Lore tricks

The more I play, the more I'm amazed by some ingenious tricks Blizzard writers have done.

I started the Deathknight I had been postponing for a long time. In fact, ever since I got Laiskajaakko to Northrend I have been working on the idea of doing a DK for myself. The only thing that has kept me from taking the step has been the fact that there are so many DKs everywhere and mostly they are total... dung. And the fact that DK's game mechanics seem strange to me has been keeping me off. If it took me so long to understand the basics of tanking a prot warrior, how long will it take to understand the basics of DK tanking?

Which is why I took on DPS route for levelling. Unholy.

Back to the topic.

I had been wondering about the stories in Northrend which started more or less out of thin air, and involve the disappointed, cheated and cross Deathknight heroes. They have nice tie-up quests leading to them, which provide some insight on the story at hand, but in many cases the reason to the DK is left unexplained.

Until you start playing a DK. Thessarian, who is the first DK you encounter when you start questing in the Borean Tundra, is also one of your leaders in Ebon Hold quests, showing his disrespect for the fellow Deathknights even before the revelation of the Lich Kings betrayal. He shows the backbone and honor not seen in most of the other DK's leading the operations.

After playing the DK starter area, several of the stories I had experienced with DK's in the Northrend with both my warrior and my priest got a completely new meaning.

What a devious trick to extend the game, story wise.

Now I have to play the DK up to cap to see what else he can experience what is hidden from the other ally classes.

This makes me wonder... What haven't I seen, as I haven't played the Horde?

What a dirty lore trick to do, to make me play more.

Ding 40

I want a Ram. For my warrior, naturally. Which is a question of reputation, as Laiskajaakko is a human warrior, and Ram's are Dwarves' mounts.

So I have been playing in the starting zone of the dwarves for the last few days, and I've progressed in Reputation instead of experience. I don't see too much difference in the two, except that the progress in experience seems a bit more tangible because of the new skills coming closer all the time.

But with Reputation the rewards are in the end, not on the road.

Anyhow, I had some real fun plunging through the sub-lv10 quests with the bulldozer, roaming through the same content I had worked so hard with my warlock in training earlier. And because of the lower risk I did take a good explorative look around Loch Modan - an area I have earlier just skipped because I hadn't found any relevant quests in there.

To my surprise the quests and stories were very good, evolving from nothing to some really interesting 'plots'! I don't know how I have missed all the fun in the area: maybe it had just felt like a place in between the adventures and I had just went for the Wetlands.

But now those quests are done. For my warrior at least, and it's time to enter the Wetlands for more reputation. Of course, there is Uldaman waiting just around the corner in Badlands, where I already visited and finally dinged 40. What a feeling to get Plate trained at last, knowing that the real tanking period has started.

Maybe I could solo the Cyclonian finally?

WAR again... or then not.

I just spent precious worktime reading through a selection of blogs. All more or less related or connected to WAR.

What really keeps amazing me about the blog entries is well pictured in my former post about the content and it's value to the generic player. The WAR blogs mainly tell about the game mechanics, how PQ's and RvR works and maybe, just maybe, about how the blogger's character survived through the evening.

But where are the detailed descriptions about the lore and background, which is so living, depressing and haunting in the original Warhammer IP? The WHFRP, though based on the miniature game's rules, contained a wealth of background and material from which to create content, and the initial opposition of the humanoids and Chaos Gods was so promising. And the additional material in the form of Tomes and manuals just made the creeping Chaos even more tangible to the player (and GM alike).

Nobody writes about the content. Only the mechanics.

I'm feeling like a complete idiot over here.

Like I earlier stated, in WoW I'm a horde player to the bone. Even to the point that I had really hard time accepting that my son wanted to have an Ally toon. Well, I gave up, but so did he after a while and switched to Horde. But that's another story. However, now that I have been forced to play on the Ally side, I've come across long and wonderfull quest lines that I feel are lacking on the Horde side, and I've found the 'other side' of the Azerothian lore. Or I'm unravelling it to me currently. As I don't have a background on the Warcraft-series, I don't have any previous understanding of the background of the world. I just have to rely on the information I get from the game to make a coherrent picture of the lore.

Sadly, World of Warcraft has done what the WAR bloggers are doing: cast the content aside and put the emphasis on playing the game. Instead of playing the game, by which I mean that this wonderfull role-playing environment is being used not as a place to adventure and grow the character, but to find a way to win the game, which -because of being a fantasy role-playing game- cannot be won.

I doubt that all the Bartle-test Explorers really are explorers. Based on the enormous emphasis of winning the game I'm pretty certain that most of them are achievers and/or the term explorer is somehow misused in the test results. It's not exploring for finding out new things, places and monsters in the game, but to explore the limits of the mechanics and finding a new way to win the game.

I am an explorer first. But I'm digging in the lore and places, finding more delight in new places and acquaintances than in beating the opposition to pulp. But I have to admit that I'm affected by the other players and their ways in the game.

And other bloggers.

I'm off to read a scroll.