Project Lore

It's easy to be cynical when you play online games. Between the illiterate malcontents, guild drama, and unreliable party members, it can be tough to remember why you even started playing World of Warcraft in the first place. I mean, a man can only take so much Trade chat before he's driven to the crazy house! And that's not even getting into the additional stresses placed upon hardcore players like repeated encounter wipes, angry raid leaders, and the never-ending gear treadmill. It's a wonder that everyone who plays the game isn't a big ball of fuss. Well, its an easy page to skip over when you're looking for information about the game, but it's worth hopping over to the Story Archive once in awhile. Blizzard has found a few very personal player stories that they think exemplify one of the best aspects of WoW: the way in which it can bring people together. Yes, that's right. As much as the clueless pundits and self-proclaimed social scientists might want to tell you that you're wasting your time and alienating the people around you by playing video games, that is not necessarily the case. I'd argue that even the most angry, ornery person out there -- the type that likes to solo and makes no outward effort to communicate with others -- plays this game for its social nature. It's a great comfort to some people just to know that there are other people out there, whether or not they choose to interact with them. Guilds aren't just for drama anymore! But these tales are primarily about those who do openly seek out companionship, whether it''s in the game or from people outside the game that they'd like to get to know better by playing with them. One of the first stories details a whole family that was drifting apart, but finds love and warmth again while exploring Azeroth:

"We were growing apart in real life, each of us going our own ways to do our own things. My father's friend suggested to him that he play World of Warcraft with him. Dad saw this as an opportunity to have fun while bringing us all back together. It would be something that we would all enjoy, because we were all gamers at heart...

It may seem like a little thing, but truly gaming together can be an enjoyable experience for the entire family."

I think what's even more endearing about the yarn is that nor only do they come closer to each other, they significantly increase the size of their family by creating a guild, getting to know all sorts of new people that they would consider one of their own. While most of the stories focus on family and budding romantic relationships, one of the most recently added highlights the escapist nature of video games. Some would malign players who forgo the real world for a virtual one, but that would be ignoring those cases in which a person actually has a pretty good reason to do so. Take 50-year-old Crossfire from the Shadris server:

I am a stay-at-home grandma, while my daughter and her hubby are deployed to Afghanistan at the moment. I hadn't spoke with my youngest daughter in a long time, and when my youngest son moved in with us, we got his sister into it also; now we quest, raid, and just have plain old fun... I recently found out I have two tumors in my chest and will be having surgery on the 11th of September...of all days, and plan to be sitting and playing World of Warcraft during my recuperation. I am a survivor of breast cancer, and am praying that it hasn't returned, but if it has, I'll be playing 'til my last breath...! Overall though, I have learned to relax and have fun and use my brain for something other than the drama of real life. I can escape for a couple of hours and in the end I have no worries other than maybe the next achievement or leveling of a lower character.

I hate to pull so strongly on the heart-strings and all, but that's a pretty touching story. Not only is the game able to connect people together that have not spoken with each other in quite some time, it can also help with rehabilitation by taking one's mind of the things that ail them. Hey, we all know that Warcraft can be an excellent time-waster, but virtue can be found even in that. But, you might, ask: aren't most of these benefits true of all video games, especially social ones like MMOs? Well, maybe. I don't think it particularly matters which game people play as long as they can all enjoy it. But then, maybe that's what makes World of Warcraft so special. It openly caters to a casual audience. With an engaging story, lots to do, and a ton of ways to connect with fellow players, it's no wonder that just about anybody can pick the game up and have some fun. And the best way to bring any group of people together, whether that be a family or otherwise, is to give them a common goal to work towards. So maybe that's a 5-man dungeon instead of a camping trip (not that there's anything wrong with that, either). If you're ever feeling down about your World of Warcraft experience, I'd urge you to seek out the Player Stories page and peruse the archive. People can and do find happiness within the game all the time, and that means that you can, too. And maybe it'll even convince you to connect with that long-lost relative or pal. Tell them to pick up the game, create an alt, and go level with them for awhile. See what comes of it. I bet you'll have a good time! We here at Project Lore would like to hear some of your stories, too, if you care to share them. Please post them in the comments box below!

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In every guild I have been in there is always that one member who makes the rest of us scratch our heads.  The one players who does, says or claims off the wall shenanigans that blows everyone else's mind.  The one guildie that makes you wonder if the Internet's anonymous nature allowed the character to blossom, or unleashed him on the masses...Hmm, now that I have put this in words, there have been far more than one of these characters in each of my guild.  If you will, I would like to rephrase my previous assertion.  There is always at least one who is active at any given time. That is far more accurate. For many players, it is this kind of social enlightenment that brings them to the proverbial table every night.  Finding and hanging out with these odd beings, where the only thing in common may be trying to take down a crazed dragon, creates for some hilarious situations.  I have certainly meet my fair share of oddballs along the way:

• An incredibly shy member came to the guild party with an actual deepdive helm on his head - just like his toon. He didn't take it off for over an hour, going so far as to drink through the mask.
• At the following party the stereotypical emo, angst-filled nerd showed up in all black and wierded everyone out.
• We swore this one guildmate was practicing stand-up routines on the guild because he had a stupid amount of ridiculously improbaby stories to tell every night.
• Another told us personal stories.  Personal stories that often turned incredibly graphic and disgusting.  As well as disturbing.  We feared laws - of man and nature - may have been broken.
• My brother played a female toon that he modeled after his girlfriend.  He quickly learned the benefits of doing so.  He kept a list of all the characters he collected donations from to document the "sleeze" in WoW.
• One former member, and still close friend, has refused to speak on Ventrilo for years.  Someone swore he heard him speak once, but no one believes him.  There is also a rumor that the person in question is a female player in hiding.
• The most famous quirk of any player is a former Dark Age of Camelot subscriber who refused to purchase a mount for WoW.  The Gnome stated that the world was too small (relative to other title's he had played) to waste the gold on a stead.  To this day I still hear about the fabled mountless Gnome on the server.

I'm not gonna lie, after getting into Grandpa's medicine, I have been known to transform into one of these entities.  When I do, I tend to make ridiculous comments in an attempt to get laughs from the crowd.  And yes Pixie, I even pretended that my toon was a girl to see how my guild would react.  Apparently, I am a very poor RPer.  What kind of crazy personas have you come across in Azeroth?  Oh, if you don't know any players with erratic or unusual behavior, then you are one!

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Wowhead continues to prove itself a great resource for players looking for the latest information on the Beta of Wrath of the Lich King, and today Wowhead gives us a pet talent calculator and a great list of achievements. Looking through the pet talents, I find Heart of the Phoenix to be great for a certain hunter who always seems to complain about his pet dying. Other than that, there are a bunch of interesting things that hunters will be able to tweak about their pets, and though some of the talents are similar to old ones, the new stuff shows a lot of creativity on Blizzard's part. When I first heard of the Achievement system being implemented, I figured I would just let the achievements come to me as I played. But now I can see some people might really go out of their way to get some. Look at this one. I know someone who might just be crazy enough to try it. I definitely see a lot of things that I expected in the list, and I hope its going to expand even more from the nearly 650 already there. I also really hope that when someone unlocks an achievement, there is some crazy sparkley stuff that happens, visible to everyone with an announcement to all in the vicinity, like the discovery system has but even bigger. After all, World of Warcraft is a social game, and what good is a social game if you can't show off when you get something cool?

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