Moving!

Update your bookmarks and RSS feeds! The time has come.

With my interests shifting steadily away from World of Warcraft lately, I have let my subscription run out. It was a lot of fun, but lately it has become progressively less fun. My time with the game seems to be coming to an end.

I’ve been writing more about non-WoW-related topics recently. However, the ones that I’ve published continue to be overshadowed by my WoW posts, and I have more posts that I’ve been holding back. As I stated before, about nine in ten visitors are here because of my WoW posts, according to my statistics.

New blog: Dischordant Forms

I’ve decided to create a new blog, which I’ve named Dischordant Forms, and put this one out to pasture. It’s something like a clean slate for me, although not entirely – I’ve moved 53 of my posts from Sunmurma over to the new blog, so there is some familiar content for those who have visited this one on a regular basis.

My hope with Dischordant Forms is that I can bring the original vision that I had for this blog to reality over there: writing quality posts on a variety of topics that interest me. I don’t view what I accomplished here as a failure, but I made decisions with my choice of topics that served to define Sunmurma in a way that I feel limits me. In that sense, it will feel good to lose the “WoW blogger” tag, even if that identity is something that only I perceive.

* * * * *

I’m extremely excited about the new blog. I’m using the zBench theme, which gives a nice clean look with some great customizable options. In putting the blog together, I’ve gotten to know more about the options available in WordPress, and I think that the blog looks pretty sharp.

I will continue to write about things that I find interesting, topics that I care about, etc. Music, video games, baseball, photography, writing, books, and so on. This is no different from Sunmurma; however, the blog will generally be free from WoW-related posts, and the variety of the posts will hopefully be greater.

* * * * *

Please feel free to check out my new blog, leave comments, etc. Here are my contact links:

• New blog: Dischordant Forms
• Follow me on Twitter: @Sunmurma
• Send me an email here
• Dischordant Forms RSS feed

If you aren’t interested in Dischordant Forms, I want to thank you for having visited Sunmurma – I truly appreciate all of the visitors and comments. The blog grew more than I ever thought it could, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

**Comments are now closed on this blog: since I won’t be checking up on it anymore, I won’t be weeding out spam or approving comments held for moderation anymore. Thanks!

Is this a WoW blog or not? The future of Sunmurma

I think it is, unfortunately. A WoW blog, that is.

I recently changed the subheading of Sunmurma to read “striving for variety and falling flat on my face.” It used to say “formless, random, casual posting.”

As my blogging about WoW has ebbed, so have my readership numbers. When it has stayed on course with current events in-game, the numbers have historically been higher.

While it’s difficult to be 100% specific (due to the vagueness of interpreting “home page” views), a cursory look at my blog stats shows that somewhere between 85-95% of my 29k total views over the life of this blog are of WoW-related articles. I’ve written 203 posts to date, and 101 of them are about WoW, so it looks like half of my posts are generating nine-tenths of the traffic.

By extension, it’s safe to say that as my latest, most popular WoW-related posts become obsolete, and I continue to write about different topics, my average number of page views will continue to fall, and eventually approach a limit of, say, 40-to-50-ish views per day. This takes into account that people may find this blog for those WoW articles forever, and adds those views to the 10-15 non-WoW-related views that I seem to get each day.

Oh no!! *scrambles to renew WoW subscription…..

Just kidding.

* * * * *

I’m struggling a little with the idea of what this blog is. While it’s intended to be a diverse blog, it really has been WoW-heavy. Writing WoW posts brings in WoW-playing readers, which in turn leads to a percentage of those readers adding the blog to their readers, blogrolls, and bookmarks. Articles move up to the front page of certain search term results. Posts get linked on other blog posts. Etc. And with the popularity of the game, it feeds on itself. Thus, Sunmurma is basically a WoW blog.

I’m not putting down the work that I put into those posts; they have played a part in my enjoyment of my hobby, as well as in my development as a writer. However, they overshadow everything else that I write. Other than my recent Baseball Hall of Fame post, which happened to be timely (a quality rarely found in my non-WoW posts), I have written nothing that has garnered more than 300 views. In comparison, I have a couple of dozen WoW articles that have gotten more than 300 hits, including one that has over 7,000.

So, it’s a WoW blog. Unfortunately.

