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Know Your Lore: The dynamic new face of Mists of Pandaria
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Cataclysm was a good expansion for lore development. There were several new tools brought in to help the merger of gameplay and lore. There were just as many old tools that were reworked and reimagined in a way that made the story behind the game a fluid and interactive experience. And I'm not just talking about game mechanics like phasing and new quest technology; I'm also referring to the larger presence of novels and short stories that tie directly in with the game universe. This isn't to say that Cataclysm's story was perfect. In fact, despite these innovations, there were problems abound with Cataclysm's storytelling methods. Zones played as seamless stories, but to many players, they felt as if they were on rails. Worse still was the lack of cohesion. The main storyline of Cataclysm felt to many just as scattered as the new zones we had to explore and level through. While Cataclysm was full of innovation, it seemed as though that very innovation led to an experience that ultimately wasn't as satisfactory from a story standpoint. Mists of Pandaria is a stark contrast to Cataclysm. To be perfectly honest, it's a stark contrast to any WoW expansion we've seen to date. Throw your preconceptions of a world on rails out the window, because we're about to make the leap into dynamic storytelling.
What WoW should learn from certain quests in and around The Barrens
So I've been thinking a bit about questing lately as I traverse Outlands on my latest project, a level 61 Blood Elf Paladin, working on the Outlands quests. I think my favorite part of playing a lowbie hordeling is how many quests there are to "stumble upon" in the oft-maligned Barrens. Technically, they're all very basic "find and kill these dudes" quests, but the presentation is such that I always get a big rush from doing them. They really do make me feel like a mighty hunter.
