Loremaster Innervate - World of Warcraft - Zone Lore: Eversong Woods

Welcome to the first article for Loremaster Innervate. This will be a weekly article where we go over the lore that we learn as we trek our way through Azeroth and beyond. For the Horde side of leveling, we will be following the adventures of Mishta, a Blood Elf Monk. And we begin our story in Eversong Woods as a new recruit eager to help rebuild the race.

Why are the Blood Elves in Eversong Woods? Why is half of their city destroyed? What is their story? Unfortunately, none of this is actually explained in the starting area as the blood elves expect you to know your people's history. So you have to go outside of the game for some background information. Essentially, Blood Elves used to be High Elves that were known as a race with great magical ability. Their source of power comes from the Sunwell which was created from a vial of water from the Well of Eternity. Arthas the Lich King amassed an army of Scourge and marched on Silvermoon so he could use the power of the Sunwell to resurrect Kel'thazad (the final boss in Naxxaramus) which tainted the Sunwell. During this attack, over 90% of the elven population in Quel'thalas was destroyed by the Scourge and those who survived became addicted to mana without the Sunwell. They changed their name to Blood Elves as a reminder of their fallen.

Source: Blizzard Entertainment Concept Art

There isn't a lot of additional information on the Eversong Woods area itself. It has always been the home of High Elves and where their Sunwell originally sat before it was corrupted and destroyed. An interesting fact however is that the region itself is meant to be snowy but the Blood Elves use their magic to leave it in a perpetual season of Autumn. If the Blood Elves ever left it is assumed that it would return to a winter climate. Also, in Tor'Watha there used to be a wooden gateway similar to Zul'Aman that was speculated to have either been the original entrance to the raid or another instance that was never released. It was later removed in Patch 4.0.3 and replaced by mountains.

The questing itself unfortunately is rather dull as the zone was not remade during the overhaul to the 1-60 questing experience in the pre-launch event for Cataclysm. There isn't a very distinguishable story to follow but there are some lore tid-bits that we can learn.

Blood elves, as stated above, are addicted to mana crystals due to their constant use of it. They constantly suffer from withdrawal symptoms since the destruction of the Sunwell. Blood elves that do not learn to curb their addiction and give in are turned into Wretched. Wretched are deformed creatures who only care about getting their next mana fix. They will steal and murder their own for the chance of them having a mana crystal on them. Once you have succumb to your addiction there to no turning back and your only hope is death. Wretched are a huge threat to most as they have no remorse for their actions and will kill any passing Blood Elf.

The first quests in the zone, as in most zones, are kill quests. You are ordered to kill Mana Wyrms and Springpaw Lynx because Blood Elves used the Sunwell magic to control them so everything in Quel'thalas lived in harmony with one another. Once the Sunwell was destroyed they could no longer control the animals and mana creatures throughout the land who then turned on them. This made their training grounds extremely dangerous.

We soon see our first look into faction differences and Blood Elf players are taught early to hate the Alliance. The only Alliance we see are either masked Darnassian spies who hold battle plans to the defenses of the outlying villages of Eversong and Prospector Anvilward who turns out to be a spy who sabotaged the Western Sanctums power conduits. Although you are a brand new recruit to the Horde, they ask you to assassinate the Prospector as it is to dangerous to keep him captive. We also see distinction between troll tribes with the Amani and the Darkspear. Although very minimal, we meet a dying Darkspear troll that explains that he is good and we help avenge his death.

Source: http://www.fanpop.com/fans/Chipettes33

The last creatures that we come across before we leave the area are woodland Treants, sentient trees who live throughout Quel'thalas. Treants in Eversong have been long time allies of the Blood Elves and most of the structures in Eversong Woods were either built by or repaired by Treants. However, the Treants were attempting to heal the burned down woods that border Ghostlands which forced the Blood Elves to begin killing them. This little bit of information intrigued me, although Blood Elves are more in tune with Arcane Magic than Nature based magic, it could be assumed that with the help of Tauren Druids and the Treants in Eversong, could it be possible for a faction of Blood Elves to become Druids? In the Warcraft II manual, it is explained that the Runestone on Caer Darrow in the Western Plaguelands was placed by "Elven Druids" but they were never mentioned again. In the Botanica 5-man instance, High Botanist Freywinn is a blood elf seen wearing Cenarion Vestments (Tier 1 Druid gear) and even transforms into a tree. Many of the other NPCs in the Botanica cast Restoration Druid spells but are not specifically called Druids.

