Beta Testers, Roll Out!

Now that the NDA is lifted, the fun part begins. I'll start talking about the new Cataclysm Druid changes and my thoughts on them.

First off, as many of you already know, Trolls and Worgen will be able to be druids, expanding our selectable races from 2 to 4! Crazy, I know. Especially considering that every Horde race is rumored to be able to be a Warlock, sans Tauren. I'm a lore junkie though, so I hope they have good intro stories as to why Trolls (a very shamanistic race) and Worgen (that seems like a stretch) are able to be Druids.

Here's the new Cat and Bear forms for Trolls:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2010/cataclysm/cataclysm_models/cataclysm_druid_troll_bear.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2010/cataclysm/cataclysm_models/cataclysm_druid_troll_cat.jpg

Here's the new Cat and Bear forms for Worgen:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2010/cataclysm/cataclysm_models/cataclysm_druid_worgen_bear.jpg
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2010/cataclysm/cataclysm_models/cataclysm_druid_worgen_cat.jpg

I'm very pleased with them, but we haven't heard anything about Moonkin/Flight Forms yet. I assume those form will be race-specific as well since they are currently. As one of my guildmates put it, "Troll forms look like a box of Lucky Charms exploded on them." Now I just want to see the updated racial abilities for all of our races...or at least for the love of God, let Warstomp be usable in feral forms....

Anyhoo, I wanted to give you an update that I'll be talking about Cataclysm as more things come out and are finalized (including new talent trees!) but for now feel free to head over to MMO-Champion to check out all of the awesome screenshots, including Garrosh Hellscream's Orgrimmar.

Glory of the Icecrown Raider

Hey all, sorry it's been a bit, I've been kind of busy with work and everything. As a quick update, last night our 10m ICC group killed Heroic Sindragosa moving us to 11/12 HICC 10m and completing our meta achievement for Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10m). I'll post a picture of myself atop my brand new Bloothbathed Frostwyrm whenever I get home tonight. It was a great feeling, especially since we can tease our GM who had to miss the past few weeks due to RL for at least 2 weeks. He still needs "All You Can Eat" and "Heroic: The Frostwing Halls".

If anyone has any questions on the achievements, be sure to post a comment here and ask me about them. I'll be glad to help.


I also want to make a note that Completely Different is recruiting! Head on over to http://cd.vitalstuff.org to check us out.

As a final note - I will be posting my thoughts and analysis on Cataclysm information in the near future, but I want to wait until the Beta launches so I'm not throwing a bunch of time at things that will most likely change. If you want to see me post updates and start some discussions in the meantime, head on over to http://cd.vitalstuff.org/?q=node/1583. That's our Cataclysm: Druid boards that are public for all to see. Feel free to comment and participate in the discussion there!

Our Lord and God, Alamo

I think that in order for anyone to play a Feral Cat Druid correctly, they must be familiar with Alamo, our Lord and God. I believe there used to be some more pictures, but the links have since broken over the past 5 years. I'll be posting the "ALAMO teeches u 2 Burnin Croosaid!" as the next Blog entry. Enjoy!


Alamo, a level 80 tauren druid from the Thunderhorn server, had grown in notoriety for a post he made titled "Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!" on the official WoW druid boards. The topic itself is filled with poorly edited MSpaint images, horrible spelling, and humor reflecting it. However, in interviews with Alamo's player as shown below, it was meant to be a parody due to the fact that he does grasp the English language. His topic has given way to an interesting catchphrase, while not of the magnitude of Leeroy Jenkins, "Cat Durid is 4 fite!"

Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you:

"Alamo teeches u 2 play DURID!"


sumtimes peeps say 2 me HAY HOW 2 PLAY DURID IDK LOL! SO NOW, u CAN PLAY DURID by only rred this!
2) ITS EZ, u can only haf 2 reed teh
ALAMOES COMPLEET DURID INSTURCKSHUN

OK LISSEN Almo noes about sum durid things sinse the baginning. Maybe B4 durids was week & stuff but now Durids is very storng.
1) OK, Sum durids is bare

2) Tehm whos bare durids, can B 4 tank:

ONLY DURID DONT HAF SUM PEEPS IN THE HEAD AND A GUNZ LOL!
3) Man, sum bare druids can maek sum peeps poop in feer bc/ tehms so storng.

4) Bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam but its OK b/c a bare durid haf many armors &
when a thing hits durid, maybe thing gets borken hand LOL!
5) Bare durids is 4 funs when u can charje & stun & haf sum armors lol.

OK LISSEN Also durid haf uh seel form.
1) Seel is can fite, but is kind week.
2) Seel for swim, is fast & dont breeth
3) When seel is gone for fish, is nobody will catch.
4) Seel is can teech frends how is swim

ALSO I FORGETS
Durid has can run fast form is TRAVEL FORM
1) looks liek cheetuh
2) dont cheet or u get bann LOL! JK!!
3) Cheetuh can run fast and him is can run away frum trubul.

AND ASLO
SUM DURIDS IS MOON KIN
1) Them 1s is look all funny liek maybe form MOON! LOL!
2) mostly uh moonkin is 4 a spam moonfare
3) them haf sum good armors & fite storng.

DURIDS IS VEERY FAST AND STORNG IN PVP CAN CAST ROOT 4 MAKE PEEPS STOP WHEN MOVE!!

bc Peeps can always ask if cat druid can B GOOD FOR FITE OR WHAT MAYBE?

U NO CAT DURIDS IS VERY STORNG! SUM PEEPS DUNNO Y SO HEAR IS LIST

1) OK now sum durid is cat
2) Cat durid, tehm dosent heel.
3) Cat uis for fite
4) Cat durid dosent talk about fite

5) when cat durid is FITE do not ask for HEEL and NINIRVATE!

and CAT DURIDS is no spam moonfare! Sum cat durids dosent no wut is uh moonfare!

DURIDS IS MUST ALWAYZ HALP EECH OTHER: sumtimes a new durid is need sum halp and advise frum a good durid so u shuld alway halp unother

Even I lernd all this form DURID SCKOLL who has wut uh famus teecher there who is knows all this:

DURIDS IS HARD, & BUT STRONG
SUM PEEPLE THINK DURIDS IS CANT BE BARE AND CAN ONLY HEEL AND THEM DOSENT
NO THEY IS ALWAYS CAN SAY:

BUT ONLY DONT LISSEN TO THEM.
Durids is storng for bare or cat or seel or whatver and u dosent haf 2 heel if u dont liek heel

DURIDS IS 4 haf FUN TIME WIT FRENS every1 is like a fun time durid!!

What do Kitties Eat?

Here's the fun part - The rotation.

Well, that's a bit of a lie, there is no real "rotation" to a kitty. There's a priority system. Other classes can claim to run a priority system, but there really is no comparison to the kitty one. Ghostcrawler has said himself that it is one of the most challenging to pull off correctly...at least until they changed the Mangle debuff. Let's get started shall we?

The Spec:

Single Target Max DPS/Survivability  - The main spec. Highest Single Target DPS, with lots of survivability

AoE/Add Swapping Spec - Allows for cheaper Mangles, higher damage swipes at the cost of some survivability and Ferocious Bite damage. On heavy AoE fights when you're waiting on energy regen (Tiger's Fury is on Cooldown) Swap to Bear for 3 Swipes and then swap back to cat for a full (depending on Furor talents) round of more cat swipes!

Emergency Tank Spec - This spec allows you to be that emergency tank in case your tanks go down and there's only a few thousand HP left on the boss. Be sure to use Challenging Roar/Barkskin/Survival Instincts/Frenzied Regen/Healthstone instantly to increase your survivability

Tips not in the Rotation:

