Here's a CNN article on video game addiction.

Consider Zach Elliott, who lives in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, is in his mid-40s, and plays Final Fantasy XI, an online role-playing game. About three years ago, he says, "there were people in my real life that sort of vanished into this game, and I followed them into it."

Now he spends three hours a day playing the game on a computer in his basement. "I could have never anticipated the sort of draw the game has had for me, and how involved I would get," he says. "It still surprises me."

The 2.4 PTR is now officially up and as you would expect MMO Champion have all the patch notes.

Check it out. 

An interesting piece on age restrictions in World of Warcraft...

For environments like Second Life and World of Warcraft, think for a minute about the benefits of an age restricted server. On the adult side of things there would be less interference from age related and maturity issues*. Things like talking in l33t s93ak, the social issues of growing children and teens, and not having to worry about age appropriate content/conversations would be a very good thing for many of the adult players out there.

Why are people so worried about the 2.4 patch? Here a blue poster confirms that the notes will be released no earlier than when the PTR goes up.

We can't give an ETA other than that the notes will go up when the PTR does.

It has been confirmed that a Legendary bow will drop from a boss, maybe Kil'Jaeden.

A few more details on this legendary weapon : it will be a loot like the Warglaives of Azzinoth, not a reward from a quest like Thunderfury.

Here's a taste of this weeks version of GuildWatch. The full thing after the jump...

A strange tale of almost-drama from Drak'Thul-A. Khaos Society is a guild that is just starting to take down Gruul, while Blood Moon Clan is a guild that has Kara on farm, but hasn't rounded up enough to go to Gruul. So Khaos was eight people short on a Gruul run, and they invited BMC folks to go with them. Unfortunately, Khaos' lost lambs showed up before the raid started, so KS kicked the BMC folks to let their guildies in. That means drama right there, right? Wrong-- BMC talked with KS, and the two guilds decided, instead of fighting, to merge into Blood and Khaos. They've got the people and the raiders now to head into the higher content. Good for them.

Pretty funny/interesting story about some guys guild mate getting hacked/h4x0r4d.

On Saturday night I noticed a guildie acting strangely. He kept switching between characters and wouldn't respond to tells from even his closest friends in the guild. Concerned about him, we gave him a call... on the phone, to see what was up. You guessed it, he was nowhere near his computer at the time. He went to log in and found his password was changed. Unfortunately, he had also forgotten the correct response to his secret question "What is your favorite activity?"

With regard to class changes... consider this patch "progressive". Well I would hate for it to be regressive!

I'm going to be a bit cautious in what I say in this regard. Will there be some changes to classes? Yes, there will be some. We're not rushing into a bunch of class changes for this patch at this point. Consider the patch to be a bit more progressive in nature. As we go along, the developers are going to be keeping a close eye on the results of any changes and additions and then making changes as they feel they are necessary. How many changes occur are going to be based on testing over time. This is why it's important for players to get in and test it as much as possible.

We want to make sure that the changes we are making are viable and practical for continued balance of the classes and don't want to put in too many changes at once and essentially skew the results too much one way or another. 

Curse have launched a new World of Warcraft database, and there is already a bit of drama around it being too familiar to WoW Head...

Kevin Van Ness, Content and Community Manager for Curse, has officially responded to us, saying that he recognizes the similarity between the two sites, and says it's the result of the creator, who had previously been working on a Lord of the Rings Online database that was also very similar to Wowhead, creating a design that was "very much inspired by Wowhead." (WoW Insider notes that it is up to Wowhead, the originators of the design, to decide whether it is a result of inspiration or a blatant ripoff.)

Van Ness also points out that the WOWDB design includes a number of unique features, and says that Curse will implement more in the future.

On the subject of WoWWiki, Van Ness says that Curse entered an agreement with WoWWiki to create a portal to the wiki via their site, and it is WoW Insider's belief that their use of WoWWiki content on WOWDB falls not under any "exclusive contract agreement," but under the standard Wikia Terms of Use, which allow any site to reprint Wikia content, as long as it is sourced, credited and licensed appropriately.

The Caverns of Time portal will be available to everyone... with the appropriate rep.

It will be available for anyone with the appropriate reputation. We plan to make it as easily accessible to everyone as possible, but you will still need to get a sufficient amount of reputation (easily gained ) before being able to use it.

The second episode the BlizzCast is coming soon!

We have actually just finished recording episode two, having a total of 4 different Devs talking with us. The show will have almost double the content of the first episode- should be fun :)

2.4 Patch notes are starting to come in slowly, here's a good summary from the people at MMO-Champion.