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Every week, join us as we 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 Insider to emails from our readers and what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth.

Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wowinsider.com!

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Evidently, the EU realms are a hotbed of death knight creativity and initiative. While he might be among the best-known players for his crazy soloing accomplishments, Raegwyn is hardly the only DK to crack the code of soloing endgame content. Mionee, a savvy and seasoned death knight from top EU guild Envy, is also making name for herself from soloing a few little things. What kind of things? Everything from Deathwing, Ragnaros, and a challenge mode dungeon down to older content such as Yogg-Saron/0 keepers and the Lich King.

"The only normal mode encounters that cannot be soloed right now as a DK are Kalecgos in Sunwell Plateau, Valithria Dreamwalker in Icecrown Citadel (unless you're a draenei with Gift of the Naaru), Conclave of Wind in Throne of the Four Winds, as well as Hagara the Stormbinder and Spine of Deathwing in Dragon Soul," Mionee muses. "That leaves quite a lot of soloable encounters. On a more general note, what's left to solo are the heroic versions of some encounters, or the 25-man versions of bosses that have only been soloed in 10-man."

"To give a rough estimate," she continues, "by the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I was doing Mount Hyjal; by the end of Cata, I had completed nearly every possible heroic encounter from Wrath (a few exceptions aside); and right now, I have completed everything in Cata aside from the three above-mentioned encounters."

Mionee gives us the inside scoop on soloing some of the game's toughest content and answers the question of whether death knights are really overpowered, after the break.

At last, our look back at five years of WoW personality interviews rolls around to the duo everyone's been asking about: Hexu and Davidian, the British soldier blinded in Iraq and his redoubtable "guide dog" guildmate who steered him through full participation in current raid content. Their story exploded across the internet after we interviewed Davidian here on WoW Insider, and Blizzard recognized the dynamic duo with in-game helms with flavor text alluding to their inspiring bond of friendship.

Hexu and Davidian are both still playing World of Warcraft -- but the duo is together no more. As of the new year, the ever-energetic Hexu has been raiding on a new rogue, Dirtypawz, in Unqualified on Stormrage (EU). "I know!" he replies to my unspoken exclamation of surprise and sadness. "It was just that people were only raid logging, and it got boring -- but it was all amicable and cool. I still speak to people in Die Safe. I just wanted to do more than raid three nights a week." Hexu/Dirtypawz says a "very nice bloke" named Vatic is serving as his current raiding "guide dog" helper. "The people in the guild are all nice people," he adds, "and there [are] always things going on."

We'll visit with Hexu/Dirtypawz next month about how he's settling in and dig into his tips for the many sight-disabled players who've written to us during the past year trying to reach him for advice.

Meanwhile, Davidian reports that the year since we interviewed him has been packed with recognition and encouragement. "The publicity was just unreal," he says. "Even to this day, I get people coming to our server just to say how much the story inspired them and restored their faith in the gaming community. The biggest thing of all, though, was the fact that it made its way to Blizzard, and myself and Ben got signed copies of the collectors edition of Cataclysm signed by at least 50 members of the Blizzard team, and [we] received in-game pets also. Then to top it off, having in-game items with our names on them was just outstanding -- I mean, to be immortal in a game that we love to play is just, well words couldn't possibly describe it."

All good people connecting to play a game that's close to our hearts ... Keep reading for more updates about people who love World of Warcraft, from our interviews during 2012.

Every week, join us as we 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 Insider to emails from our readers and what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth.

Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wowinsider.com!

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.

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Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today.

This is pretty much how I imagine a Garrosh/Varian throwdown. You can decide who gets to be which character, and who Batman's supposed to be. Lor'themar? Jaina? Up to you.

FlinthammerHall asks
I just recently realized there was replica transmog vanilla PvP gear for those of us who achieved rank 8 or above during vanilla WoW. I'm a bad person for asking this, I know, but has Blizzard given any indication that more than the original characters who earned that rank (and got the appropriate Feat of Strength) will ever be able to purchase and use this gear?

If there has been any indication of that I haven't heard it. The goal was to leave those particular sets the province of characters (not players) that actually earned the rank.

Quite a few of today's World of Warcraft players first set foot in Azeroth during the Cataclysm era. The years 2010 and 2011 saw gaming in general move into its own, and we began interviewing more and more WoW players and public personalities who were confident and eager to talk about their game of choice.