• NEVER cap your energy. Capped energy is wasted energy regeneration time
• If a mob is going to die, use a finisher. Don't waste your combo points
• If you are killing adds - try to get 4 combo points and refresh your savage roar, no matter the duration left. Don't waste combo points!
• This is great to do on Deathbringer Saurfang Heroic
• Cat Swipe uses energy but does not start generating combo points on new mobs. Use it to switch from a main target with points on it to kill lots of adds then resume DPS whenever they are dead with combo points already on your target
• Try to "roll" bleeds on your main target if there is a target swap coming up. Refresh Rip if you can with your combo points, and "clip" Rake's duration if you're going to be away from your main target more than 8 seconds.
• If a mob/boss "burrows" you will lose all of your combo points, but bleed damage will continue. Don't waste combo points and clip Rake to keep it running as long as possible when you can't directly do damage.
• Examples of these are Northrend Beasts and Anub'arak
• Use Tiger's Fury as soon as it is up every time, but ONLY when you are below 30 Energy.
• Use Berserk early and use it often. It is best to use Berserk whenever you have 80-90 Energy.
• Berserk removes the small damage boost from Tiger's Fury, but it is ok to do this.
• Berserk makes you immune to Fear. Use it wisely as most Fears are not as detrimental to your DPS as losing a Berserk cooldown.
• Energy regenerates outside of Cat form up to the amount of points you put into Furor at a rate of 10 energy/second (or 1 every deci-second). Use this to your advantage and you will not lose much DPS while performing druid duties such as Battle Rezzing or Innervating.
• DO NOT be afraid to use your defensive cooldowns. 
• Barkskin is a 1 min CD - use it liberally
• Survival Instincts is an amazing cooldown for a DPS. Use it as a last resort. Macro in your Healthstone for added survivability
• Use your Predatory Swiftness buff (shows up after you use a finisher) to cast an instant Healing Touch or Cyclone. 
• Switch to Bear Form if things get too hairy. Bear form gives you many more options. Feel free to refresh your Mangle duration using rage instead of energy!
• Increased health, increased survivability 
• Bash - Works as an Interrupt!
• Feral Charge - Works as an Interrupt!
• Frenzied Regeneration
• Nature's Grasp is a great way to keep adds from chasing you and killing you
• Warstomp/Shadowmeld
• Maim if you have no other options.
• Kitty Jump carries you over bad spots on the ground. Jumping makes servers register you as in the spot you left the floor until you land again somewhere else. Never jump out of something, always jump into something. 
• Marrowgar flames
• Legion Flames
• Void Zones
• Mimiron Fires
• Offer fellow raiders your Innervate. Focus them and have a focus cast macro that casts the Innervate on them and doesn't change your target. It can be quite helpful for Healers to get 2 Innervates in a fight. Arcane Mages and/or Warlocks love these so they don't have to Evocate/Lifetap allowing them a little more liberal use of their mana.
• This will pop you out of cat form, so you will lose 2 GCDs - 1 to cast Innervate, 1 to swap to Cat.
• Cast Innervate when your energy is below 30 and Tiger's Fury isn't up. This will allow energy to constantly regenerate while in caster form.
• Always ask for Hysteria from the Blood Knights. It increases Physical Damage Done by 20%. This includes all of your damage (Bleeds are also physical damage) and you will gain the most benefit from it.
• Ask for Tricks of the Trade. You probably won't get it since Rogues like to Trix back and forth, but you can try.
• Tricks of the Trade and Hysteria DO NOT stack. Have your Rogue trix someone else while you are under the effects of Hysteria. That's if you are lucky enough to have both.
• Use a Speed Potion while not under the effects of Bloodlust/Heroism. More Haste = more OoC procs.
• Explore other consumables. More AP might be great, but is it really better for you to use Agility Elixirs?
• I use Armor Piercing Elixirs and Armor Penetration food to push me further towards the ArP cap.

Preparation for the Pull:

• Ask your tank for a 3-5 second countdown before he pulls. 
• At 3-4 seconds left, buff Gift of the Wild on the raid.
• This is because "GotW" is considered a cast of 25 different spells, which has a VERY HIGH chance to proc an Omen of Clarity on you before the pull. 
• Stealth before you are in combat, with your OoC buff.
• Kitty Jump so you are behind the boss. I have noticed that using this while you have an OoC buff will not use the 10 energy, nor will it consume the OoC buff. 
• Open with a Ravage. 

The Ramp - Up

• Open with a Ravage
• This is a 60 energy ability that was made free by "forcing" your OoC proc with GotW
• This over Pounce because all of the bleed damage from Pounce is < a non-crit Ravage
• Mangle if you have no Arms Warrior or Mangle Bitch
• Savage Roar
• Feral Faerie Fire
• Rake
• Tiger's Fury
• Berserk (Call for Hysteria if you have a Blood DK feeding them to you)

