It is something awful that has cropped up that I have been blissfully sheltered from for the last several months. It is the reemergence of the DING. Let me just say I hate it when people say “ding” after they level, I absolutely despise it.

With Wrath out and everyone leveling again our /g is once again filled with people begging for attention over their virtual accomplishments. There are certainly some dings that are less annoying than others. A pre-wrath ding 70 would get a “grats” from me. Now a “ding 80″ will get the same, but that’s about it.

It’s when people ding 47 or 64, or god forbid 12 that really makes me questions peoples sense of accomplishment and need for personal validation by reading a half-hearted “grats.” Personally, I have 5 characters level 60 or higher… now if I said ding every time one of my toons got bathed in yellow light, I would have annoyed my guild mates around 300 times now. With the recent experience nerfs leveling is really not that big of a deal. Sure, enjoy your new abilities, but don’t you don’t need to tell the whole world about it…. or even if you do find a better way to do it.

I really don’t have a problem with people announcing exciting new gear, or a rare crafting recipe, or even a big purchase, at least that stuff is interesting to talk about. But do you really think I care that the number next to you name is one digit higher? Let me just say, I don’t.

With the release of the achievement system every 10 levels is automatically announced anyway, so now there is no need for anyone to say ding anymore… ever.

Please everyone, I implore you, stop saying it. It’s needy and annoying. If you happen to be a member of the Totally Rad Guild, just remember my ability to take away your guild chat privileges is just one click away.

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Of the two, I prefer the Ozzy commercial, but I have to say the Mr T one is my favorite of the bunch. I can just see Mr T hacking the servers to make a class called a mohawk. Which WoW commercial do you like best?

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But what about beyond Tier 7 you ask?  Well, if you purchased the Collector’s Edition of Wrath of the Lich King, you might get a sneak peek at upcoming tier sets.  Included in the Phat Lewtz section of the art book is four images of gear sets, presented in the common modeling fashion, but sans any kind of label.

Two of the pictures are pretty easy to figure out, with this one almost certainly being a Warlock set.  Notice the demonic energies flowing around the armor.  This set obviously looks holy in nature, leading one to label it as a Priest set, but possibly a Paladin set as well.  However, the robe’s look has me to leaning in the direction of the priestly arts.

It appears the Blizzard may have also included a Death Knight set in the bonus section.  The DK set is complete with their iconic skulls at the belt buckle and knees.  We also have their trademark blue aura disseminating from the gear.  Last but not least, is the piece that took a friend and I some time to make a guess at.  While the other three pieces were relatively easy, I had to mull this one over before agreeing with him.  The gear obviously wasn’t of the Rogue or Hunter variety, with a robe kind of ruling out Warriors.  It doesn’t appear as earthy as most Druid stuff, so we finally settled on a Shaman set.

The book also has presentation of Rogue and Hunter sets, but they are not in full frame and do not appear to be part of the other series.  The scans we have aren’t high-resolution (don’t want to infringe on any copyrights here), so if you are interested in the details then take the book out of the shrink-wrap or head over to a friend’s house.

Any differing opinions on which sets the images belong to?  Think we will see these bad boys with patch 3.1 and Ulduar?  Perhaps later, or maybe they are truly just concepts and will never be implemented.  That would suck because, as usual, I think the Warlock set looks awesome.

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But here is what some of you may be missing: Always shop where people know you.

In other words, only buy and repair from people you are exalted with or you will lose tons of gold in the long run. Since patch 2.3, your toon’s status with a faction can get you great discounts at exalted. These discounts of 20% are huge for guilds that try for world-first boss kills or grind on trash mobs in places they don’t have the gear to go into and kill the boss.

“But I’m leveling. I don’t have time to go to SW or Thunder Bluff. And what’s a few more copper anyway?”

Okay, okay. you might be right. You might be willing to pay a little more for a service that’s right in front of you rather than going to Shatt and porting to IF or Undercity. And really what’s the difference on a 10% discount? What does it really matter?

Well there may come a day when you might want the epic flying mount riding skill or maybe cold weather flying? That’s the day you’ll wish you’d repaired at SW or Undercity.

Get a little addon called FuBar_DurabilityFu (requires FuBar) or something like it. It will show you exactly how much you save by repairing with a faction that really, really likes you.

Now riddle me this: Do you do that in RL?

Well?

Do you shop at a convenience store for basics like milk, cookies and bread? Do you take your car to be repaired at a big dealership who know you only by your license plate number? Do you spend thousands of extra dollars on on an education or a house because you took the first loan you got approved for by some huge conglomerate who might know who you are if you give them your social security number?

Well?

So take a look at the game, and the players who have loads of money, already rollin’ around on those mammoths you want so much. Take a look at the system of commerce, and really watch it. And then you’ll start to see that it really is who knows you, who you’re exalted with, that gets you the best deals, the best stuff and those special little things that they won’t even consider giving to just anyone.

Always shop where people know you. You will save in the longrun and you will get better deals that you ever thought possible.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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Monday, November 17th at Noon PST- Project Lore WotLK beta Episode 3.1: The Oculus

Wednesday, November 19th at Noon PST- Project Lore WotLK beta Episode 3.2: The Oculus

Friday, November 21st at Noon PST- Project Lore WotLK beta Episode 3.3: The Oculus

Saturday, November 22nd at Noon PST - Project Lore’s Weekly Wrap-up

Take a look at our subscribe page to find us all over the web, and use the Episodes RSS feed or follow our Twitter to find out when new episodes are out! Project Lore is also on MySpace and Facebook, so please be our friend!

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I’m not sure if any of you had heard, but Wrath of the Lich King launched yesterday! Somehow, people are already hitting level 80, as there is proof of Nymh, a Level 80 Human Warlock (Alliance FTW) right here on the Armory. It makes sense that the first eighty was on the EU servers, as their time zones had a few hours of a head start to get the record.

Personally, I’ve only leveled a couple of times, but I cannot get enough of Northrend. I am enjoying pretty much every single quest I’ve done. I’m a bit of a quest-a-holic, and I’m going for both the Loremaster and 3000 quest achievements, so I finished up in Borean Tundra and headed over to Howling Fjord. I figure if I’m going to be doing these quests anyway, I may as well get XP for them.

What level are you guys a day and a half in? Vote on this poll! I’m guessing most are in the 71 area, but I’ve seen a bunch of mid 70s on Executus, so let us know.

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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?

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