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."

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?"

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.

Here's a sample:

Finally, we got lots of tips about this one (thanks, everybody!): Vindication on Bladefist saw about 15 of their top raiders decide to leave for another server, and it led to this amazing thread of drama-- it doesn't take more than a page before girlfriends start getting attacked. Oh, and there's more (isn't there always?): Gimped, leader of Vindication, was apparently seriously angry that Unrest, another guild on Bladefist, had beaten them to a kill, and that's why he decided to ninja their guild bank, and haul off with a few of his closest friends to Stormrage. And the best part of all? When they started recruiting on Stormrage, they didn't exactly get a warm reception. And as for Vindication, Bladefist's Alliance side has decided to team up like never before-- Unrest is actually helping their former rivals, since they've proven they can progress without Gimped and his crowd.

From a blue poster on the forums:

We have information in the works, but I'd caution people that it's not going to be today or even Monday, but we have plans and are working to put things together that will hopefully make the wait worthwhile.

I'd also caution people about getting their expectations up in regard to "sweeping class changes". Again, we have many things in the works and a definite plan of action that we will share with you all more as we progress.

As always, I'll remind people that if we don't post patch notes, they aren't the real deal. We create them, we post them, we make them reality. Don't supplant someone's fantasy patch notes for the real ones in your heads. It will only end in tears on so many fronts.

GrimTotem Spirit Guides are no longer tamable, but if you managed to get one already, you get to keep it!

Through a hotfix we’ve recently removed the ability to tame a Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Players who have already gone through the trouble of taming the creature will be able to keep them unchanged. This hotfix only removes the possibility to tame this creature from here on.

The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game. The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.

Ultimately the discussions brought us to the conclusion that this should not be a permanent addition to the pet selection available to hunters; however, those that have already tamed them should be allowed to keep them due to their efforts in obtaining one.

Again more from Tigole, this time he tells us that all battlemasters will now be on platforms. So no more big fat ass taurens blocking them!

In 2.4, the Battlemasters are standing on platforms with collision around them.

We're also working on a better solution for Wrath of the Lich King.

Do you, like me, think that the 1 week timer on Kara is too long? Well don't hold your breath for a change... Blizzard have no such plans!

We don't have any plans to shorten the Karazhan timer at this point in time. We're comfortable with how it is and so far, people seem to be getting good advantage out of the badge rewards from there.

Sometimes it seems every time Blizzard fixes an exploit in the game, another one pops up because of the fix. At least that's what this guy says (and he does make sense).

Blizzard is the undisputed king of polish in the MMO landscape but they sure seem to suffer from short sightedness in their game mechanics sometimes. Maybe this is not because of any fault of their own but rather the size of the game they manage. Its hard to predict the effects of a patch on a virtual world when it has over 8 millions random variables running around. A high amount of players definitely seems to increase the odds of someone finding a way to exploit any new changes. Human nature and competition makes sure knowledge of the exploit spreads quickly. Lets look at some recent unintended consequences Blizzard created and ignore the classics like Hakkar's Curse of Blood incident.

Some fairly juicy stuff in the latest Guild Watch, I suggest that you check it out. Sample:

We reported on Team sYn of Malfurion a while back-- their GL passed off duties to a friend, who then passed them back and caused the guild to disintegrate. All we've got this week is a little more detail on what he did when he came back-- apparently there was a pair in the guild that got promoted to officer status, and that spun a lot of people the wrong way. So lesson (if there even is one, other than don't reinvite an old GL who's already left the guild): be careful who you promote to officer.

Looks like Ritual of Refreshment Ninja's are out and about. Lol.

I'm afraid Thunderwulf is correct, Archralca, as with looting out of turn taking items from the table would not be considered a violation of our policies. It is unfortunate that someone would take advantage of the table when a Mage takes the time and spends the resources to make it. :(

If you feel the functionality of the table should be changed it would be best to post on our Suggestion Forums, this would need to be changed on a developmental level.

Blizzard FINALLY seem about to do something about the 2v2 Arena queues:

It's an issue, and we're aware and will be making changes to help with the wait times. The change will require a patch, but will not be a part of 2.3.2. I'll state a vague "future patch" just to be safe, but we're hoping to resolve the wait times as soon as possible.

The change will make it so that more instances can kick up in a shorter amount of time. Which doesn't necessarily mean there can't ever be a wait again, but it should drastically decrease them. Of course, prime-time 2v2 is still going to be run the most and susceptible to the longest wait, but our hope would be to make "the longest wait" inconsequential.

Some alright stuff in the New Years edition of Guild Watch, although I wanna hear more stuff of ninja'ing etc! Here's a sample:

An anonymous tipster tries to set the record straight on the Kryptonite on Draka-H drama we reported on a few weeks ago: apparently the person wanting to start their own raid wasn't just rolling their own raid-- they were trying to steal members of other raids to do it. It wasn't a time argument-- our tipster passionately argues that the person "wanted to take members from other teams already raiding with each other." Clearly unacceptable. Right? I'm confused now.

I don't fully understand it, but some dude got fired for playing World of Warcraft, at home, during his time off.