Project Lore

ProjectLorians were busy providing an assortment of original content the last few days and missed a few tidbits of news.  I figure that the mantra of "better late than never" applies, since we want to keep everyone well informed.  Or we could cope out and just say we were really checking our facts, thrice over.

According to a screenshot from the Enigma raiding guild on NA-Deathwing, the Lick King's last defenses will be accessible on February 2 (or February 3 for EU).  The Frostwing Halls houses two unknown bosses, Sister Svalna and Valithria Dreamwalker, and Sindragosa, the original frost wyrm.  Valithria, a captured green dragon, is going to be an interesting encounter.  Especially to those with fond memories of Dungeons and Dragons' combat variations.  Sindragosa is part of the lockout counter, along with Putricide, Lana'thel and the Lich King himself.

My guild is still stuck on Professor Putricide, and has not even attempted any of the Crimson Hall bosses (something I have disagreed with).  It's fairly obvious that we are falling behind, so I doubt Solidsamm will be seeing Sindragosa any time soon.

In other news, Solidsamm will be seeing a new non-combat pet shortly.  According to various sources, a Competitor's Souvenir has been added to the North American servers.  Unfortunately, no visual imagery or animations have been datamined as of press.  If you were around for the Summer Olympic games two years ago, you'll likely remember the Spirit of Competition vanity pet that was randomly awarded for participating in Battlegrounds.  It's worth noting that the tabard from the last olympics was called the Competitor's Tabard.  Either way, the closely named Competitor's Souvenir will likely be obtainable once the 2010 Winter Olympic games kick off on February 12.

Patches mean different things to different players. For some, it is looking forward to more adventure and exciting things to do. Others might be anticipating changes to their class or getting their hands on a new vanity pet. As GM of a raiding guild, I find it necessary to scrutinize patch notes in search of changes that may impact the way my guild operates. For example, in patch 3.1, they introduced dual specialization. This had an immediate impact in our raids. If we're facing a boss that only requires one tank, then we'll have the other tanks swap to their DPS specs. If we're short a healer, one of our DPS can swap over. Having raid members with well-geared secondary specs became important. In order to encourage our raid members to have well geared offsets, we changed our loot policies to offer gear for offsets at a discount DKP price, assuming no one needed the item for their main spec. Another smaller change in 3.1 was the duration change on flasks from two hours to one. As a result, we now make sure everyone is using their flasks in unison so we can time our breaks for when the flasks run out. As I peruse the patch notes for patch 3.2, there are a few line items that could impact the logistics of raiding. It will be interesting to see how guild officers respond to these changes. One of the first decisions guilds need to make is how will the new raid instance, Crusader's Coliseum, fit into their raiding schedule. While the new dungeon is technically a new tier of raiding, guilds may not remove Ulduar off their schedules immediately, like they did to Naxxramas when 3.1 hit. While the details aren't solid at the moment, it has been posted that the encounters in the Coliseum will be unlocked one at a time at the rate of one per week. Many guilds will still spend a lot of time in Ulduar while the bosses are slowly introduced in the Coliseum. Once all of the tier 9 encounters are open, there are more scheduling decisions to make. The Crusader's Coliseum (aka The Argent Coliseum) has both a normal and heroic version for both 10 and 25 players. The heroic versions of the instance limit players to a number of attempts each week, but open up greater rewards for those who succeed. With that in mind, do you try and take out Ulduar quickly and then spend the remaining time working on the normal version of the new instance? Or do you skip the gobs of easy loot from Ulduar in favor of the new content? How do you balance time spent in normal vs. heroic Coliseum? Interesting questions, indeed. Perhaps the biggest raiding change to be introduced in 3.2 is the extend raid lockout feature. When 3.2 hits, guilds will be able to decide if they want to prevent a raid instance from resetting on a weekly basis. Raid lockouts can be extended for up to an additional week to allow players more time to work on and clear boss encounters. With instances as big as Ulduar, many guilds begin to struggle towards the end of the instance because they run out of time to work on bosses like General Vezax and Yogg-Saron. How will your guild use this exciting feature? Players in 3.2 will have the ability to trade soulbound items with other raid members that are eligible for the loot. This feature grants you a two-hour grace period before the item is permanently bound and will save Blizzard GMs from throngs of in-game tickets from items that are distributed incorrectly. Guilds may decide, however, to use this feature as a time saver during raids. Instead of spending precious flask time distributing loot after each boss kill, the master looter can grab everything and hand it out at specified break periods. Obviously, this is more beneficial when you're clearing a lot of bosses in a night and can get complicated if you frequently have raid members leaving and joining throughout the night, but it is still a nice option to explore. The Call of the Crusade patch will change the way a lot of guild approach raiding. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Which raiding features are you most excited about in 3.2? How is your guild going to approach some of these changes? Share your thoughts and ideas with us.

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