Project Lore

There I was, running around killing Putrid Abominations to collect their oozing, purple guts and searching through Zul'Drak's Reliquary of Agony to find gooey ghoul drools, when it dawned on me. It's not enough that we've massacred villages, stuck banners through our enemies' carcasses as a warning to others, and brought back the heads of their warlords in exchange for a new, shiny trinket. No, all that's not enough. The oftentimes vile, repugnant World of Warcraft sends us hardened war heroes to do the tasks that no others dare do. And so I had been roped in to performing this raunchy You can run, but you can't hide quest, getting puked on along the way by the always-nasty Abominations. And yet, perhaps I should have been thankful. I mean, I could have been the one vomiting.  Like I was back in Outland, when Borak, son of Oronok (curse the name!) asked me to collect a Rotton Arakkoa Egg. What he failed to mention is that I'd have to search through dozens of eggs to find a good one. And all those that weren't perfect cast a disease that not only brought down my health, but also had me projectile vomiting. Of course, upon turning in that quest, everyone else started puking, too. Lovely. Perhaps a slight step up from that are all the damn poop quests that people seem to love sending us on. I've searched through the excrement of felhounds, bats in the depths of Razorfen Kraul, cliff giants and Nagrand wildlife. And from that last one, I later had to eat Nagrand Cherries created from the poo I searched through. All in the name of defeating Lake Spirits. The poop quests are so frequent that I recall a WoW Forums thread a while back that suggested there be an achievement for completing them all. One poster suggested it could be called, "I hope you washed your hands." Not a bad idea. So what would you peg for some of the nastier quests in WoW? I know there are plenty of other gross  substances we've been asked to brave other than vomit and poop - which made your skin crawl?

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Lilyterrain's final adventures in Azeroth went out with a whimper, or perhaps a fart.  Barely hours into her career as a hunter, sans pet taming abilities, and the character was left for dead, never to be seen again.  I chalked up the loss of a subscriber to Blizzard's inability to grab Lesley with a compelling story in the early going.  Sure there were quests for her to tackle, but few of them were more than a collection or kill quest, let alone interesting enough to grasp her brain stem and demand its undivided attention. Due to the very nature of the early levels, how fast you get out of them, it makes sense that Blizzard didn't spend an obscene amount of time creating memorable stories.  Why invest money into something that players will complete in a few hours?  To leave a good impression on new characters of course!  Leave it to a commentator to prove myself, and various other readers, wrong, at least partially.  {swc}Ebek.Frostblade (known in the future as Ebek) was the first to point out that there is a sense of cohesion in the opening territories of the game. Paraphrasing from the comment:

• Humans:  Initially the race is worried about a Kobold threat, only to realize that VanCleef and the Defias Brotherhood, a disenfranchised group of blue-collar workers that rebuilt Stormwind, are far more troublesome.  Arguably the earliest, least subtle and best starting chain in the game.  WoW.com & WoWWiki have fantastic wrap-ups of the whole ordeal, one that stretched into vanilla WoW's endgame.
• Dwarves:  Players will continue the civil war with the Dark Iron clan while battling pockets of Trolls in their lands.
• Gnomes:  No longer secretly battling the Troggs that managed to take over Gnomeregan.  Even though the race is playable there is not much known about Gnomish culture outside their affinity for invention.  Chalk it up to the destruction of their capital city, which caused the pint-sized race to be scattered across the lands.  Starting alongside the Dwarves, you'll likely encounter a mess of trolls and dark iron mobs.
• Night Elves:  Young Night Elves battle with demons attempting to taint nature, an aspect the Night Elves hold dear.  Sound familiar?
• Draenei:  The spacegoats attempt to make contact with the rest of the Alliance while they recover their own people from the crash and clean-up the ecosystem that their ship, Exodar, tainted with foreign energies.  The story actually makes the MMO staple kill and gather quests quite logical.
• Orcs:  Orcs continue to fight for survival in Azeroth, which to many of the clans means defeating the Shadow Council that have tainted and controlled the noble creatures.
• Trolls:  The most diverse, and least played, race remains close to the Orcs who rescued them.  Thus, you pretty much go through the same things as the green skins.
• Tauren:  The Horde's nature lovers will tackle the wild bristlebacks before moving on to two factions they believe are defiling the world, the Venture Company and Bael'Dun.  Tauren players enjoy the most impressive early experiences for the Horde thanks to quest pacing, introduction to reoccurring factions and the art design of the opening lands.
• Undead:  In a twisted variation of the Draenei's starting quest (although this obviously came first), the Undead are also trying to find their place in the world.  Severely isolated from their un-trusting allies of the Horde, the Undead are left alone to fight pockets of the Alliance sooner than any other race.  As if that weren't bad enough, members of The Forsaken remain in constant struggle against their former master, the Lich King, and his Scourge.
• Blood Elves:  Although destroyed by Arthas during his initial campaign across Azeroth, the area around Silvermoon City is strikingly gorgeous.  The rapid rebuilding of the once decimated land is thanks to the race's heavy use of magic.   However, players will quickly come across numerous abominations of the magical kind in the fabled woods.

