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2,000 fans queue up for Oxford Street launch

The latest expansion for World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, attracted a staggering 2,000 people to its Oxford Street launch – more than turned out for launches like the PlayStation 3 or Apple's iPhone 3G.

World of Warcraft is one of the most played games on the planet, with in excess of 10 million active accounts – paying a monthly fee for access to the virtual world of Azeroth.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/world-of-warcra... 

In what is perhaps the most shining example of obsession and geekiness I have ever seen, a fella by the name of Bradster has 36 World of WarCraft accounts that he plays on 11 computers simultaneously. He mainly seems to be doing it because he doesn’t like to rely on so many other people to get a raid going, which includes attacking the Alliance capital cities, and on that front I can totally see where he’s coming from.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/10/wow-whore-has-36-ac... 

Forget the infamous $600 toilet seat. When it comes to tax dollar expenditures that might raise an eyebrow, how does $100,000 to research how Americans play World of Warcraft sound?

As reported by the Orange County Register, Prof. Bonnie Nardi (left) of the University of California Irvine, received the $100K grant from the National Science Foundation for the project. At issue: why American players go to greater lengths to mod the popular MMO than do Chinese WoW players...

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/17/prof-gets-100... 

Jewelcrafting is the fine art of taking very precious gems and refining them to unleash their full potential. It requires the expansion, The Burning Crusade, in order to learn and is a very powerful profession. Jewelcrafters can create both precious gems (which can be socketed into items) and amazing jewelry.

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26727 

Enchanting is one of the primary professions in World of Warcraft. Anyone who takes up the trade of Enchanting become an Enchanter which means they have the ability to enchant (add stats and effects to) items and the ability to disenchant (destroy items to turn their magical properties into items that can be reused in Enchanting) items.

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26723 

Cooking is one of WoW's "secondary" trade skills, meaning everyone can learn to cook. While you can only have two "primary" professions (like Mining, Herbalism, or Leatherworking) you can train as many secondary skills as your wish at the same time. First Aid and Fishing are the two other secondary skills.

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26720 

Skinning is a gathering skill that allows you to take a Skinning knife and skin various beasts, dragonkins, and silithids to gather leather, hides, and scales. Some enemies can be skinned, while others can’t, but those that can be provide extra income from enemies already slain. The materials gathered from Skinning are useful in numerous trades and can be sold for a good bit at the auction house!

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26719 

Herbalism is the profession for picking various herbs used mostly in the by Alchemy. Herbs are spread throughout every zone in the game and many are considered very valuable, even if they aren’t all that rare! Herbalism is very similar to Skinning and Mining in that it is a gathering profession used to gather resources to be used in other professions.

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26716 

Tailoring is a primary profession designed to create various pieces of equipment out of cloth tailored mostly towards Priests, Mages, and Warlocks. Cloth is a resource that is obtained from the world from various enemies (mostly enemies that are the “Humanoid” type).

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26712 

The profession of Engineering can be a difficult but ultimately a very rewarding one! There are many things that an engineer gains access to that no other class can get, for example class specific epic helms and created epic flying machines. These abilities alone attract many players.

http://tentonhammer.com/node/26709