Blogging No More

So my mentor says blogging is dead.  I don’t agree with him, sure it’s took some hits but it’s far from dead. Cynic wrote a couple of great posts about it, and I won’t rehash it cause how can you improve on that great writing, I’ll just add my 2 cents…which in today’s market is worth about half a penny.

Is blogging dead? No I can say with full honesty it is not dead. I think it has changed, and taken some blows like when Google reader closed it’s doors. I think bloggers are going to a more consolidated format like several bloggers on a bigger site.  If it was a dead medium my blogroll wouldn’t be so full, and I check occasionally for dead blogs. New blogs coming out every day,  I can’t keep up. If it was dead no one would be writing.

I think there is still lots to say about video gaming, and MMO’s I just don’t have the time to read it all.

I Stand Alone

Belghast, and Rowan had a couple great posts that had me thinking about this thing I do called blogging. I had a couple thoughts of my own….

The Golden Age of Blogging –

To me when I was blogging on my Warhammer blog The Way of the Chosen. It felt like there was more of a community. We we’re taking on the juggernaut of WoW, having a common enemy, brought us together. Mythic the company who made the game, supported and acknowledged us, which made me want to work harder for them.  Google Reader made it easier for people to access us, though I do this hobby for myself it’s nice seeing people reading what you write. It was easier to comment on blogs, nowadays it seems you have to jump through hoops of fire to comment on a blog.

As any follower of Tzentech knows all things change.

Struggle To Find Myself –

As I floundered with starting High Latency Life, and my new voice in the blogosphere. I had to realize what I want to do, and how i present myself to the internet. I decided that I would not write anything too heavy, that I shall be the bad boy of the blogosphere, and play devil’s advocate, stir the pot, and market my blog not as a fine book. My blog is the magazine you read while your on the shitter.

Keep Your Enemies Close –

I don’t have a sense of community anymore, I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not a great writer. I play alot of different games, though my focus is on WoW right now, that is sure to change. (Come on Mark hurry up with CU!!). I have my friends, those few in the blogosphere I keep checking, and commenting when I can.  Sometimes if I lose contact with someone it’s not because I don’t like them, it’s more like a time thing. I try to hit the people I love first, then everyone else when I have time.  Yes I still check in on my enemies, and I take great satisfaction when they are not active anymore. Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

To the Fallen –

I have been MMO gaming for over 10 years. I lost alot of people due to just us going our separate ways, and a few to death. This has jaded me, and sometimes it’s hard to make those deep connections like I use to. Alas this way of thinking carries over to my blogging mentality. Yes I followed, and knew some great bloggers, but for whatever reason they are gone. I honor them with the graveyard, but it’s hard to develop a new connection because well how long will this person be in my life?

I Don’t Really Stand Alone – 

I have alot (that’s for you K.)  of people that help me, and feed ideas to me. With twitter it gives me ideas on what to write, and what people want to talk about. I have some good friends that support me, and this blog. The many people who come to read the poop I write. I can’t thank all of you enough.  Sometimes though I feel like butter scraped over toast a little too much. I feel tired, and old in this craft of blogging. Alot of people I started blogging with, and inspired me are gone in the end sometimes I feel like I’m standing alone.

Am I your Type?

My buddy Scarybooster posted a great post about blogging, and it made me think about my own styles, and the styles of the other bloggers around me. Blogging is quickly becoming a fading art I think in it’s place it’s becoming a 140 character or less blurb kind of world which couldn’t me more evident than with the death of Google Reader. Though generally I feel blogs fall for the most part into several categories.

Types of Blogs

1. Instructional – These blogs tell you valued information about a game, or games in terms of how to do something within said game.