The question is, will it always be?

Assuming that I do quit the game, which looks likely, I will continue to blog about other topics. I enjoy blogging – and what I’ve accomplished with this blog, from a writing standpoint, has far exceeded my original expectations.

However, I have several options for doing so, and that is what I’m struggling with. Here are a couple of them:

1. Keep writing Sunmurma, here at WordPress.

One option is to keep going here at Sunmurma. I set this up originally to be a topically open-ended blog. It became more of a WoW-related one as a result of me following my whims. I can grit my teeth and keep going, powering through and attempting to change the overall picture or definition of what this blog is… but that seems like a tough task – it may be a safe choice, but I fear that I may also lose my identity as a “guy who blogs about WoW” in exchange for “some guy who blogs, that people don’t care about.”

I feel that there is some material here that is as good as, or better than, my best WoW posts. It’s enough to build upon. However, I fear that Sunmurma will always be an enigmatic, WoW-related blog if I do this.

2. Create a new blog, here at WordPress or somewhere else.

Another option is to abandon this blog, partially or totally. It could be done in a few different ways. I could create a different blog, make it topic-specific, and keep this one as a personal, casual blog (kind of the reverse of what Big Red Kitty did with his blog, Brain Needed Space). I could just create a new blog and set up shop there, retiring this one. I could take the name Sunmurma somewhere else, away from WordPress, and start Sunmurma over. I could follow in the footsteps of Andrew (who retired Of Teeth And Claws last year to set up the excellent Systemic Babble): create a new, more diverse blog, transfer over select posts from Sunmurma, and retire this one.

These options are attractive to me, although I feel that it’s inevitable that I will detach my writing from a significant portion of those who read my blog on anything resembling a regular basis if I do this. Perhaps it’s a silly fear… and by the way, let me be clear: I don’t care about gross numbers – if I did, I would stay with this blog and cling to those who will find my outdated WoW articles, relishing the inflated stat totals that will linger for a long time (based on what I’ve observed). What I do care about is the wonderful group of people, including fellow bloggers, with whom I’ve had the privilege of interacting over the past year. I don’t necessarily think that I would move back into a complete vacuum if I created a new blog… but that doesn’t mean that this wouldn’t be something of a significant change for me, with respect to readership and my blogging experiences in general.

* * * * *

I’ll be up front here: I’m seriously considering abandoning this blog, in favor of a new one. It’s a possibility that has been slowly gaining strength in my mind. I’m not sure where I will go if I do – I generally like WordPress, and haven’t tried anything else, but I would probably be fine sticking with it.

If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I would love to know your opinions – feel free to leave a comment below or contact me via email. And thanks in advance… and thanks, in general, for reading this little blog!

* * * * *

If I do make a new blog, I will of course provide a link to it here.

It’s time to reject violent political rhetoric

Note: It’s late Saturday evening (January 8th) as I begin this post. It will be past midnight when I finish it.

I completed a different post earlier today, but just before I finished it I became aware of the shooting tragedy in Tucson. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8th district) was shot in the head and is fighting for her life; Federal Judge John Roll and five others, including a nine-year-old girl, were shot and killed, and 13 others were critically wounded in the senseless shooting spree this morning.

The events in Arizona affected me profoundly, and I’ve decided to share a thought or two that I’m having about the situation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Late this afternoon, I learned of the shootings that took place today in Tucson, Arizona. Everything else immediately seemed to stop for me – other sounds and words were tuned out as I followed the developments on the internet.

In the evening, I caught most of a special edition of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. I don’t usually watch Olbermann (although his views align more closely with mine than those of the talking heads at Fox News do), because I tend to shy away from overtly partisan news, and both Olbermann and the pundits at Fox News can be sensational to varying degrees. This was an extraordinary occasion, though, and as such, there was a special edition of Countdown.

On the handful of occasions that I’ve watched Olbermann’s show, I’ve had to bring some grains of salt with me. This is not because there is no truth in what he says, but an astute mind will challenge what he hears or reads by looking for facts and sorting through BS.

With that said, I’m glad that I tuned in.

Olbermann’s voice faltered occasionally, belying an internal struggle with emotions at times. His sadness and passion for the subjects discussed on the program were clearly evident to me, and I was grateful for that.

