Project Lore

WotLK has opened up a whole new continent, a whole new world within the World of Warcraft. It's exciting and new and filled with all sorts of possibilities. But what about the 'old' world? What will become of it? Is it really old? Is it really that outdated? Will it just sit there and gradually fade from our memories? Maybe...or maybe not. You see, most people believe that once they have technically been somewhere that they know that place enough to say that they've been there to other people. While factually true, they may have not seen the whole of it, the little ins and outs, the tucked away places that make that area so special. And, for World of Warcraft, Blizzard knows that and has come up with a solution. World Explorer is just for you. It suggests that you explore all of the World of Warcraft, every little corner, just to see all the sights and all of the little nuances of each area. It actually asks you to get out and explore your World of Warcraft world. How cool is that? And after all of that exploring, Blizzard is kind enough to reward you with a great title and tabard. Pretty sweet. Now in real life, exploring is fantastic. I've been to a few parts of this world, a few places people dream about going to or visiting before they die and I gotta say it really has been a great experience. I learned a lot about each place and just scratched the surface of knowing about each places culture, beliefs and people. Absolutely amazing. And the best thing is that after you go to these places, if your lucky enough, you get stamps in your passport, far more satisfying that a digital tabard but a little more expensive. So go out and explore your world. Visit all the near and far places. Do it for cheap or go all out. It doesn't matter where you stay as long as you go there. I have enjoyed traveling this world and I hope that you will too. And when you do, or if you have, write a comment below about your favorite place in WoW and your favorite place in RL. Mine have to be Dalaran and the rolling hills near Dundalk, Ireland. Prague, Czeck - the Old City - is a close second. Have fun exploring.

Click to read more ...

So I'm sure many of you are running around in WotLK, leveling up your toon, gaining profession points, maybe a few new achievements. And with all of that 'living' in the World of Warcraft, there's a price: food, water, reagents, ammo and repairs.

But here is what some of you may be missing: Always shop where people know you. In other words, only buy and repair from people you are exalted with or you will lose tons of gold in the long run. Since patch 2.3, your toon's status with a faction can get you great discounts at exalted. These discounts of 20% are huge for guilds that try for world-first boss kills or grind on trash mobs in places they don't have the gear to go into and kill the boss. "But I'm leveling. I don't have time to go to SW or Thunder Bluff. And what's a few more copper anyway?" Okay, okay. you might be right. You might be willing to pay a little more for a service that's right in front of you rather than going to Shatt and porting to IF or Undercity. And really what's the difference on a 10% discount? What does it really matter? Well there may come a day when you might want the epic flying mount riding skill or maybe cold weather flying? That's the day you'll wish you'd repaired at SW or Undercity. Get a little addon called FuBar_DurabilityFu (requires FuBar) or something like it. It will show you exactly how much you save by repairing with a faction that really, really likes you. Now riddle me this: Do you do that in RL? Well? Do you shop at a convenience store for basics like milk, cookies and bread? Do you take your car to be repaired at a big dealership who know you only by your license plate number? Do you spend thousands of extra dollars on on an education or a house because you took the first loan you got approved for by some huge conglomerate who might know who you are if you give them your social security number? Well? So take a look at the game, and the players who have loads of money, already rollin' around on those mammoths you want so much. Take a look at the system of commerce, and really watch it. And then you'll start to see that it really is who knows you, who you're exalted with, that gets you the best deals, the best stuff and those special little things that they won't even consider giving to just anyone. Always shop where people know you. You will save in the longrun and you will get better deals that you ever thought possible.

Click to read more ...