The Main Rotation - This is the main set of rules to follow while DPSing

• Don't let Mangle fall off
• This is one of the most important parts of your damage
• Increases bleed and shred damage by 30%
• Keep Faerie Fire up
• Not necessary if you have a Moonkin in your raid. They will keep up Imp. Faerie Fire. Feral Faerie Fire will be initially overwritten by Imp. Faerie Fire, but it can be reapplied after the Moonkin applies theirs, if missing that timer bothers you
• Keep Savage Roar up
• Use 4 combo points to activate Savage Roar
• More combo points increase duration. If the last move before a planned SR crits, you will have 5 combo points. 4 = 29 seconds, 5 = 34 seconds. 
• If it is about to fall off and you don't have enough time to get 4 points, Savage Roar anyway
• Increases ALL damage done by 30% - Never put a bleed up without SR on you.
• Refresh Savage Roar at 8 or less seconds left in the duration. It is ok to clip SR.
• Keep Rake up
• The 4pc T10 allows Rake's bleed damage to crit. This is a huge boost to your damage, and makes it very important that Rake's bleed stays up for as much time as possible. 
• Use Shred to gain combo points if Rake and Mangle are up.
• Use Omen of Clarity procs to Shred as it is your most expensive ability.
• Try to use Shred 3 times while Rip is up. It increases the duration of Rip with the Glyph of Shred
• Use Rip as your finisher with 5 combo points. 
• Use Ferocious Bite IF Rip is up and has more than 8-10 seconds left, and SR has more than 20 seconds left, Mangle isn't about to run out, or if you are pushing it close and Tiger's Fury is up.
• Since Ferocious Bite is our "Execute" or Energy/Combo Point dump, using Tiger's Fury immediately afterwards is a great way to get back in the rotation without losing too much energy
• You will not use FB a lot. You will probably get 1-2 off during Berserk if you do it correctly, around a total of 5-10 total depending on OoC procs, crits, and luck.
• Use Tiger's Fury as soon as you can
• Be below 30 energy
• Don't energy cap!

There's a great picture for this monstrosity of a rotation:

Feel free to post any questions! I know it's tough and that's a lot to memorize, but if you like challenges, pulling off this rotation is both exciting (since it's so dynamic) and grueling. It's also very rewarding if you do it correctly. There's always something to work on, so keep trying. Spending lots of time at a Training Dummy might help you get the hang of it as well.

What do Kitties Wear?

 
Now that my origins are out of the way we can get into the fun stuff. I get a lot of questions from guildies that have Cat alts or offspecs. The first question I usually get is:

"Where Do I Start? How Do I Gear for Cat?"
Gearing for a kitty is relatively straightforward, actually. First you want to get your hit/expertise caps. You will want 263 Hit Rating, or 8.02%. Cats get no special talents to increase hit rating, so QQ moar, and get that hit rating up. A missed attack is a wasted chance to proc OoC, wasted energy, and a wasted GCD while Berserking. Next get your Expertise cap. You need 26 Expertise (132 Rating) or 6.5% to soft cap. This prevents the level 83 Boss from dodging your attacks, resulting in the above DPS losses. You DO get 10 Expertise from Primal Precision, which makes this cap a little more bearable. Once you get those two caps, continue on, brave reader.

First off, it depends on what kind of gear you're in. If you're sporting 232 or 245 T9 gear (the stuff that's available from Triumph badge farming in Heroics), then your best bet is to pick up a Needle Encrusted Scorpion from Heroic Forge of Souls (2nd, or last boss). From here you want to hit the Armor Penetration soft cap, which is at 722 ArP rating. The reason for this is because at 722 ArP, when your trinket procs and gives you the last 678 ArP, hard capping you. The reason this trinket is so great for us is that even though it only procs on a crit, our white swing timer is less than 1 second, and we generally have really high crit chances. This results in almost no downtime when the internal cooldown of the trinket is up.

Now, you might be thinking, holy hell, I have a TON of Attack Power! I should stack more! No. Bad kitty. Attack power scales like it does for us because our white swing timer sucks. It's also balanced so that if we were naked compared to a rogue that was naked, the rogue would out dps us every time. At least with gear, it's closer. So where do you go from here? Well, to be honest it depends. If you have access to ICC gear, then you want to start working towards the ArP hardcap once you can get up in the 900-1000 range. Until then, stack Agility. +20 Agi in Red sockets, 10Agi/10Crit in Yellow sockets, and 1 Nightmare Tear to activate your Meta Gem (the +agi/crit damage one - Relentless Earthstorm). In this gear, you won't get close to your Crit cap (76%).

