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.

The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame's inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything.

Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor's ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.

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.

Oh, snap – literally. Yes, that's Booty Bay, constructed completely from tens of thousands of Legos. It took Astrylian and Raeina, husband and wife WoW players from Eonar and long-time Lego aficionados, about a month to assemble this five-foot masterpiece. While WoW Insider couldn't lend the industrious couple an equivalent 43,000 minutes of fame, as soon as we saw their creative piece de resistance, we decided a solid 15 minutes were definitely in order.

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.

Most of us know guildmates who are related: brothers, or cousins, or even husband and wife. With the widespread popularity of gaming today, playing with family members has become commonplace. (Nightmare couples politics between the GM and incompetent DPS player #496, anyone?) But TomWolf of Sporeggar-EU (PvP-RP) isn't content to play with a mere one or two family members – he networks three generations of relatives together in an nexus of gaming and long-distance communications.

The family that plays together, stays together – even across the miles. When TomWolf and his wife Seriny flew from their home in Sweden to the Dominican Republic for their (real life) wedding, TomWolf's mother was unable to attend. She was, however, "very, very happy to attend the virtual version" in World of Warcraft ... a win/win for the entire family.

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.

... mushroom, mushroom. So why have we just bombed you with this tired yet perversely persistent earworm? Because like the proverbial mushroom, WoW Insider reader Badger has kinda grown on us, unanimously capturing the enthusiastic accolades of the WI staff when we decided to feature a WI reader/commenter on 15 Minutes of Fame. We discovered that fellow WI bloggers keep their eyes peeled for Badger comments on their posts because he's warm, funny, thoughtful ... All the traits that make other readers (and us!) want to pause to engage in a little World of Warchat.

So Badger, this is your 15 Minutes of Fame – but not before we carve out a few seconds for the other readers our staff felt deserve a WoW Insider shout-out:

• Angus
• Manatank
• Tchernobyl
• J Parris
• Heilig
  

Thanks, guys, and thanks to all our readers who help make WoW Insider a responsive, congenial community rather than a mere gaming information dump. We're glad you're reading -- and we're glad you're joining the conversation, too.

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.

If you've made even the occasional pass through the Blizzard forums, you're likely to have run up on at least one of the periodic flamefests with players stomping their virtual feetsies and pointing in horror at the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender (GLBT) guilds clustered on the Proudmoore server. Never one to ignore the elephant in the room, we got curious about what these guilds are all about and how they ended up on Proudmoore.

Our interview with Venfelder, a long-time member from the rank and file of Taint, paints a picture of a mature, friendly, open community of players making the most of WoW's many opportunities for raiding, PvPing and just plain hanging out together.

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.

This subject of this week's 15 Minutes of Fame officially rates a mere five minutes of fame – they just blast by that fast. Not that you'd have time to notice. Fusion-H of Turalyon (US) has zipped onto the record charts for speed runs of PvE instances, along with a growing number of U.S. and European guilds that are bored with taking things at the same old pace.

• Karazhan 11/11 53 minutes, 17 seconds -- Slashcry, EU Kazzak
• Zul'Aman 6/6 29 minutes, 27 seconds -- Pugnas Rache, EU Alleria
• Mount Hyjal 5/5 1 hour, 7 minutes, 20 seconds -- Showdown, EU Kazzak
• Black Temple 9/9 1 hour, 48 minutes, 15 seconds -- Clarity, EU Ravencrest
• Gruul's Lair 2/2 5 minutes, 57 seconds -- Fusion, US Turalyon
• Sunwell Plateau 6/6 2 hours, 15 minutes, 52 seconds -- Pugnas Rache, EU Alleria
• Heroic 16 5 hours, 21 minutes, 52 seconds -- Equinox Prophecy, EU Al´Akir

It all started with a speed-run thread on the EU forums, where players devised set rules for 10-man, 25-man and all-heroic content. Then the speeding frenzy spread to the US servers. We caught up with Bazz, GM of Fusion, which holds the current record for clearing Gruul's Lair in a ridiculously brief 5 minutes and 57 seconds, for peek at how one of WoW's top speed-demon guilds makes short work of PvE instances.

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.

So – achievements. They're a pretty neat concept for casual players as well as ... well, over-achievers. Fans of the upcoming new feature have already begun setting up for various achievements, farming rep, running old-school content and collecting gear and quest completions in preparation for the expansion's launch.

Among the high achievers is <Hells Fury> of Eonar-EU. "Unlike most guilds," writes officer Nerfs in a news tip to 15 Minutes of Fame, "it is not focused on raiding or PvP. We are instead focusing on the achievements that will be released with the pre-expansion patch and the expansion itself." Pretty cool idea for a bunch of folks with mixed-up schedules and piled-on work and school responsibilities! We visited with Nerfs yesterday to see how the guild is pulling it all together – and we have to admit, this sounds like a fun new way to play as a group.

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.

Last week, 15 Minutes of Fame visited with multiboxer Nixi of team Absolute Power-H of Archimonde to bring WoW Insider readers his 10-boxing strategy for Karazhan. This week, we'll step back for a look at Nixi's hardware setup, his top five tips for new multiboxers and a broader look at why he's a 'boxer.

Catch up with 10-boxing Karazhan Part 1, then join us after the break for an inside look at Nixi's 10-boxing team.

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.