A long, long time ago, I can still remember when I got that quest to get those vials, And I knew if I had my chance, I'd get to watch a warrior stance dance and maybe I'd do some DPS for awhile. But guild drama made me shiver, with every chat that was delivered. Bad news at the bank steps - no more group trips to Burning Steppes. I can't remember if I tried, when I was told which guildie lied, but something told me just get on my mount and ride, the day my guild died. So bye, bye free homemade cherry pie. No more guildies to group with to raid The Eye, and other guilds were killing mobs with the help of an old Draenei, sayin no need to kill that Keal’thas guy, or that Vashj, she's just to hard to try. Did you know I had a lot to think of, a quest to complete and then get rid of? I just had to fight Vashj below. It’s a fight that I believe I know. I have the best hot-keyed macro and know how to kite the strider real slow. Well I know that guilds hate Illidan, even more than that crazy Zul’jin. Zul drops really good clothie shoes, but fighting him gives me the blues. I was lonely, guildless, out-of-luck, with quest to complete in the deep muck. I knew that I had gotten stuck the day my guild died. I remember thinking... Bye, bye free homemade cherry pie, No more guildies to group with to raid The Eye, and other guilds were killing mobs with the help of an old Draenei, sayin no need to kill that Keal’thas guy, or that Vashj, she's just to hard to try. Now for ten months or so I’ve been my own, picking grave moss off of old grave stones, but that’s not how it used to be. I used to stand before the dragon queen, turning in quests few had ever seen and then a voice inside reminded me. Oh, and then the chips were looking down I surfed the net with a solemn frown. Then the new patch notes were learned, and my desire quickly burned. And while others turned in their AV marks, I logged in near Stormwind park. Those patch notes were the spark. They said the hardcore raids died I was happy... Bye, bye super hard raid boss guy. The patch nerf raids including SSC and The Eye. Maybe I’ll get a pug raid, who needs an old Draenei? Those bosses are going to fry... compliments of this fire mage guy. Helter skelter in the LFG melter. Raid bosses will need a fallout shelter. Eight bosses in Kara now fall so fast. Many pugs formed and tried to kick ass, but only a rare few had the right class, most barely sending Prince home in a cast. Now Shatt was filled with happy toons, while raid leaders barked at the maroons. Some pulled Moroes with /dance, Oh those raids didn’t have a chance! ‘Cause real raiders are buffed and get healed, bad raiders use others as their shield. Do you recall what was revealed that day more raid bosses died? And raid leaders were screaming... “Bye, bye Looking For Group guy, Your skills are weak, No you can’t come to The Eye! You should roll a priest or a shammi Draenei. A nerfed raid isn’t for every guy. Go give Warhammer a try.” Oh there I was, in that place, many toons fighting for a pug raid place with little time before Lich King. So come on, get buffs and let’s raid quick, I got a quest to kill a mean snake chick and fire is this mage’s happy friend. Oh, and as I watched in fits of rage, pugs jumped to early onto Kara’s stage. No pug born in hell could break Bad Wolf’s spell. And as my flames lit up Netherspite, I realized they didn’t do the beams right. That was a really long night, the day bad raid pugs died. And I was cryin... Bye, bye vial quest - I won’t try. Without a guild how will I ever get into The Eye? Maybe at 80 I’ll visit the soul of that old Draenei. At least I gave it a try. I’m gonna go home and cry. Then I met a guy who gave me clues of a good guild with some happy news. I smiled and got started right away. I went down to SSC’s little shore where I tried to kill Vashj before, but this time, she was the one who had to pay. And in The Eye, Ventrilo screamed. The tank danced and the boomkins beamed. Then not a word was spoken. The stained glass all was broken. And the two villains I hated the most, now were dead, Vashj was toast, and Keal’thas moved to the coast. The day the quest objectives died. And I was singing... Bye, bye, it’s time to fly, Going to Caverns of Time after clearing The Eye. Turn in that old quest, get a ring with crit really high. Suprise! Hand of A'dal - oh my! Hand of A'dal - oh my!!! And I was singing... Bye, bye quest, It’s time to fly, Got my gold and ring after pugging The Eye Maybe next I’ll go fight with that old Draenei I think I’ll give it a try. ----- Sometimes when you finish what you started, you get an extra bonus, in WoW and RL. Thanks and have fun SaintGermain

Click to read more ...