Are they still playing today in Mists of Pandaria? Many are -- although the exploits of those who aren't are sometimes equally as interesting to hear! Catch up on 2008 and 2009 in part 1 of our retrospective, and be sure click the bold subheadings at the beginning of each entry below to see the original interviews.

Pulverizing WoW MMA fighter Jens "Little Evil" Pulver has been trying his hand at Mists while preparing for his next fights. "I have not been inside a dungeon or raid but I have enjoyed leveling a few characters," he writes. "My hunter is my PvP character, and I try to get in a few games in the evening. Outside of WoW, I have been wrapping up my career as a MMA fighter and will be fighting in the semi's of the ONEFC bantamweight Grand Prix in April." Jens is also hard at work on projects including gaming hardware, depression, and motivational speaking; find out more at JensPulver.com or @jens_pulver on Twitter.

Marie Lazar got the chance to step into the shoes of a Blizzard Entertainment intern last summer -- and there's still a chance that you could, too. The deadline for this year's Blizzard student art contest is next week. If you're an aspiring 3D artist, get your portfolios in by Jan. 15 for a shot at a three-month mentorship at Blizzard under the wing of a member of the WoW art team, plus a one-year subscription to WoW and some delicious WoW memorabilia and goodies.

You'd best be up for a stiff challenge, though, because this is no mere fan art contest. You'll face artists the likes of last year's winners Jessica Dinh, Peter K. Lee -- and the subject of this week's interview, the detail-oriented Marie Lazar.

"It's all about the details," said WoW lead environment artist Gary Platner of Marie's work. "When we create art for WoW, we have to follow some rules. Pieces must have hand painted textures that match our unique art style and they must tell a story. Marie's work does this very well! And, if you look close enough, some great details come through. It's a library of the afterlife floating on an island in the sky! There are book references everywhere, books lying around, book grave stones, even the roof is made to look like an open book. All of us could look at this piece and come up with a great story."

Azeroth is certainly not the same place it was back in 2008 when we began interviewing players and people associated with World of Warcraft for WoW Insider's "15 Minutes of Fame" feature. We face a new landscape with new threats, new stories, new opportunities. While many of the people we've talked with over the years have moved on to other horizons, plenty of them are still right here in Azeroth -- and many of them are doing things as remarkable as those that first caught our attention

Where are they now? To find out, we have to go way, way back -- all the way to January of 2008 ... Be sure to click the bold subheadings at the beginning of each entry to read the original interviews.

Noor the pacifist Five years ago, the idea of someone playing an MMO like WoW without killing any monsters seemed incredible at best and ridiculous to many. But Noor kept at it -- and he's at it still. "I've got my mage up to 90, but haven't done much with Noor for a while," he reports. "I missed the small window of opportunity to create a neutral pandaran by getting off the starting turtle without choosing a faction by using Zen Pilgrimage; there's still a way that should work, but it's a very long grind ... (Basically, herb and mine to level 41, which takes more than 50,000 nodes, then take up inscription and make a scroll of recall and read it.)" Um, yikes. Read more of Noor's exploits at Pacifist Undead Priest.

Every week, join us as we 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 Insider to emails from our readers and what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth.

Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wowinsider.com!

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:

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From 0 to 90 with no gear, no talents, no grouping or professions, and perma-death -- no more playing that character if you die ... It's a grim challenge that only one player so far has managed to take to its conclusion. Yet so compelling and addictive is the unforgiving gameplay of the player-created Ironman Challenge that Mists champion Lyssan is already rolling a new monk down the iron path.

An interview with the triumphant Lyssan, a Diablo 2 hardcore mode veteran, reveals a player bubbling with wry humor, an adventurous spirit, and an abiding appreciation for the very fabric of the World of Warcraft.

WoW Insider: Leveling under these conditions sounds absolutely brutal. How much do the restrictions of the challenge impinge on normal game play?

Lyssan: Playing under Ironman rules makes WoW an entirely different game. You no longer have the luxury of trial and error with the "one death" rule. The skillset available is very limited, and you need to use it to its fullest in order to advance. One mob that for a regular toon is just a minor nuisance on the way to the quest objective is most of the time a deadly puzzle for an Ironman toon: Do I have enough HP/mana to take it down? Will it call reinforcements? Do I have an exit strategy in case something goes bad? Are all my cooldowns ready?