The last, and possibly biggest piece of lore, comes from the Dead Scar and the Scorched Wood. The Dead Scar is a straight line that cuts Eversong Woods and Ghostlands almost evenly in half. This occurred when the Lich King marched on Silvermoon and the Scourge corrupted the land as it marched. After most of the Scourge army left, the corruption of their taint began to spread and the elves were forced to burn the land and the surrounding forest to stop the spread of the corruption. Unfortunately, the mark left behind by the Scourge cannot be reversed and any attempts to heal the land will simply cause the taint to continue spreading. The corruption also draws more stray Scourge to the area so the blood elves must always be on constant guard.

Overall, the zone felt as though there was very little accomplishment that occurred by the player as, again, the story line is behind on the current game lore and the story telling was not as well done. Most of the information had to be found outside of the game. Next week however, we will be covering Ghostlands which is personally one of my favorite areas. Join me next time as we explain the rise, fall and fall again of Dar'khan Drathir!

The Weekly Innervate - Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - An Unfair Turned Into a Sort of Fair Review

(Author's Note: I am a level 18 Conjurer at the time of this article so I am reviewing the early part of the game.)

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a new MMORPG produced by Square Enix that has been highly anticipated by the general community despite the failed attempt of FFXIV the original. I personally have never played any of the Final Fantasy series before FFXIV and had no personal interest in the game but got swept up by the hype train of everyone elses excitement. I was selected to play in the Beta around Phase 4 but since they had an odd Beta schedule I was never actually able to play the Beta.

Launch

To say that Final Fantasy XIV had a bad launch would be an incredibly large understatement. FFXIV has had the worst launch for a AAA MMO we have seen for a very long time. I'm usually a pretty understanding person when it comes to downtime for patches and launches since it is a giant undertaking but for me this was pretty inexcusable because this could have easily been prevented with a little bit more testing. FFXIV had only one stress test that I remember right before it's launch and it was a two day event that ended early because one of the servers literally had a melt down. FFXIV also had no open beta except for the Open Beta they had for a few days shortly before their Early Access period. I was unable to participate in the Open Beta event because I couldn't find where to re-download the game after I uninstalled during the Closed Beta because it was giving me errors that I wasn't in the Beta but when I tried to sign up it said I was already in the Beta. Even after all of this, the hype was enough to make me pre-order the game. 

Square Enix had their pre-order numbers (which I believe was probably around 1 million or so) and they only had about 8-10 US Servers open at launch. At least 5 different errors occurred during their Early Access Period, there were no Server queues, no AFK kick mechanics and once the servers were filled you couldn't even make characters on the servers. This made it so you had to make and log-in to your character at about 5am if you wanted to play at all during Prime Time. I wasn't able to actually play the game until the 26th which was only one day before the actual launch of the game.

Needless to say, myself (and many others) were not at all happy with the game's launch and I saw some people even just quit over the debacle. There are a lot of different things that could have prevented this from happening. Having more than one open beta or stress test would have helped out a great deal as well as having more servers open at the time of launch for NA/EU players or a login queue for servers would have made it so more people could play. 

Early Leveling

Once I was able to finally get access to the game I was extremely disappointed with my experience personally. Personally, it's my opinion that even though SWTOR wasn't seen as an overall success among the general MMO community, I think it definitely raised the bar on what a questing experience should be. Final Fantasy had a large story element to it with both the class specific story lines and the Main Arching story line but a lot of it was lost on me due to not having hardly any Voice Over. It wasn't necessary for SE to do VO for each individual player character but the Main Story line NPC's having voice over work would have made the Main Story line much more unique and enjoyable. Instead, they sprinkled random VO here and there and left the rest for quest text to be skipped. Another thing that really annoyed me is that if you and another person you plan on playing with pick different classes you won't be able to quest with each other until around level 15 where you're able to go to the other starting areas. 

The questing by itself is extremely tedious and boring. It takes two steps back towards the World of Warcraft model of questing with kill X and gather Y, two quests at a time and run back to the original quest giver to run back out to the same spot you were at to do it again. They did however, make it so that quest objectives are open to everyone so they do not despawn and respawn in a given time so it doesn't take as long to get through gathering quests if lots of people are in one area.

