world-of-warcraft-interviews
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15 Minutes of Fame: George P. Burdell, man about Azeroth
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. That George P. Burdell sure gets around. Since the entirely fictitious Georgia Tech student was created in 1927 as a joke, Burdell has appeared on student rosters in enough classes to receive several degrees. He's been listed on the flight crew of a B-17 bomber in World War II, gotten married, served on Mad magazine's board of directors and even led the online polls for a short while for Time's 2001 Person of the Year award. He was reportedly listed for some time as a production assistant on the South Park website. So the fact that Mr. Burdell has shown up as a death knight in Azeroth should be no surprise at all, right? This week, 15 Minutes of Fame visits with not only the player behind the character (not the only Burdell to appear in Azeroth, to be sure), but also the man behind the myth -- and it's all after the break.
15 Minutes of Fame: Premade players QueueQ for battlegrounds wins
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 participated in one of their runs yesterday. It was freakin' amazing. Well run. Their Vent had two full AV premades going, with an additional 60 (players) in the waiting room. In the heyday back during June, they fielded five full AV premades with more on the waiting list. It wasn't uncommon for them to have an 8-hour wait list. -- Matt Low of Raid Rx and self-proclaimed "world's worst PvP priest" on QueueQ Premades The Bloodlust battlegroup appears to be home to more than its fair share of PvP enthusiasts. Arena participation outstrips that of other battlegroups by orders of magnitude, and as for battleground enthusiasts ... Well, BG enthusiasts on the Alliance side have QueueQ Premades. Players who sign up for QueueQ's cross-realms premade battlegrounds service enjoy 85 percent win records on average -- with zero resilience, gear or achievement requirements. The atmosphere is clean and professional: no exploits, no inappropriate chat or Vent chatter. "QueueQ" himself, aka Revash of Kil'Jaeden (US-A), has been running QueueQ Premades for a little over a year now, developing winning strategies designed for fast wins with maximum honor.
15 Minutes of Fame: A rare and beautiful collection
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. Among the ranks of in-game item collectors (would a goblin call those players "acquisitionists"?), you'll find plenty of hardcore vanity pet fans. You'll find mount collectors. You'll find those poor, inventory-challenged souls who collect armor and dungeon sets. And then there is this collector, who's managed to collect all three -- and sweeps it together with a uniquely stylish twist. Meet Michelle, aka Drrum of Stormrage (US-A). If you were to ask vanity pet connoisseur Brian of WarcraftPets (aka Breanni, immortalized as Dalaran's cutie-pie pet supplies vendor and previously profiled here on 15 Minutes of Fame) for the name of a player who exemplifies the spirit of in-game collecting, Drrum's name pops out without a moment's hesitation. Once you take a look at the incredible gallery below, featuring Drrum with her pets (augmented with Papa Hummel's Old Fashioned Pet Biscuits), wearing coordinating armor and clothing sets and posing in appropriate locales -- well, there's no doubt you'll want to join us after the break to hear how Drrum puts all these collections together. %Gallery-104231%
15 Minutes of Fame: Cutting up with WoW Insider regular Brian Cutaia
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. Time flies when you're having fun -- and somehow it's been two whole years since we last profiled a reader favorite from the hallowed halls of the WoW Insider comments. Time to remedy that! So who's the latest man of the hour? Why, commenter extraordinaire Brian Cutaia, of course! He's already a prolific commenter, and he's well on his way to becoming a prolific guest writer, too. Cutaia (rhymes with "papaya") is also a vocal member of <It came from the Blog>. The only point in the WoW Insider landscape that his acerbic commentary and wry witticisms seem to be absent is Twitter. (A new frontier for Cutaia? Stranger things have happened ...) Join us today in discovering why this WoW Insider community regular is so soundly appreciated by both readers and staffers alike.
15 Minutes of Fame: When WoW meets real-world religion
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. Gaming plus religion or politics is a potentially volatile conversational destination -- and this week, we're going there. Meet the Rev. Jonathan Fisk, pastor of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Pa. Over the years, 15 Minutes of Fame has been through more than a couple of aborted conversations with pastors about the intersection of real-world religion and the World of Warcraft. Whether the questions get a little too pointed, or the potential for reaction from the pews gets a little too hot ... Whatever the case, the interviews don't make it through to print. Until now. Hats off to Fisk for what's turned out to be a tour de force of an interview examining one man and one denomination's insights on the convergence of gaming, pop culture and WoW. One note before we get started: While we welcome your comments on this obviously sensitive subject, please remember that personal attacks and name-calling, anti-religion tirades and other trollish asshattery in the comments will not be tolerated. Keep your comments constructive and pertinent to the interview, please, or we'll be obliged to remove them.
