For those few of you who are regular readers of "The Extraordinary life of Ribs the Shaman" I'd like to call your attention to another Blog under my belt here at Curse.com - it's my blog for general gaming and my taking part in it. I hope to be able to get a little more deep with it given it's expanded theme.

You can find it here: http://blogs.curse.com/624/

As I'm sure you have figured out by now - this is my guide to add-on's/modifications for World of Warcraft. Keep in mind that this is primarily based on my preferences and so forth, however I can say that I have tried a large quantity of different addons for many different parts of your user interface and game. And if you like what you read here, stay tuned for next entry as I suggest my favorite additions for the Titan Panel addon. Don't forget to give thumbs up (or down)!

Introduction

There are a lot different parts that make up your GUI/UI (Graphical User Interface) in WoW. You have your action bars, your bags, your character selection/group/raid menus, your chat window, mini-map and so forth. All of these features can be modified to fit your play-style or to make your play time easier with a simple installation of an addon.

There are plenty of all-in-one packs that will install a ton of "premier" addons with one zip file. However, I find that this is very clunky and they tend to add more things that you'll never use then things that you will. I prefer to take it one addon at a time. This little featurette should include a lot of information on addons in general. From installation to suggested addons, it's all here.

Where to start?

First I suggest you get yourself some sort of solid frame to put the rest of your addons around. What this basically means is that there are a lot of basic "template" type addons that allow you to add things onto them themselves. For instance I use an addon called Titan Panel. This places a bar along the top of the screen (or the bottom, your choice) that displays all sorts of interactive information. Such as your frame rate, total gold, percentage of damaged equipment and an estimated price of repairs, among other things. In addition this addon lets you download other addons that are programmed to fit into the Titan Panel. An example is the Guild addon for Titan Panel. It displays the amount of guild members online on the bar and when moused over shows you who is online. Also allows you to click on this display to automatically bring up your guild panel. There are a whole slew of addons developed by community members that are made to fit into the Titan Panel framework. Anything from friends, guild, event calendars, honor/mark trackers, etc.

The reason I like to use addons like the Titan Panel is that it gives me a ton of features that are easy to get to, without taking up a whole lot of room on my GUI. It also has a high rate of support by other developers (other than the people who came up with Titan Panel itself) so that there are a lot of extra features available to download once you have your default panel up and running. Even popular mods such as AtlasLoot and Cartographer have special addons that will allow you to place quickly accessible shortcuts on your panel.

I for one think the Titan Panel is a must have for any player, casual or hardcore.

Installing Addons

You might be saying, "That's great Ribs, but how the heck do I install an addon?"

Well, friend - that's simple. First you download your addon, they are generally in a zip file of some sort (Zip, rar, etc.) If you don't have a way to unpack these files just download WinRAR, it's free (google it). You'll want to open up your WoW directory first and navigate to your "Interface" folder. (e.g. C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface) In this folder you will find your "AddOns" folder. If you don't have one, simple create it. Once you have your AddOns folder open and ready you extract your addon from it's zip/rar file into this folder. A quick way to do this is to right click the file, hold the click and drag it with your right click into the open folder. Letting go will bring up the drop down menu, and you can choose "Extract to here".

Walah, should be good to go. If this fails, then you are probably having issues with the addon and you should contact the developer. Now to get to modifying...

What else should you add(on)?

Well first off, these are suggestions, you may or may not want these addons. Additionally all of these can be found here at Curse.com and if that fails then head on over to http://wowui.worldofwar.net

QUESTHELPER There is a reason why this is listed first and in all caps. It's simply a MUST have addon for veterans as well as new players. It adds a whole slew of professional quality features to your game. Markings on your map/mini-map for quest objective locations, arrows, ant trails, the whole she-bang. And on top of that it's so well done it will seem like your game was MADE that way. Your productivity in game will increase by at least TRIPLE. Your leveling will go by with such ease as you speed through the normally sluggish questing process!

AtlasLoot/Atlas This mod allows you to see a compiled (linkable) list of interactive items that all bosses in the game drop as well as items sold on vendors (such as PVP gear and Badge of Justice items). You will find that very few people live their WoW lives without this one. Additionally if you get the "AtlasLoot Enhanced" version you will get the original "Atlas" as well that is a map system of all the dungeons and raids in the game with detailed numbering/lettering that keys you to where certain items/quests/bosses are within it. Making it easy to navigate your way through those pesky dungeons.

