Wonder Why The WOW Quest Areas Are Overrun By The Other Faction?

You can look up your World of Warcraft server here and see what proportion are Alliance versus Horde.  (US and Europe only)
https://realmpop.com

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Guild Wars 2 Starter Guide (Social) and Problems

IGN has written a Guild Wars 2 starter guide for players with an emphasis on grouping, including information about overflow maps, whether you can a friend can play together regardless of race, drawing on the map, etc. Some tips are useful whether you play GW2 solo or with friends.
http://www.ign.com/wikis/guild-wars-2/Starter_Guide

Note that GW2 is having major problems.  Their servers are so full that they have temporarily suspended digital sales.  It does look like those who pre-purchased the game can still download it and play, however.  Here's a listing of the problem areas which include security issues.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z3qqm/guild_wars_2_status_thursday_august_30/

Around 3,000 players have been permanently banned for buying mis-priced high level karma weapons in huge numbers and creating even higher level items from them.  GW2's developers are going to allow the permanently banned a second chance if they promise to get rid of these items.  They will be allowed back after a 72 hour ban but if you have the items in your inventory still, it's permanent ban time again.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/31/3000-guild-wars-2-players-permanently-banned-for-karma-exploit/

Here's more about account hacking.
http://www.videogamer.com/pc/guild_wars_2/news/guild_wars_2_accounts_hacked_as_ncsoft_warns_players_to_be_vigilant_3.html

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Rift Servers, Forum and Wiki

With Rift already in play for those who pre-ordered (and at least a million registered accounts), it's time to add Rift information here.

Here is the list of servers. Note that the EU servers are further broken down into French, German and English language.  The official server list is on Rift's Facebook account.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/95705

Want to choose the right server?  The Rift forums have "Shard" forums for players on each server.  Note that each server is further broken down into the two factions.  As far as I can find out, one can't play both factions on the same server (but this isn't certain).
http://forums.riftgame.com/forumdisplay.php?70-Server-Forums

While looking for server information, I discovered IGN's nice Rift wiki.
http://rift.ign.com/wiki/Rift_Wiki

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Cataclysm's Up -- And Down (with MANY MORE Hotfixes)

Cataclysm has launched and predictably, it's up and then down again.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/06/cataclysm-launches-in-europe-servers-currently-down/

Some XP gains are turned on and some aren't.  Logging in seems to be the biggest problem right now.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/07/cataclysm-is-live-except-not-quite/

UPDATE:  Blizzard has released the first hotfix list.  Apparently these have been applied.
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=176161/first-round-of-cataclysm-hotfixes-now-live

UPDATE #2:  December 8 hotfix list.
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=176294/more-cataclysm-hotfixes-live-december-8th

Update #3:  One long-time player doesn't much like the game play and mechanics of Cataclysm, or the ridiculous ease of mastering dungeons.
http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=1570

Update #4:  Arloch at Clearcasting is riding the submarine around and around and around.  (bugs)
http://clearcasting.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/im-on-a-bug/

Update #4 - Hotfixes on December 13.
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=176861/latest-cataclysm-hotfixes-now-live

Update #5 - Hotfixes on December 14.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/14/cataclysm-hotfixes-for-dec-14/

Update #6 - Hotfixes on December 15.
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=176984/latest-cataclysm-hotfixes-vial-of-the-sands-no-longer-bop

Update #7 - More December 15 hotfixes?
http://www.wowhead.com/blog=177100/more-cataclysm-hotfixes-posted-december-15

Update #8 - December 16 hotfixes
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/16/cataclysm-hotfixes-for-dec-16/

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Blizzard Wins $88 Million Lawsuit

...against a company that set up a private server for WOW and had some sort of micro transactions marketplace.  This is considered copyright infringement.
http://www.wow.com/2010/08/14/private-server-company-forced-to-pay-blizzard-88-million/

Commentary:
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2010/08/assessing-damage-from-pirates.html

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Extended Maintenance For ALL Realms Tomorrow

The list of realms that will have 24 hour+ maintenance downtime is here.  No word on how long other realms will be down.
http://www.wow.com/2010/07/19/24-hour-maintenance-for-select-servers-on-tuesday/#continued

UPDATE;  All realms apparently are still down until 6 p.m. PDT due to problems with the authenticator server.  Can't log in until this is fixed.

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The Shrinking Population and the Disappearing Servers

Gazimoff explains how Blizzard is invisibly shrinking the servers and predicts how this will play out in-game as WOW's player base shrinks.  This is a must-read for players interested in the mechanics of networking MMOs.  It starts out with a history of how Blizzard organized their servers (and realms) in 2005 and continues through today with the "random" battleground and dungeon finder systems which allow Blizzard to balance their servers.  This is why you end up in the same dungeon or Battlefield over and over again, by the way.  Blizzard is putting folks where they need them.
http://www.manaobscura.com/2010/07/the-growing-yet-shrinking-world/

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Cataclysm's Region-Wide Battlegrounds (Plus Wargames)

In other words, you'll get to meet every idiot in North America if that's the region you play in.
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/11/cataclysm-to-bring-region-wide-battlegrounds/

UPDATE:  Something called "war games mode" will be added to Battlegrounds.  It seems to be a way to invite groups to challenge other groups to battle in a specific Battleground.
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/12/war-games-mode-coming-to-cataclysm-battlegrounds/

UPDATE #2:  Gordon is starting to wonder why Blizzard and other game developers have a new emphasis on PvP recently.
http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2010/06/11/pushing-pvp/

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24 Downtime Next Tuesday--A Trend?

WOW Insider reports that tomorrow's downtime will stretch to 24 hours for some unlucky U.S. realms as they are made "Cataclysm-ready." The list of effected servers is here.
http://www.wow.com/2010/06/06/24-hour-downtime-this-tuesday-for-72-servers-to-make-them-catacl/

I would presume everyone will undergo 24 hours of maintenance evntually as Blizzard tries to get ready for their next expansion.

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Would Premium Servers Help WOW?

Gordon wonders if premium servers would help the game.
http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2010/05/31/wow-premium-servers/

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Free Character Moves on EU Servers

If you play on an EU server and want to move, Blizzard is offering free transfers.  What you can and can't do here.
http://www.wow.com/2010/03/18/free-character-moves-for-eu-servers/

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Private Servers

Apparently some WOW players play on private servers. This is not a LAN and not approved by Blizzard, either. Private servers are against their terms of service. But it is interesting to hear how this all works.

http://www.wow.com/2009/08/25/15-minutes-of-fame-members-only/

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Game Server Phasing

Ideas about using game server's ability to see/not see items to enhance instances.
http://www.wow.com/2009/07/27/breakfast-topic-the-joy-of-phasing/

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