Project Lore

Welcome to The High Inquisitor, where Project Lore pokes fun at all those crazy, unexplained WoW impossibilities. While the answers to these great mysteries of Azeroth often are a matter of game mechanics, here we’re less interested in that aspect, and more interested in exploring our own unique brand of lore that could happily provide explanations. The inquisitor will make her own suggestions, and the best comment(s) with more possibilities will be highlighted with the next edition’s inquisition.

Despite appearances, no zhevras were harmed in the making of this screenshot.

All of us probably have experienced the odd physics of Azeroth at one point or another. Probably on a pretty regular basis, we'll see a monster's corpse die while in mid-air, or our flying mount's wing seemingly travel through a solid wall we pass by. Perhaps we're used to it enough that we don't even think about it all that much. But that is just what the High Inquisitor is all about. So question, I will - Let's find a lore-tastic reason (beyond the actual programming quirk called clipping) to explain this phenomenon!

To the right, we have a classic example that occurred on a Zeppelin while I was running around on my main and finishing up the last of my Love Fool achievements. My zhevra apparently had other motivations.

While on board, his body repositioned in the oddest of ways. Not only did the front half of his body appear to be on the other side of the wooden structure leading to the cabin down below, but his front hooves also appeared to be standing on air as if it was as solid as the wood clearly behind his back legs!

Click to read more ...

Now you see me...

When I first rolled Locomomo, going rogue was an easy choice. I thought the idea of having stealth right from level 1 was absolutely brilliant. I loved it, and reveled in it. From the start, I embraced the cunning practice of disappearing into the shadows and pick pocketing my enemies before ambushing them with poisons. By the time I was seen, my dagger already was bloody with my opponent's innards. Just like most other elusive rogues, I didn't mind using crafty, violent and yes, even straight up vile methods to down those who would stand against me. The power consumed me, and I grew stronger.

Now you don't!

My deception also was my entertainment: I took comfort in harassing those who couldn't see me. I would stealth, and choose a friendly, lower-level target to distract while they puzzled at a puff of smoke exploding, and then laughter echoing in the seemingly empty street in front of them. But slowly, the novelty wore off. Sap and Cheap Shot became routine, and my daggers rusty. I was eager to level, and I traded in the backstabbers for two shiny new swords. A quick respec for dual-wielding swords, and I was ready to go. No more backstab or ambush, my two key skills requiring daggers. No hopes for mutilate, either. And not as much need for stealth, since I didn't have to get behind my enemy. But level, I did. Soon, I reached Outland, and then Northrend. It was the Borean Tundra that brought me back to my stealthy roots. First, a series of quests led me to the Fang of the Desolate Soul. Then, east to Dragonblight where I was asked to kill Magister Keldonus and in exchange, take possession of the Backtwister. A free respec for patch 3.1.1 solidified my conviction - it was time to  regain my close quarters combat specialization and rediscover my love for stealthier gameplay. So far, I'm having a bloody good time. Now I wouldn't say that rogues are the best class for everyone. And I can't leave out the fact that we've gotten nerfed from time to time. But I'm in it for the fun. And, damn. Stealth is fun. I think iTZKooPA knows what I'm talking about, and also has some good tips for the muti spec. So now you all know one of my favorite aspects of being a rogue. Based on a thread in our forums, I know I'm not the only one. So, what is it that drives you to play your class?

Click to read more ...

RL girls or not, they're taking this bear down!

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post exploring the relationship between a WoW player's RL gender and what gender they play in-game. And all you Project Lore readers out there are so great that you provided tons of comments for me to ponder over. Let's take another poke at the subject. One of the things that I didn't address earlier, but that comments certainly did, is whether girl gamers have inferior or superior skills when it comes to playing WoW. Personally, I think it's all about experience no matter what gender you are. I'm sure there are just as many noob guys who play. But regardless, the stereotype is that girls can't play. Or that just because we're girls, we make good targets for taunting and sometimes harassment while playing in a male-dominated setting. And there's a lot of us who don't appreciate being treated differently for any reason, much less such stupid ones. Magradon commented:

I think us girls need to take WoW by storm... I’ve had WoW stalkers and guys who actually profess their love, talk about visiting me…and all I ever did to deserve it was to be nice. /ignore

And Nightwisher elaborated on similar experiences:

i get ALOT of shit for even playing wow and being female...  boys just cant take girl gamers seriously. though im pretty sure my fully epiced resto druid would stomp some faces if i actually liked PVP’ing.

