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Today's One Shots actually comes to us from our generous (and seriously envied) Senior Network Editor, Elizabeth Harper. For those of you trying to peg what area in World of Warcraft this is, we'll save you the trouble -- it's from Wrath of the Lich King. Liz let us know that this area is: Howling Fjord -- located near Vengeance Landing, the Horde camp you get to via Zeppelin from UC. The Undead are trying to finish off a group of Alliance whose ship crashed in the area. Of course, she then had to dash off and catch another plane as she generally does, but we thank her for sending this cool looking Wrath teaser along to share!

Did you also make it into the Wrath of the Lich King beta? With the NDA off, why not send some awesome screenshots of the new areas our way too. You know you want to share with all the rest of the poor folk (like this blogger) who didn't happen to make it in. Just send any and all screenshots of MMOs to us here at oneshots AT massively.com, and be sure to include a quick blurb about what we're looking at.

For anyone who has ever played World of Warcraft (especially as a Horde player leveling through this area) you'll understand just how unusual this screenshot is. It was taken in the Barrens area in World of Warcraft. The unique thing is that this doesn't involve Alliance rolling into the area, guards attacking, players PvPing, or any Chuck Norris jokes. Not one! It's just a pure, unspoiled landscape -- a rare find. Nate D. figured he'd send this in, since he caught a quiet moment at dawn. Quiet moments in the Barrens are certainly hard enough to find on many servers! (Of course, it helps if you turn the UI off or /leave general too.)

Do you have a screenshot you've taken from your daily journeys? If so, we'd love to see them. Just send them to us here at oneshots AT massively.com. We'll get them all set up and ready to go, and you get the credit for snapping a cool picture and telling us a bit about it. Can't beat that!

When Warhammer Online releases later this year do you think there will be a skewed realm population? The GREENSkin blog seems to think so, but history would disagree with them. Whenever a game has been faction-based the "evil" races tend to be popular during the beta period. This fear of imbalance was a issue in Dark Age of Camelot and in World of Warcraft. During both of those instances beta testers expressed worry that the more evil of the realms would be entirely overpopulated post launch. However, the exact opposite happened to the complete befuddlement of beta testers everywhere.

Watching the final season of the new Battlestar Galactica the other night, and getting only a taste of the amazing, chaotic, shaky-cam ship-to-ship action left us wanting more. But even better than a full episode devoted to space combat would be an MMO based in that world. How would that work, you ask? We're glad you did! Keep in mind that this article assumes basic knowledge of the show universe and its characters. If you haven't seen it, get thee to a torrent, or a rental store immediately!

First, consider some of the great two-sided rivalries in MMOs: Horde vs. Alliance; AFS vs. the Bane; Humanity vs. Hell -- Mankind vs. the Cylons fits right in. In fact, since the show itself manages to portray both sides as sympathetic, there isn't too much storyline massaging to be done; the universe of Galactica is nicely morally ambiguous. All that really matters is survival.

Here's an example on how to take a really cool concept and make a bad choice. Not that we think the etching itself looks bad, but there are all sorts of other cool WoW designs the owner could have put on this Macbook. We certainly understand the meaning of putting the very image players see when entering World of Warcraft's uh, world, onto your machine. To be honest we were half-expecting to see a Horde or Alliance symbol when we first heard of this homebrewed homage. That being said, the skills of whoever etched this are quite impressive; can we resist saying level 325 etching skill? Nope, we can't.

If it were up to us, there would probably be something ridiculous on there like a bunch of Murlocs playing Poker or maybe some kind of breakdancing Troll.

World of Warcraft has received its fair share of criticism concerning the necessity of having the best gear. Casual players often find it impossible to acquire. Raiders spend hours getting their sets built. PvPers can't live. Often times, your ability to fight and win is not dictated by your cleverness or strategy. It is determined by just how much your Frost Bolt can crit for.

As a few articles on PvP in World of Warcraft note, PvP is a meaningless struggle that simply makes that poor little level thirty gnome wish he never walked through STV. This form of PvP, commonly known as the gank, occurs mainly in the open world, in between the great cities and towns, where quests are painstakingly completed. Players will leave a neutral city only to be bombarded by hostiles ambushing unlucky travelers right outside the gates. Though Horde and Alliance die in droves in this manner, no one tends to care. The sun still shines upon Stormwind, the plague remains untouched, and the banners of war seem to have been furled up and forgotten. Yet the one defining moment after a kill, be it hard or easy, Arena or BG, is the receipt of the honor point.

By turning in honor points, players can work their way up the ranks to acquire Tier 6 gear. The more honor points, the bigger the sword. With this system in place, Blizzard has managed to make another aspect of the game quite gear dependent. Players with more time wielding the blade have a definite advantage over those who are just starting out in the realm of combat. Fighting in the WoW Arena quite often resembles reaching for a carrot on a stick. You may read Patton when you wake up, you may watch old war movies and study game footage, but you may not own that elite sword of gnome crushing and without that, you're toast.

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.

Darkfall is an up-and-coming MMO that we haven't given much time to on Massively, but reading over this recently-released 'Dev Journal' on the WarCry Network, it sounds like there's a lot there to sustain interest.

Just from this latest Journal entry by Tasos Flambouras, I'm picking out intriguing details:

• No radar: meaning that it's possible to engage in guerilla tactics and not have retaliation easily track you out of line of sight
• Alignment matters: it sounds like the only thing a player should concern himself over is his alignment, even more than guild alliance. Your moral posture will determine the method of play
• Multirace guilds, or clans: this sounds similar to Horde vs. Alliance interplay, but with a little more complexity
• Real-time combat: body strike location, weapon range, friendly fire, multiple opponent strikes with a single swing ... sounds like the Age of Conan take on combat, but with just ... more

Now, I'm not saying there aren't other games out there that offer these things and more, but these guys have the advantage of being in development and learning from other MMO mistakes. Read all about Darkfall on its website.

Actually, the Hello Kitty UI interface is faction-agnostic. And I'm not sure how HK would voice her allegiance anyway -- she has no mouth and she must scream. Regardless, Alice over at Wonderland links to two separate instances of a Hello Kitty-themed interface for WoW, one of them from famed virtual worlder Joi Ito. As she says, "Bloody hell ... it's horrible :o)"

If Blizzard released an epic set of Hello Kitty armor tomorrow, how many of you would jump at it?