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15 Minutes of Fame: Hodor!
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. When last we heard from Game of Thrones' Kristian Nairn, the burly Irish actor was preparing to stuff himself into an airplane seat and fly to America for a bit of rest and recreation before filming begins on Season 2 of the acclaimed HBO series. As you read this week's installment of our interview -- a Skype conversation held a few days after our initial e-interview simply overflowed the confines of email -- Nairn is wrapping up his whirlwind visit and preparing to head back to Belfast ... and more World of Warcraft. This week, we chat with Nairn about his preferences for PvP and arcane spec, more on his character Hodor, and his very pointed notion of what questing would be like in a Game of Thrones MMO.
15 Minutes of Fame: Searching for the Higgs boson and a Swift White Hawkstrider
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 interrupt our two-part interview with actor Kristian Nairn (Hodor in HBO's blockbuster new series, Game of Thrones) for a quick chat with ... a particle physicist at CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Writes in-game buddy Fra (and thanks, Fra -- much love for all the EU players who brave the whole second language thing to send in tips!), "I have a friend which might be material for one of your interviews (which are great!). He is both good as a healer as he is a physicist. He also does some guides and public talks about his studies, and he is comprehensible even for a dumbass as me. :) I'm pretty sure you've a lot of nerds on your interview list, but a physicist working in one of the most famous labs is something ... new? He also does a lot of jokes about the not-so-good physics in game, or when people care of maximizing numbers that do not really change your game performance if you do all the math." A particle physicist who isn't into theorycrafting? We simply had to know more. Follow us past the break to learn how searching for the Higgs boson is like farming for a Swift White Hawkstrider (and come back next week for more with Game of Thrones' Kristian Nairn).
15 Minutes of Fame: Azeroth to Westeros with Game of Thrones' Kristian Nairn
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. If you've read the books behind the spellbinding new HBO series Game of Thrones, you'll instantly recognize the character portrayed by the bearded beast of burden above -- yes, that's Kristian Nairn as Hodor, on the set with young passenger Isaac Hempstead-Wright (as Bran Stark). While you may not recognize Nairn yet if you're new to the gritty fantasy series (he hasn't been onscreen yet), the show itself has been hard to ignore, debuting amidst a deluge of publicity and earning a renewal for a second season after only a single episode. Luckily for us, Nairn's enthusiasm for the World of Warcraft proves to be as capacious as both the series' success and his own 6'10" frame. The Belfast resident, who's also a professional DJ, plays on both US and EU servers (yep, he's that enthusiastic about the game), and once we'd covered the basics by email, he felt there was still so much left to say that we wound up chatting on Skype a few days later. So Hodor -- no, not Hodir, Hodor ... although come to think of it, they're both rather remarkable in stature, and ... awww, heck, set thy nose to the page if you haven't yet read George R.R. Martin's best-selling Song of Ice and Fire series and you don't know who Hodor is. These are characters that'll grab you by the short hairs -- it's the ride of a lifetime. In the meantime, settle in with us for the first of two interviews with Kristian Nairn, from Azeroth to Westeros and back again.
15 Minutes of Fame: Air Superiority Squadron's Tenj takes ganking to the skies
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. Brace yourselves for nerdrage in the comments today -- for as they say, "PvP happens." Today, 15 Minutes of Fame covers (gasp!) actual world PvP on a PvP realm. Meet Tenj, master of the skies, leader of the Air Superiority Squadron on Twisting Nether (US-A), and renowned Azerothian aerial combat specialist. Tenj and his group of aerial assassins are in the business of bounties, plucking Horde players right out of the skies in fulfillment of their mercenary assignments. Tenj, an intrepid night elf boomkin, is known not only for his aerial antics but for rustling up world PvP in general -- and for responding to it all, enthusiastic cheering and nerdraging ranting alike, with a "Meep, meep!" more reminiscent of the hapless Roadrunner than a bounty-hunting boomkin. If you thought dozens of flight-form druids flapping down to silently surround ground-bound newbies was creepy, after reading about Tenj and his crew, you'll definitely never feel safe around druids again.
