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15 Minutes of Fame: Life as a WoW Insider writer
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. What's it like when World of Warcraft becomes your job? This week, 15 Minutes of Fame zooms in for the second half of a behind-the-scenes interview with a handful of WoW Insider staffers. We'll muse over what it's like to write about WoW for work, what it's like to play WoW for work, the rewards and frustrations of writing for a living -- and the No. 1 question we get asked by readers: How can someone get started writing professionally about gaming? Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts. Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW Insider crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news. Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW Insider after working at Blizzard itself. Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor. Fox Van Allen joined WoW Insider early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column. Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.
15 Minutes of Fame: Behind the scenes at WoW Insider
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. Who are the people who write all this stuff, and how did they come to start writing about World of Warcraft every day? Being a WoW Insider writer is admittedly a pretty cool gig. Readers ask us what it's like on a regular basis. Giving a single, accurate answer, however, would be a mighty difficult proposition. Some of us are full-timers, while others pen a single column each week; some of us spend most of our time behind the scenes, and some remain constantly before readers' eyes. Despite being scattered all across the world, we come together every day (well, it's more like a waxing and waning, 24-hour cycle) in the WoW Insider chat room (war room? newsroom? Pandora's box of geekery and chaos?) when we're working. Being on the WoW Insider team is a little like being part of an incredibly tight guild, whose members manage to share not only World of Warcraft and many other interests in common but also their workdays, as well. Although we do have an old, outdated series knocking around somewhere that looks at members of the blogging team, we thought it was about time to give you a fresh look behind the scenes at WoW Insider. Without further ado, let's meet a tiny sampling of the people who work at WoW Insider: Zach Yonzon pens The Art of War(craft) every week and creates many of the graphic images you see on our home page, guides and posts. Matthew Rossi, one of the most seasoned hands on the WoW.com crew, is our resident warrior expert who also writes about game lore and general news. Michael Sacco, a senior editor, started writing at WoW.com after working at Blizzard itself. Alex Ziebart started out as a weekend blogger and is now a senior editor. Fox Van Allen joined WoW.com early this year and writes the shadow priest portion of our priest column. Lisa Poisso (that's me) started out writing the professions column three years ago and now works behind the scenes as an editor and turning out several weekly columns.
GDC Roundup, day four
The tenth annual Game Developers Conference is in full swing in San Francisco, CA, and our sister sites Joystiq and Massively are on the scene! No matter what kind of games you're into, there's a ton of news on its way out of the convention, and we're compiling some of the stuff that might matter to you in daily roundups just for you. If you want the whole GDC news experience, check out all of Massively's and Joystiq's coverage, or previous roundups. I apologize for my appalling lack of Michael Sacco-ness. Saccosity? Massively's Interview with DC Universe Online "We're hitting major milestones right now. We're pushing as hard as we can right now to get a launch date out there. [...] We're trying to get it in your hands as quick as possible. The great thing about Sony is we really are taking our time. We have been given the opportunity to make this right." Fable 2 Episodes Massively Successful "That was hugely successful. There were something like over half a million. I think it was 600,000 downloads of the first episode, which was very, very cool." "Save your fork, there'll be pie" After confessing to having a big appetite for Borderlands, the Gears of War developer used the pie analogy to explain to Joystiq how games without any sort of DLC "hooks" are becoming increasingly rare. GDC 2010 Microtalks: Big ideas, tiny speeches Ten lecturers -- all from different sectors of the game industry -- each spoke for five minutes and each were allowed to use 20 different slides. Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand set the stage for the speakers, announcing the theme of the talks as "come play with us." Massively's Interview with Dungeons and Dragons Online Today, the numbers speak for themselves. Their revenue is up 500%, they've had over one million new players, and you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who would refer to the game as "forgotten." Turbine has arguably set the standard for a hybrid free-to-play business model, and it's paid off very well. However, it wasn't always a sure thing and it certainly wasn't a snap decision. GDC 2010: The Future of Champions Online At the end of our brief discussion on the future of Champions, Bill had this to say, "Past that, I think it's just about remaining as responsible as possible to what the community is telling us they want." That sounds the right approach to us.
WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30 PM Eastern
Every week, we broadcast live from several places worldwide to present you with the WoW Insider Show podcast -- an hour's worth of WoW community discussion, covering everything from the week's top stories here on WoW.com to emails from our readers to what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth. Along with your hosts, WoW.com editor Michael Sacco and contributing editor Matthew Rossi, we also feature rotating guest hosts, whether regular WoW.com contributors or personalities from other sites. Today's WoW Insider Show features: Guest hosts: Lore columnist Anne Stickney and UI/addon columnist Mat McCurley News from the Twitter dev chat Cataclysm world events in the Patch 3.3.3 PTR files The ridiculously cute (and, marketing-wise, ridiculously clever) WoW plushies Reader emails And more! Want to participate? Join in the conversation in the chat channel on our Ustream site while the show's broadcasting! Want to have your question read on the air? Drop us a line any time at theshow@wow.com! Just want to listen? Follow the jump.
WoW Insider Show episode 130
Despite some horrendous latency issues (sorry folks), the WoW Insider Show podcast broadcast this Saturday with special guest hosts Basil Berntsen and Kelly Aarons, and we discussed the upcoming 3.3.3 patch, as well as the Ruby Sanctum raid instance coming with Patch 3.3.5. We also answered reader emails, as we do each week -- you can email theshow@wow.com to have your question read on the air. Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 123: Goodnight everybody
The WoW Insider Show podcast aired once again this Saturday, with me and my guest hosts Matthew Rossi and Colby Moore delving into reader emails and this week's top stories on WoW.com. Thrill as we answer the age-old question of "Is it worth it to skip bosses in random heroics?" Marvel as we say it's pretty okay for Blizzard to help out the police! Gasp as I forget to thank my cohosts at the end of the show and pull a Yakko Warner! Goodnight everybody. As always, you can email us at theshow@wow.com with any questions or comments -- we might even read yours live on the air. Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 122: Press the [Spoon] button
The WoW Insider Show podcast continued along its very merry way this Saturday, and a good time was had by all. Guest co-host Matt Rossi and I discussed our favorite WoW.com stories from the first half of 2009 (with more to come this Saturday), talked a little about Icecrown progression and gating, and weighed in on the quality of Wrath's various patches. We also discussed some very romantic Saber Lash fight strategies, as you might guess by the title of this week's show. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to listen this week -- we've still got a few kinks to work out with the new format, but we're pretty pleased with this week's show and next week's should be even better. As always, if you have a question or comment for the show, email us at theshow@wow.com and you might just hear it on the air. Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show Episode 117: Classing up the place
We had a great show this past week -- Michael Sacco jumped in via dialup from his country home to join Turpster and I to talk about the most popular stories in World of Warcraft over the past seven days. We talked about Mr. T and his mohawk grenade, how the new tier 10 system will work in patch 3.3, the beautiful axe that is Shadowmourne, and what it means for weapons coming in Cataclysm. Plus, we answered your emails (including wishing one of our listeners a happy birthday), and we even played two operatic intros by our new friend Ethan B. I don't know anything about opera, but seems to me that dude has quite the vocal chords on him. And finally, we talked about our bid for the Podcast Awards -- we're asking you to vote for us every day until the end of the month. If we win, we'll not only give away the SleepPhones prize to one lucky listener, but we'll record a Warcraft bedtime story for them (and all of you others via mp3 download). Please vote! Thanks, enjoy the show. Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern
Our podcast (which, if you haven't heard, is award-nominated now -- please give us your vote every day until the end of November) returns to the series of tubes this afternoon on Ustream, and the great Michael "Belfaire" Sacco is coming along with it. Turpster, Sacco and I will chat about night elf mohawks, and what's up with the patch 3.3 PTR (including how to get the gear and some axe that people might like) and the next expansion. And as usual we'll chat live with the chat channel, answer your emails, and just generally have a good time talking about the World of Warcraft. The show kicks off at 3:30pm Eastern/ 8:30pm GMT on our Ustream page, or we've also embedded a feed in the second half of this post, so you can just go there. If you're planning to be out and about, you can also listen to the show on your iPhone or iPod touch (assuming you've got the Internet connection required to do so). And of course even if you can't make it to the live recording, we'll have the show on the feed next Monday as we usually do -- you'll miss the aftershow, but such, as they say, is life. Hopefully we'll see you today.
