Project Lore

Photograph by L. Simon.

Like many of you, I am taking my time in getting to level 80. I did not create an elaborate flowchart of areas to tackle, research the best grinding spots or enlist a friendly Priest, Paladin, Shaman and Warrior for their buffs. Last night I got a few of my guildmates to slow down and enjoy some of the content they have skipped over, bringing two level 75 players into Utgarde Keep with my newly-found old friend.

This weekend, well that was an entirely different story. With my girlfriend busy with visiting friends, I had Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday to do with what I pleased. Naturally, I took the extra free time to tear into Northrend, although not as focused as some people. As of launch, I was still uncertain who I was going to level, my Rogue or my Priest. In the end I surprised myself and rolled a Death Knight. An enjoyable experience thus far, but it wasn't long before I jumped back to my Rogue to see Northrend.

By mid-Saturday, General Chat was full of people looking for healers for various things. Being the good samaritan that I am, I logged in and began SolidSagart's journey into Northrend. After performing the first few quests outside Valiance Keep, I realized that my professions were woefully under skilled. Not wanting to pass up dozens of skinning opportunities or trot by numerous herb nodes, I had to head back to Stormwind and went about the tedious task of skinning low level mobs and picking pointless flowers. Say what you will about my choice in professions, she is simply my gathering girl.

After logging a reasonable 20+ hours across the three characters, I feel I got a bit done. The DK is now up to level 68, SolidSamm is a bubble shy of 71 (he was the most neglected character) and SolidSagart has her professions up to snuff and is a hair shy of finally hitting 70. She started the weekend out as 67, with little rested. If only her professions were leveled beforehand, I would have been able to get her past 70, possibly even jumping ahead of the rogue.

While my WoW avatars progressed a decent amount, other parts of my life were pushed aside. As you can see in the image above, my kitchen is an absolute mess of dishes, plates and glasses. I even saved numerous articles of kitchenware from washing by abandoning them, opting to eat right out of pots and pans like any good college student would – just over my computer instead of the sink. On the brighter side of things, my ferrets, fish, snails, crayfish, and plants all made it through the weekend. They would like to thank boat rides, flights and queues for their continued existence.

What'd you accomplish?  Perhaps more importantly, what didn't you accomplish?

Click to read more ...

I’ve been trying to keep a healthy perspective on this thing. Sure, I called in sick on Friday, and sure I logged more hours this weekend than I probably did the past 3 weeks combined, but I’m having fun and fully expected to invest a lot of time during these initial few days. With everyone racing to level cap, it is very interesting to see how far various members of my guild are approaching it. There are some that are playing about the same as they did before, there are actually some that are playing less (waiting for things to settle down) but what I am noticing most is those that are playing more, much more. There is the guy I know who went 40 hours without sleeping, there is the one that did 3 levels in one sitting (and hasn’t logged since), and even the guy that took 2 weeks vacation to dedicate all day everyday to getting up to the cap. Now I’m not here to judge, like I said I have logged more than my fair share of hours over the last few days, but sometimes I just have to wonder. Where is the line for all of this? I hear people calling each other noobs for not leveling fast enough, or on the other side calling them nerds for playing too much. I cannot say what the proper balance is, but it is certain that there are strong opinions all around. What does it take to be the world first 80, or be the first to clear all the PVE content? Are we so competitive that we push our selves to the brink to beat that other guild, the others of your class, or even your friends? I know that this will all be very short term, and soon all will be back to normal, but in the mean time it’s a great time to learn a little about your friends and guildies. What about you? Are you feeling the pressure to level like a madman, or are you appalled by what you see going on around you? I wish I had a way to wrap this all up into a moral or a strong opinion either way… let’s just say I have found the last few days very interesting. Now back to leveling.

Click to read more ...

We all knew that there would be plenty of people out their racing to hit level 80 as soon as possible. Not you racing against your friend or guildmate. I mean someone who would take vacation, go without sleep, eat dry packets of Ramen (hey, the saliva will hydrate it) and pee in empty bottles of energy drinks, until they finally dinged level 80. As Juggynaut mentioned, this happened less than two days after Wrath went live on the European realms.

