging feeling in the back of my brain that some designer in Anaheim is celebrating his small victory over my lack of willpower.  Bastard. Anyone else have this problem?  Do you always get pulled back in when you are on your way out?  When was the last time a 20 minute session became two hours for you?  And to those of you with willpower, can I have some?  Please?  Sugar on top?

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