Project Lore

Almost 48 hours since the release of Patch 3.1 and there are still many, many issues to be ironed out.  Players across the greater Internet are reporting numerous snags that are consistent with all of Blizzard's content patches.  Dead or laggy servers, extended extended maintenance, busted spells, broken talents, castrated add-ons, un-updated add-ons interfering with general WoW play, disconnected instance servers, the works.  As Ivnication stated in the Secrets of Ulduar post, even if Blizzard had a perfect patch, it'd be unlikely that we would have been able to raid efficiently on Wednesday, let alone Tuesday, due to the massive amount of changes.

As it stands now, I have let the issue go by the wayside.  Better to shrug it off than pull my hair out while screaming about my paying customer status.  During the intermittent server problems I spent most of my time leveling my priest's professions and, preparing her for her incoming second spec.  Since I wasn't doing anything of consequence, I allowed my eyes and mind to roam and came across a collection of unexpected things.  First and foremost, Magtheridon was playable by late Tuesday evening.  Being an original server, I expected it to be utterly destroyed by its high population, so I was taken aback by its playability.

I did my best to keep up on the patch notes and all the upcoming stuff in Wrath's first content patch, but a lot of small tweaks managed to slip by me.  It takes enough time to digest the class changes, let alone all of the other stuff listed in the patch notes.  It wasn't until I was a few hours into the patch that I began noticing just how many things I missed.

• There are a ton of new icons for various spells and talents including Devouring Plague, Cleanse Spirit, Riptide and many others.  Even the Essence of Wintergrasp icon has been overhauled with new art.

• Along with the addition of maps for the dungeons, Blizzard overhauled the minimap.  Our personal guide is far more detailed and allow us to zoom out further than before.  A fantastic surprise addition for me.

• You no longer need to be near a Lexicon of Power to apply a Glyph.  Does that change make the Lexicons completely useless, or do Inscriptors need them for something specific?  I haven't rolled one yet so I am not certain.  Speaking of Glyphs, how did the old Supply and Demand scale work on your servers?  Prices on Magtheridon are up over 200%.

• New music courtesy of Ulduar and the Argent Tournament!

• "Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!" (emphasis added).  That bit from the patch notes just made me laugh, even though I see the bold as a possible slight against the hardcore RPers.  Apparently we are all Survivorman.  Now I can make my first campfire.

Since most of these dents have been pounded out, it's about time to get working on my new spec, gem and enchants for my pair of toons.  Ahh, decisions.  What changes have caught you unawares, if any?  How bad our your servers acting up?  Anyone have a chance to head into Ulduar yet?  Bosses have already been downed, some before the first round of hotfixes.  As Tom Chilton expected, each and every one of Yogg-Saron's maws have been thoroughly beaten.  Nearly all the hardmodes remain undefeated by the best of the best raiding guilds, which means Algalon is still alive and well.  Grats on being the first to clear 10-man Ulduar Ensidia.

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Anyone who attempted to login this morning realized why the servers were being hit with extended maintenance, it's officially patch

day.  I am sure most of your are feeling like the Nintendo 64 kid, as I am, but let's be realistic, I doubt the game will be very playable tonight.  My pessimism is based entirely on previous experiences, specifically that whenever a content patch is released, the day of its release is often a wash for a collection of reasons.  First and foremost, downloading the patch generally takes longer than the maintenance itself, then we must often update all of our add-ons.  And forget about raiding, most of my guildmates - past and present - don't bother to start the download until they get home from work, school or simply wake up.  While we can now pre-download most of the content, the majority of us still don't, which guarantees that we won't be ready for the day's raid.  But hey, I am not here to QQ, I have accepted these issues as necessary evils to new content.

Rather than complain, I figured we could dive into some of the lore for Secrets of Ulduar.  Specifically, the lore presented by the all new trailer.  Before reading on, check out the trailer here.