He spent a significant portion of his time talking about the subject of violent rhetoric and its place in politics; or rather, the idea that it should have no place in politics. And in his closing “Special Comment,” he declared that the time for violent speech is over, and called for an immediate end to all use of violent metaphors and rhetoric from politicians, activists, and people of influence on radio, television, and other media (I’m paraphrasing).

He also apologized multiple times for making violent remarks on one occasion in particular, made clear that he did not condone them, and further apologized for any other time that he might have made remarks that inadvertently were violent or caused someone to think that he wished for something terrible to happen to another person.

To watch his Special Comment, click here. Other portions of the program can be found on the Countdown site at MSNBC as well.

But this post is not about Keith Olbermann. His show was merely a part of my Saturday night experience this weekend.

* * * * *

Two months ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the deteriorating quality of public discourse. In my post from November 9th, I touched on the idea that people often don’t seem to be aware of the consequences of their words and actions, particularly in this age where it is possible to make and publish statements publicly (and, in some cases, anonymously). From some of our country’s most prominent political figures and personalities down a certain subset of people who litter chat channels in video games and other social outlets, it seems that modesty, politeness, and respect have been been widely eschewed in favor of disrespect, taunting, name-calling, hate-spew, and violent speech of one kind or another.

As I was reading about what happened in Tucson, I began to think about Sarah Palin’s political hit list, the controversial “crosshairs map,” which she posted on her website last year (and removed shortly after the shooting occurred). I then thought about Bill O’Reilly, who referred to abortion doctor George Tiller (murdered during a service at his church on May 31, 2009), as “Tiller the baby killer” two dozen times on his show, according to Politifact. I thought of others who have recently shown a disquieting comfort or familiarity with violent or war-related speech, as used for political (or other) gain.

Keith Olbermann’s commentary closely matches my own feelings on the subject.

We don’t know, and perhaps we will never know, exactly why the shooter committed such a heinous set of crimes in Tucson. Perhaps he was encouraged in part by violent political rhetoric, perhaps not.

However…

In today’s world, we have access to astounding amounts of information – it’s at our fingertips and on our televisions. The majority of households in the U.S. have internet access, and nine in ten children are online in some fashion.

Keith Olbermann has called for an end to all use of violent rhetoric, metaphors, and speech, in our nation’s public political discourse, regardless of party, political position, or any other divisive associations. In the coming weeks, I know for a fact that we will see an as-yet-unknown number of public figures, as well as hordes of commenters on blogs and other social media, reject part or all of that idea because it came from a person who differs from them ideologically.

And while we may never know if any of the recent violent speech (etc.) had an impact on the killer’s motivations, it’s almost impossible to know for sure that those words weren’t taken the wrong way by someone.

Think about it. If a public figure makes a violent statement against someone, it could be read, heard or viewed by thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions, of people, including children and those who are mentally unstable.

Politics is a lot of marketing, and, despite all of the demographic studies that are done for both fields, at the end of the day, the message goes out to the general public, hitting its target audiences as well as others. If the wrong person gets a flippant or ill-considered message, the consequences could be tragic.

Again, we don’t know that anything negative will come of it. However, we also can’t be certain that the opposite will be true.

* * * * *

It starts with our leaders, parents, public figures, and mentors, .

In order to maintain a de facto civilized society, our leaders and public figures must set an example by dealing with one another respectfully and courteously. Political differences are a way of life, but we are all human beings – and not just “at the end of the day,” “when the dust settles,” etc.

Whether we believe it or not, our words make an impression on others. By speaking cautiously and treating others with respect, wherever we are in life (and on whatever platform or through whichever social media outlet), we lay the groundwork for positivity, well-being, growth…

And as citizens, we can’t stand silent and consider violence and violent speech acceptable. It can be eliminated, at least on a political level, if sensible people will collectively reject it.

Violence is simply awful. “Violent” is even a harsh-sounding word, appropriately describing its manifestation. The idea of a gunshot wound is absolutely horrifying in and of itself – it’s sudden, instant, irrevocable, and violent – and countless parents, widows, and friends of victims of violence have had their hearts broken when their loved ones have been taken away.