Ebek does have a point.  There is a semblance of a story in each of these zones, but most of them are entirely unremarkable and that is the issue.  Generally speaking, the content is little more than fleeting connections to land that surrounds your "birth."  Aside from the human struggles with Van Cleef, a questline that eventually leads you to Onyxia, not a single opening story will follow you past level 10.  The homogeneous experiences also offer little incentive to start alts outside of class boredom or to fill a role in a guild. Why is it that the humans alone are guided into such an awesome questline?  The rest of us struggle with monotonous grinding, while they are off saving diplomats and putting down rebellion.  Heck, for the most part the connections between the early racial quests are far to subtle to reconize while you are doing them!  We are hit with so much information up front, especially new players, that subtlety isn't the best route. The next time Blizzard adds a playable race (Pandaren please) I want to see two changes.  Mostly, I want the player to be handed a lengthy quest chain that will follow him throughout the game till the late levels.  Rather than forcing players to bounce all over creation, phase the chain so it can be completed in numerous towns.  Roaming NPCs anyone?  As for the chain's direction, it should be used to show the history of the applicable race at the get go, before moving in the direction of the current main conflict (ie Arthas for Wrath).  Second, the opening racial cinematic should set the stage for the quest clearly.  If Blizzard had grabbed Ms. iTZKooPA's attention with the opening machinima, shown her race's importance to her from the start and strung her along with interesting plot points as she became accustomed to the game, I think she'd still be playing instead of labeling MMORPGs as a chore.

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Up until recently, most of my questing was done in pairs. My rogue teamed up with my husband's warrior for a while as we leveled together. And when he out-leveled me, I started questing with his DK. Either way, I essentially had a tank as we took on quests and easily progressed through the game. But over the past few weeks as I ventured through Dragonblight and now in Zul'Drak, Locomomo has gone solo. So now I've got no tank. Combine to that the fact that many areas within this zone have a high concentration of mobs that like to attack you in twos and threes, and I was in a heap of trouble. But it's been a good learning experience; I've adapted my play style a bit, and that alone has been a fun challenge. Being a rogue, I've been able to escape the multiple mobs with Vanish, and when that's on cooldown, a combination of Sprint and Evasion paired with some strategic weaving through mobs so I don't draw more fire. When I have multiple mobs I can handle, Adrenaline Rush and Blade Fury work nicely together. But there's still the problem of the sheer amount of damage I've been taking. I'm running low on Frostweave needed to make bandages, and also need to restock on foods - both for the buffs they give and for their healing properties. What's been saving me there is the Medallion of Heroism trinket I picked up as a quest reward from the Battle for the Undercity. I love the critical strike bonus, but more importantly at this point is the healing capacity. I've been hitting that trinket as soon as it goes off cooldown. As I said, it's been a fun challenge and really reminds me of some of the awesome rogue abilities that I wasn't using as much when leveling in pairs, simply because I didn't need to. As for the healing issue - I look at this as a good reason to go for that Stocking Up achievement! So have any of you found a reason to alter your play styles recently? Do you prefer soloing or questing in pairs? More importantly, anyone have some Frostweave to spare? :)

