Project Lore

I'll admit it, Icecrown Citadel is already starting to wear a little thin. No, my guild hasn't conquered it yet. And we haven't even started Hard Modes (which seem to be a mixed bag in terms of difficulty themselves), but we're sort of at that point where everything is on farm except for one or two fights that we continually butt our heads against week after week.

Progress, at this point, is being made at a snail's pace. So, with little else to do when I log on and we aren't raiding, I've been turning my eye towards earning old world achievements once again. At the top of my priority list have been those associated with faction reputation (like Timbermaw Hold or the Argent Dawn) and the notoriously frustrating Loremaster title.

For those of you not in pursuit of such goals, finding and completing every quest can be quite maddening. You can't always depend on quest hubs, as some start as drops from random creatures, or can only be found in the farthest corners of a given zone. The hunt only gets worse the more that you complete, since the remaining ones are all that much harder to discover.

But if there's one thing that makes this journey far more annoying than it needs to be, it's all the absolutely useless junk that finds its way into your bags! Isn't there an easy way to solve this problem?

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Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff.

World of Warcraft has been available for more than five years now.  That amount of time has enabled me, someone who's never been into alts, to not only roll one, but two alternative characters to level 80.  Add my mule and then the Auction House character and I have a grand total of five characters with over 30 days played each (mostly idle time on the bank and AH toons).  My point is this, I log in and out of my characters a lot.  I am talking about five to ten times a day.  That's why I wish Blizzard would implement a /relog characterName command.

It's an incredibly simple request that would do nothing fancy.  You'd simply type /relog Goggins, or any other toon's name, and the game would log you out of your current avatar and into the requested one in a seamless step.  No need to hit the selection screen and double-click.  You'd go from logging out to logging in.  We'd still have the option to hit the character selection screen through the old /logout, or the initial login, but how often do we really need it?

I figure that every relog wastes anywhere between a few seconds to thirty seconds, depending which computer I am playing on.  Compile five to ten relogs at ten seconds a piece over the course of five years and there's a lot of lost time there.  It's a simple request that would save me, and likely many players, a large chunk of time in the log run.

Frankly, I can't see any downside or possible abuse to it.  Can you?

Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff. Is Violet Hold The Bastion Of Wrath's 5-Man Content? I love WoW's PvE content, but there's no denying that it can get boring.  Doing the same runs over and over for weeks on end do nothing but show us how repetitive things can become.   After the first few virgin runs we fight through the monotony mainly for a chance at some glorious rewards.  Thanks to hard and heroic modes, and quick content patches, raiding has become less repetitive, but our heroic dungeon farming is no less mind numbing than ever.  Considering how much time we now spend in heroics, thanks to the vastly improved badge system, don't you think party-based PvE deserves content diversification?  What to do... We already have heroic and non-heroic versions, so that's out of the picture.  Hard modes could be done, but would be placed on farm by anyone who raids in a matter of weeks.  Not the best return on one's development investment there.  That's out.  What else can be done to make five man dungeons a little less stale, a little more enjoyable? Ignoring our insatiable desire for loot and badges, one way to keep an instance fresh is already implemented by Blizzard in Violet Hold (and later ToC).  Boss mob rotation.  In VH the party is given a random chance to encounter three of six possible bosses before they tackle Cyanigosa.  It's a small change, but the randomness forces players to stay on their toes even after they start to outgear the dungeon.  Extend this idea further, apply it to multiple dungeons, and it'd give us a little boost in content. For the lore and item junkies out there, new bosses can offer both.  Many instances can simply have lieutenants written in as taking over a former leaders' position, or perhaps the vacuum left by a leader's demise allows a new faction, race or species to subjugate the rest of the instance's denizens to their will.  It's true that in the long run the change would be like Diablo II's "dynamic" map system, where you could easily remember all the map layouts, but the longer we can extend that notion the better. I've mulled over the problem of the lack of 5-man heterogeneity for ages, with multiple audiences, and outside of making entirely new dungeons more frequently, a dynamic encounter assignment has been the best thing I've come up with.  Does anyone have any other bright ideas to make five man content less repetitive likes their big brothers? Do you agree that that VH offers a bit more play before it becomes repetitive?  Everyone likes new encounters right?