2. Critical – These blogs off opinions as to certain things about games, or issues concerning games.

3. Storytelling – These blogs tell tales of their adventures, or use the game world to build their own tales.

4. Mixed Bag of Nuts – Sort of a hodge podge of the previous three.

5. Me – Yes I kind of set myself apart. I’ll tell you why.

What type of blogger am I? When I first started blogging I viewed myself as more of the previous types of bloggers at one time or another. Then as I progressed in this hobby, I broke my own mold. I started writing shorter posts, and added pictures to these posts way before Google+ or Twitter became popular. I felt I was more of an Entertainer, and perhaps I saw the writing on the wall. That people who check me out come for a quick laugh, or maybe a peek at what girl I posted that day. In this disjointed 140 character world, I think I feel right at home. My writing will probably never win any awards, but if I can spark someones emotion whether its laughing, crying, or even anger. Then I feel I’ve done my job. For that’s what I believe there in lies the power of the word, it leads you places….and I want to lead you to dirty…dirty places.

So am I your type?

There is method to my madness

Well Doone from T.R Red Skies put me to the task, and asked why I do what I do. Why do I have provocative pictures of women splayed across my blog. He’s not the only one over the years I’ve been writing this blog  who asked me this question. I always gave a flippant answer. It actually goes deeper then that, and there are several reasons I do it. So this is to answer Doone’s and the other’s questions as to why the hot babes.

1. I like pictures – I actually like pictures to be included in my posts.  This started at my previous blogs, I use to blog personally, but when I started to blog for video games I thought my posts needed a little more pop.

2. I don’t consider myself a good writer – Though I try to do my best, I know I don’t always do my best. I write alot here, a few thousand posts across my blogs so I feel the pictures help carry things a little further.

3. Compliments – For as many people I get that hate or don’t like the pictures, I have double that amount saying they love them.

4. Challenge – It’s like a little challenge for me to find a pic, that represents that post when I do it’s awesome. When it doesn’t I’m kind of let down.

5. Why So Serious? – I don’t want this blog, or myself be taken to seriously. Thus the pictures are a part of that.

6. Are you not entertained? – I blog to entertain, not to enlighten, and lets admit a pretty girl is more entertaining then not.

7. Bad Boy of the Blogosphere – I feel there are to many “carebears” or politically correct people surfing the blogosphere, and I think a niche needs to be filled. I am that which is bad perhaps, maybe evil. I am not politically correct. I am blunt and crass.

8. Transexuals – I actually toss in a pretty MTF Transexual in the mix to confuse the guys, and my attempt at humor. To make them think about things, and all that glitters is not gold.  It’s my joke on top of a joke. 

9. I’m a Pig – Yes, I find the female form pleasing to my eye. I blog for myself, so these pictures are to make me happy as well as my readers.

10. Spite – I’m a petty person, and I’m at war with the feminists of the world. I post these pictures sometimes as a big fuck you to them, not all the time….but sometimes.

11. It not always the girl – If you look back at my images I would say 8 out of 10 are scantily clad babes so sometimes I do mix it up, and I am not a one trick pony.

I hope this answers your questions, cause I’m not going to repeat myself and answer it again, I’ll just refer you to this post.

Is the Blogosphere Dead?

I’ve been blogging for many…many years, and it seems like when I started there were tons and tons of bloggers. Now it seems to be a dyeing art.  Many of the people i use to blog with are either gone, or blogging so sparsely it’s like the blog on it’s last leg.

Is this just my perception, or is there an ugly truth to this?  Maybe there are new blogs opening every day, and I’m just not aware of them. Perhaps I’m just said of people I’ve grown to love, and read their adventures are suddenly silent, and I miss them. This isn’t a new thing in the blogosphere, but one I can never get use to. I still miss the Jong’s of the world. The world moves on though and ever revolves.

If the blogosphere is being killed, what is doing the killing. Was the death of Google RSS reader, the thing that stuck a knife in it? Personally I never used an RSS reader, i use my blogroll. If i liked you, that’s where you ended up and I tried to read you. Then again maybe I’m becoming a blogging relic, where as if I can’t do something the easy way, I’m not going to do it.

I love this hobby, and it saddens me that perhaps the golden age of blogging is gone, then who knows maybe I’m just way wrong. I hope I am. I hope someone calls me out and says I’m insane, and that the  blogosphere is alive and well.

I don’t know what the future will bring to this hobby called blogging, but as long as I enjoy doing it, I’m going to try my hardest to keep on doing it.