This week's 15 Minutes of Fame is about a multiboxing team – but it's not that team that just ganked you in your last Battleground. Absolute Power-H of Archimonde and its team leader/main tank, Nixi, have made their mark not in Battlegrounds but in Karazhan.

Ever curious about a unique perspective of the World of Warcraft, we visited with Nixi & Co. to find out what it's like to "solo" Karazhan. This week in Part 1 of our interview, we go straight for the throat with Nixi's Kara strats. Next week, Part 2 of 15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan brings you a look at Nixi's hardware setup and his top five tips for new multiboxers.

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.

Just a few weeks ago, we published a post about two guys who connected their treadmills to their computers to find out just what it would be like to really take a little jog down the road from Shadowglen to Darnassus. (Hilarity ensued.) But that got us thinking ... What if these guys had actually kept playing that way, turning their WoW-time into a potent weight-loss strategy?

It turns out that quite a few players have done exactly that. Back in 2006, The Weight Lifter lost more than 40 pounds with two-hour "WarBiking" sessions on an exercise bike while playing WoW. ("If things got crazy -- as in, I ended up running for my life in the game -- I would end up peddling really fast on the bike. LOL, I know, kinda weird. You try it and see what you do!")

Then we talked to Althaea of Terror Nova-H on Eitrigg. Althaea has lost almost 100 pounds playing WoW from a treadmill, shrugging off a diagnosis of sleep apnea and creating an exercise routine that has definitely stuck. Find out how he put it all together, after the break.

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.

Are server firsts worth pushing for – really pushing for, as in four hours a night, five times a week, for a month and a half? For Havoc-A of Cairne, time had no bearing as they raced from Karazhan to Illidan a mere six weeks after forming their guild. They pushed through the content so quickly that some members were still sporting blues when they first met Illidan. The team racked up a list of server firsts during its ascent: first Illidan kill, first off-hand Warglaive (maybe a server first Legendary), first Zul'Aman bear mount, and Alliance firsts for Azgalor, Archimonde and last half of Black Temple bosses.

Now that the guild has had time to come down from the high, we wondered, do they think it was all worth it? Signs point to yes: the guild's GM, Meliadoul, is still waxing rhapsodic over the team's accomplishments, the bonds formed and the pride that carried them forward as a group. 15 Minutes of Fame visited with Meliadoul to find out the root of Havoc's need for speed.

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.

If you've ever wanted to quit your job, travel the world and play WoW whenever and wherever you please – take it from Caesar of US Dark Iron-H, it's as good as you'd ever dreamed it could be. In March 2007, Caesar sold his house, put the rest of his belongings in storage and hit the road. Since then, he's managed to keep his WoW account alive and has played on and off from his laptop and internet cafes all over the Pacific and Asia. So far, he's logged in from two dozen different countries on almost every sort of network issue you could imagine.

We caught up with Caesar in Kuala Lumpur to see if his travels are turning out to be as cool in practice as the idea was on the drawing board. (TLDR version: They are.)

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.

On a list of player names that serious WoW hobbyists should know, Phaelia definitely makes the cut. WoW Insider's Dan O'Halloran summed up why in his post last fall outlining druid blogs you should be reading: "Phaelia started Resto4Life.com back in March to educate herself about playing a better healing Druid. Turns out, she's educating the rest of us as well. Her entries delve into the many facets of a Tree Druid's gameplay: Re-evaluating Spirit, mp5 vs. +Healing and Getting More Out of Innervate are just a few of the many treasures to be found on this blog. Updated frequently with a friendly and informative tone, Resto4Life is the Big Red Kitty for Restoration druids." 15 Minutes of Fame visited with Resto4Life's creator, Phaelia of US Scarlet Crusade-A, about the many attractions of the Druid class.

15 Minutes of Fame: How did you get into WoW, Phaelia? Do you come from a gaming background?
Phaelia: I started playing WoW during the first open beta. To be honest, I was less attracted to WoW than turned off by the idea of giving over another five years of my gaming life to another game from Sony Online Entertainment. I began my MMO career as a sophomore in college, and while quitting EverQuest 1 left a void in my gaming lifestyle, I knew I didn't want to play another game from the same company. Blizzard turned out to be the breath of fresh air and fun that I was looking for!

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.

A couple of months ago, WoW Insider reported on the immortalization of WarcraftPets.com founder/owner Breanni with an NPC in Wrath of the Lich King. In the expansion, Breanni of US Scarlet Crusade-A appears as a NPC selling pet supplies in Dalaran. Curious about the growing public enthusiasm ("Obsession"? We think Breanni might agree ...) with non-combat pets, we contacted Breanni for more perspectives into the vanity pet craze -- as well as what it's like to run into yourself in the game as an NPC.

15 Minutes of Fame: Vanity pets – who knew? How many vanity pets are out there now, and how can players get them?
Breanni: Vanity pets (also known as companions, small pets, non-combat pets and mini-pets) are those adorable little critters that follow your character around the game world, catching the eye and imagination of others. Currently, there are 98 vanity pets, and new ones are added to the game nearly every major content patch. However, not all of these pets are available in the United States - a few are region-specific.

There are six ways to obtain vanity pets. Vendors, drops and quests offer players some of the most familiar pets. Additionally, there are a handful of pets crafted by engineers. Some of the rarest pets are obtained through real-world promotions, such as loot cards from the WoW trading card game and trade show giveaways. Finally, a new source has emerged for collecting certain pets: they can be earned through various feats, such as battleground victories or collecting a certain number of pets with a single character.