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World of Warcraft has changed dramatically since it was released at the end of 2004.  Say what you will about the PvP and PvE changes, there are numerous aspects of the title that are undeniably better.  You've the numerous tweaks to the user interface, the inclusion of the top add-ons, constant tweaks, bug fixes and optimization, and small graphical upgrades with each expansion (shadows, lighting).  All these fixes are very much appreciated, but nothing tops the feature with the most notable changes, questing.  Be it direction, design, story or implementation, the way quests are handled these is a far cry from the distractions that they were in the first 20 levels of alpha/beta (originally they barely existed past that point). I do not know what changed at Blizzard to cause this reboot.  Perhaps the company had more time to craft more intriguing stories?  Maybe the developers were just handed better tools?  They decided to start taking quests more seriously?  It's likely some combination of the three, but whatever lit a fire under their collective asses, I love it. I love it so much that I wish there was a way to see the teams that worked on specific quests.  Case in point, what genius wrote the Sholazar Basin story arcs that I raved about earlier?  There's even some funny "Kill 10 foozles" quests, including one that Solidsagart just completed in Storm Peaks.  Ricket totally had me going for a minute.  Who penned that goblin to employ such spot on tongue-in-cheek humor? The way I envision the feature would be a simple check box in the Quest Log's UI that is default off.  Therefore, the immersion would be preserved for players worried about such things, or who couldn't care less.  But those who wish to recognize crafty writing, good design or a cohesive story would know who to worship.  Not to mention an added bit of information to help filter through "trash" quests.  No need to backlog every quest - most of the old stuff is disappearing with Cataclysm anyway - just the new stuff will do. The tales of Adventure's secret room, and the ultimate birth of Activision taught me one thing; the little guys need to be able to receive credit for their hard work as much as the big fish (Greg Street, J. AllenBrack, Tom Chilton).  Yes, I realize that such a thing could be a slippery slope, it may lead to names being everywhere.  So long as Blizzard can find a tasteful way to inject credits in to the game, I'd be more then happy to see them.  After all, when have you ever looked at the credits of the game you spend countless hours in?

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Wishful Thinking is a column dedicated to the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft.  No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff. A Perfect Example Of A Soloable Boss Please hold your comments until after reading the post.  Fallacies and design flaws will be brought to light later in the post. World of Warcraft's dungeons are absolutely fantastic.  They offer bite-sized content (at least since The Burning Crusade) for players with only an hour or so to spare.  The challenges are appropriate for the levels required, and include a healthy mix of encounters, trash mobs and loot. Sure, it may take as long as the run to create a group, but that should change with the upcoming cross-server LFG system.  I digress.  Five mans are as close as the MMORPG comes to offering a multiplayer experience that's deep and goal oriented without requiring an immense time investment.  But it doesn't have to be. Imagine dungeon designs that didn't require five players.  Heck, it wouldn't even allow a full handful of Azeroth's finest to enter.  These dungeons would be specifically tuned to smaller groups, four, three, two, possibly even a soloable dungeon.  They'd be even more bite-sized content (more pickup and play).  Challenging the group to push through smaller trash groups and requiring players to maximize the skillsets and abilities made available to them.  The inherent need for less people would mean less time forming a group.  The new creation would allow for Blizzard to easily return to a long lost dungeon attribute, non-linear gameplay.  In short, tons of benefits. The possibilities of sub five man dungeons are nearly limitless.  We'd have soloable dungeons that offer a maximum challenge for every class.  Those capable of perfecting their class would be rewarded with maximum loot, those who wipe could be locked out of the instance until the next day.  Groups could be split up – Gothik The Harvester style – and forced to help each other through the split paths.  The smaller nature of these dungeons would allow for Blizzard to implement experimental gameplay attributes for an increasingly diverse and unique grouping experience. Running with a priest, rogue and a mage?  Well then there'd be no reason to tackle that boss who drops plate and mail.  But perhaps you have to kill Big Bad Bossman because he offers the only priest, rogue, mage route to the final encounter.  That's right, done well the long lost design method could allow a group that isn't the holy trinity alternate ways through the dungeon.  Yes, a design that wouldn't require the holy trinity, a DPSers wet dream. Now on to the obvious problems with such designs.  The main problem is one of balancing.  No matter the size of the content balancing is always an arduous task.  That fact doesn't change here, and could easily become worse.  If Blizzard designed the content to accept absolutely any combination of classes, then balancing would get out of hand.  Instead the developers would have to be smart in the creation, designing the experience to only work with a subset of classes.  A subset that the players would have to figure out, the hard way.  Or they could use the multi-pathing idea to give players multiple routes to try. Another issue would be loot.  Should players be given the same ilvl of loot as a normal five man?  What about badges?  All of that should be entirely dependent on how difficult a run is – an idea that Blizzard already subscribes too.  That's the third issue, the perception that a raid would be easy, or easier, when run with classes x, y, and z.  That's pretty much the case right now - run without a Shaman and you feel that lack of Heroism – and won't change until all classes become clones of each other.  Or those special abilities are turned into items... Just do it in five man you say?  That's a reasonable point, but there are many ideas that wouldn't make sense, or even be feasible in a five man environment.  Not to mention that an attractive factor to these fun sized packages is that they'd be easier for Blizzard to create due to their minute nature.  A five man that ended in twenty minutes just wouldn't seem all that challenging, or engrossing. Blizzard's mantra lately has been that the company wants to offer content to all of its subscribers, not just the hardcore, or the casual.  Wouldn't the mix of incredibly difficult solo dungeons and smaller dungeons offer just that?  What do you think?  Would you be up for the challenge of a soloable dungeon?  Interested in experimental design and story telling mechanics?  Let's here your ideas for a sub five man group.  The best may be selected and expanded upon in the upcoming revitalization of the Design A Dungeon column.

