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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A few things happened this weekend that have me worried about my PvE excursions for the week. As you can see by our chilly site, Blizzard Entertainment has officially announced Wrath of the Lich King's release date. Wrath is officially set to launch November 13, just shy of two months from now. Why does the launch of the second expansion have me worried? Simple. With a new expansion coming so soon, many players will go into a coma of sorts. Most will simply cut back on their playtime.   Perhaps in a squirrel like effort to store it up for Wrath's inevitable push to level 80. Then there are the players who will no longer see a point in putting the time in, when any activity they pursue will change drastically in a months time. Especially when the change will make all those efforts fruitless. Many guilds will take a break from their normal schedules and perform some house cleaning as they wait for the new content. The launch of patch 3.0.2 – which hit the PTR this weekend as well – will keep many people interested but I doubt my guild will be performing any Karazhan badge runs again. That is one half of the battle though.  So what was the other thing that has me worried about my PvE plans? Well, a little game called Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has gone live. The game isn't actually out until September 18th but Mythic Entertainment and Electronic Arts have a head start program if you pre-order the title. If you ordered the Collector's Edition, one of the bonuses is getting the server to yourself for two days.   That started on Sunday morning.  Then the people who pre-ordered the normal edition join you for two days before the game launches to everyone. I know many of my guild mates are interested in WAR, so if they aren't put off by the closeness of Wrath then they may head there to check out the title. Blizzard's recent timing of various announcements - a new round of beta keys, PTR character copying enabled and official release date – are an obvious diversion tactic from WAR as well. Thinking about it further I am not worried about raiding anymore.  Now I am just hoping my main's guild still exists two months from now.

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