Welcome back.  How did you enjoy the machinima?  Personally, I thought it was pretty awesome, a far more captivating trailer than the one created for Sunwell Plateau.  In fairness, that may just be because I didn't care too much about the Kil'jaeden storyline.  That may be part of it, but the bulk is simply how inclusive the lore presented by the Secrets of Ulduar trailer is.  In the short clip, we see a collection of some of the most recognizable faces in the Alliance and a pair of big names from the Horde, together.  We watch as Brann Bronzebeard narrowly escapes some sick eye lasers.  With knowledge of Yogg-Saron's escape in hand, Brann rushes off to Dalaran to warn Jaina, Rhonin and Varian before they are interrupted by Thrall and a very agitated Garrosh Hellscream.  Varian and Garrosh quickly go at it, only to be separated by Rhonin.  After a promising speech, Varian and Garrosh leave the summit in rage, destroying any hope of the Alliance and Horde working together to take down a far greater evil, Yogg-Saron.

Aside from "who will face Yogg-Saron," the trailer does raise some other interesting notions.  Is the Alliance or the Horde even going to support our efforts as they did in the Isle of Quel'Danas - through the Scryer and Aldor - or are we on our own?  With Garrosh constantly disobeying Thrall, could he be planning a devious coup?  Will Varian ever get over his struggles as Thrall did, or is he to obsessed with his past - which doesn't differ much from the Warchief's - to let it go?  Perhaps he just needs to see Garrosh perish? Brann seems scared out of his wits, so I hope the Yogg-Saron fight is pretty epic.  At the very least, the trailer should get your pumped up for this new raid!

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The many of you looking forward to the Dual Spec feature coming in Patch v3.1 will be slightly annoyed to hear that the supporting Equipment Manager feature has been cut from the patch.  According to Bornakk - in an odd April Fools RPing thread - the feature has a few "issues" that still need to be banged out before it will meet Blizzard's quality standards.  I haven't played on the PTR enough to know exactly what the issues could be, but it seems that we will be using ItemRack (remember Outfitter has ceased development due to the UI Policy changes) for awhile longer.  Per Blizzard's mantra, it'll be ready soon, which this time means "some time after patch 3.1."  Speaking of patch 3.1, that leviathan of an update will likely be going live in late April. The slashing of material isn't that big of a deal, as the Equipment Manager is still coming, but more of a sign of how huge Ulduar's patch is going to be.  Perhaps more was bitten off than the company could chew.  At the same time, I would much rather Blizzard cut these "lesser" content additions rather than delaying the entire patch.  For the Equipment Manager, we have had several third-party addons to choose from since WoW launched back in 2004.  Granted, the more robust the default UI is, the better.  It is much easier if we can spend the least amount of time, memory and processing power on addons as possible. In the meantime, time to prepare for Ulduar, grind up 1000 spare gold, sharpen those daggers for the Argent Tournament and attempt to down the second Old God.  One more after Yogg-Saron and I can be labeled as an Old God Serial Killer by the FBI.  Sweet, a title to strive for!  What do you multi-speccers use for gear swapping at the moment?  Anyone come across Equipment Manager issues?