Bagnon Obviously this is an addon that modifies your bag system. Instead of having several separate boxes for each bag, the bagnon addon combines all of your bags into a "bank-like" box. It's customizable from color to row/column sizes. This may throw many people off who are used to using the separate bags to keep their items in a certain order. The key features of Bagnon however is the search feature that allows you to find those pesky quest items in your bag through a search bar. It makes upgrading bags a bit tedious but other then that I think that given enough time you will not regret this "upgrade".

Ganklist This is one of my personal favorites, however one of the more unecessary addons I have. Basically only of any use to those of you who play on PVP servers the Ganklist mod connects you to anyone else in your guild who has the addon. As you play (and get ganked) it adds names to a database list as these people kill you. In addition it adds these names to your guildies (who are online at the time). As you play on you will be able to see if people are on your "ganklist" so you can get that sweet sweet vengeance, whether it be for a friend or for yourself.

Violation (Damage Meter) Not necessarily a "needed" feature, the damage meter has however become a standard addon for most WoW'ers. This allows you to keep track of you and members of your group/raid's damage (DPS) among other things such as heals, damage taken, heals taken, and other tidbits. The primary feature however is your report ability. This posts in the channel of your choice the list of whatever list (such as Damage Done) to your party, guild, whatever. If nothing else this allows you to show everyone how amazing you are compared to them. You will get a lot of requests for posts of Damage Done. I find that this is actually a handy addon when you know you should be at a certain place with your damage output. This way you can correct it if it's off as you progress. There are other damage meters out there, however Violation is my favorite.

Omen Threat Meter Threat meters will be a must have addon once you hit 70 and start raiding. This allows you to read how much threat your attacks are causing. A very key feature for you DPS'ers out there to make sure you don't surpass the tank and pull aggro. Keep in mind that you as well as the other person, needs to have the same threat meter. Omen is the most popular and widely used so you should be fine with this.

FloTotem I originally found this totem when I was in need of some major space for all of my totems. However since then I have discovered that this amazing action bar addon is great for any class (especially Shaman's Totems and Hunter's Traps). What this adds are four sections of spots for actions/items/etc. In addition to this they are color coded (changeable colors) and can be moved to anywhere on your screen. I personally replaced my bottom left/bottom right action bars with this addon, but it can easily be sized down and put atop them. You can also change their alignment (from horizontal to vertical) among other things to do with positioning.

Conclusion...

These are just a few of the addons that you can get for your WoW GUI. Trust me there are a whole slew of addons for your game that are amazing! So go ahead, check them out. I hope this helps!

Additional Tips/Info

Keep your mods upgraded - be sure when Blizzard upgrades your game that your addons aren't broken. Your primary addons should be kept up to their latest release at all times otherwise the next patch may break them. If this happens just give the developers time and I'm sure they will fix it in no time with a new release version of their own.

You can tell if your addons are out of date by clicking your addons button on your character selections screens.

I haven't written in a while, for various reasons. Real life primarily.

Having a new girlfriend, and then experiencing the first drama of having said new girlfriend has taken out my "want" to play WoW by a large margin. I found myself worrying so much about such things that it just didn't seem appetizing. But now that that has settled down I'm back into the flow of things.

I am already tired of Battlegrounds. I managed to get my shield, hammer, shoulders and gloves, and I PVP a little every day for at least 2-4k honor. But the days of 10-12k honor grind days is in the past I fear. Now that I'm playing regularly again and have a semi-drive going on, I've started working on a Gnome Warlock (named: Poppakneecap), however this blog isn't about him - though his epicness is undeniable.

Since it's EOTS weekend and it's the only BG Alliance dominates in my battlegroup, I've been working on getting the 40 EOTS marks needed for my boots, though I'm unsure as to whether or not those or my helm will be the next on my agenda.

The goal has always been to be Kara viable through the procuring of honor purples. And while I can just as easily start running Shadow Lab., Shattered Halls or any of the Black Temple 5 mans (I can even get a nice blue totem from regular Mechanar) it just seems like a futile expense of energy to do that when I can just grind for honor and get purples to replace my greens instead of blues.

That's the problem with the current gear progression isn't it though? Sure, once you get to high enough Raids, the PVP gear seems pretty pale by comparison. But before you get passed Kara and into the larger Raids, the BG gear is simply the best way to go. It makes you more than ready for Karazahn, and then by the time you run Kara and get a few drops you're ready for ZA as well. Maybe not timed runs, but ready none the less.