As with most MMOs now a days, the early levels are to be quested through until you hit 10 or 15 where you can then do PvP or PvE dungeons. However, there is currently no PvP in FFXIV which I feel really is a determinate, not only to the community but also to break up the monotony of leveling which can be boring at the early levels and doing anything except questing can help people push through the game. I actually had to stop playing the game for several days and nearly just cancelled everything the questing was so dull I wanted to go play anything else. However, people on Twitter urged me to at least get to level 15 in my first job and do the first few dungeons before I make a final decision. This review would have been MUCH different if I had written it at level 10 like I originally planned last week.

Alternatives To Questing

There are a few things that you can do outside of just questing. Fates are open world bosses that can be found throughout the world, similar to Rifts in the liked name MMO, and you gain experience and Gil based on how much you participate so leeching exp is pretty impossible. You have to be exactly in the level range of the Fate however, even a level or two under can significantly dwarf your exp. I wasn't able to find a lot of unique same level Fates while I was questing but a lot of people say that farming Fates is very good exp if you can find them. There are also small Duty's that you unlock as you level which are almost like WoW Scenarios that can be done with 2-4 people and can be queued for. They take between 3-10 minutes to complete and give great exp the first time through but the exp decreases heavily thereafter.

Dungeons

This is where the game truly begins to shine except there is one large annoyance. You HAVE to complete the main story line to unlock your dungeons. Most MMOs you simply have to get to level 15 and you can simply just queue up for them. I hit level 15 and was unable to queue until someone in my stream chat told me I had to do the main story line to get them unlocked, I was level 17 by the time I caught up in quests since I picked up all side quests as well while I was leveling. This is annoying to me because this makes it so players HAVE to quest to do other content and forcing players to do content they may not necessarily wish to do just to do other content is never a good thing to me. However, once I was able to actually get into the dungeons I was pleasantly surprised. The dungeons are extremely linear so it is very difficult to get lost and the trash has a high amount of health and each individual trash pack takes about 45 seconds to 1 minute to be cleared. Even early dungeons are not flattering for new tanks, if you don't have decent/up to date gear before you go in you will be hit incredibly hard and the healer will have to pump out constant heals. Aggro also appeared to be pretty difficult to hold for some tanks in some of the runs that I did if I had to AoE heal the group it was very easy for to get and hold threat.

You get the first three dungeons between 15-17 and each dungeon is radically different in scenery. The boss mechanics grow increasingly difficult with the final boss in Copperbell Mines wiping my pug group at least 3 or 4 times before we were able to complete it. The dungeons are honestly the saving grace of the game for me as I like multiplayer content and the dungeons have a lot of neat mechanics and are said to only get more difficult as you get higher in levels. The dungeons are the first thing that have made me want to continue playing the game to see more of as so far nothing in the low levels are exactly exciting or innovating.

All in all, with so many MMOs on the market to me, it is very important for games to captivate you within the first 10 or so levels as statistics show that a majority of people who try MMOs unsub or stop playing at around level 10. SWTOR is the first game in recent memory that has made the questing experience enjoyable and captivating and made you want to keep playing as you got invested more and more into your character. With SWTOR doing such an amazing job with questing/story content I feel as though all games should step up their leveling content to keep players interested. But the dungeon content is definitely what makes this game shine. If you're wondering whether or not you want to play the game or not, I would say at least pick it up. Digital standard edition is only $32 after taxes and you get 30 days free which is more than enough time for you to determine if the game is worth playing after that. And the subscription fee is only $12 for 1 character (which is all someone like me will need) with a Free to Play model on the way (from what the rumor mill is saying anyway).

Monday Morning Musings - General MMO - The Companion System: A Unique Leveling Experience Other Games Should Adopt

(Author's Note: Sorry for the one day delay, I got sucked into SWTOR and couldn't get out.)

Leveling – The Bane of Healers everywhere. It is the time of the gaming cycle, whether it be launching the game for the first time or an expansions launch night, where we have to run back to our class trainers and respec into a Tank or DPS specialization so that we can get back to max level. Personally, I hate DPSing in general and will always be a healer main spec in all games that I've played. So being forced to choose between going DPS spec so I can experience the new questing content or having to grind the same PvE/PvP instances one hundred times just so that I can stay in my healing spec.

