Project Lore

We dedicated players can bicker all we want about Arena balance or Rogues being over-powered, but what about the presence of PvP available in the game itself? When you have a game as popular as World of Warcraft, you're bound to attract the ire of the gaming community at large. In my travels around the internet, I've learned that there are quite a lot of people fed up with Blizzard's baby, and one of the chief complaints, next to simply being an MMO, is that it doesn't focus enough on Player versus Player combat. I suppose this isn't a new argument. After all, the game's been criticized for its "care bear" approach to open-world ganking since before its launch, and, at that point, I can understand why. It stands to reason that the people most interested in the game at the time were those that had spent extensive amounts of time playing through the Warcraft strategy games. WoW offered them a new, interesting, and more intimate way of engaging in the age-old conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. With so much standing animosity between the two factions, it would be reasonable for your average pre-release gamer to expect copious amounts of wanton bloodshed and for all-out war to consume Azeroth whole. Well, the fight with the Burning Legion mellowed those tensions. The Alliance lost their core leaders and Thrall tried his best to pacify the more chaotic aspects of the Horde. So when it came to retail, the only thing you could do in WoW was to attack someone on the opposite side if they let you, duel with fellow players, and play a silly game of "capture the flag" in Warsong Gulch (though, if memory serves correctly, Arathi Basin may have been available, as well). Quite the disappointment for some, but a great boon for others. The game's population swelled not only on the brand name, but the number of players who wanted to work cooperatively towards their goals. But Blizzard didn't completely forget about PvP. Instead, they made great strides to make it more and more a part of the game without completely alienating their base. But to this day, the game takes a lot of guff from those who have long-since quit the game or never played it in the first place. In fact, so heralded is this mythical PvP nirvana, that a lot of people believe that's the only way to make a dent in Warcraft's armor. That its players simply continue to bide their time and play such a "boring" game because a real, honest, PvP-dedicated MMO has yet to come along. Isle of Conquest... on of Warcraft's most recent PvP additions. The problem is that they have. Guild Wars, Warhammer, Aion. Countless other Korean MMORPGs. More games than I'm willing to list here have used PvP as a selling point to distance themselves from WoW. And yet, its success remains unparalleled in the genre. Now that's not to say that they're bad games or that they don't present a viable PvP option, but rather, I propose, the market for such games isn't quite as big as one might initially think. After all, not only are these games competing with Warcraft, but also games in other genres: Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament, HALO, Gears of War, Madden, Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros., Starcraft, Warcraft 3. Taking a quick look at the pro circuit will allow you to see what sorts of titles are dominating the competitive gaming scene at any given moment, and MMOs are curiously absent... aside from, ironically, Arena play in WoW. In my experience, the vast majority of competitive gamers prefer instant action, as opposed to the typical need to grind to a certain level to even start playing seriously. Now here is where WoW excels: it's got some excellent PvE content to pull you along, making that grind more or less worth it (at least the first time through). PvP, even if it isn't in its ideal form, is layered on top of that core structure. But some people maintain that the game simply doesn't go far enough. Really? Currently, you've got your choice of six different Battlegrounds, an extensive, rating-based Arena system, and World PvP objectives like Wintergrasp (and, to a lesser extent, Venture Bay, Halaa, and the Bone Wastes as the next most popular locales). The next expansion will add ratings to Battlegrounds, three brand new ones to fight in, the Tol'Barad PvP zone, and most certainly several unrevealed Arena maps, to boot. I contend that the sum total of World of Warcraft's PvP content eclipses that of  nearly any competing MMORPG. Is it as integrated into the game as it is in other titles? Perhaps not, but that's splitting hairs. If a game's PvP is restricted primarily to certain zones, regardless of whether or not they are physically connected to the core game world, I don't think it's any different from the way Battlegrounds are set up. And, of course, there's always rolling on an open PvP server if that's the way you really want to play the game. Blizzard may have shifted their focus to PvE content early on, but I think that the concept of PvP in Azeroth has come back in a very big way. With those old conflicts rising once again, both the Horde and Alliance marching to war against each other, even with a greater threat looming, I think the game's potential for competitive player combat can only become greater. So, I ask you readers: Is Blizzard really short-changing PvP? Have you been satisfied with the amount of content added, or do you think other games have succeeded at competing on this front, offering a better, and supposedly more comprehensive PvP experience?

