Project Lore

Earlier we took a look at some the gear design philosophy of Blizzard and saw some armor that was introduced in 3.0 and that will be added in 3.1. We looked at the "Lost Vanquishers" (sans Druid): Rogue, Death Knight, and Mage. Today we are going to check out what the "Lost Protectors" have: Hunter, Shaman, and Warrior. Thanks to MMO-Champion for the screenshots of Ulduar gear and Season 6. More consistent and high resolution imagery will be added once patch 3.1 hits the live realms. Scroll down to see the sets and click the images for larger views. The first three Gladiator's sets of Wrath seem to be just recolorings, but they do seem to be getting more fancy with season 6's Furious Gladiator's sets. Of these three classes, I think hunters have the best looking PvP gear. The green scales on the Furious Gladiator's set look pretty cool. Shaman's shoulders in PvE have always been cool. Some people despised the dungeon set 1 shaman shoulders, but I loved them. When Blizzard had finally added skins in for the end game items so that they looked cooler than twill, it became a great symbol of progress for me. Now, the shaman shoulders are just ridiculously cool. The glowing orbs and meteorites chained to the armor are far more epic than any other shoulders. Hunter and warrior armor is honestly boring to me. It doesn't have as much flair as it should. What do you guys think? Are shaman's shoulders over the top or just epic and which class looks best? Hunter PvP PvE Shaman PvP PvE Warrior PvP PvE

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There's a new Ulduar preview video, and unlike last time, it's straight from Blizzard. I've embedded it here in HD, but you can also download it in various formats and watch it on Blizzard's site, if you want. Now, this trailer may include some spoilers for those of you who are averse to finding out anything about  Ulduar, but I couldn't help but watch it through a few times. From what the preview shows, the new raid being added in Patch 3.1 looks to be much more diverse than what I had originally thought it might look like. The few mobs that are shown look spectacular, as do many of the rooms that look to be where boss fights will take place. There's a small hint about the controversial vehicular combat included, but still not a ton of details about what will be encountered. What are your thoughts? Are you avoiding all hints of what's inside or can you not get enough info?

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For those of you that haven’t seen it yet, Blizzard has posted a very nice description and screenshots of the new Ulduar raid on their EU web site. For the last while I have been rather impatiently waiting for this raid, viewing it more as something necessary to keep my interest, rather than something to look forward to. Well, after reading what Blizzard posted I must say I have changed my tune. I am excited! This raid sounds freaking awesome. The thing I grabbed onto right away was the size of the content. I have been telling people for a while that I hoped Ulduar would be a substantial raid. Well it sounds like I got my wish. The post says there will be 14 bosses. This makes it larger than all of Tier 5 in Burning Crusade which had 10 bosses (6 in SSC and 4 in TK). Furthermore it claims that 11 of those fights will have hard modes (think Obsidian Sanctum with drakes up). This should provide tons of new challenges, achievements, and most importantly replayability. If I am going to be grinding this instance night after night I’m glad to hear we will be able to change it up and keep it interesting. The post also mentions an interesting "preinstance" that players must fight through in order to reach the instance proper. It sounds as if this will involve the raid taking out an army on vehicles before a final showdown with a boss that must be taken down on the vehicles as well. While I have never been a big fan of the “vehicle fights” I am going to keep my mind open on this one. While not a big fan of phase 3 Malygos and the Oculus, I love Wintergrasp and this seems to be going more in that direction. I couldn’t be happier that Blizzard has throw this carrot out there. I will be feverishly checking out the Blizzard site, forums, and news sites looking for more details. But for right now, I feel this one will be worth the wait. Be sure to read the preview for yourself here, and tell me, are you as geeked as I am about this one?

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Edit: Looks like Blizzard didn't want this video out there. If you didn't manage to catch the video, you'll just have to wait until Ulduar is public! Earlier this week we saw MMO-Champion's preview of Tier 8 Gear. Now, via the wonders of private servers and YouTube, we are given a glimpse of what Ulduar may look like on the inside. Sure, many people have checked out the Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning which are all a part of the same overall instance group, but the Ulduar raid is still somewhat of a mystery. None of the bosses are present in this ten minute run through but we're able to see how huge the instance is on the inside, which is one of the things I was worried about. I can't wait to experience this for reals.

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