Project Lore

The absolute number one reason why I play World of Warcraft is for the universe.  I've always loved stories, from the "Slugger" baseball story my grandfather often recited to me as a child to Dune.  A good story has always roped me in, no matter its length.  WoW has come a long way in its story telling in these fives year, in design and execution.  Initially, the quests were spread all over the world, causing many players to abandon them halfway through the chain.  Blizzard, in the second and third go around, consolidated these chains to span single, or perhaps adjacent zones only, which lead to a rise in completion.

Storywise, Blizzard has recanted a lot of its previous lore, up to and including Wrath of the Lich King.  But the writers have expanded on previous ideas, or sneaked in other storylines as well.  Some of these were planned, Ulduar and Ahn'Qiraj, others, like Sunwell Plateau, were out of the necessity for additional content.

Metzen and his crew continue to intrigue me, but I have two main beefs with Blizzard's execution of storytelling in WoW, which actually extends to most MMOGs. The first idea, branching storylines, was lightly touched on in the Useless WoW Leaders post, and brought up a second time in ProjectLorians Super Happy Fun Hour: Dave Edition audio podcast.  Wrath of the Lich King was designed to focus on the Lich King, to throw us in his path on numerous occasions and cement him as the bad guy, and it achieved that.  Outside of a few Ulduar lore questlines in select zones there was little besides the Lich King or his forces.  What I'd like to see are more side missions like Bridenbrad's tale - hopefully without the real-life tragedy attached.  The questline is one of the most memorable in the game due to its excellent writing, and the use of known NPCs that we hadn't heard from lately.

The other issue that needs addressing is orphaned storylines.  These are the quest chains that start, but the story is never completed.  The tale of The Missing Diplomat and Ashbringer are the most famous, and they finally had their day.  There are many more epic tales that have been left dangling that I'd much prefer tackling than another "Kill 10 foozles" quest.  Even if I have to travel a little to do so.

Most of us have never had a legendary item as defined by the WoW community. Nope, those elusive oranges are prizes for a very select few. Sure they are cool and have sexy stats, but for the most part they succeed in only making their owner happy. The good news is, there is a different kind of legendary item that is much more prominent among players. Have you ever had an item that you named? Did your guild ever talk about a piece of your equipment as though it was an actual person? Does the story behind how you got your gear mean more to you than its stats? If so, then you know how awesome these real legendary items are. The first time I experienced this was in the Burning Crusade. At the time, I was playing a night elf hunter and we had recently taken down Al'ar. I was awarded a Netherbane axe and while it was amazing statistically, I was disappointed by how it looked. It's hard enough protecting your masculinity as a night elf, but try doing so while walking around with a glowing pink axe! Well rather than fight the jeers from my guildmates, I embraced my new weapon and named it Scott Baio. Some people thought it was humorous and began talking about it during the next raid. It quickly started to feel like my friends were more excited to see Scott Baio at the raid than they were to see me. A few weeks later, another Netherbane dropped and as I won the DKP auction, everyone laughed and wondered what I would name this one. My offhand axe was dubbed Pink Lover and I bought myself a pink mageweave shirt to complete the ensemble. Most people got a big kick out of it and of course there were those that did a /facepalm every time Scott Baio and Pink Lover were mentioned. My dad, who is also in my guild, was not a huge fan of the twin fuchsia blades. Eventually, another one of our hunters won a Netherbane and he didn't disappoint when he named his John Stamos. It was a bitter sweet when I finally got an upgrade and had to replace those axes. I hated how they looked, but they will probably be one of the few items I'll remember long after I'm done playing this game. They were my legendaries. A similar phenomenon has occurred recently in Ulduar. Our guild's tanks have had horrible luck upgrading their shields in WotLK. They just don't drop for us, especially in the heroic raids. A group of us were running Ulduar 10, when our luck finally seemed to be taking a turn for the better. Auriaya dropped the Shieldwall of the Breaker and it was claimed by one of our paladin tanks, Beomaire. We were so excited for him, that is, until he put it on. We stared at the graphic for a few seconds in silence and then all at once started telling him how ugly it was. One person thought it looked like Grizzly Adam's head was chopped off and slapped on the shield. Another guy said, "Actually, it looks like my mother." We chuckled a bit and then moved on. The rest of that raid things went downhill. We were wiping and not making much progress. When we finally ended the raid, we blamed Beo's shield for the bad luck. The next night we were in heroic Ulduar and even though we had beaten Ignis before, we kept dying. Then someone said, "You know, we haven't been able to beat Ignis, since Beo got that heinously ugly shield." In that moment, that homely shield had become legendary. Now, every time we're struggling during a raid, Beo's shield is blamed. It's been weeks and we've still yet to have a shield upgrade drop. so the hilarity continues. I even asked a GM, while they were working on another issue for me, if they could change the graphic on Beomaire's shield to change our luck. I'm still waiting to hear back. So who else has had an item attain legendary status in your guild? Please share your stories with us.

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