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Could These Be The Faces Of The Future? Ever since MMO-Champion.com dug up those stupid masks the corner of the Internet that is home to WoW has been a storm of investigation.  Shortly after discovering the pair of Worgen and Goblins masks another four pairs, Naga, Ogre, Murloc, Vrykul were found.  The discovery dosed the fire surrounding Horde Goblins and Alliance Worgen, while at the same time fueling the idea of a third faction being introduced to World of Warcraft. In my opinion two factions suck.  Few games have implemented just a pair of competitors successfully.  This is in large part due to the grass is always greener effect.  If you are beaten badly by the opposing team, then the developer likes them more, they are overpowered or there are population problems.  Some of the complaints are certainly real, but one way developers, including Blizzard itself, has skirted the issue is by having more than two factions (see Starcraft's three factions and Warcraft III's four).  As such, I would love to see a third faction, but I don't expect it to play out as many would have us believe. Most of what I have seen points to the neutral faction being one in name only.  That somewhere down the line you would chose who to fight for, Alliance (obviously) or Horde (fail).  It sounds absolutely awesome, and I would love to see it happen, but I doubt it.  To implement this Blizzard would have to drastically change the stance on factions, again.  Specifically, the company would have to allow players to have characters of different factions on the same server (already allowed on non-PvP servers).  Otherwise my Goblin (duh) could never be truly neutral if Solidexplosion was forced to select Alliance down the road because of Solidsamm's and Solidsagart's affiliations. But that doesn't mean I don't see a neutral faction happening.  In fact I wrote the unique classes hoping this could come to fruition.  Blizzard could easily implement a third faction (based on the masks no less), one that stays out of the Alliance-Horde affairs.  One that watches from the sidelines offering refugee for any that may require it.  One that I will label as the "Swiss" faction.  These non-aggressors will act as diplomats between the warring sides, while still contributing to the often combined goals of said sides, such as killing the Lich King.  In the long run there'd be more work needed to create a separate entity, but the new content should be far more appreciated than tacking on a choice down the road. Certainly if a neutral faction was to happen, the cash flush Goblins would be the race in charge, with the battle hardened Worgen, brutal Ogres, and the swarm happy Murlocs lending a helping hand.  The multi-talented Vrykul are new to Warcraft, so their addition as a playable class would annoy this purist.  After how many times I creeped them, or grinded them for reputation, I believe the fifth slot should go to the furry Furbolgs. And yes, I know I ignored the Naga masks.  While there could be some sort of Forsaken-type branch or tribe, I write off their addition to the line-up of Hallow's End fun to the fact that they are the incoming bad guys. Again, I'd love it if Blizzard makes me eat this post with a side of 'in your face,' but I just don't see Blizzard revamping the PvP servers to allow them to go cross faction.  It'd be a bit of work, just for a choice down the line.  But they have done crazier things.  Speaking of the choice, let's hope it'll be a cool, lengthy quest line to prove your allegiance. What would some of the racial benefits be?  Goblins get extra gold from kills, Murloc has higher level fishing, and Ogres get, umm, kaleidoscope vision?  What is more likely, the labor intensive relative to reward faction choosing, or an entirely new faction?  What about blending the two, letting you chose a side, or remaining in the new faction?  That'd be interesting.