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Some people like to equate details with polish.  Either way you take it, as a synonym or as an aspect of polish, the inclusion of them makes video games better.  Blizzard has a long-standing reputation for going above and beyond in the company's titles, which is why they are still played years, hell, possibly decades after their initial release.  During my initial run through Wrath of the Lich King's quests I mainly focused on the designs and stories implemented as I grinded to level 80.  Now that I am there, or on my second run through with the priest, I can focus more on the small details instead of worrying about my XP per hour.  Yes, I take the game that far. I've written almost a week's worth of articles on the Argent Tournament.  They have spanned the gauntlet of guides to love and boredom.  I've spent thirty minutes to an hour a day in Icecrown killing scourge, Chillmaw and riding horsies all in the name of the Argent Crusade and the five other factions.  Three days, I've only missed three days of dailies.  Yet, I somehow never realized that the damned Cultists actually ride on Chillmaw's back and head.  I always thought that he summoned them during the fight.  Definitely a detail that I just flat out missed. That was my own stupidity though.  One particular that recently caught my attention on Solidsagart was the Murloc costume.  Any interaction with murlocs is a welcome one, and the chance to pose as one was something that I couldn't pass up.  After donning the spare suit I took off towards the cavern to complete my mission of deceit and death.  Secretly, I have always hoped that the murloc race was bidding its time before the scaled, two-legged race took over Azeroth.  I realized during the quest that either they aren't intelligent at all, or their senses haven't adapted for above water scenarios.  Just look at how awful the suit is.  The stiching is obvious, it waggles around my body in an awkward fashion and my seeing sphere is falling out of its socket!  How the hell did they let me get to Claximus without being harassed? There are hundreds of these small gems spread throughout the game, so let's share as much of them with each other as possible.  As noted, even "obvious" things may not be so apparent to other players who A) aren't very observant, B) too busy with their stabbing, C) pressed for time, or D) too busy leveling.  What say you PL fans?  What is your favorite small detail from Wrath, or all time?

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In the past few weeks here at Project Lore, we've had the pleasure of watching the crew battle their way through Naxxramas, until finally reaching the powerful "Kel' Thud." And while they've been busy up in the necropolis in the sky, I've also been busy leveling down below in Dragonblight. This zone has got to be one of my favorites in the game. The fantasy elements of WoW are a big draw for me, so a zone dedicated to the lore around dragons sucked me in. The valley wasteland known as the Great Dragonblight is a somewhat mysterious land littered with the corpses of all different kinds of dragons who have come for their final rest. But the Lich King and his Scourge legions have found use in the remaining skeletons, many which have been reanimated into undead frost wyrms such as the tragic Sindragosa and the very Sapphiron who now resides within Naxx. As for quests, the Dragonblight's offerings range from level 72 to 75 in the long grind to level 80, with a good few group quests, some giant elites to battle in the north and also several dailies. Both factions can pick up some sizable XP rewards (especially if you take advantage of rested XP when killing mobs) through questlines messing with the Scarlet Onslaught. Yes, the same baddies formerly in the Scarlet Crusade now have moved into Dragonblight in hopes of destroying the Lich King - and anyone else who stands in their way. I'm still trying to find a PUG to finish up Do Unto Others and the end of the Horde line. Another good line with some fun dragon lore lies in the Ruby Dragonshrine. And again both factions can partake, which is a plus in my book. But for me, the real fun came with visiting the holy Wyrmrest Temple, riding a dragon to the top and taking on missions from Alexstrasza, the queen of the dragons and guardian of all life on Azeroth. Plus, her character model looks really damn cool. She and Lord Afrasastrasz are involved with Horde, Alliance and neutral quests alike. And if you just can't get enough of her majesty, there's always the Defending Wyrmrest Temple daily that opens up after completing the Rifle the Bodies questline. You'll get to shoot down dragons while earning a little money, some xp and a bit of rep with the Wyrmrest Accord all at once. And as an added bonus, if you can manage to complete the quest in under two minutes, you'll earn the Rapid Defense achievement. That's my kind of quest. There's actually a ton more about Dragonblight that has really made me love this zone. I just have a couple more group quests to finish up before dinging 74 and moving on, probably to the dreaded Zul'Drak zone. I'm going to miss it. Has anyone else felt a kind of attachment to Dragonblight? How about any other zones? I'll admit it, I also still get nostalgic thinking about the many, many hours I've spent leveling in the Barrens.

