Project Lore

<QQ>I touched upon this subject last week in my farewell to Warhammer Online post, but it has raised its ugly head once again.  For all intents and purposes, Blizzard has no facility implemented - and in use - to disseminate crucial or important information to the mass of World of Warcraft subscribers.  Yes, they have the official forums and the front page of WorldofWarcraft.com, but they don't use these facilities to their utmost potential. Rather than being a haven for important discussions, details and announcements, the majority of the forum is used as a soapbox by angry and disenfranchised players.  Blues do creep in and drop bombs on the community here and there, but their efforts are trivialized by how few of us absorb the morsels.  To top it off, the same question or topic is then brought up a week later.  The front page of the MMORPG's official website is employed as a facilitator to a degree, with contests or huge announcements disclosed, but it misses the mark when compared to what it could easily offer. Bloggers, players and apparently even Ghostcrawler are fed up with the lack of a central information repository.  It doesn't have to be anything glamorous, new or even incredibly up-to-date.  To make most QQers happy, all Blizzard would have to do is a weekly wrap-up of important blue posts.  Just a quick summation of the hot topics with direct links to the discussions and we'd be so much happier.  Sure, bloggers would have to remain on the prowl for daily updates, but the average playerbase would enjoy the information being delivered in a nice package for them.</QQ> There is also a flip side to this.  Rather than placating critics like me, the developer would likely draw more casual subscribers into the forums if they had a "safe" starting point like this.  From what I have gathered from anecdotal evidence, most of my casual friends fear the forum is some sort of mystical creature with a thousand or so maws.  Perhaps it is all the clutter that comes from the repeating topics, the hatred spewed or the know-it-all attitudes.  Or, to lift Ghostcrawler's statement, maybe it is a "perfect storm" of the three. I rarely frequented the forums when I was a hardcore player because of this very issue.  It wasn't until I when I relapsed into real life that I began lurking the forums on a regular basis.  You know, to stay hip and all.  But lurking is all I ever do...How often do you frequent the forums and in what capacity?  Poster or lurker?  You seem to love our wrap-ups, but would you want Blizzard to do one of their important information on a weekly basis? And yes, I know that ProjectLore or any number of sites could do this, I just feel that Blizzard should be doing it to keep their customers informed.  Plus, as you can see by our growing list of talented bloggers, we have serious business to discuss, dissect and diss! Diss is still a common colloquialism right?  Oh god, am I getting old?!

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