Project Lore

Sap-mining Is Also Pretty Fun...For Me World of Warcraft does get boring sometimes.  There I said it, are you happy now?  Azeroth can't keep my attention all day, everyday, but that doesn't always means I simply logout and do something else.  No, heavens no.  That wouldn't fly while I was in the middle of a raid, although people do it.  It wouldn't fly before I got my dailies done either.  In these rare instances I find other ways to distract myself while remaining in Azeroth, or, at the very least, still being connected to the make-believe continents in some capacity.  Say YouTube videos or WoWHead "research." Over the years I have come up with a few fun things to do with my rogue.  Mainly, ways to abuse my generic abilities.  My favorite past time is causing people to pull mobs by distracting the mob towards them.  It's not that easy to accomplish, but worth it for the hilarity and "WTF" moment that the player is sure to experience.  An added bonus, you can do it to either faction.  Then there's the always classic jacking of a mining node via a Sap, /fart and a right-click.  This dirty tactic has only become better since mining became a single strike instead of repeated looting.  No longer will you catch a beating before you can take off on your mount.  Beware of PvP trinkets though! This may be a little more than a dirty trick since it can easily cause a full wipe, complete with hefty repair bills.  But Wrath brought rogues an aptly named ability, Tricks of the Trade, and I'll be damned if I am not going to use it for laughs now and then.  Normally my rogue buddies and I trade these during encounters for the 15% damage buff, vanishing to keep aggro down of course.  On the off chance that I want to be a donkey I will put ToT on an unsuspecting player and listen to him go batty on Ventrilo.  "How the hell did my aggro spike like that?  I never pull!"  On the flip side, you can do it to hunters and priests to see how fast they can react with Feign Death and Fade.  And they say there is no twitch gaming in WoW. Other classes have their own entertaining means of harassing players.  I am sure all of you have seen mages put out a metric ton of portals at once, causing you to accidentally click on the wrong one.   Or waste precious minutes avoiding the the dozen Theramore portals in an attempt to find the single Dalaran mirage.  My personal favorite mage tactic is to play the warlock and ask for help with a summon.  The players who are barely paying attention, which is many at this juncture of a raid, will click on the portal and be sent to the far reaches of Azeroth rather than summoning their buddy.  "I wanted to goto Shattrath anyways." A single beer from Brewfest brought the best practical joke I have ever seen in Azeroth.  The prankster in the video pops a frosty beverage during a Sapphiron encounter.  Simple, drunk fun right?  Well, thanks to the brew's Ice Block-type debuff, the raid thought it was safe to remain behind him for the beast's Ice Bolt.  A full wipe was the effect, another cause of too much beer. This is only a small taste of the dastardly deeds we can do to each other inside World of Warcraft.  What are your favorite tricks and jokes to play on other players?  Perhaps someone can top the Sapphiron wipe and earn +2 nerd points.

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Project Lore enter the Frostwyrm Lair and discover Sapphiron. The former blue dragon has a few chilling surprises for Project Lore. How will they do? Find out in this episode of Project Lore.

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Wings.  What did you think I was getting at?

