We all get frustrated with the Blizzard developers at one time or another. Sometimes we even post messages on the forums, rant in chat to our guild mates, heck, we might even blog about it ourselves. But as Fate pointed out recently on Apathy Inc., there's a few things you should consider when spewing your venom at the creators of WoW.

As an example Fate shares with the readers an experimental talent tree for Wrath (and a very nice job, I should say), and references this as just one very complicated aspect of the design of the game. Analyzing every angle of a spec may go very well, until you open it up to the players and realize what you thought was balanced really is no where close. Things go from bad to worse, and the players begin to complain, and complain, and then they, you know, complain. Trying to keep everyone happy is really a thankless job, and this is only one tiny aspect of the game. It doesn't take into account building boss battles, creating loot tables, designing armor and weapons, or anything else that makes this Massively Multiplayer game so very massive.

I haven't considered exactly how much work really goes into building this game, keeping it running, pushing through new content and keeping it balanced at the same time as not completely ruining the old content. Fate has put it all into perspective for me. Although I'm not much of a ranter or a railer when it comes to the Blizzard devs, I certainly from this point on will give them the benefit of the doubt.

As with anything on Daedalus, one of their most recent articles was a fascinating exploration into the deeper psychology of playing an MMO. The article of fascination this time deals with the player life cycle in an MMO like WoW, and indeed he primarily uses examples and quotations from WoW players to build his argument.

Daedalus believes that nearly every player will fit this cycle in one way or another, and each step in the cycle has some variables within it that seem to include the majority of the player populace. For instance, when we first start playing the game, we begin for one of two reasons; either we are interested in exploring a new world on our own, or a friend introduced us to the game. Personally, I fall into the second category, as it was a dear friend that introduced me to the game. The general progression of the player life cycle and he sees it is this: entry, practice, mastery, burnout, recovery.

While I can admit that nearly every player will go through the first three steps, I wonder about the last two. Does every player burn out at some point during their play of the game? The article mentions burnout in various cases, grinding, social obligations, rerolling, so I suppose the answer is yes. I have myself gotten so tired of playing the same zones over and over that I run my new Blood Elves to Brill just for a change of scenery. The trick I suppose is finding that hook that brings you back into the game, and usually that hook is friendship. For those tired of raiding, tired of responsibilities, just being able to spend time with those you have connected with in-game can be the true motivation to keep playing.

I often wonder what it would be like to live within Azeroth, and try to imagine what it would be like to actually be a troll or an orc. The perspective of a gnome brings all kinds of challenges, and is one I don't think I would ever knowingly pick. I have had two gnome characters in my time, but each time the camera perspective has frustrated me to the point where I had to delete them and move on. Despite the issues with their height, I can imagine that living in Gnomeregan when it was, you know, clean and such, was a complete blast. An entire community of tinkerers and engineers, obsessed with creating their inventions despite how dangerous they might become.

I'm sure the roleplay opportunities are endless when you play a gnome, and I have seen nothing more amusing than a gnome warrior charging into fight Void Reaver. But still, the world from a gnome's eyes has got to be pretty skewed, and I don't know if I could ever get myself to do it long term. Unless, of course, the gnome were a Death Knight.

But then she counters he own argument, stating that WoW is extremely immersive, sucking you in for blocks of hours at a time without you ever realizing it. I suppose I would have to agree with her, err both of her really. While I spend a lot of time alt-tabbing to check email for work while I game, I also find that WoW is the sort of game that draws you in. Not the same way a movie in a dark theater does. I wouldn't exactly say that I tend to forget the world around me, unless I'm in an intense instance group or perhaps a raid.

I think that the variety of gameplay is one of WoW's keys to success. You can dive in as deep as you like when you log in. You can log in, head to the nearest dungeon, and play for hours on end, or you can quest for 30 minutes to an hour and then go do something else. The nature of an MMO means that you will spend a lot of time playing it, but WoW doesn't require you to spend all your attention on it while you play.

Eyonix, Blue extraordinaire, and let players know that he has spent a decent amount of time playing the game he works on. Exactly how much? Well, his /played comes to 290 days since the game's launch, which some have figured out to be on average about 6.5 hours a day. Honestly, considering the workload he's under (he says he works at least 45 hours a week) that's a surprising amount of time spent on a game you also work on.

Some people in this industry claim that once you actually start working on video games, you will stop playing them. I've met plenty of people over the course of the last year that actually tried to talk me out of living my dream using this exact premise. But here I am, six months in, still enjoying the games I write about. Now I realize that writing about a game and dealing with its quality assurance and testing, its customer service and forum management, these are two very different things. But it looks as if Eyonix still enjoys WoW, so perhaps the jading of one's soul depends on how you perceive the game you work on. Or could it be that WoW is just that much fun?

Relmstein recently talked about many people's least favorite concept in WoW: the PUG. The premise, it seems, is that because raiders don't need the gear, they are not running with pick-up-groups, and those that do need the gear tend to run with their friends. The looking for group module is therefore filled with people that don't have a friend's list full of associates willing to help them, and those that don't have the experience raiders do.