"So...am I done?" Yep, pretty much. As a quick recap:

1. Hit Cap
2. Expertise Cap
3. Soft ArP Cap with Needle Encrusted Scorpion
4a. If you have access to enough ArP gear to push you close to 900 unbuffed, drop the Scorpion, and keep stacking ArP, always staying hit/expertise capped.
4b. If you are restricted to ToC/Heroic gear, hover close to the ArP softcap with the Scorpion and stack Agility (or Agi/Crit in Yellows - careful though, pure Agi is > Agi/Crit!)
5. As your gear progresses, Haste gets better and better (especially after you near crit cap). More haste doesn't do a lot for our white swing timer. A baseline 1 second timer only gets minimal benefits from haste. HOWEVER - OoC doesn't have an internal cooldown. More white attacks = more OoC procs = more DPS. Pew pew!

I'll post about ICC gear, best in slot gear, and what kinds of trinkets/weapons to look for once I get past all of the basics of starting out a new kitty.

Where did I come from? Pt. 2

The reason I'm starting out with these "Where did you come from" posts is because it seems almost mandatory. It's kinda cool to see where these people come from and what road brought them to the game in the first place, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Let's continue where I left off last time.

If you remember, I had just hit level 70 in Burning Crusade sometime in August of 2007. Melbu and I joined a guild called where we started raiding Karazhan after we followed our in-game Holy Paladin friend, Androly to the guild. They were looking for healers in particular but we were able to coat-tail our way into the guild and start learning what this whole "raiding" thing was. 

Kara was my first raid ever, and I was playing as a Feral Druid offtank. The first boss I ever did? Moroes. It was exciting - there was so much going on, my little Laptop that could was having a hard time displaying all of it. I loved it and progressed the whole way through Karazhan with them until we got to Prince Malchezzar. We hit a dead end with Prince, and at that time, I had found myself to be an Officer of our little 10 man guild. Things were not going anywhere, and I had heard about these things called 25 man raids, and I really wanted to see one. Androly, Melbu and I took our leave from and applied to a guild called Nethergard Watch (NGW). With Nethergard Watch, our applications were processed by a goofy guy named Brudarik, and the conversation really took off whenever we started talking college football. He was a Minnesota Gophers fan and I am a diehard Penn State Nittany Lions fan, so we joked around and eventually Melbu, Androly and I were accepted. We were taken to a Karazhan for our first run by one of the officers named Isle. Now, in retrospect, I am willing to bet Isle was high as a kite for that raid, but everything went well and they decided to bring us to their Serpentshrine Cavern raid one night. I was able to participae in the guild's first kill (and my first progression kill) of The Lurker Below and I was hooked.

At this time we had begun our Junior year of college, and one of my roommates saw the game and was interested in it. He began playing a Dwarven Warrior named Kbyakuya (gesundheit) and eventually got to do most of T4 and some T5 by the end of Burning Crusade. You couldn't gear up someone who was behind in progression back then, so he bided his time until Wrath of the Lich King. We also had our other friend catching up to us at level 70 by this time (Carretta) and since we were in need of ranged DPS, we dragged his ass along and he eventually got enough gear to become semi-useful. And by semi-useful he eventually became our Warlock tank for Illidan.With 3 real-life college friends in our guild, I convinced my brother to finally pick up the game so he would stop playing around with my alt priest and just get into it. He made a Druid named Alaunos, and still plays with me on Terenas.

Having real-life friends play the game with you is really awesome, it's loads of fun to sit around a table and PvP with eachother and raid and, of course, drink. With this group and NGW, we cleared all of Tempest Keep, SSC, Hyjal (my God, Archimonde was a bitch.), Black Temple, and killed Felmyst in Sunwell Plateau before Wrath of the Lich King hit shelves.

Things were going pretty great with NGW, lots of in-game friends to be had there, lots of great players, and we actually got together in August of 2008 for a "social". We all met up and went down to Atlanta Georgia for various shenanigans one weekend, and I had a kickass time. Eventually things started to slow down and we all began to lose interest in the game. We were growing frustrated with the brick wall that we had hit with Trial of the Crusader - partially because it was the worst instance EVER designed, secondly that we ran it in 4 different modes, increasing burnout drastically. It was also summertime and most of our in-game friends had left or moved on to bigger and better things, and when NGW decided to change their raiding schedule to 2 hours, 3 times a week...I knew it just wasn't what I was looking for in a guild anymore.

