Day 7: Blog name

Why did I choose this blog name?  Can I be realy selfish and say because I wanted something that started with “A”, so that when things are alphabetized I would be closer to the top?  Well it is true..

I also decided after having a blog name that was very magey, where I wrote about my pally for over half the time, I needed a non class specific blog name that would cover all my toons, collection addiction and achievement whoring 🙂

I did also toy with the idea of doing some RP – but have just not gotten round to it yet….maybe one day..

I think Azerothian Life lets people know it is about all different aspects and not just one class or topic…(At least, that’s my hope)!  Does it do that?

Shared Topic: Autoblogography

I was alarmed at our lack of up and coming topics, so I figured it was time I suggest a topic myself.

Lets write our autoblogography!

What pushed you to start blogging? What challenges have you faced? What are you favorite posts and why? What are the stories behind them? How has blogging affected your gaming?

Those of you who enjoy writing in character could write feature your character reflecting on how they’ve changed since day 1 and about their favorite adventures.

If you’re a new blogger, you can write about your experience so far, about what you hope for the future.

EDIT: Here’s an example post: http://bossypally.wordpress.com/2010/11 … ogography/

My autoblogography is probably not exciting to anyone else, but it is a journey for me which has given me an outlet I can use to just delve into life a little more.  I remember when I started blogging.  i was living in Sydney at the time and my girlfriend and I were having lunch and she was telling me about Livejournal and how good it was to just write stuff down.

I have been a big fan of written journals and over the years have kept quite a few, my only problem being I can’t seem to manage to ever actually update them.  Life gets in the way and I always lost track of them after a few months.  Online Blogging was something I could update anytime I was near a PC, I could just throw an email at it and then format it later if I wanted to.  I started my LJ on 5th February 2003.    I didn’t update it all that much and to be honest in those first few months it was rather a jumble of crap.

I was in a very negative headspace and to be honest I use my personal blog more of a venting station than anything, which I am slowly trying to change.  I still fall back into that habit though of not  updating about the positive things that happen.  We, as humans, always tend to remember the negative though.

Anyway when I started playing WoW in 2005, I would update my personal blog, but honestly, I had so many non geek friends that my updates made no sense to them and pretty soon I was fielding questions about my gaming life that I just kind of got sick of answering.  I stopped updating about WoW.    I really wanted a place to talk about WoW though, I wanted  a home I could update about my toons and use my screenshots and meet other people that love this game as much as me.  So I started reading other WoW blogs.  Just reading daily/weekly whenever they updated.

One thing I noticed was there were so many blogs out there with hardcore guilds.  I couldn’t find any small unknown guilds who were struggling to get past Crazy Cat lady – you know just your joe average teams.  So I started considering I could make a blog.  Originally in the hunt to find active mage resources I was going to make it a blog about mages – all things mages, but I decided I didn’t know anywhere near enough – or have the inclination to learn how or why things worked.  I just want to know the stats I need – I don’t need to know the formula and multipliers etc etc…That’s what places like elitist jerks is for – and that is not my style.  So in the end I just created a home for my toons and my wow life.  It has changed names a few times and I do keep meaning to make it a free standing website, but I just never get around to it.  Maybe I can make that a project for my Uni degree 😀

After I started delving deeper into the blogosphere, I started finding the average guild.  I was ecstatic when I read a blog (I honestly can’t remember whose) about how they were just unable to kill Freya – I even offered some advice as we had only just killed her ourselves after weeks of wiping, but it was so nice to see that others were struggling on bosses.  Just as we were.  So many of us read about these hardcore guilds and players that can reach 15k dps by clicking one button, but let’s face it – they are not the majority of the player base.  I felt much better about my gameplay, my guild and our progress when i found this out. I also started finding different boss strats and got better at searching blogs for strats, alternative methods for killing them which I could take back to the guild and we would try.

My blog, is not meant to be serious, and probably half the blogosphere finds it terribly dull that I update with boring things like mounts and pets and raid kills, however they are an important part of my WoW history and I enjoy that side of the game.  I initially created my blog to get connected and to make friends in the blogosphere, friends who understood the game and the obsession it can cause; the addiction that grows when playing. It didn’t/hasn’t happened (There is still hope right?!?!!?) and I still have very few people outside of the game that I can even chat to about it.  Possibly selfish motivations for creating a blog, I know, but hey I figured there was other people out there who were the same.

