You don’t get much more charming than the Knitting Grandma, the surprise hit guest at last fall’s BlizzCon 2011 WoW Insider Reader Meetup. Remember her? She charmed our staff and meetup guests alike with her dry wit and talk of Thunder Bluff-themed socks.

Today, we press forward from the warm, fuzzy territory covered by the Knitting Grandma with two window-rattling volleys in the battle against gamer stereotypes:

1. You don’t have to be a granny to knit and play World of Warcraft. Even the author of Clique, the preeminent click-casting addon, gets his knit on.
2. Whether they knit or not, even grannies can be GMs. Of raiding guilds. Who’ve raided since original Molten Core. And top the DPS meters. Wielding Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest. (So yes, that does indeed qualify her to tell you kids to “GET OFF MY LAWN!”)

You can read more about the exploits of Marthazon at WoW Insider. And gamers aren’t the only readers applauding this lady’s tale of gaming domination; the story is also being linked around at reddit and even Jezebel (Awesome nerd grandma rules at Warcraft).

At point: Ben Shaw, a British ex-serviceman who lost both eyes in a horrifying explosion in Iraq, continues to play World of Warcraft, thanks to the persistence of guildmates who literally lead and talk him through the game’s intricacies. This is no show-and-tell mission, either; Shaw manages to remain a top performer and contributor to the group’s in-game success.

Well, your guild sounds like a pretty tight-knit group. Even so, having a raider such as Ben on the team is bound to be a challenge at best and a real roadblock at worst. What’s been the overall reaction to including him in raids?

I have to say from my point of view that without Ben hot on my tail, I would just be lost in a raid. Everything I have accomplished and us as a guild, Ben has been there for it. Yes, we all have our off days and things seem to be impossible (e.g. Ragnaros), but it’s never held against anyone. There is never a reaction to Ben alone; we don’t see that having Ben there makes us more special than other guilds. He’s just another one of the guys (and girls).

A huge praise needs to go out to all of the raiders in Die Safe. Without everyone’s dedication, this would not be possible.

It sounds like the guild went through a period of struggling to learn how to work around Ben.

Yes, I would say it took some time to get the right group of people together — but now that we have this committed group, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

If you feel so moved, please share or Like/upvote my original interview with Owen, Ben’s in-game “guide dog” buddy. These players find themselves bound in an endeavor that shows there are still people who understand the value of putting friendship first. I’m sure the group would get a kick out of seeing how the story of their friendship within a video game has inspired readers across the world.

“Guide dog” player and guild embrace sightless player, steer team to victory (original interview on WoW Insider)

‘Guide dog’ helps blind vet play World of Warcraft (Discovery News)

People Are Awesome: Meet the World of Warcraft “guide dog” for a blind vet (Good)

Soldier blinded in Iraq dominates World of Warcraft with help from selfless players (Tecca)

Ben Shaw, blind veteran, plays ‘World of Warcraft’ in conjunction with ‘guide dog’ player (Huffington Post)

Soldier blinded in Iraq dominates World of Warcraft with help from selfless players (Yahoo via Tecca)

This man has no eyes, yet can play World of Warcraft (Kotaku)

The kids are finally in bed — whew, time for a little grownup screen time! Kicking up your virtual heels in a video game, your favorite website, or social media sites lets you get away from it all while still being right there when the kids need you. Still, you can’t dig in with the same focus when your kids are toddlers that you can when they’re teens. Even if you’re just flipping through your Facebook Ticker, you still want to be available to your kids.

Let me let you in on a few secrets computer-centric and gaming parents have gleaned over the years on how to combine keeping up with the kids with a little virtual fun for Mom and Dad.

Read more at Tecca.

Thus began my immersion into the world of Liz Danforth. Lest you think she comes strictly from an old-school perspective, Danforth’s route today continues forward through computer gaming and forges ahead into new frontiers of MMO design. As our sister site Massively noted just last month, “Danforth is an industry pro whose resume stretches back to include classic PC games like Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Wasteland, and she said she was impressed enough with what Namaste was doing with Storybricks to allow herself to be called out of semi-retirement and back into action. Right now she’s providing the team with concept and promotional art.”

Read more at WoW Insider, part 1 and part 2.

There’s more to figuring out what games are right for your family than checking that little rating stamped on every game package. You don’t have to play it yourself to tell if it’s right for your family! We’ll show you all the keys that games-savvy parents use to unlock games that fit their families (and lock down games that don’t).

Read eight specific ways to make sure the games your kids are playing are right for your family at Tecca.

[Image credit: Sherif Salama]

None of these things come as news to digitally aware parents. But what you might not have considered are some of the other ways that playing video games offers opportunities for growth that kids might not be getting in the classroom.

Read more at Tecca.

Bill Craig is doing it right. The 61-year-old WoW player has suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease for half a dozen years now, winding his way through Azeroth for about half that time. He’s ridden a bicycle all the way from Carrollton, Texas, to Carrollton, Georgia, to raise money and awareness for animal welfare — not once but twice. He’s a Vietnam vet. He serves as an advocate with the Alzheimer’s Association, having recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., with his wife to meet with legislators about bills impacting Alzheimer’s. Bill’s contributions and commitment to his community and country are impressive for any seasoned professional, let alone someone living with a disease that monkeywrenches a person’s thinking, memory and behavior.

I know Bill’s doing it right because I live under the baleful gaze of Alzheimer’s, too. My mother passed away two years ago after a particularly cruel struggle with the disease. She began batting aside its first tendrils while caring for my grandmother, also stripped bare by Alzheimer’s. My father wanders through a related type of dementia — perversely, with all the sets of symptoms my mother never developed. (Ding! We hit the jackpot, I guess.) In my work, I’ve written about Alzheimer’s and the incredible burdens it places on families, parents with young children who now also care for their own parents over the painfully protracted years it takes life to trickle away. Alzheimer’s is inextricably part of my life, too.

So none of that makes me special — Alzheimer’s grip on families is all too common — but it does mean I can say one thing with certainty: Bill Craig is doing it right. His view of Azeroth, however, is very different from yours or mine.

Read more at WoW Insider.

For players whose kids are itching to join in the family fun, though, there are plenty of ways to make World of Warcraft a productive, happy experience for kids, parents, and fellow players alike. Here’s the thing: There’s more to think about and more ways to throttle age-related issues than simply turning off trade chat and forbidding PUGs before walking into the other room to watch TV.

At WoW Insider, I pulled together a roundup of ways parents can find the best fit for WoW with kids, teens, and even parents themselves!

When you work behind the scenes as an editor, you don’t get to make much of a personal statement. It’s not like writing, when your name is splashed all over the front page of the publications you work with and strangers pelt you with calls and emails, hungry for quotes and references and contacts.

In these more peaceful days as an editor toiling away behind the curtain, I admit that having my World of Warcraft character and her favorite in-game pet peeking out from a WoW Insider Breakfast Topic lends a smile to my morning. Recognition? It may not mean anything to anyone else, but it reminds me that even when my words or name are nowhere in sight, the time I spend polishing everyone else’s work smiles quietly from just beneath the surface.

Arkenstone is one of a team of Cataclysm composers headed by Blizzard’s Audio Director Russell Brower that tackled a whopping eight hours of new music for the expansion — about the same amount of music as was added with Wrath of the Lich King expansion, bringing World of Warcraft’s musical tally to something like 36 hours of in-game music. “I think it’s exciting for a player to get all this new content at one time,” Arkenstone says enthusiastically. “When you have all this music spread out across the word, composers, meshing … It’s hours and hours of music.”

Read more at WoW Insider.