Alex Ziebart and Elizabeth Wachowski do an excellent job of filling us in on the stories behind our World of Warcraft adventures in the regular Know Your Lore columns. I had very little experience with the real time strategy games that led to our beloved MMORPG. I find that learning the lore gives a bit more meaning to my level grinding.

As I've leveled up I've come across some really interesting NPCs, some more famous than others. I'd like to take some time to look at some of the lesser known heroes of Azeroth. Caregiver Inaara has to be the hardest working character in the game. Stationed as the Innkeper of Sun's Reach Harbor on the Isle of Quel'Danas. Reportedly an excellent companion, Inaara serves up cold brews to thousands of thirsty characters, tired from endless daily quests. Even as a newcomer to Azeroth, we know little about this blue beauty, except that she is a surviver and serves her patrons with an unflinching smile.

Sure there are famous folks like Jaina Proudmoore and Rexxar, but let's take some time to salute the little people. Who's you're hero?

I'm really excited that we'll be posting about Hello Kitty Online. I took some time to check out their fantastic Dream Studio. Dream Studio is a great resource for displaying your graphical talent to the Hello Kitty Online readers. There are many really fun videos in the Dream Studio, and everyone is welcome to share their creations. It's free to join the Hello Kitty Online community at Sanriotown.

I found this video for XO-Man. This movie is a part of a series of Hello Kitty and Friends Adventures videos. I think XO-Man is the best super hero ever! He has all of the characteristics I look for in a super hero. He's brave, cute, and strong. Most importantly he wears a cape and he's got a plan. I love the part where he knocks back all of the big, mean alligators in the video. I love that he's totally looking out for the little guy. XO-man, you're my hero!

Animal-Lover showed multiple talents in the following video. Not only can she make a super pretty video, but she can bake beautiful Kawaii Kupcakes too. She describes her video as "Cute and lovley cupcakes that I have baked all by myself."

Check out all the amazing talent over at Dream Studio!

All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.

All those people who say "Roleplaying is dead" simply misunderstand what RP in WoW is all about. It's not at all about stepping into your favorite fantasy novel and acting out an epic story in which you are the great hero, sacrificing everything to save Azeroth from the legions of evil. For that sort of storytelling, there are pen-and-paper role playing games, which allow for a great deal more flexibility than any computer system can. While the majority of fantasy literature uses this "save the world" motif, it doesn't work at all for roleplaying in WoW because things happen in the game that couldn't possibly happen in a story.

But that's okay, because when we roleplay in WoW, our focus should not be so grand and epic in scope. Instead it should be more personal and down-to-earth, about our own characters, their hopes and failings, and their relationships with others. For all the game's outward appearances of epic battles and the fight against evil, WoW roleplaying is really all about character development, relationships, and the expression of who you are. Think less of the latest Oscar-award-winning fantasy epic, and more of your favorite sitcoms or drama series.

Your character is a savior of the world and a regular nobody -- both at the same time. All of us do exciting, heroic things in the game, but, while Blizzard has put a lot of story elements in there, none of it is actual storytelling. For a roleplayer, most PvE is just background to the storytelling, something your characters do offstage -- kind of like food, paperwork, bathroom breaks, and sleep in the movies or novels you enjoy. Of course any event in life can be an important moment for your character, but in roleplaying, you have to let all the repetitive hero stuff fade into the background while your characters interact with one another.

It's a fact that the majority of what we do in World of Warcraft is kill things. Nearly all the supplementary activities we engage in, from shopping to crafting, are all basically to help us improve the effectiveness of our violent capabilities. Many players have noted that if WoW were at all real, then nearly every one of our characters would be considered a genocidal maniac for all the people and creatures we have killed, and yet we view ourselves as heroes.

The idea is, of course, that most of the lives we take are really evil anyway, so we're actually doing the real good guys a favor. We kill tons of demons, ghosts, zombies, dragonkin, giants, and rabid beasts -- even most of the humanoids we kill are bandits or wicked cultists of one sort or another. This way we do lots of killing, but still feel as though we are heroes.

There are some situations in the game, however, that turn things around for us, in which our character is not the hero. While there are some higher-level instances such as the Black Morass, or the new Caverns of Time: Stratholme, in which one could argue either way whether what we're doing is good or evil, most of situations in which you are clearly the bad guy, as far as I am aware, have to do with the undead, and to a lesser extent the blood elves as well. Of course, you can argue that in general, undead are just misunderstood, and the blood elves are just tragically misled, but as in the case of quests in Hillsbrad that ask you to go slaughter human farmers, or help develop a new plague, there's really no denying that your character is doing something "morally wrong."

At the Lore panel at BlizzCon Chris Metzen mentioned that some old faces will appear in new ways in future content. We can expect Sylvanas to make an appearance, Bronzebeard will lead us to unlock the mysteries of the world's creation, Hellscream will lead the Horde into Northrend. Keeping this in mind, what heroes would you like to spend more time with? Is there anyone you would especially love to see again?

Hero classes were in the "on the horizon" section of the Under Development page for a long time, though they have since been removed. Tseric has said that they are still looking into "alternate character advancement," but we should maybe forget the term "Hero Class." At any rate, they've been since release one of the most desired improvements for the game by many players. So when someone comes forward claiming to be working for Blizzard and to have the inside scoop on how they're looking at hero classes these days, it gets me excited. Now there is, as the poster rightly points out, no credibility whatsoever to this information, aside from the fact, as Tobold says over at his blog, that it's just boring enough to be something Blizz would do.

Basically, each class would be able to specialize as one of the three different hero classes, each corresponding to one of the class's talent trees. Then, by spending "Hero Points," which will be earned in unspecified ways (but will be indefinite (!)) in a fourth, linear talent panel, they could gain access to special abilities. The hero classes would also have some passive benefits. It actually sounds pretty decent to me, except for the fact that, supposedly, your choice of hero class would be absolutely permanent, like profession specializations used to be. I think it would be much better to do it how profession specs are now -- you can re-specialize, but only if you completely unlearn the profession. With hero classes, I'd make it so you could choice a new one, but you'd lose all your invested Hero Points.

Anyway, that's the rumor. My question for you: how do you think they should do hero classes? Or is "hero class" just an outdated idea and we should focus on novel methods of character progression?

[via Tobold's MMORPG Blog]