Project Lore aims to play WoW and get you to watch them

by Matthew Rossi Jul 15th 2008 at 11:00AM

Alex Albrecht, prolific pod and vodcaster and formerly of Tech TV's The Screen Savers, has come up with what I think may be the most sublime and brilliant way ever to get people to support his World of Warcraft gameplay. He's going to record instance runs!

Well, okay, Project Lore looks to be more than that. But tell me that the first thing through your mind once you read what they have planned isn't Oh My... why didn't I think of this? It's brilliant! I play WoW and people watch me doing it! They're clearly aiming for more than that, with instance guides, WoW news, and a glossary as well as the video feeds. The first few videos are of them at level 70 running normal Hellfire Ramparts, which is not really what I was expecting. To be honest, I felt a little bit like they were doing too much with camera angles, loud music and video effects and not letting you see enough of the gameplay.

But I know that as we head into Wrath of the Lich King this could have the potential to be very useful for people running those instances for the first time. Our own Daniel Whitcomb said that at present, it reminded him of an old EQ commercial.

We'll see if it evolves into the one-stop shop for WoW gameplay videos and strategies that it seems to be aiming for. And at any rate, the ability to watch videos of various instance runs, if executed properly, could be a real boon to new players, giving them context into ideas like tanking, DPS, CC and other dungeon roles that are hard to grasp if you've not seen them in action.

Tags: Alex-Albrecht, Gameplay, Instances, Podcast, project lore, ProjectLore, Video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Podcasting, News items, Instances, Humor, The Burning Crusade

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

TotalBiscuit Jul 15th 2008 11:09AM

Heh, they're just cottoning on to this idea now? This has already been done, in several different forms, by other people.

blacksack Jul 15th 2008 11:13AM

wtf? These guys run Ramparts as 70s and they're gushing over hellreaver? What a great concept. That was really entertaining.

Truckin Jul 15th 2008 11:36AM

No kidding.. If you want to document a run for people to use as a guide you cannot go running around level 61-62 instances with lvl 70s geared out and expect it to be useful.. may as well have Nihilum doing it for all intents and purposes.

Naix Jul 15th 2008 11:14AM

Wow. I just watched that EQ commercial. EQ looks like total crap to me.

Thank you Blizzard for putting together such a awesome looking game.

Verit Jul 15th 2008 11:53AM

One problem with doing mmo's on consoles has always been resources. I have 4 gigs of ram and a 64 bit machine, so WoW can only use 2 gigs of that, but it typically is.

The PS2 by contrast has 32 megs of ram and 4 megs of vram. And it had to load everything off DVD-ROM.

I think if WoW was designed to run under similar restrictions I'm sure it would be cut back as well.

EQ2 on the flip side looks better than WoW and its the same vintage.

Naix Jul 15th 2008 1:49PM

Its a good thing Blizzard did not make WoW on the console.

The PC is the ultimate console.

btw I just built a new PC

Vista 64
4 gigs of ram
3.0 ghz cpu
512 ddr3 video card (pcie 2.0)
Raid 0

Its so fast I can click and be at the logon screen

grofer Jul 15th 2008 11:24AM

that sounds pretty damn boring to me

wowinsider Jul 15th 2008 11:25AM

An Alex Albrecht project that's overproduced and low on actual content? Unpossible!

Yeah right. What did you expect Matt?

briker Jul 15th 2008 11:47AM

I sure do miss Screen Savers, and TechTV in general. G4 is such a horrid useless abomination of a channel.

Havitech Jul 15th 2008 11:58AM

Couldn't agree more. I don't remember ever seeing this guy, though. He must have been on only for a few season, I guess. Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton FTW.

wrez Jul 15th 2008 12:20PM

I got G4 last year, so I never saw it as TechTV. I admit to liking a lot of its shows, though. (And what can I say; Blair Butler FTW.)

Actually, Alex Albrecht co-hosted an episode of "Attack of the Show!" last December, and he gave WoW Insider a mention. Had it not been for me catching that particular episode, I would have never heard of this website, and by extension WC Radio, Big Bear Butt, BigRedKitty, or countless other resources. So because of that, I will always have a soft spot for him.

Pucelle Jul 15th 2008 12:06PM

Awww, do they teach frat boys how to spell homosexual in English? I'm sorry, this isn't the repressed, closeted gay hour - your princess is in another castle.

Go play in some traffic, if the WoW Forums are down. Protip: call the guy driving the Hummer a 'homosexual'. I bet you can run faster!

TotalBiscuit Jul 15th 2008 12:06PM

After watching the first video, I can say that the production values
are up there, but then, that's what you expect from a professional
group. What these videos lack however, is an perspective what-so-ever
on how to successfully get through the instance. Doing it at level 70
is trivial. You do not have to take care, and the techniques and
methods that keep those of lower level alive are not displayed here.

The videos are fun to watch, and there's certainly a little
originality here, but if their purpose was to inform and instruct,
they fail monumentally in that respect. If you want something like
that, you should probably listen to the Dungeonmaster series and
Masters of 5 (part of Casually Hardcore) on WoW Radio. What we lack
in funding and industry-quality gear, we make up for in actual
content. We're hardly the only one to have done something like this
either, resources have been around for years to help you with your
instances, so if you are a newer player, I'd suggest checking out
those first, rather than these guys, because you won't get much help
from these videos. They're fun to watch, but that's all they are,
entertainment, not edutainment.

Charlotte Jul 15th 2008 12:11PM

TotalBiscuit, thanks for the info on WoW radio.

I think what this will really be good for is indeed for players like me - i'm 4.5 levels away from levelling my first main, and although I try to cut down on too many spoilers, this sort of content, with good clear images and good production values will be useful once I start hitting heroic dungeons.

I want something similar to this, but a good quality video walk through of various useful addons.

Unknown Jul 15th 2008 12:27PM

TB, i commend you chaps over at Wow radio, however stop hating and give these guys a chance.

This is the first run, was your first Bluez PlZ your best show?

Yes it appears on the initial trail these guys don't really have a clue about how to run a dungeon (100G says reg SH eats them alive) , but lets see them amp it up on heroic and see what happens.

Vistol

TotalBiscuit Jul 15th 2008 12:35PM

Woah there Unknown, there's no hate here. As always, I'm merely pointing out what's wrong with the work. Professionals deal with criticism on a daily basis, and so they should, for no work is perfect.

You've pointed out the main problem with this production, they don't seem to know anything about the instances. Now for a series who's focus is 'how to do instances', that's something of a fatal flaw, don't you think? It's not a case of production values, or the nitty-gritty, their entire format isn't fit for purpose. Now either they need to rebrand it and stop pretending that it's supposed to help people run instances, or they need to go back to the drawing board and totally rework what they're doing.

It is also not unreasonable to 'expect more' from professionals. Shows can and do improve over time but if they're stuck in a rut from the get go because their entire concept and format is fatally flawed, then they're not going to go anywhere.

tnam Jul 15th 2008 12:16PM

very entertaining, great quality, the concept isn't new, but they have the budget to pull it off and make it fun to watch.

/subscribe

blacksack Jul 15th 2008 12:26PM

How the hell is it fun to watch? They down the dragon in 15 seconds and then ooh-n-awww as one 70 with epics loots the letter for the lvl 60 thrallmar quest. One guy is yelling "link the loot" while sporting the triptych shield of the ancients from Chest. ??? I guess this makes for a wipe-free broadcast. I can't wait to see the Blackfathom Deeps run!