With that said: don’t become numb to violence and violent speech/rhetoric. It is not trivial. All of the “desensitization” that we hear about nowadays is something of a fallacy, because death is just as real as it was, and hits just as hard as it did, before violent video games, movies and lyrics became widely accepted. It certainly changed countless lives this weekend.

* * * * *

In closing, I realize that some of what I hope for is idealistic. It’s unrealistic to think that there will be a widespread elimination of the vitriol that we encounter way too often in our lives. However, maybe the events in Tucson will serve as a wake-up call to both politicians/public figures and citizens in general. Perhaps enough people will consider how they interact with one another that civility will gain market share, and public figures and officers will be held accountable for the quality of their discourse.

In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. I sincerely hope that Rep. Giffords will pull through, and will be able to have some quality of life again.

I wrote a letter today

I wrote a letter today.

By “wrote a letter,” I mean that I sat down with a notebook and a pen, and hand-wrote a letter. It’s been a long time since I’ve handwritten a letter, other than short notes for work or in greeting cards… things like that. But today, I decided that I wanted to reach out and make a physical, tangible connection with one of my oldest and closest friends.

I’ve never had the best penmanship, but I think that it has to have regressed. I think that my friend will be able to decipher it well enough, but I am not proud about the quality of my handwriting at the moment.

This is the first real letter that I will have hand-written and posted in years (I plan on buying a stamp and dropping it off at the post office tomorrow morning, since it’s already a bit too late to make the last pickup). As the many forms of social media have taken over our communications, “writing a letter” has almost universally been replaced by “sending a message electronically.” Email, Facebook’s different messaging options, tweets, text messages, and smart phones have soundly relegated physical notes and letters to the bargain bins. Letters are the quiet minority, an old-fashioned medium from days of yore. People like my parents still write letters occasionally (although I’m pretty sure that most of their correspondence is electronic at this point), and official letters are still sometimes created and mailed in physical form, but it seems that the vast majority of interpersonal communication is done via satellite and the internet.

Using the post office for communication certainly has its disadvantages. I’m not sure how it works in other countries, but in the U.S. there is almost always an overnight waiting period, minimum, between the time that the mail was posted and received – even within the same city – while electronic messaging is relatively instant. Mail also uses paper, a resource that costs money, and letters require the effort of forming the letters of the alphabet, by hand, into legible words and sentences that can be read and understood by the receiving party. Admittedly, this is no small effort for people like me, for whom penmanship was never a strength. Additionally, a letter currently costs $0.44 to mail in the U.S., and while that’s a paltry sum compared with the costs of most other products and services that we purchase, it has become a largely unnecessary expense, given the advantages and availability of “free” electronic communication.

However, letter-writing has its advantages as well – or, if nothing else, it has its unique features. For one thing, hand-writing is generally a different process than, for example, composing with a word processor. When I write blog posts or compose emails*, I tend to write, read my work, edit, cut and/or expand, reread, rework, etc. until I am satisfied that I’ve said what I want to say. With hand-written letters, editing is tougher, and, unless I commit to writing, editing, and then rewriting a letter, I have to be somewhat more focused as I compose the actual text. This forces me to concentrate on how my sentences and paragraphs flow, look up words that I am unsure of (with regard to spelling or meaning), and think about how the letter will be read by the person to whom it’s addressed, as I write.

*Yes, I do all of this even when I send emails. To me, it feels disrespectful to send someone an email with a lot of mistakes in it. Just as important, though, is ensuring that something isn’t left out (or in), like a negative, which could convey a completely different meaning than that which you had intended. I don’t claim to be perfect, but I shudder to think about how embarrassed I would have been if I hadn’t proofread and edited countless emails and blog posts.

In addition to the distinct compositional experience, handwritten letters have both a sense of permanence and personality that electronic communication struggles to approach. Someone reading a letter can get of a sense of the writer’s personality and emotional state from a letter. Furthermore, letters have their own versatility: paper is also a medium for art, and I have received letters with drawings, diagrams, tables, and notes scribbled along the sides of the text. Letters are also real, physical things, and are able to be kept, filed, stored, and reread without the burden of another device. Like vinyl records, a letter can be something that is neat to have: it’s something that someone took the time to create, to express any number of ideas, or to entertain you.

