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The Bling Gnome (BG) has certainly achieved all-new levels of infamy. Dungeon Runners offers the BG to anyone that purchases the retail version of the game. The BG is little more than an in-game vanity pet, though he has a lot of personality. He uses a lot of urban slang, he dresses like a pimp, and he performs a convenient service, auto-looting the bodies of the enemies players kill. He then p**s out gold and, occasionally, epic loot. Yes, really.

At PAX, the NCSoft people were actually selling a plastic version of the Bling Gnome. Of course, it's as tasteful and refined as you might expect. (/sarcasm off)

Speaking of PAX, if you'd like to get a feel for the show overall, there's this picture gallery. It's an odd assembly of pictures from the show, featuring Star Trek Online, the WoW tabletop game, some hot Castle Crashers action, a couple of booth babes, a gigantic beholder, and some pictures of the infamous men in kilts that wandered the halls of the convention center.

Good ol' Daedren over at MMOCrunch took some time this week to say some sweet nothings about Age of Conan. OK, actually, his little nothings weren't all that sweet. In fact, they were kinda angry. And downright mean.

What, exactly, is Daedren's problem? He's not happy with AoC, at all. He's upset at the implementation of the game – the quests, the PvP, the “lies” told by the developers, the launch – you name it, Daedren rips into AoC and Funcom over it. It's not only a specific, angry, and precise write-up, it's also so over the top that you'll find yourself laughing because of Daedren's style. I can't say that I agree with his analysis, but his article is certainly entertaining.

If you're into strange French MMOs, then this is good news: it seems that Ryzom is back from the grave. Ryzom is a very quirky, very different, very French game, in which players level up their homins (yes, that what they're called) on the living world of Atys. The fact that Ryzom is back is more than surprising. The game has been owned and sold by several companies, has been through bankruptcy court a couple of times, and was finally turned off a few months ago. Now, mysteriously, it's back. No one knows who owns the game, or how they plan on making money (the game is now free) but they are taking new subscriptions. Mysterious and French indeed.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “How fast do WoW characters run?” or “Would I be pretty if I dressed up as a female night elf?” then this story is for you. It's the guys from Mana Energy Potion, who've done some pretty odd things in the past to generate publicity. This time, they dress up as female night elves, run on treadmills attached to a custom WoW interface, and drink some energy drinks. They even have video of the entire incident. Epic.

In other news, Klingon weapons are apparently terrorising the good citizens of Gloucester. It's a darned good thing the police were there to take care of business.

Square Enix finally got around to addressing the problems with some of their end-game boss fights in FFXI. Namely, that the fights take more than 18 hours to complete. Squeenix response is pretty back-handed, however. While they indicate that they'll fix the problem, they also hint that the real problem is the players. It seems they're playing wrong.

If you'd like to find out more about Squeenix' outstanding, customer-oriented response to this issue (which they rushed to address in only 11 days), this is the synopsis you've been looking for.

In closing, we saved the best story for last. Kimberly Jernigan, like so many others, met the man of her dreams online. She met her true love in Second Life, and arranged a meeting. When he didn't return her affections, she did what any lovelorn woman would do: she stalked him, burgled his home, and made two attempts to kidnap him. In one of the attempts, she brought her dog along as an accomplice.

Shockingly, this didn't work out as planned. Kimberly has hope, however, that she'll be able to reconnect with her true love after she serves her 30 year sentence.

Well, my fellow MMO geeks, that's all for this week. For day-to-day MMO news, always flavored with a bit of humor, you can check out our always fresh, always up-to-date news over at WanderingGoblin.com. Until next week, when I have another round of odd, strange, and funny MMO stories for your reading pleasure, I bid you a fond adieu!