From Olympic medalists and Hollywood actors to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? Where World of Warcraft and cool ideas and people meet, you'll find players who deserve 15 Minutes of Fame.
A college choir that specializes in choral arrangements of music from video games. A Hollywood horror actress. A guy known for Moonfiring targets out of the sky. We like to keep track of all the WoW-playing friends we've met through 15 Minutes of Fame. Even the stories of folks who aren't playing WoW anymore are stories many of us can relate to, offering a glimpse behind the curtain among players you and I may very well have grouped with during the past year.
Not everyone has time to respond to a year-end retrospective (we're looking at you and your Game of Thrones shooting schedule, Hodor!), but everyone still has a story to tell. Pull up a chair and our year-end gallery and sit awhile with some friends who play World of Warcraft, too.
From Olympic medalists and Hollywood actors to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? Where World of Warcraft and cool ideas and people meet, you'll find players who deserve 15 Minutes of Fame.
A college choir that specializes in choral arrangements of music from video games. A Hollywood horror actress. A guy known for Moonfiring targets out of the sky. We like to keep track of all the WoW-playing friends we've met through 15 Minutes of Fame. Even the stories of folks who aren't playing WoW anymore are stories many of us can relate to, offering a glimpse behind the curtain among players you and I may very well have grouped with during the past year.
Not everyone has time to respond to a year-end retrospective (we're looking at you and your Game of Thrones shooting schedule, Hodor!), but everyone still has a story to tell. Pull up a chair and our year-end gallery and sit awhile with some friends who play World of Warcraft, too.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
There's this mage on my realm who's always at the mailbox around the corner from the main Auction House in Stormwind right about the time I play another of my alts. I'm not talking about any of the mailboxes right there in the little square -- I'm talking about the one through the archway by the canal, toward the fishing quest area. Yeah, kinda out of the way, right? It's always at odd hours, when not many people are around. I can't help but notice her when she's there.
For a long time, I assumed that Mailbox Mage was just another banker alt, but then I noticed that she's actually leveling at a glacial pace. Now, as someone currently bringing up several alts simultaneously to try to sample all the revamped leveling storylines and zones, I can attest in no uncertain terms that sneezing too many times in a row nowadays will cause you to level. Mailbox Mage, though, plays pretty regularly. From what I can see, she logs in for a couple of hours at a time several times a week. She comes and goes, always heading off in different directions; she's obviously busy doing something. So I took a peek at her character profile -- instance runs and activity galore! I've come to the conclusion that that she's periodically freezing her XP, gobbling up every last bit of content in each level range before moving on.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
It's a good week when you can say you've finally completed a legendary weapon in World of Warcraft -- and for one hard-working player on Spinebreaker (US), it was a very good week indeed. Lucky dog Nasar and his alt Grômp have both completed the legendary staff Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest this week. Even more remarkably, the alt actually beat the main to the punch by a few days.
Pulling strings behind the scenes? Nepotism? Cronyism? Hitting the ol' casting couch, even? No, Nasar and Grômp earned their staves the old-fashioned way: dedication to guild and goals. "We have exceptional casters in our guild, and Nasar is one of them," says guildmate Linthiel. "We always knew we wanted to give Nasar a legendary, even though we couldn't give it to him first. Nasar has been leading our guild's GDKP, which enabled our alts to get Firelands gear, and many mains on our server a shot at killing Ragnoras. I've personally been raiding with Nasar for over three years -- we both got our Firelord title last week -- and I am very happy for him. His main and his alt deserve this."
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
Your days are numbered.
It takes you a moment to realize that's all that's in the letter you just opened in your in-game mailbox -- that, and the Hangman's Noose ("It's shiny with blood!") attached at the bottom. You flick open the guild roster, but nobody's online yet. You run the sender's name through the Armory, only to come up with ... nothing. You're not involved in any active roleplaying storylines, and you can't think of anyone you've roleplayed with recently who seems threatening in the least ...
Fine, then. You take it to the forums. You're met with the usual banter for a page or so -- but then another player reports that a friend received a similar note. Then another shows up. And another. Before you know it, the entire realm, Alliance and Horde alike, is roiling with intrigue. Hundreds of players are sucked in. Who are the letters from? What is the threat striking again and again at seemingly unlinked players? What is behind the unfolding string of horror unfolding before you?
