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Kristen Kalning, the games editor of MSNBC, asked her readers, "What game hooked you and why?" After the flood of e-mails finished cascading through her inbox and she tallied the votes in each one, it wasn't surprising that World of Warcraft came up as the leader.

While she does say that other games like City of Heroes, and other non MMO games like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and even Guitar Hero came up, her article took the time to mostly focus on the addicting properties of WoW. Readers added their own tales of addiction and the addiction of others, and Kalning relates some of the most woe-worthy stories she received in her inbox.

However, the article isn't all doom and gloom. One reader took the time to talk about how Guild Wars helped her with her shyness while another reader explained the proud feeling his Halo 3 accomplishments give him. It's always nice to see that games aren't harming the social habits of every gamer who picks up a controller or keyboard and mouse.

If you're fascinated by addiction, or just looking for a story to scare your WoW addicted spouse, be sure to drop by and check out her article, as well as the original. If it's the addicted spouse, however, may we interest you in a detox clinic?

Now that the April 2008 Zaishen Tournament is over, commemorating the third anniversary of ArenaNet's Guild Wars, we look forward to a completely revamped tournament system with new rewards, in-game prizes, items and a shiny new Zaishen title track.

The way this new system works, whenever you use a Zaishen Key on a Zaishen Chest, you get 5 Zaishen Reputation Points which accumulate towards this new title track. Each rank of this title track, from 1 to 12, has its own unique name. In addition, you'll receive infinite-use Transmogrifier Tonics that will change for each month of the tournament, and special rank emotes which will be progressively more impressive the higher they get from rank 1 to rank 7. Be sure to check out the Guild Wars website for complete information on these rewards and a video of the rank 7 emote in action!

We haven't seen too terribly many Guild Wars pictures for a while now, so when we saw this mail come in, we did a happy dance. Today's One Shots comes to us courtesy of Shawn W. He explained that this image is from near the Doomlore Shrine in the Eye of the North expansion area in Guild Wars. We know very little beyond that in regards to this image, but we are glad to see some more Guild Wars love!

Do you have an image from a game we haven't covered in a while -- or ever? If so, drop those screenshots into an email and send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com! We love visiting lots of different lands.

The last day dawns on the Kingdom of Ascalon. It arrives with no fanfare, no tolling of alarms. Those who will remember, will speak fondly of the warm morning breeze. People carry on with their daily lives, unaware that in a short while... everything they have ever known will come to an end.

This is the opening dialogue for the original Guild Wars, directly after you initially create your character in Prophecies. It lets us know that the beauty we are about to experience in what is known as "Pre-Searing Ascalon" will only be temporary.

The name "Pre-Searing" comes from the fact that everything in this tutorial area of GW:Prophecies occurs before the Searing, when the evil Charr burned the lands of Ascalon to the ground. Because of the fact that it precedes the rest of the storyline by two years, the area cannot be accessed again once you leave. For this reason, you will find many players who remain in the Pre-Searing area permanently, as a roleplaying homage to their original homeland and its preservation. In fact, this starter area has had such an impact on players that an entire fan-based community has been created around it.

In respect to the continuing Guild Wars third anniversary coverage, we're proud to announce an important new promotion from the good folks at ArenaNet. The Guild Wars Third Anniversary Sweepstakes runs from April 28th until May 31st with the actual drawing itself being conducted on June 11th, 2008. Not only is this one easy to enter for anyone, but it includes some pretty sweet real-world prizes.

One lucky grand prize winner will receive a powerful Alienware Area-51 laptop, while other prizes include an ATI Radeon HD 3870 video card, a Logitech 5.1 speaker system and many more valuable peripheral hardware devices. Be sure to read the entire rules on the main website and tell 'em Massively sent you! No, seriously, it would be awesome of you.

So you think you want to get into Guild Wars PvP. Maybe you've taken a look at Observer Mode and thought, "Hey, I can do that!". For the sake of argument, let's assume that you're a veteran Guild Wars player, but you've focused solely on PvE for the duration of your stay in Tyria. Let's continue the hypotheticals and say you've become quite bored with farming the same vermin, or clearing out the same certain Woe of the Fissure-like nature night after night with PUGs. After almost three years of playing against mobs and spawns with predictable patrol patterns, you're looking for something new to spice up your favorite game.

PvP in Guild Wars can be quite intimidating at first. You can enter one of the arenas, jump into a battle and get slaughtered in a matter of seconds unless you know what you're doing. This might be the very thing that has turned you off of PvP in the past, but we're here to make sure you get off on the right foot to eventually enjoy your PvP experience. You'll be flashing a Phoenix before you know it!