I will admit that tanks (especially Paladin tanks) have gear progression a lot harder and it makes running heroics and regular 5 mans for defensive gear necessary. But for all of us DPS and healing classes, gearing out in BG purples is basically the optimal way to go speaking in terms of time as well as the quality of the items. Even while the gear isn't min-max'd through the stats to be DPS extreme, they are still so far ahead of your blues, and so much easier to acquire than heroic badge items, that it seems pointless to even have put the Heroic Instance system in.

We can hope that this all changes with the level 80 raid progression in WOTLK, but odds are so many people have chosen to go with the flow of this system instead of complaining about it, that we'll be going through the same honor grind at 80 that we are doing at 70.

The only thing I can say about this as far as good things go, is it makes rolling alts a lot less painful. Which is a double edged sword in the fact that mains have become less championed. Nobody really has a "main" anymore. In fact I kn ow several people who have a 70 of every class. The connection with your character is all but gone, when getting a second and third and forth character to 70 isn't too bad anymore and on top of that getting ready for Raiding is just a month of grinding IF that.

I digress.

Chyah.

I got my Merciless Gladiator's Barrier (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33313) a couple days ago. Wasn't too bad and set's me up for some fairly easily aquirable armor since none of it costs nearly as much as the weapon and about 1-4k less than the shield.

</a>

I think I'm going to do arena for the epic totem once I get most of my BG armor, though. I might farm Reg. Mechanar for the totem in the cache there and the Sha'tar rep that comes with it.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Yes, yes I do.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32963

Tis' mine. After days of grinding honor to get the 25,205 honor it required its finally at my side. I'm nearly at 600 spell damage unbuffed, nearly 700 with my spell damage totem out. I'm working on the shield next.

That means 8,000 honor tomorrow to get.

"It was strange to think that he had mastered his skills. He had worked so long on them that he had forgot that this was what he was working for to begin with. Still, something in the back of his mind told him that it wasn't over."

So, I hit 70. I was going to post an entry the night of - but I decided to wait a bit for various reasons...

Since then I've grinded 2 factions from Friendly to Honored. My objective is to get the full PVP Starter Blue set, which I have 4/5 right now. All that's left is to get Sha'tar to Honored. Which means starting from scratch but I enjoy the TK 5 mans so it shouldn't be too bad once I get going.

I am also honor grinding Battlegrounds for my S2 mace and then the shield. I need about 7k more, but I have the marks for both. I hope to have most of the rest of the 25.5k by bed time later.

Right before I hit 70 I also got my first purple, unfortunately it's not a piece of equipment...but it still counts, right?

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24173

You'll have to copy and paste, or if you're too lazy; it's a design for a JC necklace.

That's all for now, Tichondrius says "Hey, *** - go away."

Let's take a break from the life and times of Ribs the Shaman long enough to discuss some possible changes that could be made in an attempt to balance PVP gameplay for classes.

I am a firm believer in balance, but I also understand that not all classes should be able to kill every other class for the sake of balance.

Here's an overview of what I think of the classes in alphabetical order...Scroll further down to see my suggestions for class changes.

Druid - They plateau at 70 but are still one of the more overpowered classes, at least in the top 3 (in my opinion 3rd place). The reason for this is that after level 40 you really start excelling at every facet of the game. Not only can you tank better than a Warrior and heal better than a Priest/Paladin, but you can also DPS pretty decent as a boomkin and stealth in cat form.

Hunter - Hunters are amazing at lower levels but start to even out after 60 and end up getting a little drab when compared to the other DPS classes at end game.

Mage - One of the more balanced classes. Formidable DPS in PVE, a good number of PVP eligible crowd control spells to make you competitive in PVP situations.

Paladin - Best 5-man tank and the best off-tank for end game Raids, if geared properly best main tank as well - all of this is due to the amazing AOE threat. Best single target healer for end game. Terrible for DPS, terrible for general PVP - great as a PVP healer.

Priest - Holds it's own as heals in all facets of the game, not a great PVP healer but can manage. Through shadow priest route you become a formidable PVE DPS'er and an amazing offheal/offmana regen in PVE situations. Combined with a Shaman, your group or raid group shouldn't have any problems with mana consumption. Good for Kara CC.

Rogue - Way too many stuns and interupts by 60-70. Good for PVE DPS, good for 1v1 PVP, only suffers when fighting more than one target. Stealth allows them to make up for this.