WoW Insider Show Episode 105: All medicated up
Our podcast took to the airwaves yet again last Saturday, and it was what you might call a rollicking good time. Turpster and I were on, and we welcomed both Alex Ziebart and Michael Sacco back to the show, to talk about BlizzCon last weekend, our experiences with the expansion's new starter zones, and why Deathwing is actually a great choice for the Cataclysm's bad guy.And we answered your emails, including information about PvP vs. questing XP, our meetup (and the trip after BlizzCon to Disneyland -- you can check out some pictures of the trip in the gallery below), and racial bonuses to tradeskills -- how they work and what they'll look like in the next expansion.Was a great time, and you can hear all about it on the podcast below. If you have anything you'd like to tell us (either about something you heard on the show, or something you didn't hear us talk about yet), feel free to send an email to theshow@wow.com, and you might hear it on the show next week. Enjoy.%Gallery-71318%Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show today at 3:30pm Eastern
Man it seems like ages since we've done our podcast at the usual time, but we're returning to the airwaves at the regular 3:30pm Eastern today (that's August 29, 2009 3:30 PM EDTvar date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone GMT"+offset; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); ), and it's going to be a good one. We'll have perspectives on BlizzCon both from people who were there (Turpster, Alex Ziebart, and I) as well as from someone who wasn't there (Michael "Belfaire" Sacco), and we'll talk about everything we saw in the new starter zones and all of the other new things we saw on the show floor. We'll also talk about this Deathwing guy and why he's a great choice for the next big bad, as well as how close we actually are to the expansion's release.And of course, seeing as it's been a few weeks since we really dived into the inbox, we'll answer your emails -- you can send them along any time to "theshow AT wow dawt com." And I believe that during our livestream of the meetup, I promised some loot cards and wasn't able to deliver, so we'll do that as well. Should be a great show - we'll see you over on the Ustream page (or in the embedded feed after the break) this afternoon.
WoW Insider Show Episode 97: Chasing silhouettes
Good times as always on our podcast this past holiday weekend -- while Turpster was away, we Americans took over the show, and declared our independence the only way we know how: by talking about the most popular stories in the World of Warcraft this past week. Adam Holisky, Alex Ziebart, Michael "Belfaire" Sacco and I answered your emails, and then chatted about Blizzard's addition of faction changes to the game (and who'll go for it), patch 3.2 and its extendable raid lockouts and universal armor tokens, Exodus and Ensidia and how Blizzard has dealt with both, and of course, that sneaky Cataclysm trademark and what it might mean for Blizzard's future releases.Whew! If it sounds like a full show, that's because it was. It even went on longer than usual, so you can enjoy the extra-long WoW Insider Show at any of the links below (including clicking on the iTunes link to subscribe directly there). We won't be back next Saturday -- instead, we're setting up for a special Thursday evening show this week at 6pm Eastern, so those of you who can't make it on Saturdays can instead tune in on Thursday night to chat and listen live with us on the Ustream page.Enjoy this past weekend's show, and we'll see you on Thursday.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show live on Ustream this afternoon
Over 200 years ago, our forefathers put forth a document that not only declared the Independence of one of the greatest nations in the world, but also sundered the connection between the old country of Great Britain and the new United States of America. Now, all this time later, Turpster and I do the WoW Insider Show together, and basically undo all that work those smart guys did way back when. This week we'll have an especially good one, as Adam Holisky, Alex Ziebart, and Michael "Belfaire" Sacco are all coming on the show all together. Just in case you thought they were all the same person (some sort of former Blizzard CM/blog posting/contributing editor maniac), we'll prove you wrong.And there'll probably be fireworks as well: we'll be talking about faction changes, the changes to raiding in patch 3.2 (including the extended lockouts and the new universal armor tokens), Blizzard and how they're dealing with raiding exploits, and oh yeah, something called Cataclysm. Plus, we'll answer your emails and chat live with you on the our Ustream page. It all starts off at July 4, 2009 3:30 PM EDTvar date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); . We'll see you there.Oh, and next week, since both Turpster and I will be out of town (for summer vacation, of course), we'll have another special midweek show for those of you who can't tune in on the weekend. Thursday, July 9th at 6pm Eastern, we'll have a live show going on, so mark that on your calendar and we'll see you then as well. Both shows will end up on the iTunes feed as usual, but if you want to tune in and listen live, please do.
