The Shared Topics for the past two weeks were a little elaborate. As a result, we only had a handful of people tackle them. Let me assure you, though, that those who did take a go at them did an incredible job. I suggest you all check out each one of these posts, it’s well worth it.

The first topic was a suggestion of Pndrev from Primetime Casual. He started a little game: mixing and matching talent trees from different classes to create a brand new class:

It’s quite simple. We’ll do it LEGO style. Take each available talent tree (either WotLK or Cata, if you’re in the Beta). Shake. Pick three.

To elaborate: Out of all the talent trees available, if you could freely choose three to create your own, ‘custom’ class, which ones would you choose? This is something that a few small budget roguelikes or diablo clones do, and it’s fun to ponder if this would work in WoW as well.
Your starting class gives you the skills to work with. You may take for granted that all talents that enhance a class skill also automatically give you that skill. You must have at least one talent tree of your chosen starting class.

Rising to the challenge were:

Dragonray from Azerothian Life

Pndrv of Primetime Casual

Sarindre from Through the Eyes of a Tree

Natalie from Pocket Heals

Violet Scribe from The Violet Scribe

Excandersham from Excandersham’s WoW Guides

As for last week’s Topic, it was brought to you by Runzwithfire from the blog Runzwithfire and touches on the controversial topic: Games as Art, is it possible with WoW?

could an MMORPG start incorporating some of the feature we take for granted in singleplayer RPGs? Rather than the “get quest, kill x number of things, hand in quest” formula, could we start seeing multiple ways to complete a quest? Could there be moral choices to be made, with an outcome that will affect both you as a player (emotional involvement) and your character (rewards/penalties). Larisa at The Pigtail Inn has already alluded to a similar idea.

Ithink I’ll pop this up as a discussion topic on my site with a full post later, but I’d love to see what other people in the blogosphere think of it. Could it be done? If so, how would you do it? What would you like to see? Would it take away from what WoW essentially is?

Offering their thoughts are:

Windsoar from Jaded Alt

Runzwithfire from Runzwithfire

Natalie from Pocket Heals

As for this upcoming week, we talk about names. Names for our characters, for our online personas. How did you choose your name(s)? What does it/do they mean to you? Blog about it and share a link to your post back at Blog Azeroth!

As for other upcoming topics, check out:
World of Warcraft secrets
WoW Voice in cross-realm dungeons

And, once again, we’re running a bit low on topics, so if there’s something you want to read about, suggest it as a Shared Topics over at Blog Azeroth!