Since then, I am sure many of us have witnessed server wide messages proclaiming the first of this class or race to hit 80. Even the North American realms, which are a bit behind due to timezones, have plenty of 80s roaming Northrend. It was only a matter of time before people began taking on the 10-man and 25-man raid content.

For TwentyFifthNovember, that time was under two days after Nymh hit level 80. TFN is the General Electric of World of Warcraft. A guild conglomerate put together by SK-Gaming (Curse) and Nihilum to achieve world first kills and to create “one of the best World of Warcraft community sites.” Their fancy new site is set to launch on November 25^th, well after they started putting up new content. If you head over there now, you will be informed that they have beaten all of the raid content that Wrath of the Lich King has to offer.

Getting a group of players together that fast is an achievement of itself. The guild took it one step further by beating the re-tuned Naxxramas and swiftly moving onto Malygos, the hardest boss currently in Wrath. 68 hours and 30 minutes later, and TFN is standing on top, waiting for Patch 3.1 and Ulduar.

These guys are obviously good at WoW, but damn that was fast. TFN's announcement post wasn't entirely self-congratulatory though. The team questioned Blizzard's tuning of the raids, even suggesting that Blizzard may have made them easier to put the “large casual player base...on equal footing with end-game raiders?”

What do you guys think? Are they just too good, or is Blizzard trying to appease the larger audience? Hitting 80 inside two days is one thing, beating Wrath inside a month, let alone three days is another. Comparatively, it took almost five months for Nihilum to beat The Burning Crusade's PvE content.  Of course, if I mention TBC had more raid content, it isn't really defending Blizzard...Seems like Ulduar cannot come soon enough.

Click to read more ...

Thanks WSU.edu and Mark J. Berry

Trade Chat and General Chat are certainly odd beasts. I consider Trade Chat to be one of the most mistreated features in World of Warcraft, as it is hardly ever used for its purpose, facilitating the buying and selling of goods. More often than not I simply ignore the channel all together in an attempt to save my intelligence and sanity.

General Chat, well, that can be forgiven for its missteps into the immature comments or pointless rants. As I roam around Azeroth grinding away at one thing, or the other, I tend to watch General Chat very closely. My eyes will tune into that block of text in the lower left of my screen out of sheer boredom, hoping that a fun or exciting discussion is going on. General Chat's conversation, nine times out of ten, will be a LFG message, a looking for this or that question, or someone begging to be saved from a camper. Yet, like Pavlov's dog, I always come back for more.

While conversing in general, I try to be as helpful as possible. That can get me in trouble though. Help one newbie and you run the risk of them chatting you up for small facts or discoveries till the end of time. Worse still, other newbies bugging you. But, when you are bored, you are bored and I don't mind the distraction.

While on my Priest the other night I found that needle in the haystack gem. I was joking around in GC in Terokkar Forest when I noticed a name I recognized – although slightly modified with an accent - from my former hardcore raiding guild. After feeling each other out to see if they were who we thought they were, we each found a new addition to our 5-man instancing group for Wrath. Score! The only drawback, it seems that they decided which character I will be leveling first for me, the Priest.

What role do you play in General Chat? The helper? Wiseass? Know it all? Annoying person with tons of questions?  Player with numerous ASCII macros? Ever get anything positive out of it?

Click to read more ...

