Project Lore

Playing on the public test realm isn't for everyone. Of course, we love to keep track of Project Lore posts so we know about exciting upcoming features such as Ulduar, dual spec and tons of new achievements. But we may not be as keen about suffering through significant bugs while knowing that any progress we make in-game ultimately will be lost. I, for one, prefer to keep tabs on progress of the PTR through WoW's official test realm forum. There are plenty of players who are quite willing, for any number of reasons, to play on the PTR despite its drawbacks. And their reports back to Blizzard through the forum provide us with a glimpse of how things are coming along. Bugs, no matter how insignificant, can be frustrating for the players. But my favorite posts are the ones reporting bug hilarity. Such as this one:

Two of my characters I use regularly on the PTR are now pantless on the character selection screen. Both are Death Knights, one is a level 58 gnome female on the PvP server, the other is an 80 tauren female on the PvE server. It doesn't seem to matter if I take my pants off in the game or not, my character selection shows 'em half naked.

And, to my surprise, Blizzard poster Dresorull responded:

Completely intended! Not actually... this is currently being investigated as a bug. Thanks for the report.

Glad they're on that one! Also in the realm of toon vanity, I've also seen mention of the character selection screen not displaying weapons, of minions freezing mid-animation when a player goes AFK and of emote sounds not timing correctly with the animation. Again, not game-breaking errors, but annoying nonetheless. And I'm sure Blizzard appreciates being told of bugs large and small. That's what the PTR is for. Even Blizzard has posted a non-comprehensive list of 15 known bugs. Now on to the more significant reported bugs. Issues range from clams not opening and pets disappearing to the deletion of glyphs. And that's once you get on the PTR. Many complaints stem from issues with logging on, such as new passwords not working, patching errors or locked-out characters. Granted, I never accept a post at face-value because some of these issues may not actually be bugs. But I'd like to think most PTR players know what they're doing. Even on the regular servers, new bugs are constantly being discovered, and oftentimes exploited. Regardless, from what I've seen, it looks to me like Blizzard still has a lot of work ahead of them on the PTR. In my opinion, it's probably about the same as previous PTRs, because you have to start somewhere. But what do you guys think? Is this, as one poster ranted, the "worst ptr EVER?"

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World of Warcraft may have over 11 million players, but that doesn't mean it is easy to get together. One of the most annoying things about World of Warcraft is the amount of realms the game has, causing the 11 million plus players to be fragmented all over the place. Unless you specifically rolled on the same server as a friend, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to play together, without making another character.  I understand why they do this, but I guess I want a little Eve Online in my WoW.

I have been talking about the game while walking down the street only to be interrupted by “are you talking about WoW?!” Being the brazen nerd that I am, I opening admit my affection for the game to the complete stranger and ask them what server they are one. The response always ends up being anything but Magtheridon. However, this weekend, I got to spend some time with a Mag player, and two other players from my Battlegroup. The horde player, I knew by reputation before meeting him in person. The other two are friends from back home, who are both Alliance, rolled in my Battlegroup by sheer chance. This is something that I have never come across before.

Needless to say, shenanigans ensued. We quickly plotted a coup against a 5-man instancing group of the horde. The idea was to get a bunch of rogues, druids, shadowmelders and anyone willing to blow an invisibility potion to group up outside a level 80 instance. Our double agent hordie would then summon his group and BAM, we'd all pop into action, laying waste to players several levels higher than us, while having a good laugh.

With the other members of the LAN on a different server, they weren't too interested, and the plot never materialized. My hordie friend did manage to train some guards on me after I applied a Deadly Poison to him by accident though.  Thanks for that.  However, we did play hours upon hours of Left 4 Dead. That is a Co-op LAN game to die for (excuse the horrible pun).

While I am sad the weekend is now over, I finally managed to catch up on my sleep from the hardcore gaming sessions, hence the coherent article. Anyone else have some good LAN stories or carebear soliloquies?

This weekend made me realize something, I guess not all horde are bad...

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