Shaman - If built and played right can excel in PVE DPS as well as heals. Best feature being their ability to be either melee or ranged DPS in PVE, depending on what your guild needs. Problem is that you tend to fall short because unlike druid, you are a true jack of all trades, decent at everything, amazing at nothing. The first 30 levels are a pain, but you start getting better if you level as enhancement. Elemental has great damage but lacks the crowd control needed to be a truly effective PVP caster. Enhancement lacks the necessary melee line up of skills in order to compete with other melee DPS like Rogues and Warriors. Resto shaman healers suited best as off heals in raids, but can do just as well as any other class in 5-mans. Paladins are better at flash spam heals, shamans have to use chain heal to be viable.

Warlock - Even the Warlock players agree that they are over powered. Any problem other than Arena competition can be solved with Fear spam and the impressive DOT line-up. One of the best DPS classes for any PVE situation including end-game. Always near the top in BG's and only has problems in the Arena against people with anti-fear Trinkets and a Paladin healer.

Warrior - Great single target tank, best main tank for raids, especially against add-less bosses. Easy to gear for end-game tanking. Decent DPS (better than Paladin) but is better suited as a tank. Decent in PVP as a DPS build, making the honor grind much less painful than it is for a Paladin tank to get geared for Kara. Has a hard time in multiple target tanking due to the lack of AOE threat. Paladins excel in this field but even Druids do a better job.

A few ideas I had to help balance the game's class situations...

Druid - Gimp stealth, give it a long recast timer and make it less effective against other players. Opening moves should be very limited. Boost the level 70 offensive spells by a large margin to make Boomkin more effective in PVE. Druids don't need to be a rogue, a warrior, a caster DPS AND arguably the best all around healer in the game.

Hunter - Either boost the dmg on their primary DPS skills or give them some legitimate crowd control in order to make them more viable in PVE. Make the pet progression more even so it's not front end loaded. If I get owned by another 29 hunter twink I'm going to kill myself, then a month later the same hunter can't take me down more than 25 percent of my health before I kill him even when he's at 70 and I'm at 68.

Mage - Make the talent trees top-heavy, so more points have to be put into the tree to gain the real boons of that tree.

Paladin - Make gear progression easier by adding a tank set to the Gladiator PVP gear sets. Make the retribution tree front heavy so you get more DPS earlier, which will make Hybrid PVP builds more viable. If you're going to let mages blink with the flag and druids cat form with it, then let Paladins bubble with it. Paladin healers are getting love in the expansion, so just keep your pants on. Give Paladins a fear-resist aura.

Priest - Give them a HOT that's on par with the best Druid HOT. Make Shackle work on Demons as well as Undead.

Rogue - Get rid of one of their stuns, make their sap/mini-sap give the target stun immunity for 10 seconds.

Shaman - Shaman's need to be able to rely on their totems for a lot more than just a percentile boon here and there. Give them the totems that you give the NPC shamans, like the root totem that roots the enemy in place in waves. Or the fear totem that does AOE fear in short bursts. Give Enhance shamans a decent melee stun and Elemental shamans a good PVP viable CC. Give resto's a boost in single target heals and a opposite to their Wrath of Air totem, that does the same for heals as it does for Damage. Make all shields (lightning, water, earth) un-stealable like you did for the Locks and Mages last patch. It only makes sense. Ungimp the tremor totem, so that it actually works. You usually run away too fast for it's anti-fear wave to work even when you have increased totem range. Give them a elemental resist debuff for targets so they reduce the resists of nature/fire/frost/etc. Either make Totem of Wrath better or remove it and replace it with a viable 41 talent skill. </i>

Warlock - Reduce the amount of time their fears do, and increase the recast timer. OR - Make the fear time reduced when attacked, make fear a CC instead of a free kill. Everytime damage is done the fear's time is reduced by .5-1 second. OR - Give feared players "fear sickness" which makes them immune to fear effects for a period of time once they are feared (if they survive the first).

Warrior - Warriors should never be as effective at AOE threat as a Paladin, it's the one thing Paladins do better, but a little bit of an improvement to that would work wonders. Don't give them a better AOE, just give them a taunt that mimics the paladin 3-man taunt.

These are just my opinions and as most opinions go, a lot of people will hate them. This is to be expected, I welcome criticism in a intelligent form.

The seasons passed, the rain, snow and warmth of each passing phase. His peak was nearing, the Outlands surrounding him seemed less daunting with every new spell learned and new enemy vanquished. And yet, his power still seemed as if it could go on forever...

I hit 69 tonight.

