Back in beta, my husband rolled a gnome mage and had a grand old time trouncing around Azeroth. He decided not to continue playing so the copy we preordered became mine. I rolled a gnome rogue on another realm, played for a time, and rolled a gnome mage for giggles, and to rub in his face that I could level faster than he could.

About this time, our son (then seven and a half) was struggling in school with reading and making bad decisions. He was constantly in trouble for doing things that resulted from bad choices. One of his favorite activities had become watching my gnomes vanquish foes and commit various acts of mischief. He then asked if he could make a character, just to try. I decided, why not? No harm.

He sat at the computer and created a human warrior with blond hair and a childlike expression. He looked around the room and saw a poster from the second Lord of the Rings movie and a bottle of Febreeze. Febrower was born. He watched the opening sequence with rapture and became very excited as the camera panned over the Northshire Abbey and there stood his new valiant hero.

He approached the quest giver and, with painful tedium, read the quest instructions out loud. Off he went, killing all manner of everything until his quest was complete and he turned it in. He continued on his path toward greatness...or so he saw it, slowly gaining levels. What he didn't realize was he was also gaining speed and accuracy in his reading abilities. He was gaining social skills that will serve him the rest of his life.

In addition, this has helped with motivating him to actually do his homework, which used to be a major battle. That is, he isn't allowed to play until his homework is done and his room is clean. He also doesn't get into trouble at school like he once did, because he knows if he does, playing World of Warcraft is out of the question.

Febrower now stands proudly at level 46, the product of a year and a half's occasional play. His favorite things to do in game include dispatching all critters...and I do mean ALL, dancing in the cities, helping lower-level players, and going into battlegrounds. OK, yes, when he goes in them he goofs off now and then, but once in a while he does participate in the battle and actually lends good assistance to the team.

So, if you see a 46 warrior riding naked on his horse in Arathi Basin, or doing his own thing in Warsong Gulch, don't get mad, because you can't phase him. Instead, realize this little guy has become an excellent student and a happy kid, and is doing what the game was designed for: having fun!

In my first days of World of Warcraft, I was a curious little tauren druid. Running through Ashenvale exploring new territory in my newly acquired cat form, it wasn't long until I stumbled upon another new territory that appeared in red letters on my screen that read "Darkshore (Alliance Territory)."

I felt a familiar sense of danger that thrilled me and seduced me to keep going forward. So onward I ran, following the path into the enemy's domain, finding nothing but monsters that were of no threat to me until I came across a night elf hunter killing bears.

It was my first encounter with someone from the Alliance and I was intrigued by her. Then she shot me with an arrow and so I retaliated by hitting her which caused her to turn and run away. I chased her for a few seconds, then I stopped and tried to say somthing to her but when she stopped running in order to respond it was in a language that was completely foreign to me, so it only ended up in getting me confused.

She walked back to me and started doing various emotes like /sorry and /hug. Then for the next hour we were running around Darkshore communicating with each other through emotes and killing stuff together.

The very next day I'm on my way to Thunderbluff to learn new class skills when I suddenly get a surprise whisper from a stranger. It was the night elf that I had played together with last night! She deleted her hunter in order to make a Horde character to play with me. Ever since then we've been best friends, always playing together.

We've rolled characters on various realms until we finally made Darrowmere our home. The people around us would joke about us looking like a couple because we did pretty much everything in the game together, but we weren't. We were best friends who really enjoyed playing World of Warcraft with each other and still continue to do so.