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It’s one of my favorite times of the year again, holiday time in Azeroth! This means one thing for me, tons of new achievements to do. I have just started them myself, but looking over the list it seems to me that this event is going to bring out some of the best and worst in WoW achievements. Many of them seem awesomely exciting, while even more of them seem mind numbingly boring.

Let me start with the good. The achievement to honor the elders in the opposing factions cities is great. It encourages world PvP, gives you a reason to go some places you rarely go, and gives you the impression of a really fun adventure. I am glad blizzard included this, and I am looking forward to charging into Orgrimmar. I think I may be even more excited to rack up my city defender by killing Horde trying to do the same.

Now the not so good… just about everything else. Sure seasonal bosses are cool, fireworks are cool, but I really don’t like feeling like I have to wander all over the old world finding random guys in random zones, and not even getting any gold for my time. I’ve wandered around these places plenty before, first to get explorer, then to trick or treat during Hallow’s End, now I’m back at it. In my eyes this is little more than a time sink.

I can’t say I’m particularly fond of having to run through a bunch of lowbie instances either. Sure doing some of the more current content is fun, but do I really need to go do ZF of Stratholme again (especially now that I’ve got my Baron Mount)?

My one piece of advice as you embark on this incredibly dull task would be to look at your other achievements and see if you can knock anything out at the same time. Are there  squirrels that need lovin’, pests that need controlin’, or zones that need explorin'? Now is the time to do them. If you have to do something boring you might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Just keep reminding yourself, this is all for the Violet Proto-Drake.

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You young ones are spoiled these days, what with your multiple Battlegrounds and Arena matches. Heck, one of the most exciting features coming with Wrath of the Lich King is Lake Wintergrasp. An entire zone dedicated to uninstanced PvP, complete with siege weapons. Back in my day we had to travel across the ocean, uphill, through the snow while dodging bear and lion pies to get our PvP fix. Yea, I am talking about the good old days of Southshore versus Tarren Mill. All of those who leveled up before the invention of Alterac Valley and Wasrong Gulch know exactly what I speak of. The Horde and Alliance quest hubs in Hillsbrad Foothills are meant for mid-20 level players, but players of all levels used to pass by to get to the higher level zones like Eastern and Western Plaguelands. This was also the time before you could chain together flightpaths, forcing players to jump from node to node, rather than one continuous flight (node to node somehow makes it cheaper...). Tarren Mill and Southshore happened to only be a stones throw from each other, allowing for short trips from the graveyard to the battlefield. The conditions caused a perfect storm of PvP, the likes which have never been seen in World of Warcraft again. My first trip into crux of mayhem and death was early in my WoW career. Before Onyxia was released, my guild already had its fair share of players that were level 40+. I remained on my level 20ish Rogue, still too low to head to Southshore for quests, but always wanted to help my guild. My guildmates one night decided it was time to raid Thrall (we were under the impression that killing him would allow you to loot Thrall's Ear, Diablo-style, obviously we were mistaken), so the Guildmaster grabbed as many members as possible, along with anyone who was interested, and stormed off to Ogrimmar. After the Horde handed our ass to us, we turned back, dejected and depressed at our failure. We sought revenge, and what better target than the hotspot of Tarren Mill (on the way to Tyr's Hand, which was were most people were headed). Now about 30 strong, and mostly composed of Ventrilo-equipped guildmates, we laid waste to Tarren Mill and any Horde that dared enter the Hillsbrad Foothills. For almost two hours, we commandeered the zone for no better reason than that we could. The Horde had won the battle at the capital city of Ogrimmar, but the Alliance sent out a message. No town is safe. Tarren Mill versus Southshore battle royals are long gone, and unfortunately, will likely stay that way. If you wish to re-live or even experience the mess for the first time, there is a new website called YouTube. You may have heard about it? I have tried a few times to recreate those memories, but it never happens. Battlegrounds truly ended World PvP for WoW. Blizzard tried to bring World PvP back with The Burning Crusade's PvP objectives, but it wasn't the same. Thankfully, Blizzard is trying again, and what we have heard about Lake Wintergrasp keeps me hoping.

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