Sal is a guildie of mine and she’s started a blog – They Call Me Sal. It is a very personal and honest set of observations about being a wow’er, and also peripheral life stuff.
Her current topic is How do you name your wow toon? I’ve ranted a bit on that many years ago, but I’ll post again now too. See further down.
Gen is a guildie, and the current GM no less (ah the endless joys of being in leadership). Her blog – Untamed Hell Cat. Gen is a tad more ranty than Sal outwardly, and loves a good joke at the expense of all of us, a meme or two, or idiots in trade chat and LFR. Like Sal’s blog it is also worth a read.
Hellcat’s post is almost too much Drood-speek for me to type – oh flame kitteh how i miss choo! Don’t take that as theme for all the content, it is a hat tip to Alamo (?name?) and is contextual to the post topic.
So what happens when guildies blog?
As a guild we’ve gone from strength to strength, even though there have been hiccups, arguments, and dummy spits. I’m interested in how many people within the guild have blogs, and what that might say about our age and demographics. If I get some stats and evidence to assert a theory I’ll certainly post here. It is easy however for me to say that I’m opinionated and the blog helps with that.
For many years I was the only regular blogger, and that gave me some capacity to write about events, or capacity to control when I did not to write about events. As a guild member though I do not expect to see incidents of the guild posted in public (or certainly not without compassionate consideration), and now that more of my guild are writing their own blogs I feel that the shoe is on the other foot. It is an interesting change in the balance.
A blog can be a soapbox, therapy, and all sorts of things. It may spark discussion, or cause issues of it’s own.
In our guild’s case I’ve not see any drama from bloggers, and I’ve hopefully not caused offense to those we care about. So for us there have yet to be any poor ramifications of guildie blogs. I know for certain that this is not always the case, and sometimes regular posts of that style can garner huge feedback. DramaMamas on WoW Insider is such a blog. I don’t blog for feedback, I do it for the joy of writing the blog. Frankly that is reflected in the small readership, and in a strange way having a small readership means that I can also say what I wish.
So there it all is – a set of wow bloggers virtually standing on our soapboxes, talking to the masses that pass by on the internet (I was going to say, “that pass by on the information superhighway”, but I think that term is as dead as floppy disks).
aside – So, to that question on names from Sal. What is in the name Mort which I use as a wow nickname?
Before my death knight was created and my guildies got to know me as Mort (Mortigen is my current main, a DK created when Wrath was released) I was known as Andrew. I don’t care that it is my real name, as generally I try to not say anything too harsh or rude in public.
For many years I played in an excellent but tiny guild, or almost anonymously in a large raiding guild and being called Andrew rather than Dragnssslyr was a point of difference.
Is Mort more than my toon name? Probably, but not much more. To me it serves as a useful nickname for those who I know in game but not in real life.
Mort is an obvious choice for a DK, and when I chose it I was hoping that Mortigen would get shortened to Mort for brevity. Being called “Death” as your nickname is silly and cool at the same time.
Happy Killing, TyphoonAndrew, aka Mort.
TyphoonAndrew's - Eye of the Storm 
Thanks for the mention, Mort. I thought I was being clever when I named my DK Automb. See what I did there? Summer, Winter, Automb? Well, nobody else did either. “What is mb, and why is it auto?” After that, I pretty much just went with Sal-ish names for alts.
I guess I do blog hoping for a bit of response, as comunal activity has always interested and intrigued me. We share life both accidentally and with purpose with family, church, coworkers and even strangers. A common interest can instantly spark a relationship–even if it is a short one. I value those experiences.
I started the blog as a way to be a part of a community, instead of just as a distant observer. Now I need to find a way to articulate that. I immagine it will take a while to find my stride, and I’m sure I overcommitted when I decided on three posts a week. Ironically, I find myself spending all my free time working on the site instead of playing the game that it is supposed to be about. But that’s ok, I knew when the site went live that I would be changing things up before long.
A pleasure Sal and thank you for the comment too. I find that my time goes into the blog more than the game too, but then without the game I’d probably just be writing on my other blogs anyway – so the game getting shivved is not new. 🙂
As far as I know I am the only blogger in my guild, and has been that way for a while, however whilst I tend to ramble on about things that annoy me, I try my best not to name names or point fingers because invariably I will do something equally as stupid or annoying for someone else. I do hope that any guildies that may stumble across my little slice of internet, can understand that it is just a place for me to reference my azerothian life and it’s goings on.
@Dragonray, I hope my guildies know its a place for rants too, good point – most still talk to me. 🙂
I think once people start seeing how great blogging is, and your own guildies read your blog it encourages them to take up the keyboard challenge too. And it’s always great to have more bloggers out there.