15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you’d like to hear more about.

Let’s jump right in – because appropriately enough, that’s the modus operandi of this week’s profile subject, blogger/cartoonist/gag writer/self-proclaimed “older” player/sci-fi writer John Zakour. With a WoW column at Pink Raygun, a daily web comic with some 50,000 readers, a 2180-rated Mage and a steady stream of published sci-fi books, Zakour keeps the one-liners flowing.

A recent review of Zakour’s The Flaxen Femme Fatale does a neat job of summarizing his outlook: “I’m always glad to see new books in this series come out, as there’s a serious deficit of comedic hardboiled science fiction adventures on the market, and John Zakour has filled that niche quite adeptly,” wrote the SF Site reviewer. “It’s goofy, it’s quirky, it’s iconic in its own way, and it’s way too much fun. Like the rest, The Flaxen Femme Fatale borders on parody, but maintains enough good-natured charm to maintain an air of legitimacy. It may be a world full of robots, psychics, aliens, genetically-engineered superhumans, and wacky technology, where anything is possible, but it has the internal consistency and earnestness required to sustain such a setting.”

How does he manage to stick it all together, with time left over for WoW?
Main character Zapperz (”Yes, very original name.”)
Guild Time Well Wasted (”a very patient guild”)
Server Rexxar-US

15 Minutes of Fame: Gaming, writing, sci fi — where did it all begin? How did you end up twining it all together professionally?
John Zakour: Quite frankly, I like making things up. I like it even more when I get paid to make things up. It’s still surprising to me when people give me money for all these stories that have been roaming around in my mind.

Readers always want to know how long it takes for someone to “make it” in a creative field. Can you tell us a little about the path that brought you to where you are today?
Wow, this is a very complicated question. I started out in the 1980s as a database programmer for a major university who would program video games on the side. Then one day, I lost my job in state budget cuts. I took my summer of unemployment to bum around. I found a book about “gag writing.” I read it and started to write gags and send them to cartoonists and comedians. I was surprised that I sold thousands of them.

I then married a graduate student from Costa Rica. She owed Costa Rica years of service, so we moved there. We had our son. So I acted as a gag writer/house dad in Costa Rica for three years. I started working on my first novel, The Doomsday Brunette, then.

My wife took a post-doc position in the United States in 1994, and we moved back. I took a part-time job working on this new thing called the World Wide Web. I figured out this web thing was going to be big. A friend suggested I publish Doomsday Brunette on the web. I did, with his help. It did okay, so that made me decide to try other web publications. I did a comic called Computtons, and I also started on kicking ideas around for my next novel, The Plutonium Blonde. I didn’t really know what to do with this novel. I figured not being an actual novel writer, no publisher would want it. So I kind of sat on it.

One day while web surfing, I found the Sci-Fi Channel web site and asked them, “Hey, how would you like some original content?” I listed all the cartoonists and comedians I wrote for (some of them had TV shows). Sci-Fi said, “Sure.” So I wrote The Plutonium Blonde as a weekly web serial.

Once the story ran its course on the Sci Fi (now called syfy) site, I figured, “Now maybe a book publisher will like me.” I sent the story to an agent I knew. The agent sent it to all the major publishers. They ALL REJECTED it. So that was that. I figured writing over. I figured I would become a full time web guru.

Then in 1999, my cousin Larry Ganem (who works for DC comics) sent me a note about this little e-book publisher called Peanut Press. Larry had helped me with Plutonium Blonde and thought Peanut might be interested. I just sent them an e-mail. They responded in hours. They had read the story online and loved it.

So TPB became an e-book. The e-book sold great; it was their number one-selling e-book for many weeks, until some guy named Stephen King wrote Riding the Bullet. So then I figured, “That’s it — I’ve had my 15 minutes … Time to put the writing to rest.”