So whenever Carretta got Swine Flu, he spent his quarantine looking for a new home for us. Faction transfers had just become available, and I had actually started out as Horde and expressed interest in going back several times. That's when we came across . A 3-day 25m raiding guild that worked to progress at the same rate as everyone else on a schedule that was much more conducive to my life at this point. I graduated college and knew I wasn't going to have the time that I had while in school to keep gaming and contribute to society, so this was a perfect match. I bid my farewells, and we moved on to join Completely Different. They were a much more seriously focused group of people, who had no interest in a hardcore schedule but also had no interest in raiding casually.

Carretta (now Benziez), Alaunos, Kbyakuya, Brudarik and I all transferred, but KB and Brudarik have since quit because they got crit by Real Life for over 9000. We've been with CD from when they were 1/5 ToGC up until now when we are 8/12 HM ICC.

Here I am now, ready to Blog away about Feral Druids going into Cataclysm, but occasionally you'll see me write about Enhancement Shaman, as they are my second love.

Where did I come from?

I’m sure that many of you have a different reason for playing World of Warcraft, and even following Blizzard’s dealings at all, but for me, it is really an ongoing epic that has changed its media format several times over the years, and continues to provide an extremely lush and intricate storyline that is matched by none other. I know that Benziez feels the same way, and perhaps some of you do too. Some people express their opinions of the game as an addictive, poor waste of time, but these are the same people who would sit on their couch and veg out in front of the TV. MMOs in general are a strange breed of game because of the social environment coupled with partial anonymity, and many don’t understand them. The Raid is a documentary that is being shot to combat that and actually show the rest of the world what we're doing playing this game (http://jointheraid.com/site/).

Following the first post, I'll go into what makes WoW fun for me and how I got roped into this whole thing. Warcraft started out with a semi-weak story in the “Orcs and Humans” game (which I played back in the early/mid 90s and loved), but it quickly evolved into something amazing over the next 10 years. I remember playing on a 56k Modem with my friend in the original Warcraft, and then on Battle.net with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Finally I played Warcraft III and The Frozen Throne because I love Real Time Strategy games. I think they're challenging, ever unique, competitive, and require quick reflexes. After the epic storyline of Warcraft III ended, I left Blizzard's games and went off to play through the Gamecube generation and then Xbox 360's early years. I didn't enjoy the "Hero" system of Warcraft III and there was no matchmaking back then so I didn't stand a chance of playing online. My loves went to Halo and Super Smash Brothers instead with a smattering of other great games in there too.

It was December 2006, my sophomore year in college, where I went to our annual Christmas party back home in Pittsburgh. For some reason our friend decided he wanted to have a "secret santa" this year and I agreed to it. It was fun because we were all off at different colleges and didn't get to see each other very much anymore...or at least I didn't see them. They all went to various colleges in Erie, PA. I should have known that something was up because to this day that is the one and only time he had a Secret Santa. I went about getting ammunition for my one friend, another got a blanket for his girlfriend...and then I opened mine. It was World of Warcraft. I look over at another friend - World of Warcraft. Another one - World of Warcraft. My "friend" was grinning sheepishly. The secret santa was rigged so that the 1/2 of our friends that played WoW got matched up with the other half who didn't play so they could get us into it.

I refused to play it. I actually even refused to install it.

So they did.

And I played.

And I played.

And I went back to college and told my roommate not to hate me, but my friends had installed WoW on my computer and that I kind of enjoyed it. Now, to set things straight, me and this same roommate were picking on people who played the game the previous semester because we thought it was dumb and we didn't understand it. He admitted to me that he actually had played several years beforehand whenever the game came out and would try to reactivate his account so we could play together. He played Melbu, the Gnome Rogue, and is now playing Midhir on the Terenas server. One day a friend walked into our room and saw us playing. He immediately started cursing us out and was pretty unhappy and I asked him what his problem was. He admitted that he had also played several years ago and needed to go reactivate his account now that he saw other people playing it. He did and he was Carretta, the Human Warlock who is now Benziez, the Orc Warlock on Terenas.