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If you look back at my blogs since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King and compare them to my collection of thoughts from the The Burning Crusade days, you may notice a trend.  During Illidan's and later Kael'thas' respected reigns my posts were more often focused on news and game updates, rather than discussions and dissections about our favorite MMORPG.  The reason for this is quite simple really, I wasn't participating in World of Warcraft as much then as I am now.  For the longest time I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason for is.  It had nothing to do with why I quit WoW in the first place, and I still followed the lore almost as closely as I do now, yet, I was hardly ever pulled into the game. It took me a few months of play, up and downs and a new guild, but I had an epiphany while biking around Philadelphia the other night.  The reason I am more drawn to WoW now is that I don't feel left behind.  Thanks to the new expansion Solidsamm was put on a level playing field with every buddy else.  No longer was I three tiers of gear behind, thousands of rep in the hole or penniless because I hadn't been doing dailies for over a year.  Solidsamm was on equal footing, grinding his way to level 80 with the majority of players and entering the same raids that many other toons ran on a weekly basis.  Sure, he still hasn't seen Ulduar yet, but it's only been available for a few weeks. The irony here is that this ability to catch up was one of the reason I was annoyed with the first expansion.  TBC's opening quest rewards were good enough to replace some of the AQ40/Naxxramas gear that players - including myself - had spent months collecting.  As a hardcore raider I felt that all the time I had put into the game would be tarnished since a player with less than a third of my playtime could now be as geared as I.  How naive I was. It was odd being on the exact opposite end of the spectrum for the second expansion, but it made me realize that the changes are necessary if the game is to grow at all.  That being said, I would argue that the replacement rate of The Burning Crusade's gear wasn't nearly as drastic as vanilla WoW, which was a very smart move by Blizzard. Now that we are almost 6 months from Wrath of the Lich King's release, how is it treating you?  Are you enjoying it more than The Burning Crusade or is it pretty much the same to you?  Personally I think the questing is far better than TBC, but itemization at the high end (normal vs. heroic vs. hard mode loot) seems to be a bit screwed up.  What is your take?

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Image via York Blog

I'm a creature of habits in the morning.  I have a well defined morning routine consisting of a PvA (Person versus Alarm) battle that I always lose, a shower, getting dressed and breakfast.  In all fairness the alarm does get its opener in every morning.  Like many of you, I manage to fit World of Warcraft into the slice of time before noon.  It's not always productive, sometimes I just have time to check the AH - go go gadget Auctioneer! - other times I manage to steamroll a handful of dailes before the workday beckons. You can imagine how flustered I get on maintenance days.  I mean how dare Blizzard mess up my morning routine.  I have half a mind to run into Blizzard's office and slap coffee cups out of each and everyone on of their hands until I am satisfied.  I digress though.  To avoid this week's frustration, I arranged my PvA skirmish about an hour earlier, allowing me to get some play time in before the servers had to turn their head to the left and cough.  Yesterday was one of those productive days. I logged in only 14 minutes before the server was set to go down.  Once that first strip of yellow popped up, I knew it was on.  I snagged the Champion quests for Stormwind - only 2 factions to go! - and mounted up for the day's Valiant challenge.  I quickly moved to the main tent, picked up the four Champion dailies and returned to my Exodarian mount for some more challenging jousts.  With under five minutes remaining I flew out to Sindragosa's Fall to lay waste to some Scourge.  As I went in for my first kill Blizzard's script politely notified me that I had 3:30 remaining.  Fifteen kills in 3:30 for a rogue who wants to loot and pickpocket applicable mobs.  "It'll be close," I thought as the first baby frost wyrm struggled to fly away before collapsing.  I tore through the mobs, dropping them faster than Manny Pacquiao. With 10 seconds remaining on the clock I dropped the last mob, went down on one knee to collect my rewards, and was logged off. I missed that last batch of loot.   With my luck it was a guaranteed epic item, but I am happy with what I accomplished in that short time frame.  In 15 minutes - add a minute to return and hand in the quests - Solidsamm completed four quests, earned himself circa 75 gold, scored a few Writ's, some Seals, and a round of reputation.  Not bad for the morning routine.  If the 2004 Solidsam (originally had one s) heard about 300 gold an hour he'd explode. Does WoW play a part in your morning?  Just the general AH/mail stuff or do you take it a bit further?