15 Minutes of Fame: Award-winning Doritos ad writer rocks Horde pride
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. Football fans, we love you and we do feel your rightful enthusiasm, but admit it: The TV commercials are the best part of every Super Bowl. Just a few short weeks or months after the game, most people don't remember much about the games themselves -- but I'll bet most of us remember the Doritos commercial where the unsuspecting corporate cube drone lobs a snowglobe into his boss's nads. That 2009 ad spot grabbed the #1 ad meter position away from Budweiser for the first time in 10 years. Its creators: two of the five Herbert brothers -- and yes, 15 Minutes of Fame regulars, you guessed it ... three of them play World of Warcraft. Since the Doritos bonanza landed Joe Herbert and his brother Dave on Leno, The Today Show, and more, the duo has been hard at work turning out more hip commercials and a board game that's in stores now. The thing that caught our attention, though, was the fantastic cinematic Joe produced for the guild he and another brother lead, and the Warsong Band. Settle in for an enjoyable trip through the history of the Warsong Band, above, and then join us for a chat with Joe Herbert for Doritos, snowglobes, PvP, board games and more.
15 Minutes of Fame: Pet supplier to the realm
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. When was the last time you received a thank-you gift from a vendor you patronize regularly on the auction house? For anyone who plays Alliance-side on Cenarion Circle (US) and is even vaguely interested in collecting pets, it probably hasn't been long at all. CC's healthy market for pets is driven, fittingly enough, by a player named Healthypets. Looking for a particular vendored or crafted pet, but don't feel like slogging across the world or juggling cross-faction AH shenanigans to get it into your hands? If it's not already listed on the auction house, it should be merely a matter of days before Healthypets will pop up a fairly priced selection. Buy more than a few? Regular customers get thank-you gifts -- that's right, a free pet mailed to you from Healthypets, for no other reason than to simply thank you for your patronage. This utterly charming player and his equally charming business (because come on, who wouldn't want to own a healthy pet?) have made it easy for players to stock up on many of Azeroth's collectable pets. After one especially satisfied customer wrote in to The Classifieds with a Random Acts of Uberness for Healthypets, 15 Minutes sent in an anonymous alt to investigate -- and she ended up with her own healthy handful of healthy pets, including not one but two separate thank-you pets. We got in touch with the 56-year-old, self-professed "regular guy" behind Healthypets to find out what goes into this successful, player-pleasing business.
15 Minutes of Fame: Fishing for insights with El's Extreme Anglin'
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. Admit it: You thought the person behind the curtain at El's Extreme Anglin', the web's preeminent World of Warcraft fishing resource, was female, didn't you? Just one look into the soulful blue gnomish eyes of El, blinking innocently from atop her guides or curled up at the feet of the intrepid Nat Pagle, beckoning you through your first steps as an Azerothian angler ... You were hooked. You're not alone -- most players seem to have bonded with El's friendly female face. In reality, the blogger behind El (and El's Extreme Anglin') is none other than British analyst, consultant, writer, and thinker Tim Howgego. He's known for his penetrating blogging about public transport policy, market development, the application of internet-related technology -- oh, and of course, game design and WoW fishing. "To be honest, El is a lot more interested in catching fish," he confesses. "Tim is more interested in patterns of human behavior." Whatever the focus, it's wildly successful. El's Extreme Anglin' Googles in as the top result for searches on "fishing guide" -- that's just plain "fishing guide," nothing to do with the World of Warcraft. In a unique twist on our usual interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame managed to catch up with both Tim and El this week to talk shop about fishing. (Does that mean this is really 30 Minutes of Fame? 225 Minutes of Fame? No, wait -- with a gnome the size of El, perhaps it's more like 18 Minutes of Fame.) Between El's sagacious gnomish observations on Azerothian angling and Tim's insights into game development, there's something in this interview for everyone.
15 Minutes of Fame: World of Warcraft player "levels down" with game-related diet
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. So how much weight have you lost since you started playing World of Warcraft? Wait, what's that? You've gained 10 pounds since the expansion launched and your guild started raiding again? Oh, good people of Azeroth ... It doesn't have to be that way. You can get lean and mean with WoW -- you simply start by Leveling Down. Leveling Down is a new blog and weight loss scheme put together by player Moriarity of Archimonde (US-A) after he found himself starting at too many pounds and not enough motivation. "One day, while playing WoW, I stumbled upon the idea that I could turn my own weight loss into a game, much like WoW," he explains. "Every day that I ate what I was supposed to and did the proper amount of exercise, I would gain a level. And every day, I would do a blog post that would feature an area of the game where a character of my current level would be." So is the plan working? We'd say so -- as of the beginning of this week, Moriarity's broken the level 40 barrier and appears unstoppable.