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.
15 Minutes of Fame: Raiding on 8 hours a week
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 marks the line in the sand between "hardcore" raiding and "casual" raiding? Is it an attitude, time spent ... both? We're not going to get into the debate here -- but you're sure to come away with new food for thought after this interview with the GM of <Skunkworks>, which recently downed the Lich King in 25-man heroic mode -- the 244th guild in the world and only the 70th in the United States to do so -- on just 8 hours of raiding per week. 15 Minutes of Fame: Let's start with some introductions. Chupa: My former main (I'm currently on sabbatical for school) is Chupadruid, a healer in <Skunkworks> on Balnazzar (US-H). Before that I raided on my warlock, Chupavida. I founded the guild as <Casually Serious> on Crushridge (US) in September of 2008, in anticipation of the release of Wrath of the Lich King. How did you arrive at the idea of a limited-schedule raiding guild? I started playing the game in August 2006 to join some friends from work in their extremely casual adventures. As a married student dragging myself through undergrad, I didn't have time to join any of the guilds on my server (which all raided three to five nights a week). I also had no interest in joining a raiding scene where racism, vulgarity and general internet douchebaggery were the norm. As a consequence, my experience with raiding was limited to ogling the guys in T2 as they idled in Org and getting blown up in WSG by T3 premades. I did take my warlock to some feeble attempts to clear ZG and AQ-20, but those runs were lucky to kill trash, let alone bosses.
15 Minutes of Fame: Anthropologist Bonnie Nardi on WoW culture and art
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. We've written before at WoW.com and even here in 15 Minutes of Fame about attempts to study World of Warcraft culture from a sociological, psychological or anthropological point of view. In all of these cases, the researchers in question have logged time playing WoW as part of their research, albeit some with greater degrees of immersive success than others. So I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that Bonnie Nardi, a University of California-Irvine expert in the social implications of digital technologies and author of the rather blithely titled My Life as a Night Elf Priest, not only rolled the token raiding character in order to observe the curious behavior of the raiding animal -- she actually enjoys WoW in its own right. Rather than cautiously sniffing WoW culture only to generate another wide-eyed, ZOMG-look-at-this-funny-lingo report from the digital field, Nardi dove deep enough to play in four different guilds: a casual raiding guild; a raiding guild composed of fellow academics; a small, casual guild; and her own friends-and-family guild. Our two-part interview with Nardi, packed with opinion and cultural analysis, reveals a witty approach to WoW culture that successfully combines academic insight with the familiarity of a seasoned player.
15 Minutes of Fame: Interview feature LFM
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 takes all kinds to make 15 Minutes of Fame. It's not just about being famous ... it's not about being well known in the gaming community ... it's not about being a super-achiever in real life or even being a super-achiever in game ... What makes it interesting to talk to people about how they play the World of Warcraft is that there are just so darn many ways that people dig into this game! Lately, our email has been bursting at the seams with tips on various and sundry celebrities who've been rumored to play WoW, but we seem to be missing recommendations for other types of players. Do you know someone who fits any of these profiles? An artist, blogger, designer, modder or other WoW hobbyist whose WoW-centric projects have helped catapult him into his chosen profession. The A-team raider who's 60+ years old and still doing hard modes with the best of them. The guild "mom" – you know, the gal (or guy) who keeps everyone's morale high and keeps things behind the scenes humming along. The overachiever (whether student or professional) whose life is simply bursting at the seams but who's knocking out all the hard-mode achievements on a limited schedule, anyway. A battle-hardened, mentor-worthy arena veteran. More player specs we're seeking more of, after the break.
