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.