Armaggedon's coming!

When I started blogging, I did so for one simple reason

There are no Mage blogs, therefore I must blog.

I soon realised the error of my ways, it was more like

I can see no Mage blogs, therefore there are none.

This of course wasn’t quite true.

I had found the burned out husks of Mage blogs, some of which I think must have been special in their arcane moment of glory, now reduced to ashes.

I could see some Mage blogs, but not many, but then one led to another, which led to another, which led to us forming a very tight community, one that was special because for some reason, Mage blogs are rarely Mage blogs.

I mean obviously they are Mage blogs, but at 781 posts, I would be lying if I thought more than 10% of these were true Mage posts.

Hunters, for some unknown reason, after years in existence, can still generate theorycrafting post after theorycrafting post after… awww not another blooping theorycrafting post!

But Mages, all jokes aside, can get away with one each patch.

What was previously a 1, 2, 1, 2, 3 rotation is now a 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3 rotation

There, done, let’s get down to the important stuff like expressing our love of Magery in WoW.

In my farewell comment to Larísa, I expressed this simply:

You will go down in memory as the the greatest Mage blog that never was a Mage blog.

This is something we had discussed many times, she was a Blogging Mage, rather than a Mage blogger. The only times she ever got close to talking Magery was before she wrote in English (yes she translated them, but they were early posts) and when she was dragged into a Mage War by some annoying green-haired, green-bearded, Gnome Fire Mage and another new-comer on the scene a nutty Frost Mage, now also gone, but not forgotten by the name of Krizzlybear.

But, she was always a Mage blogger to me.

Over time, we became more than half seen shadows on the foothpath, we became known faces

Our names maybe not so well known yet, but that didn’t matter, we were faces and faces attracted more faces and we became a vibrant community.  We weren’t the oldest of the Mage bloggers, and we weren’t the youngest and to be honest I don’t know that that distinction was ever made with the exception of the welcome to the community post.  I swear for a while there we were racing to find new Mage bloggers, to find that as yet uncommented post that stated, like so many before them

Hi I’m a Mage and I have decided to blog because I can’t find any Mage blogs.

Sometimes I would be too late and there would already be footprints in the sand, nearly always little footprints, some left by Larísa, some left by Krizzlybear.

We took these new bloggers, wrapped them in our arms (of the community) and introduced them to the world.

They were no longer invisible, nor shadows, nor even nameless Mages.

They had a name, a place in our blogrolls, a place in the WoWblogsphere.

I know many more have come since, many that I haven’t had the time to acknowledge, some that even personally sought me out in the hope I would acknowledge them.

Many I have failed in this, many I believe have given up, yet many continue on, same-same, but different.

Mage bloggers at heart, yet storytellers of all descriptions, backgrounds, interests and beliefs.

Those that have known for a long time will know that for a while I averaged 1.5 posts a day, 7 days a week, even when I was away for 6 weeks I still managed nearly one post a day, most of which I wrote before leaving for that holiday.. yes I was knocking out 3-4 posts per day, but scheduling most of them.

Those days have gone, I would now be better thought of as AFK.

Sure I’m still about, but not consistently enough to take a punt that there is a new post here at 10am every day.

In fact, I remind myself now of many of the Mage bloggers that did exist when I 1st started blogging… here one day, gone for a month, a frenzy of writing… nothing… hello… goodbye… gawd can you believe those pugs… QQ.. wow awesome!

I started using a feedreader purely because it drove me crazy visiting 20 blogs a day that hadn’t been updated.

I’m still here, remembered fondly by some, hounded by others behind the scenes for posts, but whatever the case, I am still here, I just don’t have the Bearittude that some have, I can’t just sit in front of the PC now and knock out a post a day… which is a shame really, it means I discard more post ideas than I write.

Still… still I am here and occasionally I can mention someone, reinforce the existence of the many and varied WoW bloggers that are still here and mention those that have the itch but aren’t quite sure if they should begin a blog.

I still like to utter:

Mage ahoy!

I still take great joy in seeing and reading new blogs… if only I had the time to read them consistently.

So if you are thinking about starting a blog, or maybe have recently just done so, don’t fear the leaving of the great bloggers like Larísa and Kriz.  This is an opportunity for your to shine like the great bloggers before you. You may be a “Cataclysm baby”, but don’t let the years of experience that the veterans throw about scare your, what the WoW blogosphere needs is freshness and vitality, new eyes on old things, the joy, your joy of playing which inspires all that stumble across your blog, or your forum, or your webcomic.

The WoW blogosphere is not about the likes of Larísa or Kriz or myself or the countless bloggers that have come before… it is about you and what you will give to a community that will devour anything, including the frequently incoherent ramblings of a silly, if not insane, Gnome Mage Blogger with great balls of fire.

At some point, maybe in the near future, maybe in years to come, someone will drop by here and what they will see is

They wont see years of blog posts and if they even began to look back they would roll their eyes at many of the insane posts that I have made.  No, not the truly insane, they will never lose their appeal, rather those posts which were dated hours before I hit publish, but you know what, I don’t give a flying freddo frog, because the eternal joy for me was writing them in the 1st place.

Oi, get back vultures, this isn’t a farewell post… though I guess in a sense it looks like one, but it isn’t, so sod off!

If you feel like blogging remember the cost… the infrastructure is free, WordPress and Blogger will give it to you for nothing (unless you want something swanky), the cost comes in terms of your time and dedication, maybe your job or your relationship if you aren’t careful… but if you are careful the rewards can’t be measured by anyone but yourself.

Remember to announce yourself on the Twisted Nether Wiki’s Big List of Blogs (Blob).

Remember to announce yourself on Blog Azeroth

Remember to listen to the next weeks Twisted Nether Podcast to hear them stumble over your name

Remember to get onto Twitter and annoy your idols

Remember that this isn’t just about static words on a webpage, it’s about an amazing community where people will come and go, but touch your heart forever.

Gnomer and Out!

Ohh shite.. I nearly forgot… the whole inspiration for this post (yeah I know it is probably unbelievable considering the Gnomewall (tm) above, but it was in response to an email I received about World of Graphs.

I’ve blabbered on enough, so I will let Trebonius, the human do his own talking.

I’m Trebonius, I’ve discovered your website a few days ago, while I was looking for some information for my mage (Trebonius – EU-Garona)

Moreover, I’m the webmaster of World of WarGraphs

I really think that you could be interested in the tools my website provide, that’s why I write you that email.

The goal of my website is to present the stats of the best players (pve & pvp), so as to make them have the informations on one website, updated every second day.

For instance, let’s say you want to create a PvP Mage (yes, Pvp is better than PvE, imo ^^)

The first thing you’ll search on forums is : what is the best race for my mage ?
If you go on this page : Mages races (players above 2200 rating) you’ll see immediatly what best PvP players (PvP players with at least 2200 rating) do & you should choose an undead or human
Then, professions : PvP Mages professions (players above 2200 rating) & Jewelcrafting and engineering

You can also search what are the talents best PvP players use, their glyphs, the items they use, how they gem their stuff, how they enchant it …

Moreover, you have realms rankings, so as to know where are the best realms for pvp, where are the best pvp players

You have also on the website a PvE section (which displays more or less the same stats, but for pve players :p)

I would like to know if you could introduce my website to your community, or if you are interested in something like a link exchange ?

Regards

Trebonius, the human

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2011/03/29/invisible-mage-blogs/