Project Lore

As more and more information comes out of the PTR, its pretty hard to not pay attention to it. I am personally getting pumped for all the great new content Blizzard is getting ready for us. As I'm pretty sure most of you have noticed, the new loot we will be able to earn is amazing. Tons of great drops, crafted gear, and most importantly the new tier pieces. While it all exciting, with 3.2 seeming near it makes me wonder if it all is coming a bit soon. I know this may sound a bit odd coming from the guy who complained about how long we were stuck in Naxx, but I don't think we have had enough time in Ulduar. Most of my shiny new T8 epics still have that new car smell, and there is plenty of hard-mode loot I haven't even had a chance to farm. Perhaps I am just concerned that the new loot showing up on the PTR is a bit too good. With all of this new stuff available I will see little reason to go back to Ulduar. This would be a shame because I think Ulduar is an amazing instance! Blizzard managed to create a challenging instance that is full of story and has tons of replayability with the hard modes. I am not ready to leave! While I'm sure people will still be running it, finding motivated groups will be difficult with all of the best stuff somewhere else. At the very least it would be nice to still make the hard mode loot relevant. Yes, I know there will still be best-in-slot items sprinkled around in old content, but by and large we are progressing past it. While I feel most people have had a fair shot at Ulduar itself, I know many people want time to go deeper and try those hard modes. Of course you can never make everyone happy, people progress at different paces, so while some are farming Algalon, many are still in Naxx. None the less for me, this seems fast. How do you guys feel about it? Want more time, or are you ready for something new already?

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With the U.S. economy pretty much in the tank over the past half-year and unemployment at nearly 9 percent, the future of the workforce is on the minds of many. And for some, WoW plays a role. Last week, TIME (as in the magazine) put out a special feature - a kind of top-10 list of sorts on "The new work order." It counts the ways that the workforce of the future will change. The feature remarks:

Though unemployment is at a 25‑year high, work will eventually return. But it won't look the same.

Inevitably, technology was at the top of the list of items that will change the workforce. As was business ethics, declining job benefits, delayed retirements and a turn toward female management style. But buried within a section on Gen X taking control of the workforce, I was surprised to find this nugget:

Rob Carter, chief information officer at FedEx, thinks the best training for anyone who wants to succeed in 10 years is the online game World of Warcraft. Carter says WoW, as its 10 million devotees worldwide call it, offers a peek into the workplace of the future. Each team faces a fast-paced, complicated series of obstacles called quests, and each player, via his online avatar, must contribute to resolving them or else lose his place on the team. The player who contributes most gets to lead the team — until someone else contributes more. The game, which many Gen Yers learned as teens, is intensely collaborative, constantly demanding and often surprising. "It takes exactly the same skill set people will need more of in the future to collaborate on work projects," says Carter. "The kids are already doing it."

While it's not what I would call the perfect game synopsis, I think author Anne Fisher does a pretty decent job of explaining a basic point of the game to audience members who probably have never played. But more to the point: is the perception of gamers, and specifically those of us who play WoW, changing? We've seen arguments similar to this recent one. Way back, we've heard from some who argue that playing WoW is good leadership experience and teaches project management skills. And just on Wednesday, I saw a post from the newly redesigned and renamed WoW.com (formerly WoW insider) about a college student researching how people interact in WoW and other online games. But we've also heard from the negative side. About six months back, Juggynaut told us about a forum poster who said that job recruiters intentionally avoided hiring people who play WoW.  And that spurred a whole slew of comments from our dear readers, from those of you who had heard similar sentiments to those of you like Shaun, who I think summed up a lot of our feelings when he said, "Has this giant bag of douche ever heard of over-generalization?" But I'm feeling optimistic after this story from TIME. For one, it's a pretty major publication with a positive outlook on WoW. With all the misconceptions about gaming out there, it's good to hear that someone gets it, at least a little. And for two, the statements from Mr. FedEx CIO highlighting WoW finally are put into context: These life lessons that WoW provides are ones that will be valuable, even needed, in the future workplace:

The Gen X managers ... will need to be adept at a few things that earlier generations, with their more hierarchical management styles and relative geographical insularity, never really had to learn. One of those is collaborative decision-making that might involve team members scattered around the world...

So, how do you think WoW could change the job market place of the future? Or perhaps you have the opinion that all this is overblown, and it won't affect anything? Either way, it's an interesting conversation and a debate that, I suspect, won't end anytime soon.