One level to go, I thought about pulling an hall day-er and just sticking it out so I could get 70 out of the way. The motivation clearly was non-existent as I only thought about it for a few minutes before I decided against it. But I will hit it today when I get up.

I'm ready to not be obligated to do a quest, I'm ready to be able to do what I want and still be considered productive. The funny thing is that no matter what I accomplish at 70. No matter how many epics I obtain...no matter how much honor I gain, regardless of how bad ass my mount is... when the new expansion comes out. It's me and all of us starting all over. Remember what it was like to replace all of your purples from your level 60 grinding, with greens within the first few quests in Outlands?

Imagine that with all of the work you've done in Outlands... All of the BG grinding to get geared for Kara, and all of the Kara runs to move onto the next Raid, etc etc.

Seems sort of futile, doesn't it?

A fair Paladin crusader by the name of Faenath has been mentioned in the first volume of these sacred tomes. It is necessary that you know the history of his demise, to fully understand the rise of Ribs the Shaman. Read on and feel the triumphs and the tragedies of Faenath - the Blood Elf Paladin.

First you have to understand my history with WoW I suppose. You see it's a love hate relationship, filled with various retirements for various reasons. I have owned and played the game since it came out - had it pre-ordered even. I quit the first time around out of pure boredom. Probably due to my first character being a Paladin coupled with the fact that I only played with one friend instead of delving into the community atmosphere that sets an MMORPG apart from other genre types. I came back later to play again, I started a new Paladin - the downfall of this term no doubt. I quit a few months before TBC came out this time. I came back again a third time after TBC was out, to play with my real-life best friend. I had played Alliance in my earlier stints so when I joined his server as a member of the Horde it was admittedly refreshing (even though now its pretty clear that early zones are much better than the early horde zones). Another Paladin, this time a Blood Elf.

I stuck with it, I guess because over time I had really gained an affinity for the class. I was a masterful Paladin tank, as well as a masterful Paladin healer. I knew all of the pure and hybrid talent builds by heart and could answer any question you had. That combined with a good guild experience and playing with someone I talked to everyday really helped pull me through the progression. Soon I was in Outlands and ready to hit 70.

Around 62-63, I met a girl who we will call Lumi - she became my girlfriend as sad as it is to have a WoW girlfriend. But at the time she was amazing (the failure of this relationship is another blog all together). She helped pull me from 62-70 and I began indulging in the level 70 content. While the Paladin tank gear progression is a pain in the ass, it was still fun. I started playing less after a while because I had gotten into Age of Conan beta and had an entire guild infrastructure based on the game ready for it's launch.

Once AOC launched I basically quit all together, only logging in when I missed Lumi. Over time the new game became more and more mundane, it's community wasn't what I had hoped and the key features I had been looking forward too had been either delayed or scrapped all together. During my decline of interest in Conan I had logged in one day only to find the password of the account to be wrong.

Now here's where the amazing part comes in...

See, this account was my old friend's account. The one I talked about in the beginning, that had gotten me into MMORPG's and into WoW. We had known each other since High School, we were the nerds who played Magic the Gathering at lunch until I got cool my junior year and he transferred to a different school. But we still kept in contact and he got my into the genre through Shadowbane, the one and only real MMORPG. We went together into WoW and while I had my own account at one time, when I came back wanting to play but not wanting to buy TBC, he let me use his account saying he didn't use it much. I said cool and began paying for it. This went on and we shared the account (as I am paying for it).

Turns out he wanted to play again and couldn't figure out the password and thought to himself "I must have forgot it, let me reset it". So I talk to him and he gives me the auto-password assigned to the account. Fine and dandy, I didn't play much anyway but I wanted to be able to log in and check things.

A day or two go by and I try logging in again, it's changed again. This time my friend is impossible to reach. I figure he's just being his normal illusive self. So I wait around, then Lumi tells me that Faenath has disappeared all together. I'm like, "say what, ***?" So I invesitgate. I found out that Faenath no longer existed on Archimonde, and the Faenath's that existed elsewhere weren't the right fit to be mine (no transfering). Meaning a name change took place as well. I also found out that ...we'll call him Assholefacebitchcunt ...Dustin for short. We found out Dustin had me set to block on all of his IM programs.

So basically my friend of 6+ years through away our past because he wanted a 70. Keep in mind that the highest he had ever leveled a character was a 65 Night Elf hunter.

I still haven't decided to this day whether it was him or him under the influence of his snakedevil wife.