When people talk about Star Wars: The Old Republic's unique leveling experience the thing people most talk about is the voice over questing, the class specific story lines and the Roleplay quality to tailor your character to how you wanted to play. But when I think about SWTOR's unique leveling content the first thing that comes to mind is the companion system. SWTOR was the first game that I played that had a companion system where you had a secondary AI that could do a range of tasks from the traditional triad system.

The companion system was one that added an extra layer to the leveling experience that is overshadowed but to me one of the most important features in the game especially since the game did not launch (and still doesn't support) a dual spec feature. Having to respec from Healing to DPS every time I wanted to do a dungeon or wanted to do Dailies at max level content would have definitely been an issue that could not be over looked. Having the companions however made it possible to level up in a healing spec from level 10 until level 55.

Healing is truly the only spec that has a difficult time leveling in the spec through questing content that it is nearly impossible to do solo which is what questing content primarily is. It is also one of the roles that is the most difficult to learn to do in a brand new game and having to read all your abilities at once and figure out how to use them properly in an environment where people are quick to blame the healer on wipes is extremely discouraging. The companion system allows someone to level as a healer, which gives them the same luxury of gaining their skills at a slow pace and even gaining experience in high pressure situations such as accidentally pulling too many mobs and needing to keep something that may not be quite that geared alive.

When I play through Healing characters in SWTOR I tended to pick whoever my romanced companion was (because I'm a big ol' softy) which was generally a DPS of some kind and I would heal them while they killed people. Neverwinter is the most recent game in memory that also had a companion system that was a lot simpler than SWTOR's system but kept the same principle. You could pick one that performed a role for you which allowed you to heal your way through leveling (and tank, since Neverwinter's threat system was broken and Cleric's had to kite while healing because we generated more threat than tanks did in end game content but we won't mention this).

Allowing players to level in the specialization that they truly want to play end game content with will not only make players want to level and keep them interested in the game longer but will also increase success in PvE/PvP end game content as the backbones of the group will have hours of experience that they wouldn't have had in other games playing their specialization.

I'm truly hoping that more games begin to adopt the companion system into their games as they develop to make their questing experiences much more dynamic and set themselves apart from the World of Warcraft model of questing that has been a bane on the community for nearly a decade. As a main spec healer in nearly every game that I play any reason to not play as a DPS through half of the content is always something that keeps me subbed longer and generally a lot happier to go and do my dailies or level up a new character.

The Weekly Innervate - Star Wars: TOR - A Resto Druids Review

This weekend I was able to get one of the one million+ Beta Keys that Bioware handed it out to many MMO websites. I originally had no interest in the game what-so-ever even with all of the hype it was receiving. I still felt extremely hurt with the way Rift turned out and didn't want to be hurt that way again. I pre-ordered Rift, played it for a month and found out how generic and boring it was and then stopped playing. I was not going to be sucked into this time. And then one of my guild mates began talking to me about the game after one of our raids. When an officer in your World of Warcraft guild that writes about WoW for a living is talking about another MMO you listen. He told me about how everything in the game, every quest, every cut scene was voiced was the first thing that caught me. I love voice acting in games and was happy when WoW started putting it in a little when Cataclysm was released even though it was still minimal.

Then he started telling me about the Choice System, in quests you have a choice between two and three options as voiced replies to quest givers. And then there is the Light Side Choices and the Dark Side Choices. In some quests you have a choice to do something Nice or Naughty and those choices can come back at later points in the game. He gave this example. As a Level 10 Jedi Knight. you come across a Sith Lord and you have a battle, at the end of the battle you have a conversation and you have two choices. You can either choose the Dark Side Choice which is to kill him. Or you can choose the Light Side Choice which is to allow him to live to seek Redemption. 40 levels later, you can be questing and come across a life threatening scenario, that Sith Lord that you let live can come back and save your life, impacting your story in the game.

This was something that interested me a lot. I have always loved the World of Warcraft Lore but find it extremely confusing to follow. I also feel that questing in WoW is extremely boring because of how linear it is. Nothing every changes aside from going between different faction or the zones you decide to quest in. So I decided to take a look into the game to decide for myself. And boy... was I surprised.

Anyone who says that SWTOR is WoW in space is on crack and the statement still boggles my mind. The games are so radically different in so many important ways. Yes, they both do quests to get experience and there's PvP and Dungeons. I heard that WoW was that first game to do these radical things in an MMO (give me a break).

