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Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, WoW Insider Show

My last episode of the WoW Insider Show is on the air tomorrow afternoon -- it'll be sad (I really love doing this show for you all), but hopefully it won't be too maudlin. Fortunately both Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian have agreed to join us, and of course Turpster will be on with us as well -- whenever the T is around, you know it'll be a good time. We'll be talking about the most popular stories in Warcraft for the past week, including the arrival of Winter Veil, patch 3.3.0a and all of the other hotfixes this week, and just because I think it's interesting, we'll talk about the Battered Hilt as well.

And as usual, we'll answer your emails and chat live with all of the folks in the chatroom. You can email us any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you'll be able to listen in to the show on the feed over on Ustream itself, or right after the break below. Please do join us, should be fun.

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Filed under: Podcasting, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, WoW Insider Show

I've told this story a few times before: I actually started out on WoW.com as a comment troll. A few years back, Jennie Lees was the lead blogger here, and she posted something silly about a wallpaper or a plush doll, I don't remember. I was also reading the forums at the time, and Blizzard had just dropped new priest patch notes. "Why are you posting this junk," I commented angrily, "when the priest notes just dropped?" She was nice about it -- she actually emailed me and said that the priest updates post was coming soon. And I felt so bad about it, I never activated the comment. But a little while after that, when WoW Insider posted that they were looking for some new writers, I applied, and said that I was sorry for that comment, but that I was working on becoming a writer and could help out with posting on the site when needed.

When I started writing for WoW Insider (now WoW.com, obviously), I was working retail in Chicago, writing part-time in the evenings. The site itself got only a few thousand hits a month, with one or two weekly features and maybe ten comments per post. Now, over three years later, I'm a fulltime freelance writer, I've been to three BlizzCons, I've written over 1.7 million words in over 3,300 posts here about everything in Azeroth, and the site itself rivals some of the best blogs on the Internet, routinely garnering millions of hits a month. I helped build this site with my own two hands, and while I definitely can't claim all the credit (there was and is a huge team of people who keep this thing running), it's with a fair amount of sorrow that I'm here to tell you today will be my last day on WoW.com.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• WoW in an Hour really enjoys doing the new raid weekly quest -- nice raid rewards, under an hour of play.
• Chill of the Grave has some great suggestions for Death Knight gear to be found in the new 5-mans.
• HTFTMFW takes you through quick strategies for the first four bosses in Icecrown.
• Starnaglethron has a declaration of love for the Dungeon Finder (which most of you would probably echo).
• And finally, Pike has some bad news for you Glyph of Bestial Wrath addicts. There's a new glyph in town and he'll up your DPS.

Filed under: Hunter, Instances, Raiding, Death Knight, The Daily Quest

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Filed under: Instances, Raiding, Bosses, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King

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Filed under: Patches, Fan stuff, Blizzard, PvP, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, Leveling, BlizzCon, Cataclysm

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Filed under: Patches, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King

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Filed under: Patches, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Instances, Leveling, BlizzCon, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

They both have millions of users across the world. They both have made and broken friendships and relationships, and they both have raised millions if not billions of dollars for their respective companies. And chances are that they're both so popular even your grandma knows about them. Gamasutra has written an interesting post comparing both World of Warcraft and Facebook of all things, and they say that the two are more alike than you might think: both enable you to create an identity, and use that identity to interact with others, and both give you a wide variety of options to do so (in WoW, you can slay dragons together, and on Facebook, you can tag pictures or post on walls). Gamasutra wants to get to the center of where exactly the interactivity lies, and in doing so, figure out what makes Warcraft a game, and Facebook a network.

One major difference is in the interface -- obviously, WoW is wrapped in a fantasy world, so that in between all of the socializing, you're also fighting the Scourge or the Burning Crusade. Facebook has games, but it doesn't have that overarching narrative. WoW also rewards group teamwork and coordination, while Facebook leaves collaboration to its own rewards. And of course the cost is another big difference: WoW is still a subscription game, while Facebook pays in other ways. But the amount of similarities between the two are pretty fascinating. And comparing the two, as Gamasutra does, really makes you think about just what interactivity means, and how two apparently very different types of interactive media aren't that far apart after all.

Filed under: WoW Social Conventions, Virtual selves, Blizzard, Forums

Reader Matthias C. wrote in with a special request to see this item here, so here you go.

Name: Zod's Repeating Longbow (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Epic Bow
Damage/Speed: 541-887 / 2.80 (255 DPS)
Attributes:

• +34 Agility, +51 Stamina
• On equip: Your ranged attacks have a 4% chance to cause you to instantly attack with this weapon for 50% weapon damage. This one's interesting -- the tooltip actually says the chance to hit. It's not the first time that's happened, but plenty of tooltips will say "a chance of" proccing rather than mentioning the actual percentage.

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Filed under: Hunter, Items, How-tos, Odds and ends, Phat Loot Phriday