Project Lore

Just over a month ago ProjectLore turned one, and it seems that another of Alex's zanny ideas - read getting paid to perform his hobby - has paid off.  I first heard of Project Lore way back when Alex announced his intentions with the site.  I flat out loved the idea of "embracing WoW culture and the interactions between players".  So much that I covered the announcement for a completely different site, the now semi-defunct GetBuffed.com (no, it's not a porn or weightlifting site).  I applied upon seeing the open call for writers while the site was still in its infancy.  Here I am 365 days and 246 posts later, without any intention of stopping. I'll admit that I was apprehensive, anxious and even nervous during my early days here at Project Lore.  Those are three emotions I rarely ever feel.  My regression to an earlier mindset was due to the very community that I love being a part of.  I know the types out there on the Internet, and thus part of the WoW crowd.  WoW's own rampant success has creating a gigantic, teeming audience.  I've been writing about video games for nearly a decade now (over if you include my volunteer stuff), but ProjectLore brought me my largest audience by far.  Unfortunately not all of them are nice.  The haters, know it alls and sarcastic bastards intimidated me at first, but I grew a thick skin and can now take the criticism, constructive or not, in stride. Ok fine, so my early days weren't the pinnacle of journalism, or the highlight of blogging, but I like to feel that I have grown, substantially.  Grammar ("makes ends meat" anyone?), spelling and other stupid mistakes have been trimmed thanks to a higher attention to detail, and additional proofreading on each post.  But the meat and potatoes of writing is in the ideas, and they've come into their own thanks to the readers and guildmates.  Not only have your comments and forum threads sparked many lightbulbs, but you reignited my passion for World of Warcraft.  Although I returned during TBC, it wasn't until a few months in to this gig that I really returned.  That was because of the readers insatiable hunger for WoW content, be it digital or wordy. Speaking of ideas, here's a quick list of the reoccurring ones I've played a part in:

• Fond Memories
• Design a Dungeon (this will return with far more structure)
• The Balancing Act/Balancing Act (just realized this was split in three, woops)
• Another One Bites The Dust
• The Novel Post
• Questing
• The Experiment
• Melee DPS 101/DPS 101
• Wishful Thinking
• The Next Expansion

Although I am not a part of the detailed Proverb column yet, I hope Heartbourne (did I get it right?) will let me take the lore-filled column for a spin. I want to take this opportunity to say thanks for reading, keeping me on my toes, and sharing your opinions, objections and stories in a respectful manner.  That goes for everyone - except all you firsters, you can go to the back of the line.  Last is the new first. It's been fun watching the site mature, the readership grow and having additional writers to bounce ideas off of. Thanks for keeping my interest in the game at an all time high.  To another year of WoW, Project Lore and blogging!  Cheers. Oh, time for a little shameless self promotion.  I am on Twitter after much pestering from seemingly everyone.  Be gentle, I am still figuring out all this @, # and other odd uses of shift+numbers. /me packs for BlizzCon.

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As I get closer and closer to level 80 (no, I'm still not there yet. But that's another story...), I've been thinking a bit about my end goals for Locomomo. They started out vague, long ago when I rejoiced at finding a piece of gear that was one measly armor point higher than what I already had equipped. Back then, I could only dream of what my toon someday would become. And as I've leveled and discovered through experience my play preferences for my class, those goals have solidified quite a bit. What I know so far: I like being sneaky, as a proper rogue should. But even moreso, I like dealing the DPS. One of my primary motivations for leveling is the fact that I want to start raiding with my guild. I'll have to start small to get some better gear, I'm sure. Then hopefully after not too long try out some heroics and get down my raiding rotations. I know, they're still pretty general goals, but it's something to look forward to. And while looking forward, I realized that really, the best way for me to play is to have smaller goals along the way. It seems I'm always playing toward something - trying to reach the next level, and the next and the next; aiming to get my stats up; completing enough quests in an area to get the related achievement and moving on to another zone. Each little step leads to another and another. Blizzard knows how to keep its players motivated. But there have been times when I've found myself a bit puzzled at what to do next. For the most part, leveling is self-explanatory. Just go to an area for your level, click on the NPCs with yellow exclamations points, and go kill things. But sometimes there's the issue of having too much to do. Do you level in zone x or zone y? Do you focus on your professions or continue leveling? Ultimately, there's a million decisions we must make in game, and each one will lead to a different experience. Of course, once you're a more experienced player, it becomes easier to picture your future characters. You know what equipment, skills and talents are out there; you have conquered the zones; and you have played either with or against other high-level characters that you can use for inspiration for what you one day will become. And once you reach 80, there's still all the end-game content. I know a lot of players find it a bit harder to keep playing once they reach a certain point and no longer have those little steps to motivate them along. But I think I'm a very long way from reaching that point. I've got dungeons to explore, enemy cities to sneak into, equipment to be had, achievements galore to earn, and only so much time to play. The future Locomomo, as I picture her, will be awesome. But it's the journey getting there that I'm looking forward to. In your own gaming experiences, what drives you to keep playing? Is there any specific goal you're currently playing to? Do you picture what you hope your future toon will be, or let that picture shape itself as you go?