So it's been awhile since I wrote a WoW Life Lesson and you may be wondering, "Why?" Or "Where has SaintGermain been?" Or "What's he been doing?" Well it actually has a lot to do with this particular WoW Life Lesson. You may or may not know what it takes to put together Project Lore. Some of you may but for those others, let me give you a little idea. It's a lot. And whether or not your familiar with production and post production, you can probably guess that it's tougher that it looks, just like Sunwell - It may look all nice and friendly, but it is a tough SOB that is as relentless as that noob who keeps yellin' in SW for gold to buy weapon skills. And for those of you who have been lucky / skilled enough to do a little Sunwell farming, you know very well that it takes a team of people to get the job done, and if you lose a healer or an OT, then it's even harder. How many times have you been in an instance and a DPS dies or the MT hits the floor and a tank-ish toon has to pick up the slack for that fight? If it turned out okay, it probably took much longer than it would have if everyone would have been up during the fight. Even with Kael'thas getting nerfed to the ground, you still need 25 ppl to kick his ass ( okay 20 if you're in T6 gear, alright... maybe less ) Even with Mag being nerfed into oblivion ( shown above ) you still needs about 10 ppl. ( We did it with 19, I think. ) The point is that in game and in RL, you can get more stuff done with a good group of people. And with WotLK coming out soon, you better believe that it will be the good groups of people, the guilds that work together or the collection of buddies that play together, that excel in this fun game of life... er... WoW. Have fun leveling... and find yourself a good group.

Click to read more ...

No matter what your level or experience or race or class or faction, you can always make a change. Always. What sort of change? Well that's up to you. What do you want to change? You want to be a tailor? Do it. You want to level up fishing? Go fish. Want to switch servers? Do that, like I just did. WHAT!?! Yep that's right. I switched servers from a PvP to a PvE, from Frostmane to Moonrunner. Why you ask? Plain and simple: most of my friends switched there so there I went. There's also the added benefit of not getting ganked while grinding it out from 70 to 80 in the next few months. It was a easy choice, really. I'm more interested in the content and storyline rather than mindlessly killing someone else's toon 'cuz they just happen to be there. Don't get me wrong, I've had moments where I've ganked a few people who were camping a lowbee, but it's not my favorite thing in the game. For me, it's crushing Magtheridon or finally putting Illidan in his place. The point is this: you can always make another choice, whether in WoW or RL. If you think things would be better, funner or so much easier doing something different in your WoW or RL, then make the decision and do it. It's your choice. It's always up to you.

Click to read more ...

"So I was listening to guild chat yesterday and you'll never guess what NoobLizard said. He was gettin all bent out of shape 'cuz Starfirezz said he sucked at holding aggro on Nightbane and that Starfirezz should be /gkicked for being disrespectful toward an officer but then Woodhealz said NoodLizard didn't know what the hell he was talking about 'cuz Starfirezz never said that and that Nooblizard was just didn't like Starfirezz because Starfirezz got that won that roll for that drop off Curator. Of course NoobLizard got pissed and /gquit but then Darklight invited him back after she promised that he could lead group A for Kara runs instead of group C with Starfirezz, but then Starfirezz logged in and heard the gchat and told Darklight that letting Nooblizard back in was bullshit and that NoobLizard should be booted for being an ass and pulling a powertrip tantrum and then Darklight said that... " Or something like that right? How many times have you popped on in gchat or vent and heard this sort of BS? Really. Is it worth the aggravation? Is it worth the time? No. Was it worth your time to read that paragraph above if that was the only thing on this post? Nope. Probably not. Gossip is a big waste of time. All I ever need to know is when's the raid, who is going and what gear I need to bring. Other than that, the gossip is just unnecessary. Oh sure some people will say that they are just telling the story of what happened and why and all that stuff, but the real story here is that the person telling gossip is not telling the gossip for information sake. Usually the person gossiping just wants to be the center of attention. You know it's the same in RL, gossip is a time waster, gets nothing accomplished except misinformation and is usually spread by someone who needs attention more than they need to maintain any sort of journalistic integrity. Besides, those who gossip rarely know the real facts and rarely keep their biases out of the story. So that's what's what about gossip. But... what did you hear? lol

Click to read more ...

It's as true in WoW as it is in RL: if you don't know what you have to do or don't understand what you are doing, then for heaven's (or the party's) sake, please, please ask. Here's the simple fact: when you begin something new, there's a good chance you will have no idea what you're doing unless you get some help. You probably did not start playing WoW knowing everything in the game. Sure maybe you read a few sites, 'trained' by  playing other games before or had some friends tell you about it, but for the most part, it was on the job training. And that's probably true about any job you have ever done if RL: You probably did not start knowing everything. Maybe you read up on it, trained by doing other jobs before or had some friends tell you about it, but for the most part, it was on the job training. But all in all, when something came up in WoW that you had no idea about, what did you do? When was the first time your group wiped because someone thought they knew what was supposed to happen or, worse yet, they thought they knew what might happen? Did they pull a Leroy Jenkins and not ask what the plan was? Did they fear a group of mobs into another pat? Or on the more benign side, did they rush in and not wait for everyone to get the follow-up quest? Chances are somebody did not bothered to ask because they felt like they would be called a noob. Well f-that. It all could have been avoided if they just asked. And RL is just the same. If you don't know, ask or you'll wipe. It's better to ask than to have to do something over and over and over again... ugghhhhh! Just ask.