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Mythology, folk lore, legends, all words to describe ancient stories.  These tall tales were created to explain the unexplainable, scare children, hail fallen heroes and even to just entertain.  Every civilization has them, from perhaps the best known - of the Western world - stories of Ancient Greece to the Samurai, onto the homegrown tales of Native Americans.  And to me, every single myth is captivating, no matter how similar they may be.

While much of the Warcraft lore is based on more recent, or original, stories, Wrath of the Lich King added an entire race dedicated to a civilization that has been plundered by the video game industry, Norse mythology.  Final Fantasy, Tales of Symphonia, Odin Sphere, Too Human, Viking: Battle for Asgard, and even earlier parts of WoW (World Tree as well) have lifted from stories of the long dead viking culture.  Players can see the Norse influence on WoW all over Northrend, from Howling Fjord, The Storm Peaks and the final zone of Icecrown.  No matter what soil you step on, there is a good chance that the Vrykul, or their Undead version, the Val'kyr, have made it their home. If you want more than mobs based on oversized vikings, then the Sons of Hodir/Thorim quest line is for you.  Without spoiling the experience, allow me to whet your appetite a bit.  The quest line is one of the longest currently in WoW and contains some of the best lore, that has its own twists on the ancient story.  For better or for worse, the lengthy chain is not required for anything too substantial, unlike the exhausting Onyxia chain, meaning many players may have dropped the line, or skipped over it entirely.  Not all of the 40+ quests are worth the time, but the culmination of the events your toon has taken part in are something that should not be missed.  Plus, it gives you a reason to tackle Halls of Lightning, other than helping out a guild mate. I am no Norse expert, but there are many obvious references to their deep tales.  Here is the basic, spoiler free, tip of the iceberg information for the adventure:

• Dun Niffelem - Niflheim is one of two places that existed before the known world.  It is intensely cold and likely the basis for Dun Niffelem's name.
• Thorim - Thorim, the protagonist of our long quest line, is based upon the God of Lightning, Thor.  Lending credence to these claims is that the name of Thorim's wife, Sif, is the same name as Thor's beloved.
• Loken - Loken is based on the tricky bastard known as Loki, and in this telling, happens to be Thorim's brother.  Constantly up to shenanigans in Norse mythology, Loken follows his basis well, upsetting Thorim so much as to send him into a deep depression.  His acts are the start of our quest.

Believe it or not, this is actually the third time I have touched upon this quest line.  I revisited it for my favorite area in all of Northrend, an area that was created by Thorim's butterfingers.  There is plenty more to the quest than what we touched on here, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't tackled the full line.  Anybody who hasn't finished the line should avoid visiting the comments section until they do so - but feel free to leave a comment if you have the willpower to skip reading everyone else's thoughts.  If you enjoy lore in general, then this is one quest chain you should not miss.  It has everything, love, betrayal, deceit and epic battles.  It makes me want to dig up some more books, anyone know a good Norse mythology collection?  Preferably one that isn't incredibly difficult to grasp.  I recently read the Divine Comedy, so I need a break for the difficult stuff!

Probably worth noting that Thorim is actually a Titan, while Loken is a Dark Titan serving the Old God Yogg-Saron.  Not exactly a spoiler, more of a setup for Ulduar.