The Questing Experience should honestly be the reason why you try out this game and this is the primary reason I am buying the game. The Questing Experience has basically made this game such a radical change from all other MMOs on the market today. Every single quest in the game is voiced and the voices are absolutely amazing. I did the beginning of each side (Republic and Empire) and they were extremely compelling. I was so immersed in my characters because I could go from my Jedi Counselor and be curt and polite to my Sith Inquisitor who was snarky and ruthless. Not only did the voice acting make Questing immersive but it was the actual quests themselves. In the twelve levels I got through on my Sith Inquisitor I think maybe four of the quests involved Kill 10 of X and Gather 6 of Y.

Almost of the quests involve you going from Point A to Point B, finding some mystical item or artifact or exploring the depths of a tomb while fighting off the enemies inside. And there was ALWAYS a reason. No, kill 10 of these boars because we need to clear them out, and they just keep re-spawning anyway so what you did really does nothing. It kept the world extremely immersive and I absolutely loved it. I generally absolutely cannot stand questing in games. It's the most boring part for me and yet I spent 20+ total hours over the weekend doing quests. I did nothing else in the game and I wanted to KEEP doing it. Even though I told myself I shouldn't because I'd just have to do it all again when the game released, I wanted to know how my story continued. I wanted to know if Ffon and I would get into a large battle, I wanted to know if Khem Val would eat someone, I just wanted to know! Even if you don't want to play the game like an MMORPG I would encourage you to buy it and play through it for a month like it was a single player console game if only to experience the amazing story they have put together for this game.

Oh, and some little awesome thing. When you quest and you do have to collect things from corpses, not all bodies drop loot, and if it drops a quest item, the body will send off a Yellow beam instead of the usual Blue beam so you don't have to loot something useless to find it doesn't have a quest item. I found that pretty awesome!

I tried out both of the healers. The Jedi Counselor and the Sith Inquisitor. Both of these classes are the exact same thing except they are on opposite sides. They use the exact same attacks but with different names so you don't have to choose a specific Allegiance because you want the healer only they offer. However, this is where the game kind of lacks. They both don't get heals until Level 10~12 when you get the quest to choose your calling. The healers only have two or three total healing spells and they are your Flash Heal, Greater Healer ext. I feel like the niche of dedicated Tank, Healer, Damage has been broken in this game. Many classes can spec into a heal but still be damage. The Sith Sorcerer has a spell called Dark Bind (your Heal) but it's three Talent Trees are Healing, Damage, Damage. I feel like the game wants everyone to be able to DPS and throw out heals on each other if someone gets low but you shouldn't have some one dedicated outside of the group to standing there and healing. Until I reach end game level I won't really know for sure.

I got to go through the first Flashpoint (dungeon) and it was a lot of fun. Unlike WoW the Flashpoints are 4-player groups that you can technically 2-man (with 2 Real People and 2 Companions). Again, they are completely voiced from the beginning to the end and extremely immersive. Black Talon, the level 10 Sith Empire Flashpoint, takes place on a spaceship where you face to clear out the rebellious crew and the oncoming Jedi droids from your ship then get on the Jedi Ship and kill/capture it's captain. And this is where I discovered Group Conversations. Group Conversations are when you and your party members are all on the same quest/Flashpoint. It synchs up your cut scenes so that you both hear the same things and have the same options. If you choose the same option of speech as the person you're with you gain Social Points and your character has the ability to speak instead of the group leader. But if you choose differently the group leaders speech prompt is selected and you get a few less Social Points.

As a WoW Player who has no plans of quitting WoW for pretty much any game ever, I pre-ordered the Digital Collectors Edition the moment I got through Level 3 of the Jedi Conselor. I have absolutely fallen in love with this game and I would suggest that you do the same. I do not currently plan on Raiding or PvPing in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I am buying the game solely because I want to play through the Jedi and the Sith Story Lines until their conclusions because I want to know how they end. My current plans are to play until I have completed every quest on either side and then ending my subscription until more content is released. And as someone who generally hates questing and buys a game for it's end game content that should tell you something. I may change my mind and continue playing casually but as of right now I will be playing the game as if it were a Console game. Personally, I feel as though SWTOR would have made more money if they had actually made the game around their questing which is pretty much single player for the most part. But I suggest you at least check it out in an upcoming Beta Weekend. You won't be sorry!