FAQ

Who are you, and what is your relationship to gaming?
My name is Toque and I’m a teacher originally from Indiana. I lived in Canada for three years, and now I’m back in the states living happily ever after with my husband Lucas and our son Liam plus two dogs, Oliver and Winston. I love MMORPGs on my PC and gaming on the Nintendo Wii. I had played World of Warcraft for six years (off and on with breaks here and there in my free time), and I used to write articles and guides about WoW for fun and profit for a company called Mentor Media (now 38 Studios) who launched The Azeroth Advisor.  My previous gaming experience includes Rift, Aion, Guild Wars, EverQuest II, and Star Wars Galaxies, to name a few. Other things I enjoy in my spare time include knitting, scrapbooking, and geeky soapmaking, so believe it or not, there is more to me than gaming!

NOTE: I am currently making soap in my free time when I’m not gaming over at GEEKSOAP!

What official “jobs” did you do in relationship to WoW or gaming in general?
I was previously a writer and Content Editor for the Azeroth Advisor, where I was paid by 38 Studios (formerly Mentor Media) for my article contributions. That was something I was doing on the side in my spare time when I was actively playing World of Warcraft. Now I just blog here and write personal interest articles about the various games I play for my website. And lurk on gaming forums.

Have you made any WoW videos?
Why yes, thanks for asking! I have authored a few WoW videos posted to my YouTube page; the most popular one being my method of getting to the hidden, dancing troll village between Darkshore and Moonglade officially known as Shatterspear Village. (Which is obsolete now that the village is accessible freely after the Cataclysm.) Before WotLK went live, I had posted a few beta clips while exploring Northrend, too. Another popular video of mine is the investigation I did into Challe’s Home for Little Tykes… a hidden, secret orphanage in Outland where rumors persist that the matron, Challe, is a cannibal!

What other PC games have you played?
As mentioned, I’ve played WoW off and on for six years. I also played Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided since 2003, plus dabbled in EverQuest II and Guild Wars. I also played Rift and AION. I’ve tried many other MMORPGs in the past, but those are the couple that I’ve spent the most time on. I’ve beta tested some smaller name MMOs and also beta tested the WoW Burning Crusade expansion along with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I’ve recently beta tested Rift: Planes of Telara, and before that I beta tested Aion, Mythos, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Pirates of the Caribbean Online, just to name a few. I’m always open to beta testing new things!

Weren’t there originally forums on your site?
I used to have forums, yes. Back in 2006-2007. The forums were originally suggested by a couple of readers and I tried that idea out, but found that most of my communication was happening over email instead. I also found that I was getting a lot of the same questions, so I switched to an FAQ setup to try and answer some of those common questions.

What’s up with your screenshot gallery?!
My old screenshot gallery (still accessible at /gallery) was Flash-based and a huge pain for a lot of people with outdated browsers. I promised a long time ago that I would put together a non-Flash version of my gallery, and I have finally built my photo gallery right into the blog & updated it as of Feb 2011. Now just click the Photos button across the top of the site or click on the Photo Gallery link in the right navigational menu of the site to check it out! No more Flash requirements necessary. You may find outdated links to the old gallery still lingering around my site; I’ve tried my best to change them all, but if you notice one please let me know so I can fix it! Enjoy :)

What is a toque and why is it your name? In Spanish it means blah blah, in Dutch it means blah blah…
A toque (Canadian variant, english spelling) is a woolen winter hat. French Canadians spell it “tuque” and it is my gaming alias because it’s my favorite word of all time. It also makes for a great character name. The reason for “pinktoque” is because pink is my favorite color. You can read more about the word toque on Wikipedia. While Toque was the name of my old main character, I am often known as Amethyst, Ameythyst, or Amoothyst across other games. Even though I use other in-game names, Toque is still my official alias related to gaming.

Do you actually do your own fitness program?
I have a weird obsession with the idea of mixing games and exercise and am always looking for a way to make gaming more “healthy” (as you can tell from my WoW fitness program and my Wii health article). I regularly do Turbo Jam (a mixture of cardio and aerobic kickboxing) along with Pilates, and I do all I can to put as much effort into making my Wii gaming experiences as much of a work out as possible, because that’s fun for me. I’m very confident and believe wholeheartedly that it’s possible to enjoy gaming without getting fat.

Were you the Toque mentioned on the World of Warcraft front page?
Yes, I have been featured on the front page twice now. The first time was for the WoW Fitness Program and the second time was for my guide on the Hallow’s End in-game seasonal event… both original articles posted here on my website. You will find both articles also listed permanently in the Community section of the WoW site now, too. The Hallow’s End guide also received a front page mention on the WoW Stratics website, and they were given permission to add it to their guide section. As you’ve probably noticed, some of my articles are a bit outdated since the game(s) have evolved so much over the years.

Why don’t you do an article on blah blah blah…?
I’d love to hear your suggestions. Feel free to contact me via the many different methods listed on my contact page and let me know what you’d like to see. The articles for my site are non-Mentor-Media/38 Studios assignments, so they’re typically inspired by something I’ve experienced while gaming that I feel an urge to write about on a whim. However, I’m always open to suggestions and new topic ideas related to Rift, WoW, Aion, SWG, GW, EQ2, the Wii, or gaming in general.

What are all of your characters’ names and what servers do/did you play on?
Good question. I’ve got several aliases across my favorite and most regularly played games.

My characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic are Amethyst, Ame’thyst, and A’methyst… Imperial zabraks on the Port Nowhere shard, guilded with the Durmanhoth Clan. This is my current active gaming account – stop in and say hi!

In WoW my main character was Amoothyst, a tauren Druid on the RP/PvP Emerald Dream (US) realm. When I have my WoW account subbed, you can find me playing between Amoothyst, Tuque, or Farfelu on Emerald Dream (US) or on Qiviut on Kael’Thas (US), but the account is currently dormant while I play SWTOR.

As Alliance I was originally from the Silvermoon realm (and then Arathor realm after jumping on the free-server-transfer-for-overpopulated-realms bandwagon), but then transferred my old main, Minty (who became Toque), and my favorite alts to the Medivh realm to play with a friend when I wasn’t busy on Emerald Dream with my Horde. My Alliance characters, including the “famous” pink-pigtailed gnome named Toque and my original Hunter from day 1 in WoW are still around; I don’t play Toque these days, but my Hunter has been moved to Kael’Thas where I level her with some Alliance friends.

In Star Wars Galaxies I played on the Flurry galaxy as Amethyst Moonshadow, the Official Pink Rodian of Flurry since January 2004, even though I actually began playing SWG in late 2003 on Shadowfire first… Flurry was always my true SWG home. In addition to Amethyst, there were also all of her alts Ame’thyst, A’methyst, and Ameth’yst. All were identical pink Rodians. Rodian for Life!

Do you have any other websites?
Making and maintaining websites is another hobby of mine. I’m a crafty girl and have designed a line of geeky soaps I call GEEKSOAP, which you can check out over at http://www.geeksoap.net. I regularly update my craft blog as I create new geek soap or show off the current knit or crochet projects I’m working on. My craft portfolio is located at www.thepinktoque.com, and I sell crochet Cthulhu accessories that I make in The Pink Toque Shop. Family stuff can be found at thekarpiuks.com.

How can I contact you?
Please check the contact page for a wide variety of ways to contact me. I’d love to hear from you, and constructive criticism is always welcome. Many thanks to all of the very kind people out there who have contacted me over the past five years with wonderful feedback and comments. <3

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