April 1th, By Jacky-I dug out this gem from almost a year ago because Stormscape Creations is preparing to release the second chapter of The Thaenor Chronicles any day now! The story centers around Zemeth and Zalek Thaenor, the last living members of their family.

Mar 25th, By EMMA, One of the things I really enjoy about playing WoW, even all these years later, is the game underneath the game. While I'm awful at math, the old D&D geek in me still enjoys considering my stats, mixing and matching gear to see how it best combines for what I'm going for (in this case, high defense and avoidance.... with the right set I can push 40% block, for instance, but it's a gimmick set, not something I'd actually tank real content in). Last night, due to my raging insomnia, which has in the past rewarded me greatly, I had a very interesting conversation with another warrior in my guild about weapon speeds, co-efficients and why I should keep tanking with my Sun Eater instead of the new dgger I just got.

Obviously I'm comfortable with my knowledge of the warrior class and the game (or I'd probably not be able to write here without crying and hiding under my desk) but there's a lot to keep track of, and it was good to have another person to bounce the relative benefits of the weapons off of. One of the benefits of this being a social game is the people: when you have good people around you, make use of them. Ask them for help for quests and instances. Go help them do the same. Heck, just talk to them. Talking about the game, heck, even just talking about why my character's name sounds vaguely like a kaiju has livened up wiping on Malacrass because the mage gone one-shotted by an add before he could sheep it again.

There are unpleasant aspects to interpersonal contact in the game... barrens chat, bad PuG's, people who clog Trade chat with their egomaniacal rantings, that one enchanter who spams with his various enchants but when you actually ask him to do one is always afk, constant 'duel me outside Ironforge, if I win you pay 10g, if I lose you get 100g' posts from people who won't actually pay up... but man, a good group of people can really override all that junk with useful sounding boards and fun times. Make sure to keep good people once you find them, because they'll make the game ten thousand times better.

Dear Blizzard,

For whatever reason, your game has been experiencing multiple server related issues in the past few weeks. Many players have seen themselves offline an abnormal amount of time, and for no apparent reason. Some realms have been brought offline for emergency maintenance and stayed that way for nearly a day. Other realms are seeing themselves either reset or become sundered down with mass disconnects that make any serious play almost impossible.