Happy Blogiversary

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog (although I don’t think I opened it up to the public until a few days later). I was inspired by all the fantastic bloggers surrounding me, in my guild and in the WOW community at large. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and find that I can express myself much better through the written word than verbally. I completely fail at eloquent conversation or debate when required to formulate my words on the fly. I need time to think, to digest, to push the words around until they actually have some semblance of flow.

Last year, I found myself entranced with the WOW blogging community. I didn’t want to just comment on others’ sites – I wanted to get involved, to spill my own rambling thoughts across the page, and maybe even provide some helpful information. I was bright-eyed and bushy tailed, churning out several posts before I even let anyone read the blog.

I got off to a great start – mostly thanks to the encouragement of my guild-mates, which included several prominent bloggers. I even got a post linked to by WOW.com. I wasn’t out to find fame or readership, but it felt nice to be noticed. I actively commented on other people’s blogs and introduced myself on Blog Azeroth. I felt like I was adding a tiny bit of value to the community, and I was proud of it.

As the year sped on, my blogging motivation waned – WOW became less captivating due to the pre-expansion slump, and my RL overwhelmed me a bit. I had trouble dealing with a few negative comments, because I take everything way too personally. The various Blogger-gate dramas throughout the community left me rather disenchanted as well. I began to lose sight of why I wanted to blog in the first place.

The months leading up to my wedding caused the blog to grow dusty and neglected.  I’m sure I lost most of my readers along the way. I failed to provide anything helpful, useful, or even entertaining.

Now, with a bit more “free time”, I find myself drawn back to this place. I want to write. With Cataclysm close at hand, my goals for the next expansion involve making this blog into something better. It will be a slow process as I strive to improve, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about it, but I will definitely try.

Step 1 involves re-inventing myself. This home on WordPress.com met my needs just fine in the beginning, when I didn’t know if I would even like blogging. Now though, it chafes at my creativity. I love dabbling in web-design, and tweaking plugins and such. I love having complete control. So, as I may have mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m going to move to a self-hosted blog (link to be announced soon).

Step 2 is actually getting myself to write on a regular basis. At least once a week is my goal.

Step 3 is publishing useful guides – things like Addon configuration, leveling, dungeons and more. This will all of course be from my casual perspective. I’m not a hard-core raider or theorycrafter, and have never claimed to be. I do, however, want to provide ”cheat sheets” to others who don’t have time to do a ton of research, or keep forgetting how something works.

But that is all in the future. First, I want to take a look back at some of the posts I’ve done over the past year:

Reading my post on the essence of a rogue makes me a little wistful that I’m demoting my rogue from main character. I think I need to do one on the essence of a shaman to make me feel better.

My first rant wasn’t very eloquent, but it still rings true today.

On December 7th, 2009, it was the eve before Patch 3.3,  I was still reeling from my guild’s own mini-Cataclysm. I was never quite able to formulate an intelligent post about what happened, and I probably never will. It still stings a bit to think about that whole ordeal. There were so many hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and accusations that occurred. Azeroth may be a wonderful escape from real life, but its not an escape from real emotions or drama.

In January, Blizzard caved and tried to entice people to stick it out in the Oculus.  Will Cataclysm bring us a new Oculus? What new mechanics or concept will be introduced in the new expansion, only to fail despite their best intentions?

I wrote a review of the first volume of the WOW magazine, and got linked to by WOW.com.

The blogosphere burst into uproar about the concept that healers and tanks somehow “deserved” more than DPS.

The Shared Topic “Surviving as a Melee DPS” was a fantastic one. Those of you looking to roll a rogue or other melee class in Cataclysm might want to check it out. Most of the specifics spell references are still accurate, although rogues have added Recuperate to our toolkit as nice way to regen health.

I reminisced about all the noobish things I did when I first started WOW.

I completed a Long Strange Trip and found myself astride a purple dragon.

My UI posts were some of the more comprehensive and useful posts I’ve done. See UI Design, Part1 and Part 2.  I’ll probably do another round once I’ve settled into a UI for Cata.

I participated in another Shared Topic, “Starting Over“. A part of me still wishes I were a druid – and I’ll have the chance in a few short weeks.

I became a Loremaster and did a review of the quests I’d encountered over the years. It’s sad to realize that so many of them are gone forever. I hope the new quests are just as epic, and look forward to completing them.

The Real ID launch caused a lot of commotion throughout the community. Blizzard has since added more customizable options to Real ID to help appease those that are concerned about privacy. I still wouldn’t mind a “invisible” mode. I do use it frequently when I play on Horde-side. It ensures that I don’t miss out on raids and I’m able to whisper to guildmates that I want to chat with.

I dabbled with Power Auras on my resto shaman. Look for future Power Auras posts in the future as it will play heavily into my UI strategy for Cata.

So there you have it – a smattering of interesting posts over the past year. I wrote this blog post once and WordPress mystically lost half of it, which is always a treat. I really need to start using another tool than the built-in client.

Anyways, stay tuned for the move to a new home. I’m thinking of launching within the next week (if the CSS and PHP theme tweaking doesn’t kill me first)!