Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

In Lord of the Rings Online we have deeds, on Xbox Live they are called Achievements and in Warhammer Online it will be the Tome of Knowledge. These are all variations on the same theme of rewarding players for doing innovative little things which you would normally only do for fun, such as killing x number of the local bandit population just because, or going off and exploring high level zones, choosing to explore every inch of the world or doing a mass of quests all in one area (something I personally recommend for those who really want a feel for an area…quests should advance lore, if you don’t know a zone after completing thirty-odd quests then something is wrong with the game.)

Blizzard is ever mindful of popular trends so it came as no surprise to me today, though it pleased me greatly to find out that someone with access to Alpha testing of Wrath of the Lich King has leaked some information on WoW’s new achievement system. Here we have those things I mentioned above, along with achieving so many arena wins and so many battleground wins. There’s been no mention of what these points will go toward, though I quite enjoy titles however I doubt that will happen to any great extent due to Blizzard’s reluctance to reward with anything other than coin and/or gear.

I’ve seen some talk of how this will apply to high level characters, of which there are currently a lot. Even when the expansion releases with it’s new class, the lowest level new characters will still be jumping straight in at level 55 so a lot of the ‘level to 10′ and ‘level to 20′ styled achievements could be obsolete if handled badly. Personally I think that with WoW’s extreme levels of data tracking (check Rayda’s listing on WoWArmoury to see the extent to which third parties alone can access character information) it should be fairly easy to implement this, with high level characters simply being instantly blessed with points they would have achieved so far. I can’t imagine there isn’t a database somewhere which hasn’t tracked all this data.

Disclaimer - The following was a work of fiction I cooked up to give Russ some back story for Rayda and his life and is in no way a complete tale. I wouldn’t normally feel like posting this one in TripleB as even I think this crosses into total nerd territory, however it occurs to me I haven’t done any real writing in a very long time and I do miss it.

So the following is set in a time around twenty years prior to the events of World of Warcraft, though not entirely as their lore time line is really all over the place. Suffice it to say, Rayda believes he was in his twenties when the following happens however his way of life has probably effected his memory somewhat as it actually takes place in the early days of the Second War. At this time Rayda is in fact a Warrior and not even Russ has been able to get his head around quite how the Dwarf managed to get himself blessed enough to become a Paladin in later years. Many hardcore role players will hate this aspect and no doubt want to stone me.
Also bear in mind this is a ‘first hand’ account, written as if Ray is recounting the tales to someone.
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After the huge disappointment in Vanguard and with World of Warcraft once again claiming all of my attention, I really hadn’t found an MMO I was really excited about. In fact when Lord of the Rings Online, an MMO I first heard about in Vanguard’s early days first came to launch day, I really wasn’t all that fussed. It just didn’t seem my thing.

Eventually I tried it and was really quite impressed. Instancing was finally done in a unique and involving way rather than shutting you out of the rest of the world, the graphics were ‘realistic’ and the lore was there. Over time the world grew for me as I discovered new places and got to grips with the map…what I originally thought were disconnected zones were in fact sub-areas of a very small region of Middle Earth, with the other regions scheduled for later expansions. Other regions aren’t needed for me currently, Eriador (Home of the Shire, Bree, Buckland, et al) is a vast place as it is and absolutely jam packed with life and more importantly soul.
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From WoWWiki;

Hellfire Citadel was originally referred to as simply “the Citadel”, and was built as the fortress of Blackhand, the first Warchief of the Horde. After the orcs’ abandonment of the elemental spirits, the area around it became known as Hellfire Peninsula, and thus the citadel was given its current name.

The fortress was intended to be the primary staging ground of the military forces of the Horde, whereas the captured Temple of Karabor (now the Black Temple) would be used for meetings of the Shadow Council. It was from this location that the final battle against the draenei, at Shattrath, was organized and carried out. After the creation of the Dark Portal, the Horde was organized at Hellfire Citadel and marched up the Path of Glory to what they called the “Stair of Destiny”.

Its fate after the destruction of Draenor was unknown until recently; it was presumably abandoned until Kargath Bladefist, Warchief of the Fel Horde, and the fel orc minions of Illidan Stormrage took possession of the Citadel as their base of operations. Illidan also used the citadel as a prison for Magtheridon, the former Lord of Outland; it is here that Illidan’s fel orcs take the blood of Magtheridon and use it to create more fel orcs, much as the blood of Mannoroth was used to corrupt the original Horde.

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