The Queue: rm -fR "World of Warcraft" && echo "Oops!"
Welcome back to The Queue, Wow.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Many thanks to Sacco for covering The Queue last Friday. For some odd reason he decided to start drawing this weekend, and you can see one of his drawings above. For the other image you'll have to check out our Twitter page (it wasn't done when today's edition of The Queue was written).If you're wondering about the title, we're not going to talk about the mistake Adam made over the weekend when he was setting up WoW on his fresh dual-boot linux install. It's just really not worth going over how he managed to delete his WoW directory that has lasted him since pre-BC. Not at all.Remember that The Queue is here to answer your questions, and you can either leave them in a comment in this article or contact us with them. So without further ado...Swampsquach asked... "When you do the repeatable Frenzyheart/Oracle quest in Sholazar Basin, does it have any effect on the current rep you have with either one? For example, if I get revered with the Oracle's and then do that quest but pick Oracle's again, is that just free gold? Or does it set your rep back to honored?"
Throw your own egg hunt with Noblegarden Eggs
I've been looking at the Noblegarden items for awhile now, since they first showed up on the PTR. For some reason, it never hit me until I saw it on live realms how cool one item in particular actually is. For five chocolates you can buy your own Noblegarden Egg, which allows you to lay a Brightly Colored Egg. Yes, that's five eggs for one egg of your own, which is a pretty horrible exchange rate.What's so cool about it? They're the exact same eggs you've been picking up that whole time, except that you can set them out. You can loot them right away for an added chance of whatever loot may be in them, but I'm not sure why you'd do that, except for possibly completing Dressed for the Occasion/Sunday's Finest. What makes it better is that other people can loot them.What makes that so great? If you can get an organized crew (and their alts) together, you can set up your own Noblegarden Hunt for your guild or your friends and family. Laying an egg has a 1 hour cooldown, so each of you will only be able to set out one egg each, but with a sizable group that might not be too terrible. A brief hunt, but you can make it exciting! Feralas, perhaps? Icecrown? The interior of a cleared Ulduar? Just take it far, far away from busy cities or hubs. You don't want to lay an egg out in the Stormwind Trade District. Joe McMullet will loot that thing in a flash, and that's no good.
Important Poll: Who has the best 'stache?
