Project Lore

Being a defiled DK is the only thing that makes this OK

It’s been about five months since I rolled my blood elf rogue, and I’m at level 68. I just made it to Northrend, and I’m starting to get anxious to level up so I can raid with my level 80 buddies. But there’s so much other fun stuff to do in-game that I keep getting distracted. So it’s slower going, but I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. As long as I’m having fun. Like last week, when my toon and my husband’s alt, a blood elf DK, were running around slaughtering all the Talbuk in Nagrand. Meanwhile, another Horde group in the area was working on gaining control of Halaa. We were counting down as the number of Alliance guards went from 15 to 0. So when the chat window announced that Horde was gaining control, we both cheered them on in the local defense chat. And although we were in the middle of questing, I suggested that we head to Halaa to help with the final capture of the area. So we dropped everything, and went to chat it up with the other players. Yeah, it delayed our leveling. But it also was a good time. Or another time was when I dinged level 55 and promptly rolled a troll DK as an alt. I went ahead and played through the first few levels, got all the awesome blue gear, and headed back to Orgrimmar for redemption. But, wouldn’t you know it, I got to the Valley of Wisdom and an Ally group had just raided the city. Thrall was dead, with no hope for respawn for about two hours. And I was still in disgraced status, so of course the few guards who already had respawned were throwing rotten fruit at my pretty blue face and yelling for others to get a rope. No problem, I could have switched characters back to my main and come back at a better time. Instead, I joined a group of fellow DKs who were passing the time by /dancing from Thrall’s empty throne. Silly? Yes. But fun? Abso-freakin’-lutely. And I can think of numerous times I’ve been in UC as a raid comes through. Each time I’ve been too low level to defend at all, but I head to the Royal Quarter anyways. Just to observe. And try to distract the Allies by  squawking up a headache as my hawkstrider stands right on top of Lady Sylvanas. I like to watch those Allies squirm. Am I the only one who gets caught up in all this random fun stuff? Not that I need anything else to keep me from leveling, but what are some of your favorite distractions?

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I don't know how some of you do it. How do you sign on to World of Warcraft and jump over the gaps in Ironforge for 30 minutes before doing something? How do you sit there and shoot the shit for two hours and nothing else? How? I was watching my friend “play” the other day and that was the kind of stuff he kept doing. I thought he brought me over to show me his new spec, a new piece of gear, perhaps something from Hallow's End that he manged to get or thought was cool. No, he just called me over to show me that he could jump the gap with a full 720 thrown in. With all the new stuff added in the past month, how is it that he lacks something to do!? Whenever I sign in I always have a concrete purpose, even if I am only logging on for 10 minutes. Yea, I have signed in just to talk to someone, but if it wasn't a five minute conversation, then I was headed off to do some dailies at the same time. When I pop on in the morning, it is usually to buy up all that cheap Netherweave cloth that is constantly on the Auction House. I don't know how those people do it. How can you sign into World of Warcraft, a game that has so much to do, and just kill time in the city or chew the fat on ventrilo, while your character goes through its idle animations? Personally, if I am not doing at least two things at once I feel like I am wasting time. Please, explain it to me, and no, I am not belittling you. The reason I want to know is because I am one of those guys who will sign off from WoW almost without notice. I will never do this if I am in a group or actively participating in something, but if I am questing and just get fed up then boom, I am gone. I could even be mid-conversation with someone, as rude as that is. This actually annoys me and is the reason why I want to know how some players can just do nothing. My biggest pet peeve is when I am actively trying to find a group for an instance. If I spend more than 5-10 minutes LFGing I will throw my hands in the air and swear off the game for a few hours. Please, enlighten me you “wasters of time,” and if you are like me, shout it loud so I know I am not the only one. This is completely off topic, but anyone interested in the video game industry and computer animation should make sure they see this video from Image Dynamics about their new technology. The most up-to-date of you have already seen it, as it is a bit old.

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Earlier this week WoWInsider broke a story involving PopCap Games, makers of the popular, casual title Bejeweled. Why would a WoW blog be covering the casual games market? Well, PopCap Games has decided to take that downtime we have in World of Warcraft and convert it into color matching time. The casual developer has employed Moongaze, creator of numerous in game game addons including Besharded, Bombsweeper and Bust-a-shard. Moongaze was tasked with porting the popular puzzler into WoW as an addon which will be released for FREE next week. I myself have dabbled with dual-gaming, as I like to call it, before and will have more on that subject and its challenges tomorrow. That being said, the addition of a new time sink and distraction in WoW may be the end to fast raiding times and skilled PvPers. I can see it now... 24 raid members to the tank/hunter, “Pull, please.” “Hold on, I have a huge chain going on with a big multiplier” says the distracted gamer. Someone else pulls, the tank doesn't notice and the raid wipes. Tank screams “WHY THE HELL DID YOU PULL?! NOW I HAVE A 50 GOLD REPAIR BILL!” Rest of the raid laments, leading to the the bank getting looted, the guild collapsing, and 10 members quitting WoW all together. Me, dramatic? Never! Along with breaking the news, WoWInsider managed to score a beta copy which they seem very found of. Early this morning they posted yet another Bejeweled-based story, an interview with PopCap's T. Carl Kwoh and Moongaze. The Q&A session is lengthy and it's because the two interviewees happened to be a bit long winded rather than a whole lot of questions being asked. Anyone interested in Bejeweled, the addon community or why the heck they thought of the idea should venture over. Who else is going to check out Bejeweled when it launches next week? I should mention that playing Bewjeweled - and being skilled at it - is the object of some Achievements.  That'll definitely get you Achievement nuts to look at it.

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