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Lots of things in WoW require you to wait a certain amount of time or keep track of different events that happen at some point in the future. For example, your spellcloth cooldown can only be done once per 20 hour period, so you might want a reminder about when you can next transmute. Blizzard has helped out with a few of these things. The in game calendar allows you to create reminders and marks special events. The built in clock can be used to set alarms or used as a stopwatch. In patch 3.1, you can see when the battle for Wintergrasp will begin from anywhere in Northrend. For players who want more automated tracking, there are a few different addons I'd like to spotlight. 1. EggTimer. This addon is named for the famous Mysterious Egg, which hatches into one of several great items, like the Green Proto-Drake mount or the Proto-Drake Whelp pet. You can only have one at a time and it takes 7 days to hatch, so to get the most phat loot, you need to go visit Geen every 7 days to get a new one. EggTimer plugs into FuBar and shows you how long you have until your Mysterious Egg hatches. It also tracks Digusting Jar if you decided to ally with the Frenzyheart instead of the Oracles. It can also automatically create calendar events to mark when you should get your new egg. It also tracks Ahn'kahar Watcher's Corpse for the Ahn'kahet timed event and Zorbin's Ultra Shrinker for a level 55 quest. It works across characters. The developer takes suggestions for items to watch and is working on making it a more robust addon. 2. WintergraspFu. This addon is also a FuBar addition. It tracks when the battle for Wintergrasp will begin. If you participated in a recent battle or have been in the Wintergrasp zone, or have talked with the Wintergrasp mages in Dalaran (or heard them yell to get to Wintergrasp), the addon will display the amount of time until the next battle (or estimate based on when past battles ended). Patch 3.1 allows you to see when Wintergrasp will start from anywhere in Northrend, but this addon still gives you a nice display of it and will work anywhere in WoW. It will probably get the time from the map in patch 3.1 whenever you are in Northrend and save it for if you happen to leave to go back to Orgrimmar or Ironforge. 3. CraftTimersFu. This is one of most practical ones. Any tradeskill you have with a cooldown, like Northrend Alchemy Research, Smelt Titansteel, or Spellcloth, can be tracked by this addon. It works across characters and can be configured to show the time to the next available cooldown or the number of cooldowns currently available. Its simple and makes managing multiple character's tradeskills a breeze. 4. FishingBuddy. You might find it weird that I put this on the list, but there is one facet of it that keeps it in my addon collection. The Stranglethorn Vale fishing tournament is every week at 2PM Sunday, and this addon will pop up on Sundays with a display telling you how much time til the tournament starts. Once the tournament starts, it lets you know that it is underway and tells you how many Speckled Tastyfish you've caught. That's all for today. What timer-style addons do you use?

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You ever get to the point on your main WoW toon that the game seems to loose it's luster? Days in AV for honor points or hours Raiding Hyjal for the chance at a drop that 20 other people want? Well, I have a solution for you: Make an alt!

Not some simpleton bank mule or AH stand-in - make a real alt that you will play.

Why you ask? Several reasons:

1. To know another class as well as your main. This helps you understand the dynamics of working in a party or raid better.
2. To have two additional potential money making professions. Gathering professions on an alt can sometimes be key to making huge money in WoW
3. To re-experience the wonder of playing the easy, fun low level content.
4. To challenge yourself to level faster and more efficiently
5. To see the interactions people have with your new class that may be different from your main's class. There's nothing like playing a huge DPS toon then becoming a holy healer. People openly seem to love DPS and tend to forget the healers. Come on people - let's show some love here.

And those are just a few reasons.

So go make an alt.

And play another 85 days... lol

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As we all know, Season 4 is almost upon us. What does that mean for me? It means Season 2 equipment will be available for Honor. Ideally, I would be grinding out Honor and tokens with the rest of the noobs who don't have Merciless or Vengeful gear yet. I'd love to buy a whole set of Epics, since both my Enhancment and Restoration sets have ugly blue holes in them. Unfortunately, I decided long ago that battlegrounds alone are much worse than battlegrounds with friends. Now, for me, this is pretty much the case with anything in WoW. But most of my time is spent dealing with guild organization (I had no idea what I was getting myself into), raids (same), or financing my habits, both in game and IRL. This leaves precious little time for battlegrounds and even less when friends are available. Alas, Season 2 gear, it seems we are not meant to be. I guess I will have to try and make those ZA runs in the future.

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