The Line As We Approach Launch

I pulled up to Gamestop last night just after 10:15 PM to see about fifteen people milling around outside the store.  After fumbling with my bikelock in the 46 degree weather for a few minutes, I finally joined the crowd and jumped in on my first discussion, QQing about Retribution Paladins and how badly they need to be nerfed.  Not that anyone would care two hours from now, when they are home and installing Wrath of the Lich King. The kind employees at Gamestop invited all the fans in while they began processing last minute transactions.  Thankfully, the Philadelphia midnight launch did not have any credit card problems.  After the first batch of purchasers completed their transactions and the murmurs grew louder, I loudly introduced myself to grab their attention for a highly unscientific poll.  “Who thinks the servers will be playable in the next 24 hours?!” I asked. A few hands went up, but the general consensus was that lag, stability and over population (queues) would cause issues for many players.  A few players told me that this thinking was exactly the reason they decided to attend the midnight release.  They figured they would have the servers to themselves for a handful of uninterrupted, non-laggy hours to get ahead of the curve.  As of press, my server (an original server) is still fine, although there are reports of trouble out there. After we had warmed up and purchased our copies, the kindly employees threw us out into the cold again (“Line up outside if you want to get Wrath”).  As the line grew, passersby asked us what the hell we were in line for.  Being the angst-filled, impatient, basement-dwelling gamers that we are, we made stuff up.  Halo 4, Gears of War 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, free STD tests, and a few others that I can't print.  I also heard a few other items of pure gold while in the chilly air:

• Question: “What do you call a gnome escaping from Alcatraz?  A small medium at large.” (Player)
• “Aren't you too old to be waiting in line for a video game?” (An old lady after I told her what we were in line for while taking the picture).
• “All right you little warlords, up against the wall if you want the game.” (The cop helping out with crowd control).

These fellows demanded that they be put on the interwebs since they were in the front. Thanks to Patrick Mulhern for the pics!

The line ended up extended well around the corner by 11:30 PM, with every copy the store received reserved and paid in full.  By 12:30 the line had been cut in half, with the second purchaser sprinting out of the store, game in hand, as he shouted something like 'I'll be the first to 80, bitches!'  He was running so fast that I couldn't hear him clearly.  Needless to say, he was excited.  By 1:00 AM the line was gone, but the employees were still cleaning up in the store.  Sorry guys. How did your midnight releases go?  We didn't have a single cosplayer!

Click to read more ...

Photo by Robin. June 2007

Hey, guess what. Wrath of the Lich King comes out tomorrow morning at 12:01 AM! Score! To celebrate I will be heading to a local midnight release party in the mean streets of South Philadelphia. I took a few minutes out this morning to pack a “survival bag.”

In my “Gigantique” Bag you will find:

• My Nintendo DS, currently equipped with Yoshi's Island DS (possibly the best platforming game ever).
• The new issue of Game Developer magazine.
• My girlfriend's Point & Shoot camera (more on that in a few) and a spare battery pack.
• Some Nature Valley granola bars.
• Miscellaneous junk like keys, wallet, cell phone and the ever useful stun gun (rabid fans are more dangerous than angry critics).

It surprised me how long it took to find a store with a midnight release party. I live in South Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia area is actually the home to EBGames (not that you care or anything). If you punch in 19104 into their store locator, you will be hit with over 50 stores inside a 30 minute drive. Yet, the first seven EBGames/Gamestop stores I called were not having parties. Granted, they don't all need to have a party, but they should know which store is.

In the end I got bumped to their District Manager, who informed me that the closest store with a launch party is at the popular tourist location of South Street. I should have known.

I will be heading there, camera in hand, to chat with the crowd, hang out, and kill those last few Wrath-less hours with like minded individuals. For those who may not be familiar with it, South Street is a bit of a hot spot in Philadelphia, and has become, what I would call, an outdoor mall. The Gamestop is located at 505 South Street (between Fifth and Sixth streets), with the queue starting up by 10 PM.  If also else fails, there is plenty to do in the area.

I spoke with a sales rep earlier and they are expecting a pretty large crowd, so it should be a blast. Anyone else going to launch parties? Where and which store is having it? Dare someone come meet me in person?! If you are timid about meeting people from “teh internets,” do not fret, I am not a troll.

Click to read more ...