Currently, my blog is very much about the normal side of WoW life, as with Cataclysm coming out I am not raiding, I am not in an active guild and I am not really even playing all that much.  Just jumping on to do dailies and anything else I wanted to get done – like farm pets, mounts, rep, CHAMPION SEALS!!!!!  Etc.  Once Cata comes out and we start building the guild up and raiding, I am I will get back to posting about  boss strats and kills and guild drama, but for the moment I am enjoying the headspace of just WoW enjoyment.

Shared Topic – Online persona/Names

What takes the longest to choose, is the first thing people see, and is the one thing they always remember about you and your character?

Your name.

How did you decide upon the name for your character(s)? Did you delve into Norse, Greek, or Roman mythology? Did you choose a name from one of your family members? Did you mash the “Random” name generator button in vain until you stumbled upon something you liked? Is your name a play on aspects of your class, using spells or other traits? Did you play around with syllables, vowels, and consonants until you found something that you loved?

How long did it take you to come up with your name? Do all of your characters share the same ‘theme’ or naming convention? Have you ever run into someone who had a similar name? How did you feel? Does your character have a partner with “the other half” to your name (such as “Salt” and “Pepper”). Do any of your characters have a “themed” guild that goes along with your name? Do you have a nickname that your guild, friends, or significant other has given your character?

Has your character name become your online persona, or maybe the other way around?

Do you have any tips for naming your characters in WoW, or any other game? Resources, name generators, mythology websites, sources of inspiration, etc.

If you are an avid roleplayer, how was your name decided upon by family/friends? Did your character choose the name later in life or were they given it at birth? There are whole stories behind naming/birthday celebrations that I am sure are floating around out there.

So much can be said about names. What does yours say?

 

I like this as a topic, so have decided I must write about it 😀

My in game names generally try to revolve around dragons in some fashion…I say mostly as sometimes I have deviated.

My main nickname – dragonray – was developed back in the days when mIrc was the hip thing to do, before facebook,  twitter and even blogging and heck before I even understood what “being online” was 😀

I am a dragon obsessed individual who was once told I had a smile like a ray of sunshine, so I combined the two and dragonray was born for me.  Since then all of my handles have been dragonray, so chances are if you see dragonray around the traps it is me.  I used to even have a website which I maintained religiously, but gave that up once I found WoW!

My first toon was called named after an author just because I couldnt’ get dragonray and I never really thought I would be playing WoW for the next 5 years.  Consequently my name has evolved since then with every move and alteration.  Since that initial name though most of them have been dragon based – failing that they have been based on obscure goddesses in various mythologies, but that has only been twice I think.

Funnily enough a friend who has come back to WoW as well was going through his macros and with all my name changes we knew exactly what period of time he was playing with which addons etc.  Quite funny to be able to monitor your game play with just a name change.

Everytime I change a toon, race, faction, server etc – I change their names. Not because of any bad history, but because my toon is changing their life and so they need a new name to move into that life.  Perhaps a little odd, but I really do see my toon as an extension of me and every new chapter needs a new heading – so hence the new name  😀

The only other toons which I have not given draconic names to are my taurens, I tend to give them very tauren names – well what I think to be tauren names, like Stormhoof for my warrior.  My pally is prismatique like the scales of a dragon, but also for the holy spells they cast.  My mage is currently dragonfyre, I have a couple of low level alts which are dragonray or onyxiia.

I spend more time trying to find a name for my toon then anything else, considering the amount of time spent playing on the characters you have to enjoy being called some variant of the name you have chose.  Since I have been dragonray for so long, and even sometimes been called that IRL, I don’t mind my mage being shortened to dragon in game if need be during raids etc. 

When deciding on a name I generally have a list of the full name and the short name that is likely to occur, and I make my decision based on that – and of course what is available 😀

I personally really dislike names that you can’t pronounce straight off the bat, if I can’t pronounce it then chances are neither is the gaming population.  I also never put in funny characters because it just makes it too hard to type in game, send mail or whisper unless they are on your friends list.  So I avoid them like the plague, there is a also a little part of me that thinks it slightly unoriginal to add a character to the name because it is already taken…just think of another one!!! 

Since Wow, I have been finding I am using onyxiia more as well, she is after all my favourite ingame dragon and it is nice to have a different name to play with 🙂

So there you have it, an indepth look at my naming conventions 😀

Shared Topic – Design your own class

It’s quite simple. We’ll do it LEGO style. Take each available talent tree (either WotLK or Cata, if you’re in the Beta). Shake. Pick three.