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I'd like to take a moment on the one year anniversary of Project Lore to address the fans in order to let you all know what's up with the us and what you can expect in the future from Project Lore. We're going through some changes here, which you may have already noticed. Over the next few months, you'll see the site and video content evolve, and in the end we will be an even better resource for you to find your favorite WoW content. We've heard your concerns about Project Lore and understand that you love the show for the same reasons we love it - embracing WoW culture and the interactions between players that make the game what it is.  Over the summer you can tell we've taken a little break from the bigger scale videos but rest assured that we want to give you a Project Lore Ulduar run just as soon as we can. In the mean time, be sure to check out the live streams of Ulduar runs that will be happening during the week and will start being featured here on Project Lore. They're going to be improving and becoming more interactive as time moves on, so watch our Twitter feed and check the site to see when they'll be happening. On one final note, we want to thank you all for your support over the last year. Without the fans, there would be no Project Lore, and we would never have made it for one year. Here's to the second year being even better!

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With the U.S. economy pretty much in the tank over the past half-year and unemployment at nearly 9 percent, the future of the workforce is on the minds of many. And for some, WoW plays a role. Last week, TIME (as in the magazine) put out a special feature - a kind of top-10 list of sorts on "The new work order." It counts the ways that the workforce of the future will change. The feature remarks:

Though unemployment is at a 25‑year high, work will eventually return. But it won't look the same.

Inevitably, technology was at the top of the list of items that will change the workforce. As was business ethics, declining job benefits, delayed retirements and a turn toward female management style. But buried within a section on Gen X taking control of the workforce, I was surprised to find this nugget:

Rob Carter, chief information officer at FedEx, thinks the best training for anyone who wants to succeed in 10 years is the online game World of Warcraft. Carter says WoW, as its 10 million devotees worldwide call it, offers a peek into the workplace of the future. Each team faces a fast-paced, complicated series of obstacles called quests, and each player, via his online avatar, must contribute to resolving them or else lose his place on the team. The player who contributes most gets to lead the team — until someone else contributes more. The game, which many Gen Yers learned as teens, is intensely collaborative, constantly demanding and often surprising. "It takes exactly the same skill set people will need more of in the future to collaborate on work projects," says Carter. "The kids are already doing it."

While it's not what I would call the perfect game synopsis, I think author Anne Fisher does a pretty decent job of explaining a basic point of the game to audience members who probably have never played. But more to the point: is the perception of gamers, and specifically those of us who play WoW, changing? We've seen arguments similar to this recent one. Way back, we've heard from some who argue that playing WoW is good leadership experience and teaches project management skills. And just on Wednesday, I saw a post from the newly redesigned and renamed WoW.com (formerly WoW insider) about a college student researching how people interact in WoW and other online games. But we've also heard from the negative side. About six months back, Juggynaut told us about a forum poster who said that job recruiters intentionally avoided hiring people who play WoW.  And that spurred a whole slew of comments from our dear readers, from those of you who had heard similar sentiments to those of you like Shaun, who I think summed up a lot of our feelings when he said, "Has this giant bag of douche ever heard of over-generalization?" But I'm feeling optimistic after this story from TIME. For one, it's a pretty major publication with a positive outlook on WoW. With all the misconceptions about gaming out there, it's good to hear that someone gets it, at least a little. And for two, the statements from Mr. FedEx CIO highlighting WoW finally are put into context: These life lessons that WoW provides are ones that will be valuable, even needed, in the future workplace:

The Gen X managers ... will need to be adept at a few things that earlier generations, with their more hierarchical management styles and relative geographical insularity, never really had to learn. One of those is collaborative decision-making that might involve team members scattered around the world...

So, how do you think WoW could change the job market place of the future? Or perhaps you have the opinion that all this is overblown, and it won't affect anything? Either way, it's an interesting conversation and a debate that, I suspect, won't end anytime soon.

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