So, where have I been? And what’s next?

In short, restricting this blog to just WoW made it difficult to post when other, more important things came up.  I wanted to talk about WoW (and what I was doing and what was going on in game), but there were also bigger things happening and they weren’t appropriate for what this blog was.  This really made it difficult to post at all, which then slowed all other momentum and then stopped me completely.

I’ve decided to modify this blog and open it up to more than just WoW and I wanted to let my readers know before I made the move.  I’ve always appreciated the attempt most bloggers make to keep politics and real-life to a minimum when talking about the game.  It’s not fully possible, nor is it a good idea, to completely avoid real-life concerns in a game though.  And I don’t just mean idiots talking politics in trade chat.  I mean topics that touch on real-life issues of the players.  Still, I do appreciate and embrace the need for escapism so that you can handle reality.  On the other hand, some never get to fully escape because our shared fantasy world is swimming in normative reminders of real life that may be invisible to most people.  And to pretend that we are all the same erases the issues some people face.

Whatever the case, I will still be posting on Warcraft and related whatnot, so I hope to be able to still have conversations with my readers.  But there will be other topics floating around as well and I wanted to give a heads up to readers and the people that added me to their blogroll in case they like to keep those lists tightly focused on WoW or at least gaming.

I started this post a while ago and have been trying to get it finished and posted.  I wanted to say more and edit it and refine it, but it is unnecessary and I need to make the switch soon.

The above was the summary of the navel-gazing below. 

When I first started this blog I briefly hit on the why of it:

Why am I doing this? 

I don’t know. Well, that’s not strictly true. I have some ideas of why but it would be hard to put them into words. I think, for now, it would be safe to say that I’m doing this because I want to.

 

There were a number of reasons but one, among the many, was possible depression*.  At the time, writing those posts was giving me an escape and a way of dealing with things. It was one tool that helped me cope and I think it did it well. 

One of things I have liked about having this blog is that I have tried to keep it focused on WoW as much as possible.  I was able to leave other things out and just focus on the game.  Now though, I’m feeling more and more confined by some personal limits I set that I think are preventing me from using this platform for what I want and need.

I’m in the US and as you are likely aware, we are having our presidential election this year. During the primaries I had quite a bit to say and as we move to the general election I’m sure I’ll have even more.  In addition, there are just too many things going on in the world that I'm not talking about and I want to.  While the internet doesn't really need one more opinion out there, I need to be able to talk about things.  I need to be able to talk about this letter.  I need to be able to talk about Orlando.  Even if there is no one to listen, I need to be able to write about it .

Moving forward

I was absolutely tickled when I was added to some side bars on a few blogs, and by people that I really enjoyed reading!

I guess that’s why I want to make this post.  I am planning to transition this blog to something less focused purely on WoW and be more of a personal journal, of sorts.  I still plan to post and talk about WoW, especially with Legion approaching, but I won’t feel like I have to edit myself quite so much.

And since I’ll be bringing in my opinions on various controversial topics, I wanted to make readers aware, especially those that added me to their side bar.  It's important to say that I'm not doing this because I'm mad at anyone that added me or any nonsense like that.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  It is because of my gratitude that people took an interest in my limited writing that I want to alert them as I change topics.

[And here is where I've been editing and deleting and revising. As I mentioned above, there is too much going on for me to keep waiting until this perfect.  So please forgive the clumsiness of this post.  I think the main idea comes across.  I'll leave this up for a few days so that anyone who wants to remove me from their reading can.]

* I was never officially diagnosed with depression, because I never went to a doctor about it.  Which I know can sound like a red flag, but I honestly never felt it quite hit that stage. A risky thing, I know, but I did talk with the spouse and we both kept an eye on things.  As a quick reminder, depression isn’t sadness.  For formal, clinical information, go here:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression-what-you-need-to-know-12-2015/index.shtml

But for a good, deeply emotionally and resonant view, go here:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

On my impromptu hiatus

So, where have you been?

I've been waiting here.  The whole time.

What do you have to say for yourself?

In the same vein of truth-telling, trade chat is full of articulate, well-reasoned discussion.

To the actual reasons for my absence:

- the IT department at my work changed...something...and as such it has become a bit more challenging to log in at work.
- work has been a bit busier of late.
- when I'm at home, I typically want to play WoW if I'm on the computer, so I'm not really writing at home.

It really wasn't any one thing, just a confluence of events.

But what have I been doing in game?

Having fun exploring content, although very little in Draenor.