Now here is where I have to agree and then disagree. On one hand, it is true, raiders tend to not run the 5-mans, at least in my experience, because they already have the gear. But there are plenty of excellent players out there that don't raid. While raiders are working to be the best at their particular class for a specific purpose, it's awfully elitist to assume that just because I raid I am therefore a better player. A commenter on the article mentioned a very valid fact: being a good player doesn't only mean that you know your class inside and out. There are also the other pieces to consider, generosity with loot, patience with new players, the ability to communicate with the group. And also, who's to say that there aren't raiders out there that enjoy running instances with people they don't know simply for the joy of helping others?

Relmstien goes on to say that the changes to the reputation requirements for heroic keys and the addition of daily heroic quests will go a decent way toward luring the better players back into the 5-man instances. I'm not so sure about that, seeing as how heroic badges will be dropping in the 10-man instances as well. I don't know that there will be enough incentive to bring players back to the PUG.

It's Hallow's End in Azeroth, and one of the many delightful if temporary additions to the game during the holiday is the flying brooms. But, as Kelriia Frettlar found out recently, those wishing to fly in Outland must do so with a caveat: only in fair weather.

It's a tiny detail, and one that no one would really notice, but it's an excellent one. If it is raining in Outland, as is often the case in Zangarmarsh, the Flying Broom will stop working, giving the error message "the weather isn't right for that." I am entirely enchanted with this entire concept. While I cannot test it myself (alas I only got a standard non-flying broom during my battles with the Headless Horseman) it's enough to know that Blizzard put this detail into the game. Once again I am tickled pink by the sense of humor displayed by the dev team.

I recently found a turkey model while I was wondering through the WoW Model viewer that when it is killed, turns into a cooked turkey on a plate. Although I am not sure exactly how long it's been in the MPQ files, it makes me look forward to what November might have in store for us.

When I first started writing for WoW Insider I began my posting foray with a discussion about my little lock and her leveling in Hellfire Peninsula at level 55. She and her trusty Felguard have finally reached the end of their journey, recently hitting 70. Having two level 70 characters now, I face a tricky question: who holds my attention more? My mage is my main, the character that has quested with me for long before I even played World of Warcraft, and I have all sorts of time invested in her and her gear. On the other hand, the warlock is horribly fun to play now that I have come to terms with who she is. So what now?

I am also leveling my third character, in between the odd foray into raiding with my mage and working on my lock. I have thought long and hard about who of the three represents me more, and despite the fact that mages seem to be less and less desirable in PvE groups and raids, I have spent so much time with her. I love the overall versatility of a mage, what they bring to a group beyond the glass cannon (the sustenance, the crowd control, the transportation.) I have been grouping recently with my lock to get her gear, but whenever a tight spot arises where we need the extra DPS, out comes the mage to power through the encounter. She's the heavy hitter I know I will always have waiting in the wings.

The question still hangs in the air on my character selection screen, who do I enjoy playing more? It's no secret that DPS classes are a blast (no pun intended) to play, but because there are so many of them out there, the need for them is significantly less. Perhaps that is why my third highest character is a priest. She's leveling shadow, so I could for all intents and purposes say it's just another DPS class, but my intent is to have a more useful character for grouping with guild members. I'd also love to have a character I know would have a solid and constant spot in a raid, and it's been my experience, at least on my server, that the mages and warlocks are a vast army of pew pew to compete with.

It's a dilemma I really didn't expect to face. Sure I play ten characters (at least on my home server), but I really didn't think that I would ever consider switching my main character. Now as I look toward the end of this expansion and into the next, the words of Kurt Vonnegut pop into my head, "Who am I this time?"

Do you too have this debate with yourself? Or are you the type to stick to one type of character and stay loyal to them?

I woke up yesterday morning eager to log in to the PTR and explore, only to find out that I would have to wait until the evening for such a foray into testing because of a new patch they were putting through. When the servers came up again and I finally logged in, I was surprised by what I saw, or rather what I didn't see.

Several male models in the game seem to be missing a leg. The current lack-of-leg conspiracy is spreading even to certain NPCs, a fact I can attest to because I witnessed poor Harrison Jones with the same affliction in the vestibule to Zul'Aman. To be specific, the illness affects certain boot models, causing them to vanish entirely from the character's left leg. When the boots are removed, the leg assumes it's normal opacity.

Does this mean someone is infecting footwear with invisibility? Will we log in one day to find our heads too have disappeared? We will keep a close watch on this crisis and report to you whatever grizzly details we encounter. Let it be known that WoW Insider will not stand idly by while characters' limbs begin to disappear.

It's time once again to celebrate our mageness with Arcane Brilliance, and this time we're going where I certainly have not gone before: the PTR. I finally got my character transfers to go through, and my immediate thought was to slip on into the PTR and check out how the changes to mage spells and talents affected my character with the addition of Patch 2.3. A lover of experiments, I figured one was in order, and so happily spent the morning blasting things in the name of gaming science.

The parameters of said experiment were the following: I used the same spec on both the PTR and the live server, and decided that for simplicity's sake I would record data on three separate types of spell damage: using only Fireball, using only Scorch, and using my normal spell rotation. Now, you'll notice that my spec is a basic fire spec, newly reclaimed after some time spent as a blended POM/Pyro mage. I have decent gear, not the best, not the worst. I would say that I wear middle-of-the-road items, some Tier 4, Spellstrike and Spellfire, and the enchants and gems I have are also of the meh category. They aren't terrible, but I haven't had the opportunity to deck out this mage with all the snazzy +12 spell damage gems I would like. So the following are the experiences of a mage with some lower-end raiding gear, a fire spec, and a curious nature.