15 Minutes of Fame: Cory Doctorow on gold farming
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. digg_url = 'http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/08/04/15-minutes-of-fame-cory-doctorow-on-gold-farming/'; A conversation with Cory Doctorow plunges into the matter at hand so quickly that it's almost impossible not to imagine yourself falling through an internet-era rabbit hole of pop culture and technology. Doctorow is all about synthesizing ideas and spitting them out in as accessible a fashion as possible, and the ground he manages to cover in a single stride can be mind-boggling; he's a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger, father, gamer ... A former WoW player and husband of gaming standout Alice Taylor (also previously profiled here in 15 Minutes of Fame), he's widely known as the co-editor of Boing Boing and author of the bestselling young adult novel Little Brother. Doctorow's latest young adult novel, For the Win, pries open the seams of the shady scene behind MMO gold farming. Its young protagonists are gold farmers and gamers themselves. Doctorow has woven his own experience and sensibilities with focused research to outline a world of gold farming that sprawls far beyond the lines of cartoon-image gold farmers that most of us have painted in our heads. We chatted by phone with Doctorow for this lengthy conversation on gold farming and game economies, plus a companion piece at our sister publication Massively.com on gaming culture and his recent fiction.
15 Minutes of Fame: Cory Doctorow on gold farming, part 2
Cory Doctorow: Well as practical matter, I think that you can't not. At the same time, here in World of Warcraft, we have the dungeon finder system that some people say may be actually helping to break down some of the server communities and relationships that exist in the game.
15 Minutes of Fame: Psychologist and games researcher John Hopson
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 keeps gamers hooked on their game of choice? Chances are, it's an element of the gameplay that was teased out with the help of games researcher John Hopson. The experimental psychologist and beta program head for Microsoft Game Studios examines what makes gamers do the things they do and then designs ways to keep them happily doing just that -- most recently, in titles such as Shadow Complex, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. All that, and he's a WoW player to the core. "I mostly play in the two semi-official Microsoft WoW guilds, and lately I've been a hardcore player in a casual's body," he notes. "My wife and I had our first child a few months ago, so we've both dropped raiding and have been levelling alts instead since that doesn't require a fixed schedule. So far, we're both up to 5 level 80s apiece. :)" We thought it was time to turn the tables on Hopson, a loyal reader and occasional commenter at WoW.com, and ask him for his perspectives on WoW from the inside out.
15 Minutes of Fame: Herding roleplayers with a feather
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 popular saying about leading a raiding guild is that it's somewhat like herding cats with a feather. Imagine then, if you will, tickling players through day-to-day game life amidst the friction of potentially volatile in-character roleplaying. Arialynn, the GM of <Templars of the Rose> on Earthen Ring (US-RP), leads an established troupe of roleplayers that's spent the Wrath era not besieging Arthas but running medieval-style market days in Dustwallow Marsh. Headquartered in Theramore Harbor, the Templars most assuredly exemplify the road less traveled, both literally and figuratively. What's it like to lead a guild that spends more time tossing back stiff ones in the inn than it does wrestling with Defile before the Frozen Throne?
15 Minutes of Fame: Reality TV producer beats interview drama and ICC
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Discipline priest and reality TV field producer Jordan Peterson shows discipline indeed in maintaining two ICC raiding characters while working on the road for weeks and months at a time. Despite long days unspooling endless hours of production arrangements and endless drama filming interviews for The Marriage Ref, the Kingslayer has managed to carve a reliable nightly niche for 10-man progression raiding. With four twinks and two end-game raiding characters, Peterson balances perpetual travel, bad hotel connections, a fiancée (who happens to raid with him), work and interviews with playing WoW ... "But I find time," he declares. Yes, folks, it's another 15 Minutes of Fame with just another non-basement-dwelling, non-Cheetos-munching WoW player ... The trolls who proliferate that stereotype all over the internet must really hate us, don't you think? Join us after the break as Peterson shares a slice of life on the road in reality TV.
15 Minutes of Fame: Setting an Incredibles standard for guild meetups
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. It's not uncommon anymore for guilds to hold regular, real-life meetups. Even entire house party weekends aren't too far off the radar among groups who really relish the game and one another's company. But the bar set by <The Incredibles> of Boulderfist (US-A) is simply ... Well, it wouldn't be stretching things for the sake of a play on words to say the IncrediCon event has set the bar incredibly high. There's not a detail of these gatherings that's not related to World of Warcraft: picnics, banquets, over-the-top publicity posters, hotel welcome packages, game-themed menus -- even custom-designed, WoW-themed beer labels. (Talk about tossing one back with the guildies ...) The pièce de resistance of each year's event, however, is clearly The Increddy, a golden statuette (à la Oscars) awarded to a guild volunteer or leader for service to the five-year-old group. We'll be featuring the Increddy and the dizzying array of other items created for Incredicon-related fun in next week's World of Warcrafts (previously planned for yesterday, but bumped so we could serve up some WoW-inspired menus for your Fourth of July celebration). This week, we talked to Increddy crafter and guild officer Theraven, pulling together our conversations into a Q&A-style look at the incredible Incredicon meetups.