I Feel Old

Sorry folks for being a few days late, and several dollars short, but last year, Syp a mentor and old school blogger started up his Newbie Blogger Initiative …I would say it was a success if even one new blog came out of it, and kept on writing.

So I seen a couple posts, it’s been a year since the NBI came about and other bloggers did a way better job covering it then I did…Hear is a few.

Casual Aggro – A great round up, and he himself is going strong

World’s End Tavern – Another great round up.

Avatars of Steel – Has a great post.

Ravalation –  Another blogger wrapping things up and going strong.

Healing the Masses – Did some wonderful work, also posting up blog posts that help bloggers.

Ancient Gaming Noob – Compiled a bunch of Data. My eyes they bleed.

MMO Melting Pot –  They even showed some love.

 

Check these blogs, and many more….A big Congo Rats are in order. Keep on chugging folks…but you do make me feel old. Cause we did something like this many…many moons ago…in a far away place.  Syp led us before in a movement to get new bloggers, and I was a part of it on my old blog, Way of the Chosen, back in 2009. A lot of great blogs came out of that, and are still going strong even today, that makes me proud that I had a small hand in that too.

 

Why I don’t run a Porn Site

5 reasons I blog about Video Games, instead of running a Porn Site.

5. I spend hours playing Video Games, I just watch enough Porn to get the job done about 4 mins. 

4. When you play with 25 other people in Games it’s a Raid, in Porn it’s a Gangbang. The clean up is easier with a Raid.   

3. If you get a Disease, all you need is a Healer to Cleanse you in a game.

2. Though I would probably making money hand, and fist I would be spending a fortune on pajama robes, and sheets.

1. Porn Sites actually take work.

Day 7 – The Reason Behind my Blog’s Name

Well really simple Bio Break was taken. Seriously I wanted a name that was general, but had a wide appeal. We all suffered from lag, and at times even swore at the lag gods. Well what if your life was just creeping along, sorta like me, then we’re all in this together. This blog’s name had lofty ideas at one time, I dreamt of a place on the internet where gamers could meet, and discuss topics, a mecca of gamedom.

Ok it means I smoke pot, and play video games.

Day 03 – My first day playing a MMO/WoW

Well my first MMO was Dark Ages of Camelot. I was in a clan called Hell’s Elite Legion for Aliens versus Predators, and they started a chapter for this new game, being recently laid off, I had a little time on my hands.

Aren’t first days in MMO’s  all about character creation, and then maybe get to level 5 or 10, or getting through the starting zone. Well it is for me, and it won’t ever change I don’t think.  

Since it was almost 10 years ago, it’s a little hard to remember my intial thoughts. I think it took me a long time to get through character creation, we needed a healer so a cleric was born, he was avalonian cause there was bonuses I think to avalonians. His name was Riverian.. I also remember that I was amazed at the scope of this place, and the almost freedom it felt to go anywhere or do anything compared to being on a “Map” and running around in circles. I was hooked.

As for WoW – I was in Beta, but I remember the sense of awe I had, here I was in the world of warcraft, a world I loved ever since playing Warcraft 1.  I took my time and looked at the details a little more, and was simple impressed. When it went live, I remember making a preist, and he didn’t last too long. I was burned out from Healing…even way back when.  Shortly after I took up my love for Tanking with a warrior named Rivgorian.

 

Day 02 – Why I decided to start a blog?

Well it started at a bar, which is how most of my stories start…or finish. I was at a bar, and a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in years told me she wrote a blog. I checked it out, and decided I could do this. I like writing, and I have a lot of downtime at work. So my personal blog started Chaotic Ramblings.  I was writing, and I did a couple posts about my love for video games, about this time Warhammer Online was right around the corner, and I decided I really wanted my own video game blog. I decided that there were tons of World of Warcraft blogs, I’ll make mine warhammer, well I knew I was going to be playing this game. I have a warhammer tatoo for crying out loud. Thus Way of the Chosen was born, despite Tobold told me to make a more general blog. I am never one to listen though. After having some wonderful adventures (how many of you have a hip bone from Mythic? I do), and meeting some great people. It was time to move on.

Thus High Latency Life was born….and here I have been ever since.