15 Minutes of Fame: Congrats on 70! How did you find yourself finally at 70? Was it the end of a long, hard campaign, or did you make a concentrated push once you neared the home stretch?
Noor: A long campaign. I’ve pretty much played every day. Some levels took a month, if I had to do most of it by doing Battleground dailies. Leveling this way is really daily-limited — I can’t decide to go out and push for XP because I can’t kill mobs for XP, and I’ve done every quest that I can do at my level.
Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor’s ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.

 The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame’s inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything. Read the rest of this entry »

To enter, leave a comment on this post before Friday, November 14, 2008 at 12pm ET (noon). Two winners will be chosen randomly and each will receive a World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition box (valued at $70). You must be at least 18 to enter and a legal resident of the United States or non-Quebec resident of Canada.

If you couldn’t make it to a midnight event last night (WoW Insider did!) there is still a chance to get your hands on a World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition box. That’s right, the highly-coveted CE box complete with: Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, snap – literally. Yes, that’s Booty Bay, constructed completely from tens of thousands of Legos. It took Astrylian and Raeina, husband and wife cheap wow gold players from Eonar and long-time Lego aficionados, about a month to assemble this five-foot masterpiece. While WoW Insider couldn’t lend the industrious couple an equivalent 43,000 minutes of fame, as soon as we saw their creative piece de resistance, we decided a solid 15 minutes were definitely in order.
15 Minutes of Fame: It’s obvious that you two didn’t get your start building structures like this just yesterday. How long have you been into Legos?

Raeina: Forever! Somewhere around high school, I decided I wasn’t giving up Lego. I started really doing it seriously when I found more AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego). While in college, I found SCLTC (Southern California Lego Train Club) and started building things for their layouts.

15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you’d like to hear more about. Read the rest of this entry »

Blizzard Quote: (Source) 
 On November 13, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will launch in countries all around the globe, and you can be right there to celebrate the release with us. Blizzard Entertainment developers and executives will be in attendance at several locations around the globe to meet players and sign copies of the game, and increased quantities of the Collector’s Edition will be on hand for purchase. Each location will open its doors at 12:00 a.m. local time, so you can be among the first to log in and embark on the most epic journey of your lifetime. Read the rest of this entry »

Always thought it was cool the way Blizz made something special for this deserving kid. God bless him and condolances to his family. If you can spare a buck or two, donate to your favorite cancer fund. With enough of us contributing, kids like Ezra would have a better chance of making it. Aye, from my WoW family to Ezra’s, we are always deeply saddened to hear when one of our friends passes away. We didn’t know Ezra personally, but we still hurt for your loss.

As a part of his visit at Blizzard (through the Make-A-Wish foundation) he got to design the Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix (hence the name), and a quest in Mulgore, involving the player trying to catch a dog - I can’t remember if it was specificaly Ezra’s dog.

They should modify the Ahab/Kyle quest somehow… Or at least add a tombstone/monument to the graveyard nearest Bloodhoof Village. To the cynical responders, yes, he does deserve this. Through Make-a-Wish, Ezra got to design a quest (which he actually provides voiceover for) and a fairly desirable weapon. Ezra’s already had a significant impact on the game and deserves a fitting memorial.

Maybe you still know about it. In the story, He and his father played together in Azeroth, using the World of Warcraft to spend quality time with one another. Ezra had a brain tumor. Thanks to help from the Make-A-Wish foundation and Blizzard, Ezra was able to live out some of his dream of being a game developer.

You can see his influence in the Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix, which is finely crafted to ePhoenix’s specification. Ezra was the rider for the first phoenix mount in game. But, only a few months ago, we heard the frightening news that Ezra had suffered a stroke. Reader Sedna directed us to Ezra’s web site for the saddening news. Ezra passed away on Monday, October 20th, at 10PM pacific time. We at WoW Insider would like to offer our sympathies to Ezra’s family. Both they and Ezra are in our thoughts. His story was an inspiring one, and we will not forget ePhoenix.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards.

1. A male and a female gas cloud are totally hooking up right in the middle of town where everyone can see them.
2. Someone put a Torch of Retribution up to an ogre’s behind after the yearly Bean Dip Tasting Festival.
3. A mage is demonstrating the new Arcane Barrage spell from Wrath.
4. The ghostly spirits of all those who have fallen into the Ironforge lava are coming back for vengeance.

The polling stats at the end are a little silly because the numbers most certainly wouldn’t come out that way on a larger scale survey, but that’s alright, it’s not meant to be super accurate. It’s just a silly little thing, and I chuckled at the commentary from the people they spoke to on both sides of the fence. Deep political commentary? No. Mildly entertaining? Yes! And I admit, I smirked at the mention of Mike Gravel.

From comedians Rich Kuras and Sandeep Parikh (who you know best from The Guild, most likely) comes a look at the United States presidential election through the eyes of Azeroth. If all of the 11 million active World of Warcraft subscriptions were US citizens, Azeroth would be the 8th largest state in the union. Rich Kuras looks to find out whether Azeroth would be a red or a blue state. I think the last thing any of us want is political fisticuffs, so just take this video as the light political humor that it is and don’t read too much into it.

Do you agree? I agree, 500 Health is almost laughable next to the mana free self heal (even on a 3 min cooldown) and passive 25 crit rating. Even at 80 Master of Anatomy should be good for at least 0.5% Crit on both spells and physical attacks.

Over the summer, Blizzard experimented with some abilities for all of the professions who buy cheap wow gold. Each ability can be found in your Spellbook under the General Skills tab. They have 6 ranks, with 5 being the maximum you are able to achieve before Wrath of the Lich King. The first rank is acquired with Journeyman or the skill of 75 and scales with your profession’s rank. So, for example, a Master Herbalist will have Rank 5 of Lifeblood. Details for each ability are after the break.

Herbalism: “Lifeblood uses your skill in Herbalism to absorb energy and nutrients from the earth.” Lifeblood is an instant heal over time spell that is self-only and mana free. The cooldown is 3 minutes. Lifeblood is useable in all forms including Shadow, Cat and Bear, but is unaffected by healing bonuses. The amount of healing over five seconds for each rank is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards.After finally acquiring his helm and pet from the Headless Horseman, Terry’s guildmate posed for a king-sized picture in front of the Stormwind Bank. I don’t know what combination of potions and effects he had to take to get that big, but he’s apparently not big enough to disrupt the flow of people checking their mail.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!