Listen up, this is very important stuff here.When male Draenei logged on last night, they were greeted with some serious facial hair. No one is sure exactly what's happened, and the only blue response is a reply asking for folks to post if they're having the issue.Now what I have to say next is the important part.Who has the best 'stache pictured above?To the left we have the timeless hunk of man meat Burt Reynolds, in the middle we have Virtual Sacco, and on the right sits the anchorman himself, Ron Burgundy. Vote and be heard! The results of the poll will matter more than you could ever know... %Poll-29162%
WoW Insider Show Episode 84: The grass is greener
Good times as always on the podcast last Saturday -- we welcomed blogger Nick Whelan on, of his own Curse of Senility and the newest writer on our own Blood Pact column, all about Warlocks. Turpster and Michael "Belfaire" Sacco also joined us, and we answered your emails (including some follow-up on just how loyal you should be to your guild, even when they're not really progressing), as well as talked about the most popular WoW insider posts for the past week: why 25-man gear should be better than 10-man gear, new news out of patch 3.1 (which, if you listen to Turpster, is right around the corner), and all of the April Fools jokes that went around last Wednesday. You can download the show at any of the links below, or pick it up by subscribing in iTunes (and it's been a while since we asked you to leave some reviews over there, so if you haven't ever done that and really enjoy the show, please do tell people what you think). Also, don't forget that we're in the middle of a bit Twitter-drive: we're aiming for over 9000 followers on Twitter, and if we can pull that off, we'll be doing a video version of the weekly podcast, so you'll get to see our ugly mugs as we talk (and you could probably even convince us to dress up for it -- you haven't lived until you've seen The T in a tuxedo). And I don't want to put any pressure on you, but we're nearing our 100th show, and how cool would it be if we hit our goal by then and did the special show on the anniversary? Just sayin'.Enjoy this show this week -- we'll be back live next Saturday as usual.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
WoW Insider Show live tomorrow afternoon with guest Alex Albrecht
Our podcast returns for another live broadcast tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern (over on our Ustream page), and this one's a doozy: Turpster and I will host special guest Alex Albrecht, from TechTV's long-ago program The Screen Savers, and more recently from the popular Diggnation podcast, as well as the WoW video podcast Project Lore. We'll also have French friend of the show Patrick Beja on, and WoW Insider Contributing Editor Michael Sacco (who is represented by a talbuk in the machinima video of our song above, made by very talented fan Jack R.).So it should be a great time. We'll be chatting about the most popular stories of the past week, including where all the Arena players are, another nice bonus for Alchemists, and what's next for addon developers (and why Blizzard doesn't want them making money in the first place). Plus, we'll answer your emails -- you can send us anything you like anytime at theshow@wow.com.For those of you who always have trouble figuring out when the show is, we've cooked up something special for you. This should show you, from whatever time zone you're coming from, exactly when the show will be. This week's show will be at: March 28, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); . You can watch it, as always, over on our Ustream page, or right here after the break. See you then!
WoW Insider Show Episode 82: Knock it off? Get it on!
Hoo boy, what a show at our podcast on Saturday. After one of the craziest starts our show has ever had (BRK's house decided to go a little nuts right before we started), we got as professional as we could and got down to business. After answering emails (including more on why you should listen to your mother), we talked about the addon changes and how they'll affect players and developers, Blizzard's plans for a mobile authenticator, and more of the latest news out of patch 3.1. We also brainstormed new flavors for Mountain Dew, and finally, we played what everyone was waiting to hear: Turpster's new WoW Insider song.Yes, because our fans were kind enough to get 4,000 people to join in on our Facebook page, we recorded that abomination of hilarity. You can download it as an mp3 right here, for use in remixes or machinima or whatever you want to do with it, and I've posted the lyrics and liner notes after the break. Enjoy.And don't forget we're currently in a campaign for OVER 9000 Twitter followers. Join up to Twitter and follow us, and please tell your guilds and friends to do the same -- if we can meet our goal there, we'll do a live video version of the podcast that you'll be able to see right here on the site. Enjoy the show as always, and we'll see you next week.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
The Queue: Item level, attunements, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good morning/afternoon/generic time of day, everyone! I don't have anything funny or interesting to say here, so let's skip that part and pretend that I did it! Yay! Now imagine there's a silly poll for you to vote in! Exclamation points! More exclamation points! Not enough exclamation points yet! We need more!Okay, that's enough of them.Erogroth asked... "How exactly does item level work? From what I gather its almost like talent points for an item. So any item that is the same level should be about equal in how good it is. However often items of the same item level are no where near equal. So what's the deal?"
