Blogging about Blogging

Even if it is one of the seven deadly sins of self indulgence sometimes a little introspection is a good thing.

Why am I here?

What's this all about?

Can I get away with attacking that before my mana is fully regenerated?

The answer to the last one is usually 'no' but moving into the mid-20s is changing that a bit.

For the other two; my original plan was just to keep notes on myself as I let World of Warcraft into my life and inevitably change me.
Kinda like 'Supersize Me' but with video games.

One of the main things that fascinated me was the culture.
I play games, I know gamer culture but the MMO thing looked like something else entirely
Even before I started playing I did this 'WoW Curious' thing where I'd listen to The Instance and try to schedule a good time to do the ten day trial where I could get the most out of it. For all the world like a wannabe junkie not ready to jump into the pool.

One of the most surprising elements of W0W as a culture is the sheer breadth and depth of it. In particular the blogging side of it. I knew there would be blogs, of course.
I suppose I knew there would be blog lists aggregating and categorizing them.

I didn't know that there would be aggregating blog lists entirely for, say, Druid blogs.

I didn't realize that the culture would be so advanced and developed.
In the short time that I have been involved three highly regarded and well loved members of the community have left blogging all in different ways.
Phaedra from Resto4Life has gone to have a child.
BigRedKitty, who's developed incredible high production value educational material for Hunters had to make a choice between WoW and his family and chose them.
And the Greedy Goblin who played and blogged the trading/economics part of the game has literally earnt all the money it is possible for a character to earn.

Even though these people were high value members of the community who had been in place for years it doesn't feel like the whole thing is dying.
Quite the contrary.
In fact it seems more like the kind of natural process you would expect to find in a stable and mature forest: there's a constant cycle of growth and rebirth that is bigger and stronger than any of it's individual parts.

All of this is partly a round about way of saying that I'm now listed on the Twisted Nether Wiki and very much appreciate the inclusion.

I guess it's also a personal admission to myself that I want more out of this blog than a convenient place to take notes. I do want to join the larger conversation. I do want people to read it and I do care whether they find it interesting or not.

There, I've said it.

Hello everybody!

/wave