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Lets go back about ten years or so to the original EverQuest. Now it isn't my intention to pick on any one game, I just happen to be more familiar with it than Ultima Online or Meridian 59. For the sake of immersion let me assume the role of a 1999 copy of EverQuest that you happen to be playing on your gaming machine back in the last year of the last century.

You just died in EverQuest. How dare you die! Since you had the nerve to be defeated in combat, you'll now be required to run from your binding point -- which could potentially be very far away -- to your dead body, which contains all of your equipment and bags that just happen to hold all of your inventory. If you fail to do this, then you lose all of these items. Oh but you've already lost some experience and possibly de-leveled if you happened to have recently leveled up.

Hey! Why are you logging out? So what if you think you'd rather play Half-Life right now, this is the game you're paying for monthly. Don't you think you'd better get the most out of it? Hah! See? I knew you were only bluffing. All right, now get to running, noob.

When you watch the video embedded above, you may think it's just another weird hack by people with too much time on their hands. But right about the 00:44 mark, suddenly you see the potential: working off that World of Warcraft bulge!

Yes, these enterprising souls have managed to turn the Wii Fit balance board into an alternative method for traversing the Azerothian landscape. Of course, the health benefits are mitigated by the fact that there's no way you'll be able to balance on the board while trying to manipulate a keyboard at the same time, even if you are a macros master. But if you're desperate for some sort of exercise and can't abide the thought of actually going outside, this might be the device for you.

Our recent in-depth look at the flood of information concerning World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion gave us some cause for speculation. Specifically, the news about the multiple-rider mounts has given us an intriguing idea for a new way to make money in-game.

There are two levels to this idea, and they both revolve around players who don't have access to high-speed mounts of their own. One briefly wonders why this change in transportation was implemented, but only briefly. Once the possibilities become clear, there will undoubtedly arise new uses for the piggyback functionality that are still somewhat nebulous at this stage. With no further ado, our ideas after the jump.

We knew there were geeks in the writer's stable at Comedy Central, but now it's confirmed: there are gamers, too. For their Indecision 2008 site, Comedy Central has put together a handy one-sheet of the three major candidates, and what they will need to focus on to win the votes of various classes in World of Warcraft.

Anyone with general knowledge could have put this together, but there's one particular bit that makes us think at least one writer is a WoW player: For the Druid vote, Hilary Clinton needs to understand that they dislike that "Her dominant stance disrupts Feral Combat spells." Look over the list and see if you can find the candidate who best represents your character!

[Via TenTonHammer]

File this under "Hilarious", and "Fairly Embarrassing". Featured at Cuppytalk, we see a screenshot taken from Legends of Norrath (click the picture for a full-sized version). It appears an epic battle has just been won, and upon close examination of the stirring victory message, something isn't quite right:

You have defeated the Bridge Keeper and all three of the Royal Family of Di'zok to become the rulers of the castle of Chardok! The bards and troubadours of Azeroth will sing your praises for years to come!

That's right, your great deed is so immense that it transcends game universes. Now all that's left is to find out where the portal between the two is, so that you can meet up with your new fans in distant lands.

Yesterday, Tobold made a post concerning the question of whether or not World of Warcraft can be, well, "out-WoWed" -- as he puts it. The game he proceeds to create via his list o' features is aimed at an even more casual audience than the one already playing in Azeroth. After reading through the list and considering its intent to draw in a much more casual market, we sort of feel confused.

One of the best machinimas created in World of Warcraft was actually made almost three years ago, and still lives on in machinimators today. With over 20,000 videos uploaded to Warcraftmovies, Here Without You, by Dimoroc, was one of the first 1200. Many filmmakers have since tried to replicate the raw emotion evoked in this video, but few have succeeded.

Here Without You centers around the origin of a Forsaken, from how he came to be, to how he's haunted by his past. Using only music and interactions, instead of dialogue, Dimoroc was able to create a moving display of love. After posting this video, he disappeared, which is a real shame, because he helped pave the way for so many talented machinimators after him.

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

So when you read the title up there, did you think that this story was going to be a downer? We did too, until it read through this very engrossing article. Written by Stacey Allen, the entire thing explores her rise to a gamer with the help of her husband and her (and his, of course) eventual magnetic meeting with World of Warcraft. It's a very enjoyable read that explores her various experiences with gaming more than anything else.

We couldn't help but feel a bit moved by the whole thing, which does end with a snap back to WoW. Still, when you hear about all those relationships destroyed or families torn asunder and then read this article it really puts a contrastive light on the whole issue. Stacey and Michael have found a way to stay close to each other, even if that happens to be traipsing around Azeroth each night. It would be nice if there were more stories like this, not just about WoW but about gaming in general.

World of Warcraft's Bloodmyst Isle has a fascinating sky -- going from brilliant red during the day to this tranquil purple in the evening. Reader John sent us this shot with little explanation, so we can only take it at face value: as a lovely scene of the moon rising over Azeroth's shores. (Also available in wallpaper size.)

One Shots lives on a steady diet of your screenshots! Snapped a good screenshot lately? Tired of seeing the same old games featured? Send us shots from your favorite game! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.

You wouldn't think that Westfall, one of World of Warcraft's starter (level 10-20 or so) zones, would be a scary place. However, perhaps for Twinkletowz, the level 13 pink-haired Gnome warrior (for those who don't play WoW, yes, there is such a thing, and those little anklebiters can be a fierce as any Orc!), this buzzard in the moonlight provided a confrontation of epic proportions. For animal-lovers in the audience, we're told that buzzards were harmed in the making of this screenshots -- virtual buzzards, at least.

One Shots lives on a steady diet of your screenshots! Snapped a good screenshot lately? Tired of seeing the same old games featured? Send us shots from your favorite game! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.

Reader Chord on World of Warcraft's Icecrown realm offers us this shot of Darkshore in Kalimdor. This particular shot of the forest catches the scenery at its most pastoral -- for much of the landscape maintains grey tones and a tired appearance of faded grandeur. (And if you like it, it's also available in wallpaper size.)

One Shots lives on a steady diet of your screenshots! Snapped a good screenshot lately? Tired of seeing the same old games featured? Send us shots from your favorite game! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.

Snapped any good screenshots recently? Send them to us so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.

Here's video via Gamepolitics.com of the march that took place last night in Azeroth (a.k.a. the World of Warcraft) to support Ron Paul, a Republican candidate for the president of the United States. We originally reported on this topic over at WoW Insider (which, if I may say so, was one of the reasons so many people showed up), and we'll have more coverage of the march last night there soon.

But while Gamepolitics gives a good man-on-the-scene writeup, they also avoid the real question here: does real-world politics belong in a world like Azeroth at all? No one questions it when politicians show up in Second Life-- in fact, the few Second Lifers I know take it as a badge of honor that their world is important enough to host those folks. And certainly there are places where politics don't belong-- on WoW's roleplaying servers, discussion of the real-world is a no-no.

But let's not forget that we players aren't just avatars in a game- we're real people with opinions of our own to express, whether they be political or otherwise. Whether they should have or not (and many players on Whisperwind, where the rally took place, where extremely unhappy with the queues and congestion on their server last night), they expressed those opinons last night.

Update: Looks like Paul also wins the presidential naming race.