To elaborate: Out of all the talent trees available, if you could freely choose three to create your own, ‘custom’ class, which ones would you choose? This is something that a few small budget roguelikes or diablo clones do, and it’s fun to ponder if this would work in WoW as well.
Your starting class gives you the skills to work with. You may take for granted that all talents that enhance a class skill also automatically give you that skill. You must have at least one talent tree of your chosen starting class.

I like this topic!!  What a way to start my blogging again then with a cool topic like this.

My three are probably so weird it would never work, but here we go I guess – Fire mage as my base – of course!!, resto druid for some healing goodness and Protection Paladin for the tanking…

I think druid healing is probably the better designed healing classes out there, and is much more versatile then say a shammy, although things may have changed recently.  Prot tanking because it is the shizz…I have tanked on warrior and pally and I much prefer pally tanking, although the warrior can be more of a challenge, I have a soft spot for paladin holiness and virtue….maybe it’s because I lack my own 🙂

Yup I would make a hybrid that could do it all if I felt the want.  I love hybrids, shame I don’t actually play any as a hybrid, but I think they are the best toons in the game.

I would call this hybrid – Maheatan!!!!

That didn’t last long….

Yup, I am back 🙂

Have moved my blog to a name I actually like and will continue to update again.

I will go through and update links etc so people can find me once again.

I hope you enjoy the new home as much as I hope to!!

Shared Topic : What needs to die in a fire in Cataclysm?

I have not done on e of these shared topics before as I never really had much to say on any of them, however, this one is great!

Which town, quest, NPC, or zone really needs to be purged with fire, in your opinion? Will you enjoy dancing on the ashes of a particularly hated quest giver? Or is there some zone you avoid like the plague (plaguelands excluded) where being nuked from orbit could only improve the experience? And why do you hate it/them so much?

There are too many for just one…so here is my long list 😀

1 – anything, and I mean anything, near, about, related to or that has any connection to Gnomer the instance – and I mean all quests as well…possibly even tinkertown!! I hated that place possibly the same amount as the next one.

2 – Uldadoom…..yes….I cannot speak anymore about it as it makes me froth at the mouth in anger!

3 – When i was levelling my mage there was a quest in Theramore near one of the guard towers, part of the stupid missing diplomat quest chain I am pretty sure….I failed it so many times i left it alone and came back when I was 80…..that’s two xpacs later – I hated it so much I could not stand it….that also goes for that stupid cow in the hut – Tabitha…yes….she should get her own graveyard.

4 – When doing the starting zone for DK’s there is a quest you need to poke people with a magical stick to get them to talk to you, the first time I ever did that quest t took me close to 50 minutes to complete. Every person I poked did nothing but die. It is a stupid quest and should be removed from the game! I hope they blow up eastern plaguelands and whoever hands you that quests get swallowed by lava!

and finally, the one thing that should be wiped off the face of Azeroth in a huge smelting pot of lava and fire are:

5 – murlocs…all murlocs should be made extinct, oh they are funny and everyone finds them amusing now, but I cannot count the amount of deaths I have chalked up to those horrible things. I often find myself back in SS or Elwynn forest just nuking them for fun and payback….

My blogavesary is coming up soon :D

Yeah on the 14th it will have been one year on this blog 🙂

Feels like it should be more, and I am not sure how I feel that it has only been a year 🙂

I need to do something special, but not sure what?

Any good suggestions?

Time to let it go

Yup, this will be my last post about stepping down, it has been 2 days and so far only my closest friends have said anything, a pool of people smaller in numbers than one hand of fingers.

Yes I am being very self centered, and perhaps idealistic, in hoping that my guild mates would say something, anything to show their support or dissent at the decision.

This leads me to be torn as to the motives behind the lack of chatter, and as I have been reminded so vehemently the last couple of days “ASS / U / ME” is the mother of all cock ups. So I am not even going to go into my theories suffice it to say I am feeling lost in the guild as though I should not be there.

I don’t know where I stand with anyone in the guild now and I think that scares me more than anything else. The last three years I have spent knowing my place and knowing where I fit in, now I am not sure if I am even supposed to be stay in the guild after the way it all went down?

Do guild leaders stay in the guild they step down from if they do it for negative reasons and not just getting too busy in real life reasons? Have others felt this sense of dismemberment from the people?

I am too scared to message people, as I don’t know who are the ones who dislike me, I have had no one actually talk to me since Sunday, and so I am not sure what to do, i didn’t really speak on vents last night or in raid very much as I had no idea what to say. I am second guessing everything about me even being there, do people even give a crap if I am there or not? Would they prefer I wasn’t? Do they have me on mute on vents – which would explain why people sometimes never answer me?