Due to these restrictions, playing content at the character level is usually not a very good idea. With Lyssan, I was most of the time at least two to three levels above the content I was doing, except for quests that didn't involve any killing. (I've done some of those in Pandaria.)

There's more than one World of Warcraft within Azeroth. The high-stakes realm of competitive arena play is one such microscosm. Compared to WoW's gargantuan PvE player base, relatively few players delve very deeply into arena play, and an extensive fandom for arenas as an e-sport has been slow to catch on. So when Blizzard took the Battle.net World Championship to Shanghai last month, the StarCraft II-crazed event cracked the door wider for gladiators from World of Warcraft.

At stake: international dominance and a prize pool of nearly $200,000. The BWC threw the top 10 WoW 3v3 arena teams from across the world into a high-pressure, best-of-five round robin series. The top four teams emerged to face a brutal double-elimination bracket for the global championship. When the void zones dispersed, one team remained: Bring It, a North American team composed of frost mage Venruki (Elliott Venczel of Calgary, Canada), BlizzCon veteran and warlock Snutz (Kelvin Nguyen, also of Canada), and well-known PvP shaman Kollektiv (Timothy Yen, United States). We caught up with Venruki to crack the high-stakes world of WoW arena as an e-sport.

WoW Insider: Congratulations on your win! I'm guessing you've been kicking back and taking it easy since the championship?

Venruki: Thank you very much! I have been taking it easy since the championship. It's funny though, I thought after BWC was over I could finally take a break from World of Warcraft ... Recently seems like I play more than I did before. I'm still having a lot of fun with the game.

How do you go about preparing for a championship like the BWC, anyway?

Because the game was on the new expansion Mists of Pandaria, I knew that I had to play ... a lot. I practiced over 1,000 games of 3v3 arena in the couple of months I had to prepare. When my team was on, I played with them; otherwise I would practice with whomever I could find. I knew that to do well, it was going to take knowing the game inside and out.

Every week, join us as we 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 Insider to emails from our readers and what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth.

Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wowinsider.com!

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:

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Every week, join us as we 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 Insider to emails from our readers and what's been going on with our particular characters in Azeroth.

Want to have your question answered on the air? Email theshow@wowinsider.com!

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:

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Blizzard only wishes they'd made art like Blizzard student art contest winner Peter K. Lee -- no, seriously. "The carousel," writes a stunned-sounding Eric Browning, WoW's lead prop artist. "Holy crap. It was the exact right mix of 'WTF' and 'Why didn't we think of that?' Stylistically he nailed it, so it wasn't just a goofball idea that we loved (it was); it also fit almost perfectly into the game. Literally. It's now in the game. It has its OWN THEME SONG! That's how awesome it is, and I'm not even sure if our sound department made music or that it's just so excellent that it makes music on its own."

"And I challenge anyone to look at those carved wooden mounts and not," he continued, "in some dark and quiet place in their brains whisper, 'I want that. I want it to be my friend and go on adventures with me. So baaaad.'"

Like fellow contest winner Jessica Dinh, Lee's top-notch work in the art contest earned him a 2012 summer internship at Blizzard. We checked in with him to find out what it was like to work with a team he both admired and had managed to astound.

Break time? Tilt the screen away from your boss's line of fire, fire up a fresh playlist with your earbuds, and pull up some WoW Insider. (Much healthier than something out of the vending machine, am I right?) How about a behind-the-scenes interview? Who would you like to read more about? Tell us!

Who's doing something useful for other players or playing the game in a way that makes you say, "Wow, that sounds cool!"? Let us know what they're up to.

• Send us your nominations! While an interview with 15 Minutes of Fame isn't exactly designed to be an achievement award for good behavior or service to the gaming community, we'd love to talk with anyone out there who's doing good stuff. (Examples: A guild for players with social anxiety, the quadriplegic player compiling resources for other disabled players, the raider who plays "guide dog" to a blind guildmate.) Know anyone out there who's doing it right?
• Send us your requests! Who's the Mr. Nice Guy behind that warrior on your realm that everyone seems to know and like? Who's the gnome behind the WoW-themed crochet patterns you download as quickly as can post them? Who's the savvy player behind your favorite resource site? We'll find out.

Tip me at lisa@wowinsider.com or @lisapoisso on Twitter.

Azeroth's Most Wanted List We're betting you know where the interesting folks are hiding. Check out our Most Wanted List after the break.