Oh, Wrath of the Lich King, how we await your arrival. Come Wednesday night, I will be camping my local EBGames for my copy of Wrath, only to receive my Collector's Edition in the mail the following day or so. Yes, I am that excited for Northrend. It appears I am not the only one, for the Lich King kicked off another world event last night. As of press time, the event isn't nearly as large as the infamous “Zombiefication of the Azerothian Nation,” but it is still new and exciting. WoWInsider had ongoing coverage of the event while it unfolded, and confirmed that it repeated every 20 minutes or so. Players will have to travel to Stormwind or Orgrimmar, to see the story unfold. Once again, the two factions are not created equal, as the Horde get to see Warchief Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream – Son of Grom – duke it out in the Ring of Honor. The attack on these main cities is strike two against Arthas and his better half. The event doesn't particularly lead one to believe that the factions will turn and head straight for Northrend, so there may be more to the proceedings. Reports indicate that the attack was still repeating before maintenance, so if you missed it, you may be able to catch a repeat later today. I for one, hope that Arthas tries something more dastardly, causing the combined forces of the Horde and Alliance to head to Northrend, each seeking their own revenge. What do you lore nuts think the outcome from the attacks could be? I predict that Garrosh will leave Thrall's side and head to Northrend. Possibly without Thrall's consent or perhaps to banish him from Orgrimmar for kicking his ass (Spoiler: We already know he is a Warchief in Northrend, but not under what circumstances). Bolvar Fordragon is probably bored with playing politics, and with King Varian Wrynn's return, he will return to the battlefield. I am incredibly excited for WotLK's lore!

Click to read more ...

Warning: The post contains business information that may not be suitable for some minds. In the event that you hate business, market analysis, facts, quotes, words and things of that nature, you may want to read some other posts. However, it is good to have these things when you try and argue with your friends about which MMO is the best. Blizzard Entertainment has certainly struck a gold mine with World of Warcraft. ProjectLore is living proof of its popularity and cultural impact. I could give you all numerous examples to the phenomenon that is World of Warcraft, but its 11 million subscribers worldwide, should be enough to convince gamers. Since WoW's launch in 2004, it has constantly been put up against other MMORPGs. The first of which was the sequel to the previous industry leader, EverQuest 2. It took a few months, but it became readily apparent that WoW had won that first battle. The next battle was fought with some old Blizzard employees and their first title, Guild Wars, in April 2005. The trend continues, with a string of MMOs trying to dethrone World of Warcraft, but none putting more than a dent in the armor. A pair by Turbine (Dungeon and Dragons Online & Lord of the Rings Online), the terrible MMO from the Matrix universe (The Matrix Online), a MMO from the father of MMOs Richard Garriot (Tabula Rasa), and the brutal Age of Conan, all pail in comparison to World of Warcraft's influence. With the exception of EverQuest 2, I only felt that Dungeon & Dragons Online: Stormreach had a chance to upset WoW's stride. That is until Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was released in September. Mythic Entertainment released WAR to solid reviews and has posted impressive subscription rates since. To date, it is the closest anything has come to stealing WoW's thunder, holding over 750,000 subscribers with more than 1.5 million units shipped to retailers. Unlike AoC, it doesn't appear that the subscribers are leaving in droves after the free 30-days either. Is Blizzard worried? It doesn't appear so, but maybe they should be.  Just a little. When Age of Conan was doing so hot its first months, Blizzard sat back and watched their members return, “about 40% of those players have returned to World of Warcraft," according to CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime. That was just two months after AoC launched, so one would imagine that the number has only grown since then. Yesterday, as part of Activision-Blizzard's business mumbo-jumbo, Morhaime returned to update that number, and included WAR in the statistics. A whooping 68% of people who left for AoC have returned to WoW. Mythic Entertainment's title seems to have faired a bit worse than AoC. Almost two months out from WAR's launch and Morhaime reports a return rate of 46% to AoC's 40%. In fairness to WAR versus AOC, many people are likely returning to WoW for Thursday's release of Wrath of the Lich King. In fairness to both of them, just because players have re-subscribed to World of Warcraft doesn't mean they aren't still participating in the other MMO. Yet, according to research, most MMO players only subscribe to one title. The numbers show that WAR has been the biggest threat to World of Warcraft, but even a shiny new title with an incredibly dark universe and more mature theme, hasn't been able to retain its users when put up against an expansion. Let us pray that the competitors stay in business, and new titles make it to market for years to come. This will ensure that Blizzard has to keep the design juices and creativity flowing. Competition is a good thing. Anyone think Blizzard should be scared of some upcoming MMOs?  Aion?  Star Wars: The Old Republic? LEGO Online?  To be honest, I think LEGO Online just might grab some impressive numbers.