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Did you hear that Season 5 of the Arena would be ending soon?  Well, thanks to Ulduar and its new tier set, Blizzard is forced to close up the Arena season that Wrath brought us and begin anew.  The heads-up was announced early last week, but it lacked any concrete information.  If Blizzard is to stick with their usual two weeks notice, then that means Season 5's demise may come with the launch of Ulduar or very shortly after.  Content Patch v3.1 and all of its goodies are expected to drop sometime in early to mid-April. The end of an era brings the beginning of another though.  The original news posting did not specify end of season rewards, but we have them now.  According to WoW Insider via the PTR, the best of the best Arena players will be soaring through the skies on a Frost Wyrm under the terrifying title of a "Gladiator."  I couldn't care less about the title, but I have wanted to plop my Gnome butt on that Frost Wyrm since MMO-Champion posted the screenshot after Wrath's launch.  Sadly, it'll never happen for me.  What about you guys?  Anyone have a shot at what I consider to be the most badass mount in the game?  Sorry Chopper. The flip side of the closing is that Arena Season 6 will begin soon, and Boubouille has the goods on that too.  You will notice in the picture that the Druid set is far from finished, but really, nothing could be worse than their Tier 8 Raid Set.  The rest of the gear looks nice, but I would much rather drape myself in a raid set for almost every class. That being said, I should have expected something bad to happen after raving about the incoming rogue set before it was completed.  Look how ridiculously out of proportion the Gnome Rogue is in his Ulduar set.  His collar is eating the burning shoulderpads...and his head.  Undead design for the win. Just to keep the PvP information flowing, those of you interested in the Arena Tournament that was announced a few weeks back, may want to take a peak at a thread from Aratil and one from Vaneras.  The two blues posted the very early standings for Blizzard's 2009 Arena Tournament, with the Rogue, Mage, Priest combo still holding on to the top standing in the European bracket.  However, Death Knights, who expert players expect to take over the brackets, have definitley done so, with 13 of the 20 top teams rolling DK, Paladin, Hunter/Warlock. Admittedly, I am no PvP expert, so I will allow you pro PvPers to draw your own conclusions.  Excited for the end of season festivities, or are you realizing that all your hard work will still leave you short of a Frost Wyrm?

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The difficulty of World of Warcraft has been a hot topic since Wrath of the Lich King released last November.  The second expansion brought players three raids (four if you include Vault), raids that were conquered in only three days.  Most of us wanted to reserve judgment on the latest expansion until the "normal" players had a crack at the high end content.  I would wager that we can call it now, the raids are indeed incredibly easy.  My evidence?  The fact that completely random PUGs are able to tackle all the raids.  Back in The Burning Crusade I considered Karazhan a challenging PUG, constantly dreading the raid when it wasn't a full guild run. World of Warcraft's upcoming content patch hopes to change the issue of difficulty, if only a little bit.  Ghostcrawler stated on the boards that the encounters in Ulduar - there are fourteen of them - have been designed to be more difficult from the get go.  However, everyone is hung up on the announcement of the upcoming mana regeneration nerf.  If you missed that bit of news, Blizzard will be nerfing base mana regeneration by 40%, forcing users to conserve and use mana regenerating abilities properly.  Paladins will have a different set of buffs due to the way they regen, but the nerfs will effectively match other healers' pain. At first glance, the nerfs seemed to be an artificial way to make the game hardier.  Rather than designing some difficult encounters, Blizzard simply nerfed healers.  On the surface, this would only make WoW more difficult for the nurturers out there.  It is really so much more than that.  Ghostcrawler defended the move, giving a soon to be classic example of why healers needed to be nerfed. The decision came down to the fact that raiders could simply "stand in the fire" and be carried through the damage by healers that wouldn't run out of mana.  This is obviously a bad way to play the game, taking easily avoidable damage just because it can be outhealed .  Blizzard wanted to make this kind of boss burning strategy obsolete in Ulduar, hence the mana nerf.  Off the bat, I expect most raids to use the age old scapegoat of blaming the healers for the raid dieing.  Until players actually learn the encounters, get out of the AoE or avoid any damage that can be nullified by player abilities, Ulduar should be a step up in difficulty.  Which will make PUGing it more challenging. If the raid is managing to play the encounter correctly, but healers run OOM, then Ghostcrawler has two points for those players.  You either don't have the correct gear for Ulduar, or you are playing the encounter incorrectly.  Oh, and by no means is Mr. Street attacking the priestly classes, "if the idiots stand in the fire, guild kick them." So yea, Ulduar should be more difficult, due to design and a retooling of the various healing classes.  All that being said, Ulduar is no Sunwell, "it is not a huge leap up in difficulty from Naxx, but it is a step up."  Before you start complaining that Ulduar is two easy, be sure to have all 11 of hardmodes comepleted.