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It's been nearly four years since I put my last laptop to pasture.  Although my trusty HP Pavilion dv5000 has treated me very well, it is showing its age thanks to Wrath's slight bump in system requirements.  You may recall that many Apple machines were nixxed as supported systems thanks to their choice of Intel's GMA950 on-board video solution.  It turns out that the once sexy card in my dv5000 (ATi Xpress 200m) is on the cusp of inadequacy.  The hulking laptop can still play WoW at an almost acceptable framerate, so long as I don't mind a level of detail dating back to years gone by.  A laggy and crappy looking 1024x768 presentation just doesn't cut it for this gaming snob. The age and capabilities of the dv5000 isn't the only reason that I have begun shopping around though.  The laptop market has become the new focus of computer companies high and low thanks to consumer desires.  It's a radically different market than it was two years ago thanks to the influx of R&D dollars.  And lately, an entirely new market has sprung forth, the "Netbook" line.  If you aren't a technogeek, fret not, a Netbook isn't some new toy or technology that you will be forced to use or follow (hello Twitter).  It's a sub-category of the laptop market that combines the wireless connotations of the internet with a very small laptop. I know what you're thinking.  How can I expect a netbook, a machine designed with low battery consumption in mind and target capabilities of e-mailing and websurfing, to run World of Warcraft?  It's quite simple really, if you check the latest line of netbooks, nearly all of them sport a mobile version of the GMA950 that is superior to the original release.  So getting barebones support of WoW is certainly not out of the question.  In fact, some models sport GPUs on the level of the Xpress 200m, but fail in other aspects.  As consumers its our job to tell companies what we want, and although I am just one customer, I am one customer that can explicitly tell you what he wants and knows how realistic those requests are. So ASUS, Acer, HP, Samsung, Apple, are you listening? Because here it is:  I want a netbook that can run games from five years ago at a good clip.  I want a netbook with a 92%, or larger, size keyboard with a minimum resolution of 1024x768.  But, it must remain capable of a solid battery life (4+ hours).  Why not just get one of your beefier - weight and power - laptops?  Because that isn't what I want. Let your engineers play with the integrated chipsets from Intel and the mobile versions of discrete cards from Nvidia (hello ION) and ATi.  Lord knows they want to, tinkering is in their nature.  I understand that the battery will be eaten alive while playing those games, that isn't the issue.  Just make use of the mobile chipsets that disables the power hungry components of said devices when they aren't in use.  The flash videos on ProjectLore.com do not require 3D rendering components to be on.  Oh, and I certainly understand if this mild "gaming" netbook is a bit more expensive than the other offerings. My request is not outlandish or unrealistic in any way.  This episode of wishful thinking can be realized if some company puts in the research to create a netbook that is superior to a better-than-average laptop from four years ago.  I would never want to "upgrade" to a laptop that can't actually do something the old guy can.  I'm chomping at the bit for my desires to be realized simply because we are so close to that point.  As it stands now the ASUS EE PC 1000HE is in my sights with its stellar battery life and 2GB max RAM, but that GMA950 pisses on my excitement.  Why couldn't they have rolled with a X3100?!^one*() Sorry for the ++nerd in this post, but the topic has been on my mind a lot lately.  I will be doing some serious traveling over the summer and obviously my laptop - whichever it may be - will be coming with me.  While any machine will allow me to write and browse the web, how could I live without my WoW?  Just look at pixiestixy.