The spouse and I finally hit the Isle of Giants and have had fun getting pets and mounts.  At 100, our hunters are just tearing through things. This is good because we aren't the only ones there so, if we don't move quickly, the place will be empty in no time.  We're both working on the 9,999 bones, although neither of us really care about the mount; other than as the count towards the next mount achievement.  It's a fun place to just hunt, skin, and collect while we zone out together and/or talk about the stresses of work and the day. (addendum: the spouse was having ridiculous luck tonight - in about 10-15 minutes two Direhorn Runts dropped as did somewhere around 4-5 Zandalari raptors. I can't remember if it was the Anklerenders, Footslashers, Kneebiters, or Toenibblers. It doesn't matter, it was amazing.

We had another pet-focused goal recently, this one back in Deepholm.  Neither of our hunters had finished the Deepholm quests, so we hadn't unlocked the dailies (another problem with leveling too fast in old content). So in order to be able to tame Jadefang and get the Tiny Shale Spider, we had to finish the storyline in Deepholm and then wait for the daily to pop-up.

Huh, just thought of another few pet/mount goals we did.  We finished the quest line to get the Lashtail Hatchling in Zul'gurub and the Amani Battle Bear in Zul'Aman.

Beyond that, my main playing has been the drudgery of the Brewfest dailies. I wanted the one pet, some toys I didn't have, and perhaps an heirloom upgrade.  So grinding out the back and forth of delivering kegs.  I kind of like Brewfest overall, but having this chore does take some of the fun out of it.  To be fair, I didn't have to get any of that so it was self-imposed.  Still, I like being able to experience the "holiday" more than I did this time.  Not specifically this holiday.  Just those holidays in general.

Also, I'm perilously close to breaking 100,000 gold on my first character ever.  Some people never see that amount of gold and others make that without trying.  For me, making gold have never been a talent.  I'm not working at it with any great effort right now, mostly follower missions at this point.  But it took a bit of work to get this far and I'm happy to reach this goal.

I hope to get back in the swing of things here as I enjoyed this and it was a great outlet for me.  I also enjoyed reading and commenting on other people's blog, so I hope to be able to get back to that.

Current Statistics | Class & Spec | August 2015

Since we covered race and allegiance in a previous post, I'll cover the class breakout in this one.

As with last time, "% of total" refers to percentage of all characters on this active account. "n/a" can be thought of as not assigned, since it covers those sub-30 characters as well as those that I haven't yet decided on what off-spec to choose.

The class table is broken up with an arbitrary, alphabetical split.

Class	Death Knight	Druid	Hunter	Mage	Monk	Paladin
Count	4	6	5	4	2	5
% of total	8%	12%	10%	8%	4%	10%

Class	Priest	Rogue	Shaman	Warlock	Warrior
Count	4	6	4	5	5
% of total	8%	12%	8%	10%	10%

So what do we see?  Well, if you remember from the race post, Druids & Hunters are heavily represented and Night Elves dominate those classes.  Of the 11 Druids or Hunters out there, 7 are Night Elves.

Rogues being tied for most common was a bit surprising however they can be nearly any race and I generally enjoy their playstyle and the idea of a rogue roleplay wise. Even if I am pretty bad at it.

I thought Warlock and Warrior being so high was a surprise too, but real the surprise is that Mage is so low.  I guess when I made the characters they just didn't want to be mages, which is odd because Spellsteal.

Monks suffer from coming in a later expansion.  I'm sure if the had been there from the start, I would have undoubtedly had more.

What of their primary specialization?

Primary Roll	Melee	Ranged DPS	Healer	Tank
Count	20	18	7	5
% of total	40%	36%	14%	10%

Nothing too surprising here. Melee and Ranged are essentially tied and DPS generally leads by a large margin. Healing and tanking are close to even as well, with the slight edge to Heal. Which again, makes sense with what I know of my playstyle.

And what about their secondary specialization?

Off-Spec	Melee	Ranged DPS	Healer	Tank	n/a
Count	4	6	3	7	30
% of total	8%	12%	6%	14%	60%

This is a little bit harder to pull anything useful from.  Hunters, Mages, Warlocks and Rogues are basically range and melee DPS with simply different flavors of how they do it. The large presence of tank off-spec seemed odd at first, but looking into it, 4 of those are Death Knights.  Death Knight tank spec is Blood, which when I chose it was a DPS spec. Blood makes sense to me as a DPS spec, Frost makes sense to me as a tank spec. It bugs me that they changed it. It really changed how much I play those characters.  Oh well, I digress.

So that is basically the class and spec layout. Are you not enthused?  Next time, levels!


(Programming note: I lost this post the first time I made it. I feel like I've cross some threshold. I'm now a blogger that can complain about a lost post! Yay?)