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Blizzard Entertainment is well known for tapping their addon community for ideas.  They have implemented pieces of CT_RaidAssist, Omen Threat Meter, Deadly Boss Mods, SCT (Scrolling Combat Text), the various mods that allow chat customization and even the third party application of Ventrilo.  If changes to the mob tooltips on the PTR are anything to go by, the latest mod that the User Interface team has borrowed from is QuestHelper.  Quest information, which quest the target mob applies to and how many are needed, will now be displayed on applicable tooltips. The discovery of this change has already sparked off a bit of controversy - as will any change when dealing with such a large community.  Which side of the camp do you fall on?  Do you feel that this addition to the standard UI is dumbing down the game further?  Or, is the modification a common sense, time saving change?  Is your immersion ruined? I'll admit that I use Quest Helper to its fullest potential.  The mod enables me to get the most out of my playtime, which can be limited windows depending on that thing called life.  But I will agree that it is almost cheating, with its pinpoint mob locations and all.  At the same time, I always read the quest text for the story, even if the more important information - mob location hints - becomes redundant. I believe that Blizzard found a perfect middle ground by implementing just one of Quest Helper's many features.  Players still have to do the hard work of finding a mob's location (for the love of god, read the quest text three times before you ask in General chat) before the tweak offers any benefit.  In its current implementation, I can't see how it could be "dumbing down" the game.  Is going to your quest log, jumping to the associated quest and reading the summary at the bottom difficult?  Not by any means.  When the changes go so far as to put a giant X on your map and say "You need to kill the mobs right here!" then the opposing camp can complain their heads off. Till that time, it's just a friendly time saver to me. Other games - notably Warhammer Online and their Tome of Knowledge - actually have Quest Helper-type functionality built into their basic UI.  WAR's implementation was heralded as one of the title's key features.  Heck, people went so far as to consider it innovative!  It seems that just because WoW didn't launch with it, adding it now would sully the "hardcore" memory.  Would it really be that horrible?

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A few weeks ago I dished out some controversial viewpoints on the upcoming Dual Spec.  In no way shape or form was I saying that the ability to easily swap specs wasn't a useful feature.  Hell, I know I could get some use out of it, especially when I decide to PvP again.  The reason for the post was to express my concerns for what the feature could mean for the future of certain classes in raiding, namely Mages, Warlocks, Rogues and Hunters - the non-hybrid classes.   Some agreed, a handful took offense, but everyone formed their own opinion, which we are entitled to. Many other bloggers out there brought up an entirely different point.  Would the additional of Dual Spec change the way that Blizzard designs Talent trees or encounters?  In short, these players were worried that Blizzard may do some funky things in the WoW's future.  Such as having one spec be the PvE spec and another dedicated as the PvP spec.  On the PvE side of things, the designers could envision a fight requiring the use of 10 tanks while every other encounter remains at the two or three mark.  The thinking behind such madness is simple, you can always just respec right after. Thankfully, Ghostcrawler put this one to bed.  In a post on the forums he flat out stated that "we are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist."  Greg Street for President! Blizzard will be ignoring the feature because they do not want to assume that everyone will purchase it.  In fact, they expect that only the more "high level" players will bother dropping the 1000 gold.  Instead of treating the mechanic as something the design team can play with, they are viewing it as yet another quality of life feature.  After all, it only stops players from hearthing back, dropping 50 gold and distributing their talent points after they are summoned back. Blizzard could have used the feature as a way to extend their options for encounter design, but have decided - at least for now - to stick with their current toolbox.  What do you think, should the company keep the extra hammer in there, or did the correct call get made?  Normally I would be all for new encounter mechanics, but I think such a radical shift would upset the majority of the populace.  Before you scream that they are placating the casuals, the decision is also sound from a design standpoint.  You shouldn't design something based on a feature that isn't available by default.

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I didn't have the heart to crop out the skull.

