Project Lore

You may be expecting me to do some crazy April Fools' Day stuff, but I am going to let the other bloggers handle that.  Okay fine, here is the first bit of April Fools' Day content from Blizzard, Pimp My Mount!  Now that we got that out of the way, let us get to the topic at hand.  In yesterday's Balancing Act I passed along the sad news that a trio of well respected bloggers were going to be moving on.  One of these three was Syp, whom I had read since before Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning went live back in September.  He won't be quitting his Engineer toon or WAR during his move to multi-MMO commentary, but I will be. It isn't that I don't like WAR, its community or its direction.  In fact, I very much enjoyed its similarities and differences when it was released, and that continues today.  Yet when my subscription expires in a few days it will be the end of my foray into Games Workshop's fantasy universe.  The main reason I am abandoning my Shaman (healer) is the topic we discussed yesterday, time management.  I simply cannot do everything I need to in life and play two MMORPGs in the style I want to.  If I didn't feel like playing any other video games, then I could fit Mythic's title alongside WoW, but that will never happen. Despite the title's shortcomings (PvE) and hiccups (Realm balance), Mythic Entertainment did a bunch of great things.  Things that even the WoW community would come to love and admire.  Here are the top 5 things that I loved about WAR and Mythic's support of their MMORPG, in order of awesomesauce (less to more).

• Targeting - WAR allowed all players to select offensive & defensive targets by default.  The capability was expertly implemented, allowing players to seamlessly DPS and heal without having to click all over.  The experience was so amazing that I became a bit frustrated during my healing duties in WoW until I got used to Blizzard's mechanics again.  On the flip slide, selecting via click in WAR is terrible, and works great in WoW.
• State of the Game - Mark Jacobs, basically THE man at Mythic Entertainment, would post walls of text every so often.  In these addresses (which seem to come every quarter or so) the GM/VP/CEO would lay out the company's plans for the forseeable future and address the community's largest concerns.  It was refreshing to see a busy and important person interacting directly with the players.
• War Herald - Following the dissemination of information from Jacobs is the far more commonly updated War Herald.  The Herald was created in lieu of hosting official forums (which they now do) as a way to centralize important announcements and information.  Rather than having hundreds of bloggers and journalists scouting forums for important developer posts, the War Herald summed it all up in one place for everyone to digest.
• Clarity - I like well defined things.  That is the main reason I enjoy math, 2+2 always equals seventeen.  The previous two bullet points were constantly full of dates, goals and clear descriptions on what was going on in the title.  Problems with realm balance?  They are aware, here is what they are trying to do and this is when we can expect it.  Sure, they didn't always hit their release goals, and we understand why developers can be vague on dates, but they clarified everything as far as they could.  This player loved them for it.
• Tome of Knowledge - This is the defining characteristic of WAR in my opinion.  Mythic didn't see any point in hiding all of the data a character has connected to them so they just put it all out there.  Wonder if you completed a quest way back when?  Check the ToK.  Did you want to re-read that awesome story from an earlier chapter?  Fire up the ToK.  How many more monsters do I need for the next Unlock (their version of Achievements)?  Dust off the ToK.  WoW doesn't allow us to look at our toon's past in any tangible way, yet all that information is recorded.  Why not give it to us?  It'd certainly make those Loremaster achievements easier if we knew what we had and hadn't accomplished.

Obviously, if I enjoyed WAR more than WoW then I would have stuck with it.  That simply isn't the case.  Blizzard's MMORPG has far more to offer me, especially since I love PvE.  The reason for the list is because iterating and polishing is really what Blizzard does best.  Many of their titles aren't drastically different than those before it, they just perfect every. Single. DETAIL.  If I had to chose any one topic to see Blizzard apply to the way they handle WoW, it would be the Clarity bulletpoint.  Have you experienced anything in other titles - or WoW's past - that would apply to our favorite MMORPG? There goes all the hard work on my Dual-Gaming setup.  Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, if you see someone fall off their bike, go help them up and make sure they are okay.  Otherwise you may get called out on the Internet for being an a-hole.

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The Balancing Act column was created to highlight how we as a community can dedicate so much time to our beloved MMORPG, and still have times for the finer things in life.  The introductory piece focused one's ability to play other games.  The second installment forces us to take a much harder look at ourselves, our lives and how our hobby interferes with our personal connections. The past few weeks in the blogosphere have been, well, downright depressing.  First the WoW community lost one of the most prominent Druid healing blogs, Resto4Life.  In the past few days I have personally lost two blogs that I subscribe to on my RSS feeder (Yes, I read other stuff.  You should too!), my favorite WAR blog known as WAAAGH! and Project Lore's own, BigRedKitty.  Phaelia and BRK both mark personal and family duties as reasons for their departure.  Phaelia took her absence due to a pregnancy, one which Blizzard has honored.  For his part, BRK ends his reign as an enlightened and highly regarded Huntard to spend more time with his family.  Only Syp of WAAAGH! will remain on the blogging scene, shifting gears from WAR to an all-new multi MMO blog appropriately named Bio Break. The recent losses, and the reasons behind them, have led me to look at my life in much the same way.  I'm not going anywhere though, and that is due to one big difference - I do not have a family.  Pleasing my girlfriend and keeping friendships intact are all I have to worry about, but even that can become difficult sometimes!  Time management is not everyone's strong point, and the only way I manage is by laying things out in advance.  The most time consuming of my WoW habits is raiding.  I work around this all night affair by informing my girlfriend of my raiding nights days in advance.  Not only does this let her know it's coming, but she can try to schedule her owns things, like a girl's night, if given enough time.  For obvious reasons I don't inform my friends of such plans, but with my guild only raiding twice a week, it is easy to work raiding around face time with friends. This is mainly accomplished by keeping the weekends entirely unscheduled as far as Azeroth is concerned.  I have also been known to disappear from raiding entirely for a few weeks.  Going cold turkey from time to time allows me to reevaluate my habits.  I can discern if I am being neglectful or getting sucked in a little too much.  Not to mention the fact that a break here and there keeps the game fresh and fun. How do the hardcore raiders out there manage it?  I don't think I could ever be hardcore again.  In fact, the only reason I was able to pull it off in the first place was because my ex-girlfriend played more than I did.  I don't regret it, I had tons of fun, but my life has changed since then and it can no longer facilitate such a commitment.  As long as I get through all the raids, I am content at being hardcore casual.  The lesson to take away from all of this is to remember that age old adage, Life > WoW. Be sure to keep those friendships active, the grades up to snuff and to stay awake at work.  To Phaelia, BRK and Syp, all the best in your future endeavors.

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