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Maybe they’re just bitter about being killed by the plague. Or they could still be holding a grudge against the Lich King and his Scourge legions. Perhaps they just love torturing people with their creepy, oozing concoctions. Whatever it is, apothecaries and all the messed up lore surrounding them gives me the chills. Now, I’ll cheer on my Horde comrades any day, but these witch doctor guys only seem to remain allegiant out of convenience. Within the first few levels of rolling a Horde character, toons are tasked with completing numerous quests for these macabre NPCs. As a Forsaken starting out in the eerie green haze of Tirisfal Glades, you’ll be asked to turn a captured mountaineer into a ghoul, cause the flesh to rot off a Scarlet Zealot, and, of course, contribute to the spread of a new plague. How’s that for payback to those nasty humans who condemned you to undead life? And that’s all just in the starting area. At least if you roll undead, you have some good motivation for causing all this mayhem – revenge. What about the rest of us unsuspecting Horde toons? Many of us aren’t even aware of the Dark Lady’s ulterior motives to wipe out all civilization. But when members of the Royal Apothecary Society are offering sweet gear in exchange for our deeds, it’s not hard to lure us into poisoning the occasional captured human. Or two. Even when the reward is quite satisfying, I can’t help but feel tainted. So it’s not hard to see why I wasn’t sad to leave my old home of the Undercity and put some distance between my rogue blood elf, Locomomo, and Master Apothecary Faranell’s dungeon of bubbling vials and experiments gone awry. I dinged level 58 and got the hell out of there. But lo and behold, the Forsaken have brought their grudges with them to Outland, and then again to Northrend. Where will the madness end? These Royal Apothecary dingbats still weird me out. But I guess it’s the greedy, sneaky rogue in me that just can’t help but complete even the darkest of quests in exchange for upgraded gear. I’m in Howling Fjord, and working toward earning a nice Featherweight Claymore simply by contributing to a new plague specifically targeting the giant vrykuls.  I’m also helping Plaguebringer Tillinghast create a new and more sinister plague that will infect humanoids and creatures alike. I can’t wait to see how that one turns out. At least “Hacksaw” Jenny seems to understand. All this plague business has ruined her prospects for finding bones suitable for her own questionable uses. So she’s asked me to go collect some from reanimated skeletons on Shield Hill, and is paying me handsomely for it. This is the last time I'll work with these hooligans. Honest.

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It certainly didn't take me long before I found some noteworthy quests in Storm Peaks. I went about doing the first round of SP quests after heading into K3 to initiate my Sons of Hodir questline. At first I was just trying to get a feel for the land with the opening quests, but as it turned out, one of them is the first tasks for the Sons. Only 24 more quests to go...before I am neutral.

If there is one thing the Goblin race is known for it is their love of technology. Often the more dangerous the technological “advances” the better. With that I strolled, no, actually, I flew over a minefield without realizing it before being blasted out of the sky by a pair of AA guns. I then turned into a gnomish pinball as I was blasted from land mine to land mine before finally landing in a relative safe zone. I guess stacking that stamina a few levels ago was a smart move. Once landed, Disarm Trap made the quest trivial for me.

As I watched myself being launched from location to explosive location I couldn't help but laugh at Solidsamm's misfortune. He didn't get the worst of it though, turns out Jeer Sparksocket left his buddy in the middle of the field with no intentions of saving him! Perhaps he should go for the aptly named Mine Sweeper achievement.

That one was all fun and games, then next quest I participated in had me a little emo. If you haven't figured it out by now I am an animal lover. I have four fluffy ferrets, nearly a dozen finned friends, a pinchy crayfish, a trove of snails and a girlfriend (until she reads that). So when I was tasked with collecting some animal meat from the local mammoths by way of explosion, I balked.

I know it's just a game, but I have a soft spot for the wooly beasts for some reason. The catch is that like any self-respecting action junkie I love explosions. My soft spot for things that go boom lead me to toss a U.D.E.D. (ideas on the acronym?) at the first modified elephant I saw.  I regretted it as soon as the animation started. With that I quietly picked up the pieces – already did the damage might as well make his death worth something! - and logged off for the evening. With a tear in my eye.

Despite my tyrantical treatment of the mammoth, I would argue that it is more humane than previous methods. Mr. Mammoth had a quick demise by way of goblin engineering.  Had I done it my way he would have suffered multiple stables wounds from my rusty daggers, not to mention a belly full of poison during a 10-20 second struggle for his life. To top it off, he would have only dropped one piece of meet, forcing me to hunt down his family members! How is that for a justification D.E.H.T.A?

How many of you fancy the wildlife of Azeroth enough to say no to these types of quests? I am sure many of you have picked up the achievement, but I bet it was just for the points. Or do you have more of a soft spot for the evil humanoid types?

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