Click to read more ...

When you show up for an instance, or even more important a raid, are you prepared? Do you come with mana pots and healing pots? Do you have your food? Did you repair? Well you should have. And that's what I mean - be prepared. If you're going to raid, have your stuff ready. And when you go to a place you don't know, know what your job is and know what skills will come in handy when unexpected stuff shows up. Who hasn't been in a pug or even a guild raid and someone in chat says, 'oops I forgot my... can you summon me back?' geezz ppl. Come to play! When mobs attack, you know what to do, learn what to do, or at least learn what your class is supposed to do: CC, DPS, Heal, Tank, whatever. If you are prepared in knowing what you can do and should do, you will probably live longer in that encounter. Now in RL, it's hard to be prepared all the time, just like those pats that whack you in BT or worse the ninjas in Heroic Shattered Halls. You can be prepared mentally tho. Know that life is random and that stuff pops up and ultimately it's how you react to it that makes the difference. Be prepared as best you can be, for a raid in WoW or for a job interview in RL. Know what you're good at and be willing to get better at it. And most important of all, if you are prepared and know that whatever happens, it will be okay, then you truly are prepared. So... are you prepared?

Click to read more ...

Yes, yes there will. What can I say? There will always be someone out there who doesn't like something for some reason that you may not be able to fathom. And some of those people will hate on you and everyone around you until you log or your guild master /gboots them. These haters could be 'on your side' or on the 'other team' but either way, they just try and make your RL or WoW life a living nightmare. Weather it's at work or home in RL giving you grief or saying ill-informed and impetuous things, or in WoW in battlegrounds yelling at you for no reason or in STV just 'cuz, haters have a way of just being jerks. So what do we do with haters? Well I suppose that there are several things that we could do. You could challenge them to a duel, but that rarely ends well even if you win, and in RL if you win you'd probably go to jail. Usually if you do win in WoW, they just spam you with hate chat or call you a noob or worse in /g chat or /y in Shatt. You can report them to a GM, but really what can a GM do if the person hasn't violated the TOS agreement? If they have been rude or hateful but not rude or hateful enough to warrant GM action, you're stuck sitting there, /shrugging and wondering what to do to get your satisfaction. Or, you can do what I prefer to do and just /ignore them. Yep just ignore them. Sooner or later a hater will do something so stupid that they'll get banned, or more fitting, get ganked in STV and camped for hours on end while their attackers just /laugh and /spit on them. Not that you should ever wish this on someone, but when you hear it happened to them, it kinda make you feel like things are right in the universe. I've had my share of haters, for whatever reason, and I am sure you have too, in RL and in the game. While in RL it's not as simple as typing /ignore, it is possible to just not be around those toxic people. So... what's the worst hater story you've heard about people playing in game?

Click to read more ...

Some of you may know that I, SaintGermain, am a bit of a scholar, a man of the world you might say. My travels throughout Azeroth, the Outlands and the mysterious realm of RL have brought to me many realizations about life lessons, many universal truths you might say, that I feel the need to share with you. Over the next several weeks, I will give you my perspective of life lessons, 33 to be exact, learned while adventuring in the WoW universe and how they may apply to you when you when you choose to venture into the ominous zone of RL. Rest assured that this will be fun and might even make you see WoW in a whole new light. And, as life, will be presented in no particular order. :) Yes, this WoW is a fun game, and yes, it's a place to have fun and enjoy yourself. It's great to slay a few monsters, get some gear and make pretty dresses. And it is also a place to learn about yourself and RL if you are willing to see it that way. It's always been fun for me to see the macrocosm and microcosm in all things so why not in WoW? What life lessons you ask? Well that's for me to type and you to read whenever you like. Just know this: they are WoW based and applicable in RL right now. So hold on to your philosophical hats my fine internet friends. Things are about to get interesting.

Click to read more ...