Malygos, being a Dragon Aspect, is a fight that I would expect to be quite epic.  Not only in its general gameplay design, but its overall presentation.  After running it for the first time last night, I can say that it largely lived up to my expectations.  As soon as you zone into the Eye of Eternity the Lord of Magic begins taunting, teasing and harassing you for being one of the lesser beings.  He also alludes to interference from the other flights, namely Alexstraza and her red brood , which comes into play later.  My big knock against the presentation is his voice.  The dialogue and taunts he tosses at us are well-written, but the vocals just aren't epic enough for me.  They do not command my respect or grab my attention as other dragons have.  In short, Malygos' voice makes me picture a nerd puffing out his chest in a vain attempt to look larger and more confident than he really is. Visually, we are placed on what may be the least laggy battlefield in all of Azeroth, a platform with four pillars that looks out at the vastness of space and a collection of celestial bodies.  Why Malygos would chose to live surrounded by heavenly objects I do not know - seems more like a Nozdormu thing to me - but it looks freaking awesome.  Though, I do love space, so I could be slightly biased in this department.  Blizzard selected the final frontier to enable their designers to go nuts with spell effects and abilities during Malygos' three phases.  And go nuts they did. The humble casual guild I am a part of did not manage to get the Steward of Magic to drop any riches, but we did experience all three of his phases.  The first phase is a glorified tank-n-spank battle with a small twist.  Should one of the summoned sparks get to Malygos, they will grant him a debuff that is almost guaranteed to wipe the raid due to 50% more damage on the tank.  The object is to pop the sparks where the DPS can sit in its debuff pool to receive their own damage increasing debuff.  Like Onyxia, Malygos doesn't just let you smash his face ass during this phase.  Every so often he will rise up and flap his wings, causing a huge tornado which turns all players into a flying cow, albeit one that takes a hefty amount of DoT damage.  The effect is awesome, pushing your camera way out so you can grasp the full size of the twister created by Malygos' wrath. Once the raid burns the blue down to 50% he will lift off, sending a collection of adds on floating discs to destroy you.  During this phase Malygos is untargetable, although he continues to rain destruction upon you.  The floating guys, and the vehicular combat they bring to the table are nice, but the combination of the anti-magic shells and the leviathan's (take that Knaak) Deep Breath collide for some awesome spell effects.  Phase 2 is the coolest phase, but it ends quickly, thanks to the squishiness of the adds.  Upon killing the final add, the floor gives way and the raid falls into the abyss.  As alluded, each player is rescued by a minion of Alexstraza for a last bout of rather boring vehicular combat. As far as raid encounters go, I very much enjoy the overall design and presentation of the Eye of Eternity.  Although his character isn't given the epic treatment that I think he deserves, the encounter is well crafted and fine tuned overall.  At the same time, the fight doesn't feel gimmicky or leave a class or role out of the equation.  To me, the sign of good encounter design is when the success of the encounter hinges on the collective skill of the raid, not an overpowered member or two. Initially, we are hit with something akin to all the previous dragon battles, then we see Malygos' full magical wrath before being tossed into more mundane vehicular combat.  Our night of attempts failed because of poor spark pool placement, 26% was our best attempt thanks to the enrage timer.  I'll be happy to participate in this fun encounter again, even though there is no loot in it for Solidsamm. With Malygos attempted, I only have a single Wrath boss left, Sapphiron.  How'd you like Malygos?

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You know you're a WoW addict when... the lore of Azeroth and its wide cast of characters follows you into slumber. I have had many a night, usually after an action-packed evening of playing until I can't keep my eyes open any more, in which my main character continues her conquests in my mind, while my body is at rest. Unfortunately, usually when this happens, I can't remember all my awesomeness when I wake up. I just have a feeling that whatever Locomomo was up to, she kicked some serious tail. But there are a couple of dreams, at least, of which I retained hazy bits and pieces. The first time I remember dreaming about WoW also was when I had a terrible cold. I stayed home from work, and made a couple feeble attempts at playing. Each time, the game made me feel dizzy and even worse. So I gave up on that idea. But apparently even trying to play left an impression on my medicated and sleepy mind. Maybe it was the cold medicine; maybe it was withdrawal from leveling. Either way, my head hit the pillow, and I was seeing my rogue in double vision. Patches of neon colors swirled around her as she stun-locked a random, made-up giant with a combination of ambush, gouge, backstab, gouge, eviscerate. She may have been controlled by an out-of-it mind, but she still knew how to put up a decent fight. My other, more recent dream memory is even less clear. But I think I fought a really powerful, undead frost dragon. And single-handedly tore him to shreds. Looking back, I hypothesize that the wyrm could have been Sapphiron, who now haunts those unfortunate enough to disturb his lair in Naxxramas. Now just how my level 71 rogue could have taken him out on her own? That is her secret that she will carry to the grave. Or maybe the Spirit Healer. The biggest downside - when I wake up, all the experience I could have gained from such an epic encounter is wiped. Something that awesome could have taken me way past the level 80 cap. Old school, I'd be all the way to level 99. If only. Yes, there are many tell-tale signs of a WoW addict. And every now and then, I'll be detailing the symptoms here at Project Lore. So do you know someone who has been sleeping erratically or gurgling "Arthas..." while thrashing in his or her bed? Perhaps yourself, even? You know the cure: more WoW.

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