Click to read more ...

Homogenization:  the act of making something homogeneous, or the same throughout; or the tendency of something to be come homogeneous (Wiktionary) A vocal group of players have been pretty miffed about the homogenization of World of Warcraft's classes.  While a collection have been barking about the issue for some time, the group grew substantially after changes to the way raid buffs work were announced as part of the Echoes of Doom patch. The late-August decision was made to allow Raid Leaders to bring the people they want to play with, rather than having to fill cookie-cutter configurations for bosses, trash mobs or the raid as a whole.  In doing so, Blizzard Entertainment drastically changed the current buffing system, including some of the buffs themselves.  I already did a summation of the changes, or if you prefer, here is the lengthy full post. Adding more fuel to the fire this past weekend, was the revelation that the class forums would be abolished in favor of role forums, Damage Dealing, Tank and Healing.  Personally, I would like the Damage Dealing section split into Ranged and Melee, but I digress.  After the aforementioned group became even more vocal, Blizzard backtracked and decided to keep both the class forums and role forums. The idea of WoW's classes becoming homogeneous has me a bit torn.  As a prospective raid leader for Wrath of the Lich King, being able to bring people I can trust, rather than the “right” classes, is certainly a boon.  Another personal point, is that my main is a Rogue, a class that should benefit from the situation.  My Priest...still no problem getting into groups there. On the flip side, doesn't everyone like feeling special?  Feeling needed?  Feeling that if, you specifically, weren't available everything would crumble?  Over dramatic you say?  Heavens no. In the end I am going to have to go with Blizzard on this one, and say the path they seem to be going down is probably for the best.  Many of my friends were burned out from raiding due to thinking there were always needed.  I hold the belief that the modifications will cause less guild QQ and more pewpew.  Which is best for everyone. Well, not Arthas, but he deserves to die after that whole plague fiasco.

Click to read more ...

There was another topic I almost addressed in yesterday's post on World of Warcraft and other games (they do exist!). I chose not to discuss it because it is a wholly other topic, deserving of its own post. Also, it would have derailed the main point of the post, seeing what you guys are playing, and how you fit it into your MMO regiment.

So here it is folks. I once stopped playing World of Warcraft. No, no. It wasn't one of those times where your friend throws a hissy-fit and quits, only to return a week later. I was gone for awhile, and I went cold turkey to top it off. This was actually around the same timeframe that I quit, just before an expansion.

There are a handful of reasons behind my decision, but the main issue was that I felt Blizzard Entertainment was double dipping. I had no issue paying for a subscription fee, but that, coupled with planned yearly expansions – that cost $39.99 – kind of pissed me off. I knew that the double dipping was the norm of Western MMOs, but that didn't mean I had to like it. So there I was, just a month before The Burning Crusade was set to drop, still raiding Naxxaramas, and I let my account expire.  At the time, I would have been happy with paying $20 a month, so long as they kept releasing the awesome content patches semi-regularly.

My main reason was clearly a fiscal concern. The other reasons, not so much. My number two would be that I was constantly upset at missing all those classic games I mentioned. Then there was my concern with the upcoming content. I just wasn't excited about what The Burning Crusade had to offer. The feature set seemed too underwhelming to me, two new races, umm, okay, whatever. Swapping Paladins and Shamans? Sorry, but sounds like they just got fed up trying to balance the classes. Spaceships??? Add to that a collapsing guild, changes in the raid structure and a host of small issues and I had enough reasons to bail.

I never lost touch with the community, and frequently conversed with my Rogue buddies while I was away. A few tried to suck me back in, and luckily, they finally did. Months went by, but I was finally pulled back into Warcrack and was happy to return. Even if things weren't the same. TBC turned out to be a lot better than I anticipated (I thought it was going to suck...), with my favorite feature being short and sweet 5-man content mixed in with more epic stuff.

No worries about me ditching this time though. Blizzard has me on the edge of my seat waiting for Wrath of the Lich King. Arthas, you are not prepared!

Click to read more ...