Look! Up in the Guild Wars sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's super-goth! (We can't quite peg the class, so those of you out there who play Guild Wars, help us out with this necroelemesmer class puzzle.) Seriously, though -- this One Shot today from reader Mike shows what happens when a dead character meets a clip plane. It looks like he's flying until you notice the half-rendered steps just to the lower right of this picture. The really creepy thing is that his eyes are still open. We hope someone came along and gave the poor guy a rez!

Do you have a screen of an unfortunate and untimely (or funny) death? Did your guild finally get that annoying boss down after a bunch of attempts? How about some off-the wall graphical glitches in your game of choice? Whatever the story, we want to see your screens! All MMOs are welcome from Anarchy Online to Zu Online and everything in between. Drop them in the mail to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with whatever information you'd like to give us. Your screens could be next!

If you're a fan of music at all, you probably already know who Sarah Brightman is. Her voice transcends all genres, ranging from pop, rock, musical theatre, core classical and world music. Her career has spanned three decades and her name has become synonymous with the new "pop opera" style.

Great, but what does any of this have to do with MMOs?

If you check out the cover of her recent album, and you're a Guild Wars player, you may notice some similarities. Symphony, the latest release from Sarah Brightman, features artwork done by ArenaNet Art Director Daniel Dociu. Both the album and her website spotlight Guild Wars concept art, as well as original art created specifically for Symphony.

In what seems a continuing stream of Guild Wars community news coverage by us in the past week, we have yet another tidbit concerning their newest Community Manager. Regina Buenaobra has taken the reins over at ArenaNet, after Gaile Gray was promoted within the company earlier this week.

Regina, also known as Brinstar over at her blog Acid for Blood, has been blogging about Guild Wars and other games for several years now. Before this recent move, she was the Community Manager for Xfire, so she does have experience in this context. She lists her main character as a Necromancer/Mesmer, which certainly gets her some cool points in our book. We wish her all the best in her new position and her new move from California to Washington.

As we reported last week, ArenaNet's Community Relations Manager, Gaile Gray will be switching roles at the company. So this weekend was her final farewell. She appeared in-game in Guild Wars to celebrate her last days with the players, as did the infamous Frog on his farewell tour as well. Every 3 hours, The Frog appeared in each district of Kamadan, Lion's Arch and Shing Jea Monastery, granting special party buffs for players who attended and performed certain emotes at his request. It was very reminiscent of the Mad King's appearances during the Halloween events, complete with that unique humor we can only find at these events. I'm sure the Sugar Hill Gang would be proud of The Frog's rendition of Rapper's Delight.

While this special buff was active, players would earn double the points for using party items towards their Party Animal title. This led to an overall heightened festive mood for the entire weekend with bottle rockets, sparklers and champagne poppers flooding our screens. We wish Gaile and The Frog all the best in the future.

As we originally reported yesterday, it seems ArenaNet's community team is going through even more changes with the recent announcement that Andrew Patrick is changing roles as well. As with his predecessor Gaile Gray, Andrew will be remaining with ArenaNet, but moving onto a QA position in hopes of furthering his knowledge of the gaming industry from within, and getting more directly involved with the development team.

Many Guild Wars PvP players know Andrew from his involvement with everything from high-profile tournaments to the casual GvG. Some had speculated that he would be the one taking Gaile's place as Community Relations Manager, but this latest news certainly throws a monkeywrench in that idea. We think our next concern is who will fill their shoes? They're certainly going to be large shoes to fill.

We were hoping it was just a cruel April Fool's joke, but it turns out Gaile Gray, ArenaNet's Community Relations Manager will be stepping down from her heralded position, and relocating within the company. This will officially take place on April 7th, so in celebration of her time with the company, there will be a special in-game event which begins at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT) on Friday, April 4, 2008 and will run all weekend, ending at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT) on Monday, April 7, 2008. There will be games, treat giveaways and much more.

Gaile Gray has been with ArenaNet from the beginning, over 7 years now. She's redefined what it means to be a Community Manager, often times seen within the game to relay news or simply hang out with the players. As a result of this, she's gained a status that approaches celebrity, as she's admired by many. But that said, a high-profile job like hers in a game that has exploded in popularity as much as Guild Wars has, would certainly take its toll after that many years. We certainly wish her the best in her new position at ArenaNet. Be sure to check out her wiki page where she gives her own personal farewell note to the players.

GG Gaile, you'll be missed.

As we haven't heard anything from the Guild Wars crowd in a while, we thought it would be fun to show off a lovely screen from GW. This picture is of a landscape captured from the original Guild Wars, with lovely fall foliage all around. (Sadly, no stick people, because that would have been hilarious.)

Do you have some screenshots from your favorite game? It can be picturesque, funny, full of folks, barren of life, odd, full of battle and spell effects -- we take them all! Just send them to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com. Without your screens we're left to our own devices and while we're also playing all over the place, it's only one side of the story. We'd love to see yours too!