Blizzard Entertainment seems to be on a warpath with Wrath of the Lich King's first content patch.  The developer has promised players an insane amount of content including the addition of the largest instance to date, Ulduar, the Dual Spec mechanic, a built-in Gear Manager, and the Argent Tournament, just to name a few.  Not everything coming in v3.1 has been given the bullet point treatment however. The bloggers on Project Lore have found a few under-the-radar type of additions that we have clung to like a dork to his unopened figures.  Heartbourne gave us the Hearthstone cooldown reduction and Dual Spec price.  The first change was likely made to stop "ghetto hearthing" - the art of abusing an instance for a free hearth.  Juggynaut got hooked on his Legendary mace and the modifications to the Dual Spec feature before hitting us with the removal of the Black and Plagued Proto-Drake meta-achievement rewards.  Myself, well, I covered the Argent Tournament and the patches upcoming gear additions.  Which no one cared about apparently, or just didn't want to spoil themselves. Following in the footsteps of the Hearthstone's nerf and the additional of the Gear Manager, comes another quality of life change to World of Warcraft, the modification to the RaidID system. Blizzard announced their intentions to overhaul the archaic system a few weeks ago, but I don't think anyone, including Blizzard, expected it to be done for Patch 3.1's testing on the PTR. The RaidID system is Blizzard's internal way of tracking which instance a toon should be connected to.  The main problem that arose with the system was the lockout period.  Should a player that has cleared a raid or heroic enter into the instance first, followed by the other members of the party or raid, the unsaved players can get linked to the cleared instance.  This would then blow their lockout period.  Needless to say, this small issue pissed people off. A lot.  Zarhym's promise of "a better interface to warn players" has come to light on the PTR, but not as elegant as he hoped. BigRedKitty's screenshot shows us a dialogue box with a warning on it.  Basically, we have 15 seconds to get out of dodge if the instance is not what we expected, that is it.  The box does not appear to give you any details on the instance itself, so the "better interface" has yet to come to fruition by my standards.  Hopefully further upgrades to the system will be coming in the near future. Many of you probably never experienced this issue, or don't even care about the "fix", but you should.  In my opinion, it is Blizzard's application of these little tweaks that helps make them one of the premiere developers in the industry.  The company should be applauded for their attention to detail and willingness to correct their mistakes, especially when the issue only effects a small amount of the populace under certain circumstances.  Even if Blizzard does it in an iterative fashion when a more drastic change is called for, at least the ball is rolling.  Right?

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I know my good buddy Bastosa already covered WoW-Europe's preview of Ulduar, but I can't contain myself.  Forget about the fact that my toon is a bit further behind his raiding accomplishments, this is new content we are talking about here!  Unlike my controversial post on Dual Spec yesterday (that it is a band-aid feature), I am pretty sure everyone is incredibly excited to learn more about the Titans and Old Gods as we battle through new encounters. Feature list:

• Fourteen boss encounters.  Eleven of these will have a "hard" mode for players who want more of a challenge - and extra, high item level loot.
• The area is split up into two sections, an entryway and then the dungeon.  Via the preview, an army lead by the first boss guards the rest of the dungeon.  The fight will involve vehicular combat, and yes, the vehicles will scale with gear.  The initial skirmish will be one of the eleven encounters with a hard mode.
• Confirmed bosses include Flame Leviathan, Freya, Thorim, Hodir, and The Iron Council.
• Yogg-Saron, the second known living Old God, is alluded to being the final boss.