Then one day in early 2000, I am sitting at my cubicle doing web stuff, when I get an e-mail saying, “READ YOUR BOOK, LOVE IT. I THINK I WANT TO BUY IT. LET’S TALK.” I thought, “Ok, some lady wants to buy my book.” I sent the e-mail to my agent friend. My agent told me this was actually the owner of Daw books and I really should talk with her. Turns out she really did like my writing so much she wanted me to expand Plutonium Blonde into a full-length novel. I did so with Larry’s help; after all, in those days, I was a web guy not a writer. I didn’t know about things like when to use a ; and fancy writer stuff like that.

The rest is kind of history. In late 2001, I quit my day job very dramatically, stating, “The web is sucking my soul.” I haven’t looked back. I think I am on book 12 now.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ student newspaper, the Rebel Yell, has an article up about a student there named Michael McCreery, who’s studying how people interact in online games. Unfortunately, most of the article is about the game itself (most of which we already know, obviously), and there’s not much about how he actually did the study: apparently he had people play WoW using only the ingame chat, and surveyed them afterwards about it.

How exactly that tells you how to “quantify the social interactions of participants in the game so that future online games can build better environments,” we have no idea, but we’ll leave that to the experts. Basically, McCreery and his team are examining how people use and interact with others in the game to see how we project ourselves and our characters.

Eventually, he wants to do something “education or therapeutic” with the information, though that too is left pretty open. Virtual environments like World of Warcraft do definitely engender ties between players — is it possible that those ties can be used in an academic or therapeutical setting? Definitely an interesting line of research.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Ulduar.

With Ulduar laid wide open, many Rogues and their guilds are flocking to its gates. Brand new bosses and shiny gear upgrades are just two of the reasons that I’ve seen so many ‘LFM Ulduar’ advertisements in trade chat. However, as the dungeon is still relatively new, many of us haven’t had the opportunity to confront every giant-sized boss in the instance.

I’ve compiled a list of basic roles for each boss fight in the instance, as well as a list of cool tricks and tips you can use to make your first (or eighth!) run through Ulduar as smooth as possible. Blizzard has included several fights in the instance where it is advantageous to bring a Rogue, and being able to proactively seize these opportunities will put you at the head of the pack.

Flame Leviathan
Role: DPS
Flame Leviathan is a fight that I can get behind as a Rogue (pun intended). With no healing during the fight, and no true tanking either, all of our holy and prot friends are forced to play the DPS game along with us. I recommend asking for Chopper duties, if you’re able to convince your raid leader that you’d be best suited in one of these fine motorcycles. They have the ability to strafe and move quickly: you should feel right at home. Playing one of the other vehicles may feel clunky (I know it does for me), but work with what you’re assigned to. If you end up piloting a Siege Engine, remember to interrupt FL’s Flame Vents ability.

Ignis
Role: DPS
Ignis is a fairly boring fight as a Rogue. Typically, it plays much like Grobbulus, depending on how your guild tanks the boss. You’ll be following a giant around, stabbing or smashing him in the back, while your tank maneuvers him into position. The only caution on this fight is to wait for a teammate to be thrown into the Slag Pot before you choose to use any of your cooldowns. If your cooldowns are active (Adrenaline Rush, Vanish with Overkill) and you are thrown into his Pot, you will lose the effectiveness of those CDs.

Razorscale
Role: DPS, Add control
Razorscale starts with a few waves of Iron Dwarves and Vrykul before you fight the boss herself. During this preliminary add phase, you’ll want to use your interrupts and CC to help clean up the fight. Interrupting a few Chain Lightnings or Dismantling the spinning whirlwinders will reduce your incoming raid damage and make it easier on everyone involved. When Razorscale drops to the ground, you’ll want to use every offensive cooldown you have available to do as much damage as possible. Once she flies back up into the air, she’ll be unattackable again. You want to bring her to 50% as soon as you can, and so the Rogue’s ability to provide burst DPS is very valuable in this phase.