The end of that epic tail. Needless to say, this stin I have a brand new account with a brand new copy of WoW/TBC and will not be sharing with anyone again.

To Faenath, may he rest in piece.

The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months and as this happened the young Shaman could feel his powers become more and more monsterous as his enemies fell before him with more and more haste. Their lightning charred bodies served as a reminder of just how futile life really is....

So, I hit level 68 today. A little bit anti-climatic. It's funny how the only level that seems to matter now is 70. We used to look forward to 40, it was a mile stone and we could finally stop running around like knaves on our hooves and feet and so forth. Now that they bumped that requirement to level 30, it's so much easier to obtain that it almost doesn't matter. One day you're running the next you're riding. And lets face it, epic mounts stopped mattering as soon as you could fly around.

I figure the epic mounts will matter a lot more once the new expansion comes out, given I hear that you won't be able to fly about on Northrend until 78, not to mention the "cool" taxi feature, where you can haul your buddies around.

I've found that the game has become increasingly easy as I progressed from 60 and up. Mainly because outland gears you within the first hour of game play giving you greens that replaced your blues and purples (if you're old school and got the epic level 60 pre-TBC loot). Then you start getting the new skill starting at 62. At 66 I got my earth elemental totem, and at 68 my fire elemental totem. So basically I can solo the 2-3 group quests with little to no problems most of the time. I haven't decided if this is awesome or lame yet. I guess I'll go with awesome until someone uses it against me. And it's not like I can turn into a bear and heal myself with over powered DOTs, right? Right. <scoff>

The unfortunate part of this new character I'm running is that I am looking forward to level 70 battlegrounds. You think, well what's so wrong with that? Well if you've played any other MMORPG's long enough to gain max level then you know that PVP in WoW compared to most other games int he genre is a joke. It means that no matter how excited I am now, I'm only goign to be let down after I've grinded for a month and had little to no fun. The problem isn't really the game play, I realized a long time ago its the fact that the BG PVP experience is so...un-personal. Most of the time you don't know anyone, you rarely (I've never seen) see a guild pre-made, it's always realm pre-mades, and most of the time it's just a bunch of randoms who want to win a few marks.

Stay tuned next time for me ranting on about why I'm on Tichondrius and what's up with my guild "Protest The Hero"!

The dusty tomb lays lifelessly on the table of the Stormwind Library. Surrounded by walls of book-filled shelves and empty chairs. Even in the capitol of the Alliance you find yourself the only one in this room of intellect and knowledge. You run your hand across the tome's cover, a wave of dust swirling about in your wake. Across the front you read, "The Extra Ordinary Life of Ribs the Shaman" - you open it and begin to read. As you turn the pages they seem blank, but slowly they begin to fill. Soon you realize that this tome's appearance is a farce. It writes itself as the participant lives his life...a Draenei Shaman... you read on...

So, I've been playing World of Warcraft for quite some time, in fact I had it pre-ordered and played it the first day it launched. It has however, never had much staying power for me. I've always quit after about a month of play (enough time to get 40-45). I came back once, and leveled my first 70 (a 70 Blood Elf Paladin) however it was mostly in two stints that this happened, I again quit before I even hit 40, then came back and leveled it the rest of the way - with the help of a WoW addicted girlfriend at the time.

I quit again in preparation for Age of Conan, my hopes and dreams for the MMORPG genre lay within Funcom's new title. While the game shown brightly for the future of the genre, it did not keep my attention as most of the features I looked forward to prior to launch were simple not in yet or even just trashed completely.

I made my way back to Warcraft after a month or so.

I started a new character, Alliance this time - going back to my roots after a hiatus from the faction. I simply couldn't stomach the horde for another 1-70 run. This time I'm a Shaman, I needed to play a class that was effective at killing things. The changes in this time around have payed off, as I'm already at level 64 (65 tomorrow) and am feeling pretty good about the game.

Meaning; there are two reasons for my ability to endure the game. I'm active. Things like Questhelper have really kept me in a flow of activity, there's no dead time. I always have something to do, rather than standing around wondering what to do next. Another, WoW could be growing on me more and more as I play it. Lets face it, end game content in TBC is easily the best content in the entire game. So being able to strive for that part of the game is a great feeling.

The only downside of course is the imminent release of Wrath of the Lich King. Filled with features they shouldn't have bothered with, lacking all of the features that should have been a no-brainer by now.

Let's hope they can make the new content original enough that it's not just a snowy version of Outlands.