Project Lore

No, it isn't the name of the latest Legendary item to appear in Azeroth, although it certainly possess that kind of power.  Summer, with all of its sunshine, growth, and activities, may not be in Azeroth directly, but the season is a force to be reckoned with nonetheless.  With school over for most kids, nearly every human being is going to want to enjoy their few months of sunshine.  Me?  Well I turn in to a freckled lobster when those rays lick my skin, so I do my best to avoid the giant ball of fusion. Here's the rub, my guild isn't full of pale Irish people who's only natural UV defense is to catch a tan through a screen.  Due to this pesky little "evolutionary" trait I have found summer to be an incredibly boring period inside World of Warcraft, at best.  At worst, it's nearly caused my (two times former) guild to collapse, twice, and my former guild to all but disappear from the WoW.  Now I am fearing if my current guild will have a similar fate. Looking back, it seems like previous summers were set up to be a disappointment.  By the time kids left school the most recent content was incredibly stale.  To boot there was nothing on the immediate horizon, a dangerous pairing of inactivity and zero hype.  I would never think that Blizzard would plan such a thing on purpose, after all, letting people escape the game for too long is dangerous, but the early days of WoW were marred with inconsistent content development that caused these unfortunate coincidences. Fast forward to June 2009 and it looks like we might be safe.  First and foremost, Ulduar is still fresh to nearly the entire playerbase - especially Chinese players, a group that hasn't even received Wrath yet!  Backing up, or filling out if you prefer, the new raid content is the excitement around Patch 3.2.  We already know some basics, and major changes, have an inkling of the upcoming Battleground and have been teased with massive additions to the Argent Tournament grounds.  As guilds begin to put Ulduar on farm (I don't see this happening for at least another month) players will increasingly turn to waiting for the next big thing.  But the hype can only hold onto us for so long.  I think Blizzard timed Ulduar correctly, whether by coincidence, or on purpose, who knows, but here's to hoping Ulduar stays fresh for the summer.  If not, then let's hope that Patch v3.2 comes out in a timely fashion. Has your guild been destroyed or nearly so by a past summer?  Do any of the GMs, officers or raid leaders have any tips to keeping things running during these lax months?  The second time All That Remains almost failed we rolled the bored players into PvP groups and tore apart Magtheridon's horde for a solid month.  The mass genocide of five races held us over till the end of the summer.  Twas an interesting way to save a hardcore PvE guild to say the least. We'll see how things play out, but I am looking forward to spending a portion of my lazy summer days in Azeroth.  I just hope there will be others to play with.

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What, No Official Trailer? Wow, Blizzard's holiday announcement was certainly unexpected.  The company began discussing the intimate details of Patch v3.2 starting with its official title, Call of the Crusade.  Previously, we were enlightened to some of CotC's updates thanks to various forum revelations, like the new battleground and Argent Tournament updates.  Now we have some additional juicy details to salivate over. As the title suggests, Patch v3.2 will bring us one step closer to the upcoming battle with Arthas.  In preparation, the Argent Crusade will drastically expand their operations in the area thanks to all the resources we have happily donated.  Those of you who are, like me, a bit bored of the Argent Tournament will be happy to know that the Crusade will unleash a collection of "new dailies, rewards, and more" in an attempt to lure us into the soon-to-be-erected coliseum.  The Crusade's new digs is no joke, it'll contain not only a 5-player challenges, but 10- and 25-player ones as well.  It is unknown what these tasks will be, PvP, PvE or some combination thereof. For the PvPers out there, not me, you've got two things coming your way.  Amazingly, the start of Season 7 at the outset of Patch v3.2 probably isn't the most exciting bit of news.  Nope, that would belong to the Isle of Conquest announcement, a new "large-scale siege Battleground."  According to Zarhym, the Isle will be a battle over resources that plays out in the style of “Wintergrasp combined with Alterac Valley.“   I absolutely loved the age old Alterac Valley - not the original, original incarnation, but the tweaked vanilla WoW version - and combining it with the best aspects of open world PvP makes this rogue sharpen his pokers and "practice my stabbing". Best of all, it appears that Blizzard has gotten ahold of their patch development cycles, because this patch is expected in a more timely manner.  When chastised by a player who didn't expect the patch before the end of the year the disembodied skull of Zarhym stated that his "presumed time lines are way too inflated? :)"  Of course he could have been referring to when we will see Icecrown Citadel...that wouldn't be bad either. New solo content, check.  New PvP content, check.  New PvE content - probably part of the Coliseum updates - check.  So ladies and gentlemen, let the thoughts, impressions, QQing and sequels of excitement begin!

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In late March it was revealed that Blizzard is hard at work on a new Battleground for an upcoming patch.  Just shy of a month later and not one, not two, but three separate blues announced plans for a new 5-man dungeon.  Being Blizzard employees, there wasn't much to the announcements.  All that we know for sure is that the dungeon will be part of an upcoming patch - you'd be insane to think the BG and instance will come in the same patch - and that it "can be compared to what we saw with Magister's Terrace."  Naturally, we have no idea if the comparison that can be made refers to the scope, size, difficulty or a combination of the three. New content is fantastic, and I can't wait to see what direction they take the instance.  Will it be released alongside a raid?  Will it have anything to do with the growing Arthas storyline?  Is it going to contain machinima like MgT?  An endless amount of questions, with a catch.  Sadly, the announcement of the new 5-man content has shined a light on the current crop of 5-man instances and their heroic alter egos.  Frankly, they are beginning to feel incredibly stale. It is this very reason that I bring up a topic as old as heroics themselves, heroic Old World instances.  Blizzard, if you can't get new content out fast enough, I am sure that many of your subscribers wouldn't mind revisiting some retuned old content.  Just think of the advantages of doing so.

• A large percentage of the players joined World of Warcraft after the launch of The Burning Crusade.  Therefore, a good amount of the old world instances - especially the mid-range instances - were ignored by the playerbase.
• Retuning is far less time consuming/costly than creating a new instance.
• Trickling out retuned old world instances would keep players busy between major content updates.
• Many old world 5-mans are far longer - and larger - than the current crop of dungeons.  The varied length would likely cater to the hardcore audience who tend to be fond of more diverse and deeper offerings.  There's no reason to expect that the casual players wouldn't enjoy it either.
• You've already recycled content in the past (Naxxramas , Caverns of Time) and that was accepted.  No need to worry about that stigma.
• The old world would see a (small) population increase, rather than its current state of being largely abandoned.  Essentially, more than just Northrend would be relevant.
• Come the next expansion, you could sprinkle retuned TBC instances amoung the content patches.
• Being "old school" is still hip...or so I tell myself.
• You'd shut me up.

Just think of the possibilities.  LFM Heroic UBRS - Rend Run.  The return of Dire Maul ledge walking.  More Barman Shanker grinding.  Discovering the secret boss in Blackfathom Deeps.   Getting lost outside of Maraudon, only to be farted on when you finally get inside.  Van Cleef.  I'm giddy over the prospects already. Many of us have run Wrath's heroics dozens, perhaps even a hundreds times.  The question is, would you have the any interest in the four year old content or are you content waiting long periods of time for all-new encounters?

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