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
Teeth-gritting stereotypes aside, the intersection of fitness and gaming is something we've covered a fair amount here at WoW Insider. There's the player who set up a system of "leveling down" as he lost weight, although a visit to his blog these days doesn't turn up much action. There's the player who lost 100 pounds on a treadmill while he played WoW, before such exercise setups were relatively common. We even ran an entire series last year on shaping up, Buffing for BlizzCon.
What we haven't run yet is a story on a gamer who's taken the weight off and kept it off while not only piling on new interests and active pursuits but also maintaining his love of WoW and gaming. A WoW player since the days of the original beta, Jonathan (aka Thundertotem) was a finalist in Subway Canada's Commit to Fit Ambassador search. While he wasn't ultimately chosen as the Subway representative and spokesperson, he says he remains a hardcore gamer even with his weight loss and fitness success.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
I'll let you in on a little secret: Sometimes, the real impetus behind getting featured here among our 15 Minutes of Fame interviews is to get enough people drop me a note telling me what a nice person and great resource a player is. That's the case this week with Kirina of WoW fashion blog Kirina's Closet. Yeah, she runs a pretty mean blog and forum for enthusiasts of unusual and unique WoW outfits -- but I ended up pinging her because I kept getting notes about what a helpful, welcoming resource she and her site are to other players.
I can only wish my high school chemistry teacher (yep, that's Kirina's calling during offline hours) had been so sympathetic. With the ability to change the outward appearance of our gear right around the corner for all of us image-conscious players, I knew Kirina would have some pointed comments about the advent of transmogrification. Will transmogging be as significant to the mainstream player base as it is to fashion fans like Kirina? She thinks it will be, and she tells us why after the break.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
Pitched battle in a frantic Battleground feels a little like Armageddon if you're on the wrong side of the wave. Depression can feel the same way to those struggling in its iron coils. Winding together entertaining and informative posts about both is popular blogger Gnomeaggedon, whose WoW blog (which has been tackling PvP topics since the summer of 2008) is working through a special month-long series on depression and mental health for the mustachioed Movember men's health movement.
You wouldn't think someone who's struggled with depression himself and mental health issues in his immediate family would be a big fan of the emotional highs and lows of Battlegrounds. It's one of the questions Gnomeaggedon toys with regularly: "Kind of related to your interview with Lady Erinia -- is depression caused by excessive video gaming, or is video gaming 'self-medication' for depression? I know in my case, my depression began when I was a child. I had no idea, and things like that weren't discussed in my family -- so treatment came 20 years 'late.' And where WoW was an escape from the difficulties of life (as alcohol, etc., had been in the past), most people assumed I had a (stereotypical) problem with gaming."
With a backlog of years' worth of posts about being a gnome mage, the PvP lifestyle, and scattered plugs for the awareness of mental health issues, Gnomeaggedon has left an indelible imprint in the WoW blogosphere. We had a cozy email conversation with the Aussie player to explore his enthusiastic support for Movember, how many fellow WoW players -- people you play with every day -- are likely to be touched in some way by mental health issues, and how "cleansing the debuff" of mental illness can make such a difference in people's lives.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
The robot lovers among you have undoubtedly already devoured our exclusive BlizzCon interview with Mr. Robot, the enigmatic robot-about-town behind Ask Mr. Robot. The gear optimizing tool burst onto the scene early this year, sparing players endless agony over hammering out the best stats, glyphs, enchants and other twitchiness for their gear (or, you know, making a wild stab, shrugging, and slapping on more mastery with a sardonic "whatever").
Where did this fantabulous, angst-saving service come from? How does it work? And why is it giving you that weird answer about that one piece of gear you thought would be your set's saving grace? We interviewed Peter Coley, co-founder of Ask Mr. Robot, and took your questions for the development team from Twitter and our previous interview here.
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame.
Talk about working around healer's tunnel vision: Rainbo, a 25-man discipline/holy priest on Cenarion Circle (US-H), stays out of the fire working with a mere 10-degree field of vision. Rainbo suffers from Usher Syndrome, an incurable condition that causes deafness and progressive vision loss. Despite those challenges, the 29-year-old gamer has played WoW off and on since it first came out.
"Basically, I only have a small field of central vision that is obscured with floaters and flashers, but I creatively use addons and techniques to successfully raid -- even on heroic," Rainbo says. "We're currently 4/7 heroic Firelands, which puts us as the #8 guild on the server in terms of progression." Pretty hot for a guy who can't even see the fires he's moving out of.