You may have noticed that there is no mention of Freya, Thorim, Hodir, or The Iron Council in the preview post.  That information came out thanks to a post on the official North American realms detailing the planned testing of v3.1 and the raid.  Blizzard will be changing up their testing from here on out, possibly in an attempt to stop World First Kills from happening shortly after the content goes live.  Patch v3.1 will be tested in chunks (the above bosses being the first batch) that are only available during a strict timeframe.  Adding to that, the North American and European playerbases will be given different content to test at different times.  Furthermore, the territories may not even be allowed to test some content at all. With over a baker's dozen worth of encounters, immense scope and scale, Old God and Titan lore, possibly an Old God itself and stories based on Norse mythology, Ulduar seems like a can't miss.  Here is to hoping that the fights come out as fun and distinct as the first one sounds.  One question did immediately pop into my head after reading the preview, "Why are we fighting against Thorim and Hodir after we have done so much for them?"  Ideas? Also, Voltron reference...awesome!

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Everyone's favorite class designer hit the official forums during maintenance day to inform us that class changes for Patch 3.1 would be announced soon.  For those who don't already know it, Patch v3.1 will be Wrath's first content patch, with the main feature being the addition of an all-new raid known as Ulduar.  Popular speculation has Yogg-Saron - the second known "Old God" - or parts of him as the final boss.  Piggy-backing on the big content patch are numerous other tweaks, such as the classes changes discussed below. Making good on Ghostcrawler's promise, Eyonix threw up Part 1 of the upcoming changes.  However, only Rogues (yahoo), Priests and Shamans currently have a short-list of changes, every other class is "coming soon."  I am no Shaman, nor am I an expert Priest, but it seems pretty obvious that both classes have been buffed overall in the listed changes.  As for what my lovable little gnome thinks about his upcoming changes?  Awesome. PvP, that is the big change for Priests.  The notes specifically state that Shadow PvPers will see increased survivability thanks to a buff to Shadow Form which reduces magic damage along with physical damage.  Although no specific modifications were detailed, Eyonix notes that the developers are looking into making Holy have "additional PvP utility."  All the Discipline Priests shouldn't feel left out though, they get an entirely new ability, Power Word: Barrier, which is essentially a PW:S for their group.  Blizzard even through in some love for the whole class, adding Divine Spirit as a core ability. Shamans of the Elemental and Enhancement varieties also scored some additional, although undefined, PvP utility.  Following that, Dalaran's lag should be slightly lower come v3.1 thanks to the streamlining of Totems.  Mana Spring / Healing Stream Totems and Disease Cleansing / Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined. They are now two totems rather than four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom.  The nature-friendly class has received one modification that might be viewed as a nerf, Chain Lightning will jump to four targets, but do less damage.  The less damage could mean for the fourth jump or that the overall DPS output by CL will be lowered The number one change I was looking forward to for Rogues was how Blizzard planned to tackle the annoyance of keeping Hunger for Blood active.  For the none rogues out there, the spell had to be spammed three times, wasting two extra global cooldowns and 60 energy, to max it out.  Then it had to be refreshed every 30 seconds to keep it up.  While refreshing didn't break stealth - you could refresh while creeping to the next mob - it was incredibly annoying to worry about an ability with such a short duration that was so desperately needed.  The new HfB is a self-buff that can only be used when a bleed effect (anyone's bleed) is active.  While the need for a bleed is indeed a nerf, the 6% damage increase - from 9% with three stacks to 15% with no need for stacking - should help soothe that irritated skin. Like the other classes, rogues have also seen a selection of buffs beyond the HfB change.  Added haste, lower cooldowns and additional damage to various talents and abilities should make every rogue happy.  However, we do not know the exact amount these favorable changes will impact us, due to the numbers on a few of tweaks not being unveiled. The rest of the classes will be revealed in the upcoming parts of Eyonix's post.  Please hold off on the complaints until you see your own buffs.  Remember, these notes are not comprehensive and therefore do not list all the changes.  On the flip side, they can also be thrown out the window at a moment's notice. All of the changes do seem to be buffs, so perhaps Blizzard is saving all the nerfs for one giant post to get all the QQ out at once...Sly devils. In other news, numerous bugs have been found in WoW recently, but the developers are already hard at work on hotfixes. Update: Eyonix has posted more class changes.  Warriors, Warlocks and Druids should check out the post covering Part 2 of the changes.

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