Armaggedon’s coming

Damn, you know I can’t think of a good title for this post, so I guess thanks will have to do.

It just occurred to me that I have notched up a month of blogging. I know small fry, lots of people are blogging about their 1 year anniversary, or 100,000th visitor, or 1,000th post, but still my first blogging milestone.

If there was a way of doing a /played, I think that the blogging figure would already compete with my ingame WoW time… or so it feels (not in a bad way), but that could just be RL pressures sucking the rest of my time away.

So 40+ posts, 120+ comments (ok, 1/2 those are mine), and over 3,000 views (thanks to Friday), what do I think & how do I feel?

I think I like it, and I feel knackered!

The one thing I hadn’t considered when I thought about blogging was how much time it would consume. I used to spend a fair bit of time on different forums, reading and thinking about my mage, but the new ideas and information dried up.

By chance I stumbled across a blog, I think it was World of Matticus, and found a new and much more enjoyable source of reading – the WoW Blogsphere.

Why new and more enjoyable?

The biggest difference I have found between blogs and forums is that forum posts usually start with a hasty ill formed question that garners a series of responses. Some well thought out by caring and informed members of the WoW community, others…. well I am sure you have read them yourself.

They also tend to be quite “technically” specific. Where do I find x?; What’s better y or z? etc. They rarely inject the human side of the player behind the stats.

Blogs I have found to be very different. Where forums are reactive, blogs are proactive. The inital post is well considered and written, and is usually more about informing that “demanding” answers.

The people that respond also seem to be of a different mold – primarily informed bloggers themselves, the provide either supporting information or well formed counter arguments. If nothing else, people are quite free with their expression of support (the nice post, lol etc. comments)

I feel that rather than becoming a blogger, I have found a large distributed guild. The sort that takes the level 1 newbie under their arm, fits them out with a few bags, and finds the time to run some instances.

One of the reasons I started blogging was it felt like their were no Mage blogs, or those that did exists had fallen by the wayside (Something I am happy to say has been proven wrong… but I think I am the only Fire Mage blog.. someone prove me wrong please). One of the few that I had located, Larisa’s, was due to the promotion of a non-English blog by Matticus. I started reading blogs at the right time, Larisa was translating her whole site to English. I became an avid reader.

So you can imagine how excited I was when Larisa was my 1st comment! She’s an Arcane mage, but she’s OK At least she had the sense to be a Gnome, unlike Zupa.. Undead? Too much power consumption there I think – probably explains the use of Frost.. the chill of undead. Of course now we are engaged in a bit of light hearted Spec slinging – which I am loving as it gives me a clearer focus – Fire!

These are just 2 of the blogging community that I now consider “Guild Mates”. If you are thinking about blogging, remember you wont be alone. BA chat is just like guild chat, Twisted Nether is just like Vent or TS. The major difference being that you are mixing with the cream of the crop – the ones that care about guild health and player abilities and are prepared to take the time to share their knowledge and experience.

Speaking of the WoW blogging community, it still appears quite new, with the majority of the longterm bloggers only sitting around 12 months. But they are now turning that knowledge into resources for budding bloggers like myself (and maybe you).

Here’s a list of some I can remember:

• Twisted Nether
• Blog Azeroth
• Specifically: 9 Things Every WoW Blogger MUST Have On Their Blog
• World of Matticus – many posts including: this and this and this and there are more, that I can’t put my finger on right now.
• Part Time Druid
• Will Tank for Healz!

I know there are a heap more… I have read them, but are now gone from the 3 remaining brain cells I call affectionately “my memory”. If you have one, tell me and I will keep tacking them onto the list.

So thanks folks, particularly those of you in the WoW blogging community, for making me feel welcome and dropping by my blog. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum without it becoming a chore!

Gnomer and Out!