We leveled all that semester (before XP was changed to be easier to level from 1-60) and made it to the 50s by the end of the semester. Over the summer we continued to play and found ourselves in Burning Crusade. We progressed the whole way to Shadowmoon Valley where I hit level 70...and then asked Melbu - what now?

He laughed and said, "Now, we raid my friend. Now we raid."

What is it about Stories?

I have to say that I am drawn to things with amazingly epic storylines. I love anything with outstanding character development which is developed through trials and tribulations both mental and physical. This is why I have LOVED any sort of media that contains this amazing storytelling, as it really is a dying breed. I refuse to see/read/play some things that do not have an interesting plot or have much more thought put into them rather than how the stunt doubles are going to get away from the next explosion. That's why I refuse to see movies such as "Ninja Assassin". I really just don't feel like it's worth spending my money to go see another cookie-cutter slash-em-up movie.

The best storylines can be told in multiple formats. As far as books go, I think that the storytelling of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and even J.A. Applegate's Animorphs series are some of the best books I have ever read. The character development in them is outstanding, and I feel like I should have paid more than $7.99 (USD) for their amazing efforts, but while books may have been the second oldest storytelling method, we live in modern times and fewer people are reading today.

The disinterest in reading is being salvaged by the media industry working to convert some of the best-loved books into amazing silver-screened representations of the author’s original vision. Sometimes these movie productions fall far from the tree and create such utter works of crap that people never want to go read the book after seeing the movie. This was the case with Battlefield Earth. I was amazed at how bad of a job they did at converting the 1500+ page book into an hour and a half movie, but pleasantly surprised whenever I watched The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson. What about stories that never originated in books though? We are seeing more writers gravitate towards popular media today including movies, graphic novels, and even video games than ever before. The Watchmen was originally a graphic novel (a comic book for grownups), and it turned out to be a decent movie.

Many brilliant minds are now writing for the video game industry, creating interactive storylines that can either change based upon the player’s decisions, or simply work to physically involve the player in the storytelling rather than simply having them consume it. Perhaps one of the best-known examples of this is Final Fantasy VII. People today still love the game so much that they created a follow-up anime movie to it called Advent Children. There are many others out there including the beloved Resident Evil series, Knights of the Old Republic, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, and of course, Halo.

What about the crossovers? These are really my favorite form of storytelling. A truly amazing story can transcend the media format and continue to tell the ongoing story through different avenues. The first example of this is the idea the writers of the Matrix sequels (don’t get me started) experimented with.

Yes, I kind of enjoyed the sequels but I really liked the innovative thinking that allowed the story to be told other ways. After the 2nd matrix movie, there game a game for PC and Consoles called “Enter the Matrix” which told the story of two supporting characters, Ghost and Nairobi, and took place between and partially during the 3rd movie’s storyline. This was further complimented by the Anime short story compilation called the Animatrix.  This told the history of the Matrix timeline, as well as explained who the random kid was in the 2nd and 3rd movies, and told the story of the Osiris, the ship that discovered that the machines were digging towards Zion. Cool, yes? Only those who were truly interested by the storyline got into those and they were optional with the streamlined story still being an option.

This style has been adopted by several different stories now including Dead Space, Resident Evil, and Halo. Halo is probably one of my favorite game-based stories of all time because of its rich lore and attractive characters. The problem with a first-person shooter though is that a lot of the storyline cannot be intrusive to the gameplay or a large portion of the gaming population won’t care to play it at all. Bungie turned to books, taking the opposite route that many movies take. Sure, you might laugh “Ha ha, you’re reading a book about a video game” but it’s not about the game, it’s about the storyline that forms the backbone to the game.  The most recent example of this, and by far the most popular in the world today is Blizzard’s Warcraft story.

Have you ever watched a trailer that gave you chills? I have. That’s silly you might say, or that’s pretty corny…well what about the way that they are composed? Look at the Halo 3 Announcement teaser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOCXxtDMqXE that was shown at E3 one year. Bioware is a revered company because of its work on Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age: Origins. The best video games are not simply the best gameplay anymore. They are also the best storytellers.  If any of you are worth your salt in Warcraft lore, then the WotLK Cinematic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu1EE7GheD0 was sure to give you chills (no pun intended).  Why? Because of the story.

Next Post I'll get into why the story behind Warcraft is so attractive, and what got me started on Warcraft...and why.