Leafshine: Lust for Flower

Happy (Belated) Blogday to Me!

One year ago, yesterday, Leafshine: Lust for Flower was unleashed on an unsuspecting WoW-blog reading public. Readers flocked here in their 10s, buoyed by the useful information found on sites like Pesto4Life, Big Bellicose Buffoon Blogger and the like, expecting more well-written, useful content. (Although some people came here from Feed More Page, mainly because I made licentious suggestions about Ratters and beards. But that's another story entirely.)  And they have been recoiling in horror at the half-arsed mish-mash of irrelevance and all out nonsense that's been pouring out of the small, insipid organ that's called my brain ever since.

And yet, mysteriously, I now have hundreds of RSS subscribers and tens of thoudands of page views. There can only be one conclusion: there's a significant subset of WoW players who have no taste at all. And I love every single one of your for your total lack of taste. :-)

The blog was (quite literally) two years in the making, with the name and idea sorted out pre-Burning Crusade. Two short-lived false starts later, I finally buckled down and got on with it last September

And here and now, I make a commitment to you: I shall continue to waste your precious time with more flippancy, irrelevance, stupid photos and sudden, unexpected long, rambling essays for at least another year. I am so very good to you, aren't I?

Thank you for your attention. You may now return to your regulalrly scheduled Wrath launch date announcement frothing.

Leafy Links - Beta Blues & Birthdays

This is wot I read and liked today:

• The RodentMolester gets all grumpy about the way Blizz is testing Rash of the Itch King.
• But poor old Bell is just feeling a wee bit "meh" about the whole thing. Don't give up, Bell! We'd miss you!
• TigerSoul is taking a WoW break - for some very good reasons. I'll miss your blog, but I respect your reasons for taking a break.
• And Bre had her first Blogoversary yesterday. Go and wish the Gun Lovin' Dwarf Chick a happy blog birthday!

World of Warcraft is a Social Operating System

Blah, blah, blah, World of Warhammercraft. Blah, blah, WoW killer. Sorry, it ain't gonna happen - at least, it ain't going to happen fast. It will take more than a good game to displace WoW from the top of the MMoRPG food chain, and any developer trying to do so faces a horrible uphill struggle to do so.

Here's the problem they face: WoW is no longer just a game. WoW has become a social operating system.

WoW as a Social OS

Now, you're probably saying "sounds good, Leafy, but what the hell does that mean?" Well, it means that WoW has become as much a place to hang out together as it has a game per se. Take the guild I left nearly a month ago, and nay be rejoining soon. The guild is, in essence, a bunch of real life friends who are prevented from meeting up too often in the flesh by little things like time, distance and families. Most of us are in our 30s, with all the responsibilities that entails. We don't get to go down the pub very often, but we can jump in game, or on Vent, and enjoy a wee chat, or a bit of fun in an instance. It becomes a new form of social life, one that complements our existing one, and that reinforces social bonds.

I've played around 40 minutes or WoW in the last month - by far the least amount of playtime I've racked up since I joined the EU beta well over three years ago. There are multiple reasons behind this, but, however lovely the current guild Leafy's in are, they're not people I've known for half my life. I've lost that feeling of bantering with mates, even if I don't find anything useful to do in game.And without that feeling, I've little interest in the game.

Now, I'm sure there are plenty of serious gamers out there, who switch guilds and servers to achieve what they want in the game and whose guildies became friends after they became guildmates. But I'd also lay odds that a good solid core of WoW is made up of people like us - people who are essentially friends playing together, from the couple who sit down in WoW rather than vegging out in front of the telly, to the continentally-displaced friends who find Azeroth the easiest way to meet up online.

In other words: the gameplay is secondary to WoW as a social environment. As long as the gameplay promotes socialisation, you're good.

All The Top Warcraft Blogs

I know that the majority of people who ready my fine thought meats on this blog do so via RSS. That's cool - but I bet most of you have had to pick and choose which blogs you subscribe to, just to keep your RSS reader under control. While more than necessary, it can mean that you miss out on some great Warcraft stuff that's out of your particular area of interest.

That's where the World of Warcraft Alltop comes in.

It's a single page that lists the most recent five posts for a range of editorially-selected sites, giving you a quick and easy way of spotting stuff you might not have seen otherwise. I usually browse it after going through my reader as something of a bloggy digestif.

Give it a try, and let me knwo what you think.

HordeLocke: Flintlocke Reborn

OMG! It's back! And it's rerolled Horde.

The original Flintlocke was my favourite WoW comic, and nothing that's come along since has come close to rivalling it. The new version, set Horde-side in the lowbie areas is just getting going, and no doubt it'll pick up steam as we get through teh character intros and into the plot.

And, just to add to me joy, the original comic has been reissued in a Director's Cut, with a new prologue and author's commentary. There goes my productivity this afternoon...

(And maybe time to get my Horde Belf Pally out of mothballs...)

There May Be Something Wrong Here

I'm sure BlogAzeroth chat isn't meant to do that...

Wrath Cinematic Analysis

You know what? I'm so completely out of touch that I missed the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic. Here it is:

Join me after the jump for analysis and revelations...

Leeroy the Spartan

As Bell would say, AMG. How did I miss this?

Not as good as 300 Moonkin, but still rockin'