In an ironic twist to all the in-game advertising we've been seeing these days, several World of Warcraft players have noticed references to WoW popping on prime time shows.

While this sort of thing has happened before (the South Park episode "Make Love, not Warcraft" comes to mind), the increasing frequency with which the World of Warcraft references have been occurring has led forum members to speculate about the actual motives behind them.

Some players have wondered if the references were simply Blizzard's way of plugging it's famous MMORPG. Others have suggested that perhaps it's the prime time shows that have contacted Blizzard for permission to use the World of Warcraft name in their episodes.

One forum member even wondered why no one even bothered mentioning the one about the "Lawgiver" and his mighty Toyota truck. Blizzard poster Nethaera gave her two-cents' on the matter:

Things are mentioned all the time in different shows based on popular culture of the time. It gives people that watch those shows the sense that the writers and by extension, the characters, are in touch with what the viewers are involved with in their own lives.

Regardless of whether it's Blizzard or the networks who are really behind the World of Warcraft references, the point is that WoW has already entered pop culture domain, and prime time show writers are quick to make use of something that they know viewers will recognize.

Time just seem to go by in a blink and since everything nowadays is so fast-paced, you may have missed out on some interesting mods that we have featured for our avid readers, specifically the huge chunk of the population who happens to moonlight as World of Warcraft players/addicts. You may think that you have missed out on some of our covered mods forever or that you'd have to search deep within the recesses of QJ to be able to find them, well, we're here to help you out. We give you the top 3 downloaded free WoW mods, basing from our dl.qj statistics.

We kick things off with the third placer, VoidRaider's WoWLoader v2.2b. We have never met an MMORPG fanatic who smile or gush every time they experience lagging while focused on a major onslaught, so this is where WoWLoader enters the picture. This nifty mod is a small Windows application that halts all non-essential Windows services and automatically loads WoW. The result? More system resources available for you to play WoW in the highest graphics setting your PC can handle. The "shutting-the-services" part isn't permanent although you'd have to restart your PC to re-enable them.

Download: [VoidRader's WoWLoader v2.2b]

Ain't that one mod-derific? Don't worry, that's just the appetizer. The two waiting in the full article pack a punch stronger than your level 60 character!

There are more in store for you after the jump!