Now, I’m not bashing electronic communication – I use it every day, and appreciate its conveniences and advantages – but I had a good time writing this letter today. It was an old, familiar process, but also one at which I am definitely rusty. I am determined to write more letters this year, both to my friend and to others. Perhaps he will write me back, and we can correspond with some regularity – that would be fun, as well as good exercise for the brain. It may also become something of a luxury sooner or later – with the way that things are going with the USPS and its heavy financial burdens, our concept of snail-mail (a term that I detest, by the way), which we take for granted now, could change drastically over the next several years. I’m going to write some letters this year, and send them through the post office while I still have the chance.

WP ate my post… again

At this point, WordPress has eaten three of my posts in the past few months. I have no idea why… I would post something, and then when I check later in the day, it would be gone.

This happened today, and this time, it was totally gone. Not in the trash, no previously saved drafts, nothing.

Fortunately, I was able to retrieve my latest post on Cataclysm feral PvP by copying and pasting from Google Reader into a brand new post. Amazingly enough, it copied over with the formatting and links virtually intact. In the past, I’ve had to retype and reformat these posts, but now I suppose I’ve found a solution.

I still wish that this didn’t happen, but I was glad to be able to salvage it this time without having to spend an hour or two re-writing it.

I will say this, though. This is not only the third time that it’s happened, but it has happened while using three different browsers: first Safari, then Chrome, and finally Firefox. So I don’t think I can blame a browser.

Anyway, enough bitching. All’s well that ends well. Time to go link the new version of the post on Facebook and Twitter.

WordPress fail… again

I attempted to update my post about my feral leveling spec in Cataclysm tonight, but when I did so, WordPress somehow lost all of the formatting that I had done: italics, bolds, paragraphs and spacing, bullet points – and, the graphic and links are completely gone. It now looks like my article collapsed onto itself – like it’s just a pile of words. Thus, I have pulled it for now, and will hopefully be able to save it at some point in the near future. I’ve logged out, restarted my computer, and tried it in a different browser, and the results are the same -I can’t even blame Safari this time. Sorry if anyone is trying to see it. It’s frustrating for me.

Course correction: thoughts on recognizing my own shortcomings, the nature of public discussion, and the focus of future posts

I have a confession to make.

I’ve had my tidies in a bunch over the past few weeks about several issues, mostly pertaining to online discourse.

I’m sorry about that.

I didn’t start this blog to be a dick to people, and I feel that I was unfair to Ambrosine last week with regard to her take on Frostheim’s story about behaving badly in a PuG. Disagreeing with her wasn’t unfair, but when I reread my post, I realized that I never completed my thought about her post, and sort of left hanging the paragraph in question. I tried to clarify how I felt in the comments to my post, but she may never read anything on my blog again, for all that I know. Anyway, as a result, I’m afraid that readers could have taken what I said in the post to mean that I felt that her post was worthy of simply being dismissed, which is not the case. And that was unfair of me.

That said, I apologize to Ambrosine, and others who read my words, for my own poor communication on that particular point in the article.

My own personal conundrum

Words and thoughts can come from different places. Rational places. Emotional places. I find that, sometimes, those places are at odds within me.

I care quite a bit about my country, its people, and its government. My reactions to current events may come out of anger, frustration, hope, or some point along the skepticism/cynicism line, depending on the circumstance(s). There are issues that I feel strongly about, along with some issues that I am unsure of, or feel undereducated about. Some of my values are very different from those that I had growing up, while others are very similar. Many of my views on these issues are based on rational thought, but my reactions to how the issues are dealt with can come from an emotional place that conflicts with my rational self, and sometimes hinders my ability to separate fact from spin, and logic from bias… if that makes any sense.

I see a lot of good in the world, every day. I also see a lot of stuff that bothers me. As such, there is often much that I want to get off my chest in written form, and yet I continue to feel under-qualified to do so. Until lately, people who read my blog semi-regularly haven’t seen a lot of my opinions on matters that seem to be hot topics – I just haven’t felt that I have the ability to say what I want to say and be satisfied with the way that I’ve communicated it to the reader. Therefore, most of my writing doesn’t really touch on many hot-button issues.

My own personal conundrum, continued – rational vs. emotional

To go a little further into this, let me give an example. I am very passionate about the First Amendment. Rationally, I am completely in tune with the idea that it is a fundamental element of our country, a cornerstone of our way of life. My rational self tells me that debate and discourse are good.