15 Minutes of Fame: Couple levels up together in raids and real life
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Age is relative. I'm not quite sure about the whole "dog years" thing, but in WoW terms, I'd be clearing my calendar this week for Sunken Temple -- surely a respectable shot past the so-called "mature" players who are still frolicking about in Scarlet Monastery, Uldaman and Zul'Farrak. So when people write in to ask me to write about "older" players and then suggest someone who's, well, my age ... the eyeballs, they start a-rollin'. An "older" player? Try 76-year-old Loyal Leitgen. Still, I'd have to admit that players older than, say, the mid-40s aren't your typical dungeon finder fare. And an older couple who raids ICC together? Now you're talking -- and so are the gregarious Qryztal and Poli of Silvermoon (US-A), brought together by the might and magic of games across an entire ocean (and still gaming after all these years), in this week's 15 Minutes of Fame.
15 Minutes of Fame: KC Royals pitcher Kyle Davies
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. For all the flak gaming gets over its notoriously time-sucking qualities, World of Warcraft seems to make a surprisingly good lifestyle fit for professional athletes. Olympic swimmer Megan Jendrick takes refuge in a nice, anonymous PUG raid after a hard day in the pool. MMA fighter Jens Pulver pounds a whole roster of characters after a day in the octagon. And squeezing in Icecrown Citadel in lonely hotel rooms on the road is the perfect downtime release for Kansas City Royals pitcher Kyle Davies. Opening the 2009 season as the No. 3 starter, Davies is well known for his work ethic. Despite a contract guaranteeing him some $1.3 million this year, he chooses to spend the off-season toiling away on his dad's construction crew. And despite a hectic road schedule that limits raiding opportunities to PUGs, Davies has managed to clear ICC with both his mains and is chipping his way through hard modes. We caught him in between game dates for a quick run-down of how he and his teammates let off steam in the World of Warcraft.
15 Minutes of Fame: When the guild family is literally all family
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Looking for group? Not in this family. We've featured players before who share playtime with family members, but we're not sure that we've ever visited with anyone who actively plays WoW with every member of her immediate family ... and then some. First, there was Fizzcrank (US-A) player Artio and her husband Anomoly. Then Artio's 59-year-old mother decided to investigate what the couple was up to all the time. Hooked, she brought Artio's father into the fold. The oldest sister followed suit. Look who's playing now: Artio and her husband, her mother, her father, her two brothers, her two sisters, two spouses, Artio's two brothers-in-law and four grandchildren ... Not to mention the "extended family" of real-life friends. Does this family run its own groups and 10-man raids? Of course! "My dad loves his pala-tank and becomes quite obsessive about gearing him with the best pre-ICC gear he can find, while my mother's hunter is doing more damage to the wildlife than Nesingwary," Artio reports. "It's a wonderful feeling to have three generations of WoW players together tackling anything from old-school content to newer heroics." Follow us past the break to meet this WoW-playing family.
15 Minutes of Fame: Film pros shoot raiding lifestyle documentary
Video has NSFW language near the beginning. 15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft personalities of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. It used to be that any mainstream media coverage of gaming that didn't completely denigrate gamers rated rabid cheering and high-fives all around. Things have gotten better in recent years, but we're often left with a sense of lingering embarrassment when journalists miss the boat and ask all the wrong questions from all the wrong angles. It's with great relief, then, that we report on documentary project that's working hard to get it right. LFG Productions, the brainchild of two film industry vets who are also WoW players, is filming a behind-the-scenes look at the intersection of hardcore raiding and real life by following a top-ranked PvE guild through the post-ICC lull and into the coming expansion. (See a sample of some of the raw footage they've collected at last year's BlizzCon, above.) Documentary co-creator John Keating, aka Xod of <Royal Militia> on Bleeding Hollow (US-A), has been corresponding with us for months now about the LFG Productions team's efforts to put its finger on an accurate portrayal of the hardcore raiding lifestyle.