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The bloggers of ProjectLore may be critical of World of Warcraft from time to time, but we do it with a purpose.  The main reason behind our critiquing of WoW is to help our readers envision the way we see the game, and what we think is best for it.  Being paying supporters we, and you, are entitled to our opinions and aspirations.  It would be an added bonus if some of the topics we discussed ever did reach the designers at Blizzard, but we can't honestly expect them to keep track of everything.  This is one of those things that I wish would reach them, as I believe we could all agree that it would be beneficial to all kinds of players. Repair bills sucks.  It is a safe assumption that we all hate paying them, no matter how much sense they makes.  They are included in WoW - and many other MMORPGs - as a consistent and easy way to pull money out of the hands of players.  The fee is essentially a tax, if you are fighting monsters, then you must pay.  I have no issues in paying for consequential repairs to my gear, as stated, it only makes sense that they experience wear and tear.  But there is always a fabric, material or even brand that is known for its durability.  Take cast iron or stainless steal kitchenware, those things take a beating.  Mine go from boiling temperatures to chilling waters without more than a hiss.  Yet they keep on performing.  Why can't we have something like that in WoW, a material revered for its long-lasting durability?  Perhaps we could learn to be a craftsmen so skilled, that our weapon and armor can survive the harshest conditions? There are two intuitive ways to achieve this goal.  The first would be to follow the lead of the Jewelcrafting profession and allow a max level crafter a chance at creating a more durable item.  Should the random number generator fall in their favor, then the item would be imbued with all the craftsmen skill, giving it a slower rate of decay.  This implementation would be great, but requires special durability cases for these items at best, or a re-design of the entire system at worst.  A more likely and more beneficial solution would be a salve or potion that lowers all incoming wear and tear.  The item would cover all of our armor in a protective shield, saving us money on each piece, rather than a designated few.  Our second option removes the need for special cases, although a re-design of the durability system remains a possibility.  Let me be clear, I do not mean a high max durability, I mean for the items to not take damage at the same rate as our current gear. The reduction of our repair bills would be minute if the proc on crafting was selected.  A salve or potion would be of far greater use.  Just think about all those early training runs in raids, difficult heroics, and of course, shady PUGs that they would be applicable for.  In the end, you would be saving tons of gold, making the creation and use of the items quite beneficial.  Not to mention profitable for any profession that was able to craft it. The only adverse effects I foresee would be skyrocketing prices for the the needed materials and a shift in the weight of professions.  Neither of these concerns seem to worry Blizzard that much as evidenced by The Burning Crusade's Leatherworking crafted War Drums.  Heck, now that I think about it, if they are going to implement one of them, they might as well just do both.  It would help even out the profession changes.  What do you guys think?  Do you like money?

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I'd totally just stunlock him first.

Gamers have been customizing their avatars for years, decades even.  The first customization was very, very basic, picking a name.  Over time developers have added all sorts of customizable options, down to Star Trek Online's promise of allowing us to create our own alien species.  As if that universe doesn't have enough aliens in it already.  Blizzard's character customization allows us to pick faces, hairstyles, skin tones and all that hubbub, but it never struck me as an incredibly deep system.  Numerous RPGs and other MMOGs have offered a more granular approach, straight down to the color set of your gear and a wide variety of (useless) accessories.  Yet, something has always been missing recently. As far as the industry has come, I can't recall a single title by name that allows me to be left or right-handed.  I know I have played a game that let me do this, perhaps one in the Quake series, but I can't remember specifically.  My collection of gamer friends struggled to come up with anything other than vague memories (SiN, some older RPGs).  It seems clear to me that a handful of older FPS and RPG titles allowed this, although many likely glossed over the option, or I simply did not care at the time.  But, I care now. FPS are fleeting titles, nothing sticks to the characters.  In multiplayer you die constantly, and while series like Call of Duty and Battlefield allow you to rank-up and such, you aren't attached to your toon.  In an RPG, one is more attached to the avatar.  With a third-person RPG, one is constantly viewing the toon, seeing everything he/she does.  You become attached, possibly even obsessed over the looks.  Entire mods have been created to allow gamers to tweak appearances.  This obsession is only multiplied in MMOGs, and for obvious reasons. As deep and lengthy as an RPG can be, no title can stand up to the amount of time that we invest in our MMO characters.  Along with the dedication, comes the intense social aspect that makes MMOGs so attractive.  If I am going to be sinking days of time into my creation, shouldn't I be able to swing it like a southpaw? I know this is an incredibly minute aspect of WoW, but a guy can dream, right?  A fleeting aspiration at best.  I don't even expect Blizzard to implement this aesthetic pleasure so late in the game, but they have done other things I did not foresee, such as the Paid Character Re-Customization service.  Has anyone else ever wondered about this?  Heck, can you name some other titles that have this choice?  There has to be some relatively new titles that allows us to do this. As for the other MMOG developers out there, you have yet another feature request.

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