15 Minutes of Fame: WoW goes to English class
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. Remember when we interviewed the two teachers who were injecting motivation, teamwork, and pride into at-risk students via an after-school World of Warcraft program? Educators Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy are still at it -- and this time, they've scooted the gaming back squarely into school hours with an elective language arts enrichment class for 15 middle school students. "Our kids are embarking on a Hero's Journey as they compare their own experiences in World of Warcraft to those of Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien's The Hobbit," explains Gillispie. "They're engaging in creative projects as well, such as live tweeting the events leading to Cataclysm from NPC's points-of-view (see #wowinschool hashtag). They're creating digital propaganda posters related to in-world events, writing riddles to share with players on their server, and learning leadership through their student guild." Sounds great in theory -- but we wondered what the kids themselves thought about the program. So we asked three of them, all new to the World of Warcraft, what they think about the game itself, what they feel they're getting out of the class, and whether or not the experience has given them any new perspectives on gaming.
15 Minutes of Fame: Raiding without their strats on
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 happens when you don't study your raid strategies before raid time -- on purpose? Those wild and crazy guys in The Seven Scientists of Runetotem (US) have been raiding without their strats on again ... And that's just the way they like it. "The rule is, don't read any spoilers on a (raid) boss until we've killed it, and if you do, don't talk about them," explains guild member Neminem. "... This way, we actually get to figure out strategy for ourselves, instead of just regurgitating a strategy someone else came up with." In earlier WoW, so-called "blind raiding" has been a badge of honor limited to the few bleeding-edge progression guilds that literally race through beta and new-release content, plus a few, dogged hardest of the hardcore. The Seven Scientists are neither. This 10-man group is entirely composed of real-life friends, and maintaining a tight-knit yet relaxed social fabric takes priority over progression. Despite that -- or as we'll see, perhaps more accurately because of it -- tackling new content without spoilers is simply the way they've come to enjoy throwing down together. Today's culture of PuGs sees a lack of preparation as a social faux pas, at best, or an offense worthy of guildkicks and pug-blacklisting, at worst. The Seven Scientists simply enjoy having a go at the content under their own steam -- no hairshirts, no lengthy rulesets, no pressure ... and all fun.
15 Minutes of Fame: WoW connections open doors to voice-over career
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. There's something about meeting people in an MMO like WoW that forges connections. Maybe it's because we all share a common interest in the game. Maybe it's because so many of us share other common interests -- for instance, many players show at least a passing fancy for fantasy and sci-fi -- or come from age groups who see connecting with others via the internet as a perfectly natural, desirable phenomenon. At any rate, this week's 15 Minutes of Fame brings us the tale of a player who built on her WoW connections to forge an entirely new career. From WoW-playing freelance writer to WoW-playing voice-over artist, Candace McCarty (aka Coriánder of Moon Guard [US-A]) knows first-hand the power and depth of resources wielded by WoW's massive player community. Read how she got from Career A to Career B with a little help and inspiration from her WoW friends.
15 Minutes of Fame: Student composer brings WoW music to video game choir
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. You have to admit: Running your own choir to perform video game music is a pretty sweet gig for a portfolio-building college student. "We perform student arrangements of game music, and last fall we decided to do a WoW medley," explains Video Game Choir Founder/Director Julia Seeholzer, aka Bloodsong of Perenolde (US-A). "The choir and orchestra are all student-run, and we're all incredibly passionate about video games!" Julia's passion obviously extends to World of Warcraft; her thoroughly professional tip to WoW Insider concluded with a friendly, "Now, back to my raiding..." The Video Game Choir is made up of students from Berklee College of Music, the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz and popular music, the Boston, Mass., school also offers degrees in composition, contemporary writing and production, film scoring, jazz composition, music business/management, music education, music production and engineering, electronic production and design, music therapy, performance, professional music, and songwriting -- a perfect meeting spot for enthusiasts of the burgeoning field of video game music.