XT-002
Role: DPS
The fight that every Rogue dreams about: a static boss with a bonus damage modifier. As a melee class, your focus should be on attacking XT-002 and its very weak Heart (when exposed). You get to stand still, run your rotation without worrying about boss movement, and watch the ranged classes who are assigned to add duty. Make sure to time your cooldowns with Heart phases, in order to maximize your damage done. With Cloak of Shadows and Feint available to reduce your incoming AOE damage as well, Rogues are amongst the top choices for XT-002 fights.

Iron Council
Role: Interrupts, DPS, CC
While the “Can’t Do That While Stunned” achievement is named very tongue-in-cheek after the most common complaint about fighting against a Rogue in PvP, the achievement is designed specifically with Rogues in mind. There is a caster mob named Stormcaller Brundir who is mostly stationary, and all of his spells are interruptable. In addition, he himself is stunnable for most of the fight as well. Rogues are especially well suited to lock down Brundir, giving your healers a much needed break. He has two main attacks: Chain Lightning and Lightning Whirl. Chain Lightning tends to be healable, while Lightning Whirl simply does too much AoE damage to allow through. Focus on blocking every single Lightning Whirl cast in order to minimize raid damage taken.

Kologarn
Role: DPS
Feist, of the Roguespot Forums, had a very clever way of describing the Kologarn encounter. Basically, even though he has two large arms that appear to be off to his left and right sides, their “hit boxes” (where you can hit them at) are actually on his belt buckle. You want to get in real close to his waist, and face straight ahead. You don’t need to turn in order to attack the arms, as a matter of fact you will actually STOP autoattacking if you turn too far to the left or the right. In the true definition of tunnel vision, simply sit on his belt buckle and use Tab to swap targets to the correct arm when necessary.

Auriaya
Role: Interrupts, DPS, CC
Auriaya provides Rogues with two different roles, depending on whether you’re fighting her on 10m or 25m difficulty. In 10m, you are fine simply DPS’ing the boss while standing in FRONT of her during her Sonic Screech (think of Meteor from AQ and The Four Horsemen). In 25m, while also DPS’ing the boss, Rogues are typically asked to kick Auriaya’s Sentinel Blast, which she always casts directly after a fear. Using Killing Spree, Cloak of Shadows, and other options for fear protection are key to ensure you never miss a kick, as this ability is very potent. The other fun things that Rogues can do on this fight is to stun the Feral Defender add that Freya summons. By stunning this add, you can ensure that it does minimal random raid damage, while also giving you more control over where the mob dies (as it spawns a void zone).

Conclusion:
Next week’s article will contain tips and tricks for the rest of Ulduar. Knowing your role in a fight ahead of time will reduce the amount of time the raid leader will need to spend explaining the fight, and will boost your confidence going into unknown encounters. Read up on strategies beforehand, and try to catch a YouTube video of the boss or ask a Rogue friend who has more experience than yourself.

Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new UI and addons blog for WoW. After a minor hiatus, Matticus examines the pain that many Discipline Priests experience: That they’re just not good enough and how to even the odds.

Apologies for the lengthy delay. I needed to grab some field data which took way longer than it should have. Coincidentally enough, Amanda Dean wrote about this very same issue a few days ago concerning healing meters and Discipline Priests. It still makes me sad every time I read about this. A raid leader or heal leader asks a Discipline Priest to go back to Holy because they feel their performance isn’t good enough. In most cases, I think it’s just them not truly understanding how Discipline works. It has always been about prevention not healing.

“You’re too low on the meters. Switch back to Holy.”

How many times have you Discipline Priests heard this? Being forced to switch back to Holy because the powers that be didn’t understand nor fully realize the true capabilities of Discipline Priests? It’s a good thing my bench boss didn’t tell me to switch to Holy. Then again, I am the bench boss.

My friends, there are tools that can help us. It’s impossible to change people’s minds on theory. But my CSI idol Grissom’s always said that evidence cannot be denied. Let’s stop using the same measuring stick that the majority has been using and look at something to help even the playing field.

Let’s start with WoW Web Stats. It was one of the premiere tools that came out some time ago and helped raids really analyze specific details of their fights.

But it’s not Disc Priest friendly, so we’re going to stop using it.