On the other hand, my emotional self hates conflict and is discouraged by the often uncouth nature of online and political discussion. Civility in discourse is very important to me.

There are certainly multitudes of people who express themselves eloquently online, in the news, in-game, and on the street, and I appreciate their discussions, even if I disagree when their viewpoints conflict with mine. However, I’ve previously expressed my disappointment over some of the destructive conversation that takes place online, and that feeling extends to the public and political spheres as well. My instinctive reaction to that type of conversation is to recoil in disgust, or to dismiss it. I usually try to deal with it in a mature manner; however, my tolerance for it has been dwindling rapidly lately, and “dealing with it maturely” ends up having a “bottling up your feelings”-type of effect. When my tolerance reaches a certain low point, the guardians of my own judgment go on vacation and I start reacting to stuff publicly, in spite of my usual reluctance to do so.

The results end up being emotional, reactionary. In spite of what I rationally accept and endorse (free speech is free speech, whether you like it or not), I hate the way that people express themselves sometimes…

Blogger: “Here’s a funny story: I made a less-than-noble decision in a game, but I learned something that I felt was exciting and decided to share…”

Tweetsters: “OMG!! Blogger should be fired for asshattery! He sucks anyway, and always has!”

Me: “Blarg! I find your method of communication to be one or more of the following – offensive, disrespectful, egregious, dismissive, ridiculous, to whatever degree – so I’m going to over-verbalize my reaction to such an extent that my point will be obscured, blah blah blah…”

No, no… This is not how I want to bring readers to my blog, and is not the kind of stuff that I want to draw inspiration from in order to have something to write about.

If I were able to write more clearly, concisely, rationally, and with better structure to my arguments, I might reconsider taking inspiration from these sorts of topics. Those, however, are skills that I don’t think that I’ve fully developed at this point.

Public Discourse: the way that we say something affects how people hear what we say

I’m not sure when it started, but at some point in my adulthood I noticed that I react pretty negatively toward inflammatory “discussion.” In politics, for example, when disagreement over a talking point turns into personal attacks and provocative rhetoric, I, as a citizen, stop hearing the content and start reconsidering my impression of the person making the statements.

I have a friend who expresses a lot of anger about President Obama. His anger is not without good reason, as far as I can tell based on my own research into some of his concerns. However, to be honest, I stopped listening to him months ago, because the language that he uses to express his viewpoints is absolutely rife with over-the-top, accusatory tones, obscenities, and proposals of violent solutions to the issues that he cares about.

This saddens me, because the guy has a lot of good points to make, and I could probably learn from him. However, he seems to feel that the only way to be heard is to shout, and to punctuate his arguments with profanity and suggestions that the President (for example) should die, or be otherwise personally, physically harmed.

I don’t think that the President should be harmed. And I don’t think that our former President should be harmed, either. That’s pretty extreme.

There’s so much shouting. So many people seem to think that using fear, insults, exaggeration, and the word “fuck,” are great ways to emphasize their positions and make others listen to them; that the degree of  volume and extremity of their statements will reinforce the “right-ness” of their viewpoints.

I think that it’s unfortunate that ideas seem to come before respect of others, no matter the forum: “You retard!” in-game; “You’re a Nazi!” in politics; etc. In-game, at school, at work, in the media, we are all citizens of the world. That seems so unimportant to an alarming number of people today. I wonder how much poor communication stunts the growth of countries and the welfare of their people; at any rate, it’s a terrible example for the next generation.

In the context of world problems, discussion in and about video games ranks far lower in overall importance. However, the tone of the discussion affects me similarly. I’m more inclined to find an article interesting, and to consider the author’s points, if it is presented sanely and maturely. I’m less likely to respond positively (or even finish reading) if the author’s point is delivered in an inflammatory tone, or is smothered in profanity or insults.

I’m not saying that it’s necessarily “correct” of me to react that way. I’m saying that that’s the way that I react.

So here I am

I feel that I have difficulty, sometimes, writing in a compelling manner – that is, expressing my views in a clear and concise manner first, with maybe some emotional emphasis added. Rather, I feel that some of my writing lately has come from an emotional (indignant) place, which has resulted in rambling posts and lower editing standards on my part. The end result is that I say things in a way that I may not be proud of upon reflection.