My experiences have been less extreme and more amusing. Like when a guy toon properly positions his /dance so it's right on my chick's ass. Lovely. But my purpose today was not to spread *Girl Power,* even though there are plenty of us who certainly kick butt in game. Really, I just want to have a bit more fun on this topic. So on that note, here's the flip side of the situation. I actually have a lot of fun being the instigator sometimes. One of my favorite things to do when bored? Find a random male toon. /flirt. Wait for a response. /slap. Run away! Makes me laugh hysterically every time! I don't know, maybe doing that sort of thing makes things harder on other girls in game. I hope not. But regardless, it's hilarious. I try not to take things too seriously, and typically my targets don't, either. It appears that there are others roaming here on Project Lore who also use sex appeal to their own advantage. Like AlysiumX:

ok ok i admit it, im a guy playing a girl character but thats only for the +5% chance for grp invites

Way to keep it real. While I previously guessed that girls do not generally play cross-gender toons, it seems that you lovely ladies out there have proved me wrong. So props to brandywine, Hatell, elfennau, Cyan, Wrongway, Halcath and Percolatte, among others for breaking that misconception I (and based on the comments, apparently others) had. But it still seems that guys are a bit more likely to fall into that roll. Whether it's "cuz i dont feel like watching some guys ass when i lvl up" (thanks Marcwaznthere, for your articulate explanation), or if you're like jimbob who admitted, "i just have an ‘affinity’ with female toons, go figure!" I guess we all have our reasons for playing the way we play, even if we don't think about it much. Female toons? That's just how I roll! I thought Alayea phrased it best:

Female players FTW!

So, let's get this discussion going again. Regardless of your RL gender, do the benefits of playing a girl toon outweigh the other crap that some of us put up with because of it? Can you really get away with more when you roll female? And will you silly boys out there ever realize that a girl toon, no matter how hypnotizing she may be, is not your personal play toy?

Click to read more ...

Being a defiled DK is the only thing that makes this OK

It’s been about five months since I rolled my blood elf rogue, and I’m at level 68. I just made it to Northrend, and I’m starting to get anxious to level up so I can raid with my level 80 buddies. But there’s so much other fun stuff to do in-game that I keep getting distracted. So it’s slower going, but I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. As long as I’m having fun. Like last week, when my toon and my husband’s alt, a blood elf DK, were running around slaughtering all the Talbuk in Nagrand. Meanwhile, another Horde group in the area was working on gaining control of Halaa. We were counting down as the number of Alliance guards went from 15 to 0. So when the chat window announced that Horde was gaining control, we both cheered them on in the local defense chat. And although we were in the middle of questing, I suggested that we head to Halaa to help with the final capture of the area. So we dropped everything, and went to chat it up with the other players. Yeah, it delayed our leveling. But it also was a good time. Or another time was when I dinged level 55 and promptly rolled a troll DK as an alt. I went ahead and played through the first few levels, got all the awesome blue gear, and headed back to Orgrimmar for redemption. But, wouldn’t you know it, I got to the Valley of Wisdom and an Ally group had just raided the city. Thrall was dead, with no hope for respawn for about two hours. And I was still in disgraced status, so of course the few guards who already had respawned were throwing rotten fruit at my pretty blue face and yelling for others to get a rope. No problem, I could have switched characters back to my main and come back at a better time. Instead, I joined a group of fellow DKs who were passing the time by /dancing from Thrall’s empty throne. Silly? Yes. But fun? Abso-freakin’-lutely. And I can think of numerous times I’ve been in UC as a raid comes through. Each time I’ve been too low level to defend at all, but I head to the Royal Quarter anyways. Just to observe. And try to distract the Allies by  squawking up a headache as my hawkstrider stands right on top of Lady Sylvanas. I like to watch those Allies squirm. Am I the only one who gets caught up in all this random fun stuff? Not that I need anything else to keep me from leveling, but what are some of your favorite distractions?

Click to read more ...

Yes. I am leveling a mage... again. Why you ask. Well I suppose it's a few different reasons. 1. My guild split up and that sucked. 2. 'Old' content is still fun. 3. I can do it better the second time around. This time I'll actually pick a quicker path and use addons to help me. For the first 30 levels or so of my first character, I had no idea about addons. None. Now they are so essential to game play, especially in end-game encounters, that I can't believe I did 30 levels without them. So go get some addons and level up a new toon. You now you want to

Click to read more ...