Yeah, defiantely time to let it go. I won’t be posting about this again as there is now nothing to say, i will see how things go once everything has settled down. Maybe I am just being ultra paranoid – or maybe I am right on the money, either way a few weeks from now I will have a better idea…I hope.

behind the curtain..

So since I am no longer beholden to my guild in the sense of protecting their identities as their Guild leader, i am going to throw caution to the wind and I am going to update all my details so you can look up my toons and check me out 🙂 hehehe

So I am in the process of updating my toon and personal pages with all the relevant details so you guys can crituque my crappy toons and tell me how much i suck 🙂 LOL

Feel free to drop past and say hello if you see me running around 🙂

Around and About

So, I though I should add to the buzz about Cata and add some screenies of areas in the game that may be getting overhauled and changed etc that I really adore, there aren’t all that many to be honest, I like lots of places but, as usual, when trying to remember exactly where, I tend to forget…the major problem with my plan was two things, I loved Dalaran and would have taken an entire roll of film on the pink bubble….but well, we all know what happened there, and a lot of my favorite places are actually in Outland and therefore not being altered that we know about 😀

So I trundled about and found some nice shots for you, well I hope they are nice, they could suck immensely 😀  I have had to place the thumbnails here, so click on them for the full versions.  I didn’t want to cut them down in size to fit the style of my blog as I think it would lose the beauty 😀

This is a very old screenshot I took many many moons ago, of me on top of a boat leaving Exodar….I love that we used to be able to climb the boats….hence why it is in this post….nostalgia coming out I know 😀

Stormwind!  My first character (still the one i plat as my main) 5 years later is still in awe when she walks into this city.  I love this screenie!  I really love it.

Exodar, yes I know not entirely valid as not likely to be mutated, but It is still one of the prettiest cities!

Boating into Auberdine always impresses me with the super long dock and the wonderful boats anchored….

A couple of statues that I adore whilst being in Ashenvale.  It just adds to the age.

Shrine of Aessina :  Gorgeous little secluded place.

Maestra’s post – I love this place…I don’t know why!

I can’t remember it’s name right now, but I love this swirly cortex of death!

The Shrine.  This was one of the most wonderful things I ever noticed in game, and was even more impressed when i read up about what it was for. Blizz never disappoint when it comes to adding memorials for those who loved the game.

Barrens Wildlife 🙂  I had just come down from the shrine when these little guys ran straight up to me.  One of the things I hope they add more off in Cata 😀

If I get a chance I may do some more in the next few weeks….we’ll see how that goes!

New site I think

I am currently working on moving my blog to a new and sexy version hosted by me 😀

Have requested the web designing husband to create me a site that looks awesome, well in my head it looks awesome – it may not translate to anything so cool once done.

I am also going to be playing with the guild forums as well, am thinking of moving them across to the wordpress platform as well entirely as they have forum plugins which could be pretty cool. I do like the phpbb3 forum set up though and am not sure if the wordpress forum is as configurable, but I guess there is no harm in trying 🙂 eheheh

I might spend some time next weekend on working on it and coming up with some ideas 🙂 As it is I still have never really finished the guild website…I do feel bad about that occasionally, but I think there are only about 5 people that really use the forums, and yes they may be underrated but in future, if we want to expand as a guild having forums is a good way to go I think 😀

Had a thought about perhaps staying as a 10 man guild, but expanding how many teams we have. You know I was ready about a couple of guilds the other day, and there are so many out there that have different 10 man groups…at different times and raid days etc, I found it fascinating. It is like mini guilds within a big guild all working together and I thought that sounded awesome.

For example you could have a morning raid group, a weekend raid group and a midday group, but generally we will all cross paths etc, and it means you always have people online to do things with and you have a nice big pool of people for professions etc…

It would be difficult from a logistic perspective, but you just have as many raid leaders/officer type people as there are groups and go from there. It also means people can run with more than one toon -i could run my pally in the weekend team if they were short a tank etc….

Might be something to ponder 😀

Officerchat gone as well?

Anyone know what has happened to officerchat.com?

Seems to have gone down the well ???

magecraft.org gone bye bye, WTF?!?!?

So I went to log back onto magecraft.org,  now that I am playing again only to find the boards are shut down?

Anyone in the blogosphere know why or when or what happened?

I really like the forums for mages….I need a new place to haunt now… 😦