15 Minutes of Fame: Sci-fi and fantasy copyeditor Deanna Hoak
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. Deanna Hoak and I have bonded over the Viscous Hammer. Yes, I realize that some of you will find it somewhat predictably amusing that WoW Insider's resident copyeditor should be geeking out over interviewing sci-fi/fantasy copyeditor and WoW player Deanna Hoak -- but there's more to this editor than a mere passion for punctuation. Hoak brings a virtually unique set of experience and sensitivities to the fantastical demands of the novels she edits. In the world of science fiction and fantasy, Hoak edits the big dogs: China Miéville, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, Alan Dean Foster, Cherie Priest, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, R.A. Salvatore ... In fact, Hoak's the only copyeditor ever nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her work. So yeah, someone who appreciates all the wrongness of WoW's awkwardly named Viscous Hammer (and who knows how to spice up an email exchange with some pretty hot photos of China Miéville at a recent con -- but that's another story) ... To top it all off, along with her two children (her husband's the lone holdout of the family), Hoak's an avid WoW player. Join us after the break for a conversation on World of Warcraft from a SF/F insider's point of view, her recommended reading list for fellow WoW players, and more.
15 Minutes of Fame: Playing WoW with Fark.com's Drew Curtis
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. You might think that Fark.com founder Drew Curtis is probably too busy a guy to spend much time playing video games, especially a notorious time-gobbler like WoW. You'd be wrong. Curtis thinks WoW is pretty neat and indeed has made World of Warcraft a family affair. But as the creator of addictively snarky news aggregator site Fark.com, Curtis recognizes the value of when it's important to tune in and when it's cool to tune out. "I'm sorta casual in that I play a couple hours every other day or so when I have time," he explains, "but when I don't, I log the hell off until whatever needs doing gets done. I don't know anyone else who has no trouble just turning it off when they need to, which is kinda weird, I think." He also finds unusually productive times to turn it on -- including "useless conference calls that could have been done with a single email instead." (Potential meeting organizers, beware!) Hear more on how the master of Fark's snark plays World of Warcraft as we chat with Curtis after the break.
15 Minutes of Fame: McGonigal on why you're as awesome in real life as in WoW
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. Last week, we gave you the lengthy part 1 of our interview with game designer and fellow WoW player Jane McGonigal. This week, by way of a re-introduction, we give you her most recent biographical note: Jane McGonigal is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times, and on MTV, CNN, and NPR. In 2009, BusinessWeek called her one of the 10 most important innovators to watch, and Fast Company named her one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. In 2010, Oprah Magazine chose her as one of the 20 most inspiring women in the world. She has given keynote addresses at TED, South by Southwest Interactive, and the Game Developers Conference and was a featured speaker at The New Yorker Conference. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in performance studies and games research. Okay, then – the lady knows her stuff. Pull up a chair and let's wrap up a visit with McGonigal by talking more about her own WoW experience and her take on how other WoW players should view their gaming hobby.
15 Minutes of Fame: Jane McGonigal on why gamers will change the world
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 average young person today in a country with a strong gamer culture will have spent 10,000 hours playing online games, by the age of 21. For children in the United States 10,080 hours is the exact amount of time you will spend in school from fifth grade to high school graduation if you have perfect attendance. -- Jane McGonigal Games designer Jane McGonigal wants games to change the world -- and she has good reason to think it's not only possible but in fact quite probable. McGonigal's games harness the power of productivity -- yeah, that same stuff you're pouring all over your push for endgame gear, the energy that's spilling over the sides of your personal quest to score more than 100 companion pets -- to bring gamers together to foster global social change. Whoa, lofty words ... But listen to McGonigal's 20-minute TED Talk, above, and you'll find yourself nodding along. Harnessing the immensely motivated and collaborative population of gamers makes a lot of sense. McGonigal has a new book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Makes Us Better and How They Can Change the World, that colors in the entire picture (highly recommended reading -- thought-provoking without being heavy in the least). WoW Insider colors along with McGonigal this month with an exclusive, two-part interview. This week, we talk about how and why gaming will change the world. (We do recommend that you watch McGonigal's TED Talk above first for maximum context.) Next week, we'll narrow the focus to World of Warcraft and pick McGonigal's brain for practical advice for making playing WoW the positive, life-enhancing activity it has the potential to be.
15 Minutes of Fame: The music of Nathan Allen Pinard
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. You may not recognize the name Nathan Allen Pinard -- but if you're a fan of the machinima scene, you're bound to have heard his stirring musical take on life in Azeroth via the ever-popular Oxhorn machinima. I mean, come on ... If the irresistible compilation of Oxhorn favorites above doesn't get your foot tapping, then you may just have left your heart frozen solid back in Northrend! As much as we love what he's done with Oxhorn and others, Pinard's known for much more than his music for machinima. Specializing in composing for video games, movies, TV and films as well, Pinard has been hard at work on the score for the sci-fi game Gemini Rue -- oh, and tearing through Cataclysm like a bat out of hell, as well. What's the composer up to lately? There's another Oxhorn machinima in the works, yes, and much more. Join us after the break for the scoop!
Breakfast Topic: Who's the most unlikely WoW player you've met?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. I first started playing WoW during the open beta right before launch. It was my freshman year at college, and I had eagerly awaited its release since reading a magazine article almost two years before, as I had been playing since the first Warcraft RTS game. While I was excited like a 6-year-old bound for Disneyland, however, very few of the people I knew even knew of the game's existence. A few weeks after release, I came into my dorm room, which I shared with an international student from Malaysia. Although we were both computer science majors, the cultural and language barriers had yet to really be broken. Surprisingly, when I walked in, I noticed him at his computer, riding through Desolace on a human mage. While I was, am, and always will be a Hordie, WoW managed to break the ice for us. A few years later, I was working at a pizza shop full of non-gamers. One of the guys working there, a mohawk-sporting gearhead, just so happened to be another fellow WoW player (albeit another Alliance). Shortly after returning to the game late last year, I was working with a person who was on work release from prison. While I was giving him a ride back to the jail one day, he revealed that he couldn't wait to be finished with his sentence so he could try out ToC, which had just dropped at the time. Even more exciting, he was another Horde player. I've met some unlikely WoW players in real life, and it's made me some unexpected new friends. What about you? Tell us about some of the most unlikely WoW players you've met in your real life.
15 Minutes of Fame: A 2010 retrospective of WoW people
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's really behind that stoic DPSer in your raid group? He never talks much, but he never misses a raid -- or an opportunity to snag that mob that's decided to nibble on you while you're tank healing. What about that banker you always run into in Darnassus -- and why Darnassus, anyway? And what about that level 40something night elf you keep seeing all over the place ... yet who always manages to still be 40something? Who are all these people? With more than 12 million WoW players worldwide, you can bet that logging in means rubbing elbows with people who live and play in very different circumstances from your own. From X to Y, from X to Y, only WoW Insider's 15 Minutes of Fame brings you a complete sampler of the personalities and passions behind the avatars that shared your screen in 2010. Click into our gallery below for a fresh look at the players we profiled over the past year. %Gallery-112387% "I never thought of playing WoW like that!" -- and neither did we, until we talked with these players, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Aron "Nog" Eisenberg to an Olympic medalist and a quadriplegic raider. Know someone else we should feature? Email lisa@wow.com.
15 Minutes of Fame: Researcher Nick Yee digs into the numbers, people behind WoW
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. If you're into research about the World of Warcraft and the world of MMORPGs, the name Nick Yee will be instantly recognizable. A research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Yee is well known in WoW circles for his work on The Daedalus Project, an online survey of MMORPG players that's yielded profiles of gamers and the gaming life that are ripe for the picking. Despite a powerhouse academic background, Yee's no ivory tower recluse. He's an active WoW player who relishes the happy intersection of game time as background for work time. And while his Daedalus Project has been "in hibernation" for some time now, Yee's been working on a new study for PARC. We'll chat with Yee about his work after the break -- plus test your knowledge of your fellow WoW players in a special quiz he's prepared especially for WoW Insider readers spotlighting findings from his new MMORPG research.