I do not want to be a part of the problem. I want to write posts that I enjoy rereading. I don’t want to make the mistake of expressing a view of someone’s work that is incomplete or otherwise doesn’t accurately reflect the respect that I have for his/her opinion.

I am considering following my intuition, which, right now, is telling me that I should perhaps curtail my discussion of these types of topics on my blog. I would love to be a bit more articulate on these subjects. However, when I look at the number of potential posts that I’ve discarded over the past couple of weeks, and the two “rant-y” ones that I’ve actually published recently, I don’t think that I’m ready to go down that road at this point.

I’m definitely not saying that I’m not going to post anymore. I’m still planning to post about WoW, music, sports, and other stuff that I find interesting. I just think that I’ll be a happier blogger if I don’t put out content that isn’t up to my own standards.

* * * * *

Post-Script: This post doesn’t seem to flow as well as I would like it to – which is, by this point, a common theme with me. I apologize for that. Trust me, it was way worse before I reworked and edited it!

In defense of Frostheim

The rants continue here at Sunmurma…

Yesterday, Frostheim (Warcraft Hunters Union, WoW Insider) posted a story on his blog about a Heroic Old Kingdom that he ran just prior to the recording of last Saturday’s Hunting Party Podcast.

The post, entitled “Story Corner in which Frost is a Bit of an Ass,” can be summarized in this way:

• Frost queued for a random, and it took forever for him to get a dungeon. Just when he was about to give up, he got into OK.
• The tank was doing fine, and Frost was having no threat issues.
• At some point early in the dungeon, a member asked if they could do the optional bosses, and Frost politely let them know that he only had time to do the required ones. He got nothing but silence in response.
• After the second boss, he and two other party members went up to the trash before Herald, and then he noticed that the tank and the person who asked to do the extra bosses were nowhere in sight.
• Meanwhile, one of the members who were with him drew proximity aggro on one of the Faceless Ones, so Frost sicced his pet on it, taunted, and proceeded to solo-kill the mob while the other two members ran away!
• Once the mob was down, he said “Hey guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were doing the optional bosses. I said I don’t have time, and I don’t have time for them.” He received several articulate, mature responses, including “Hunter come here” and “Hunter get down here.”

At this point, with limited time before the podcast went live, Frostheim, a big fan of extreme soloing and testing the limits of his hunter abilities, figured “Screw ‘em, I’ll just finish off the instance on my own.”

He pulled the Herald, and when the first insanity phase began, he quickly learned the reality of the fight (which I did not know), which was that the insanity phase is instance-wide. Therefore, the other party members were experiencing insanity without being prepared for it. People started dying, and after a few comments like “WTF hunter?” everyone left the party, Frostheim was booted from the instance, and he didn’t get to finish the boss fight.

Frostheim ended his post by expressing his excitement over the idea that he could have soloed the Herald on Heroic mode.

* * * * *

 

Reactions may vary...

Reaction the post has been varied. Extremely varied.

Most of the commenters on the post itself have cited the coolness factor, along with the idea that being tersely addressed as “Hunter” when he had been polite to them is a put-off. A couple of others suggested that he should have dropped group rather than ruin the instance for the other party members.

Today, there are people on Twitter decrying what he did, even calling for him to be fired from WoW Insider. Ambrosine (I Like Bubbles), in a piece called Responsibility., scolds Frostheim for displaying this type of behavior (being an ass) as a prominent member of the hunter community.

* * * * *

My take on what happened, with some thoughts about Frostheim and opinion on whether he should be fired by WoW Insider, follows.

Communication

The LFD situation that Frostheim described is one that many of us have encountered hundreds of times along the way: a group of people who do not put forth the effort to communicate. After Frost clearly communicated that he would not be able to do the additional bosses, he got no response. Being greeted with silence, he faced an uncertainty: either the other group members were resigned to the fact that they would just finish up the instance, or they would willfully ignore this person who was playing well within the group and go their own way. Personality will help determine how a person perceives the meaning of the silence; Frost interpreted it as acceptance of the fact that the hunter only had a short amount of time, and assumed that everyone would simply finish the instance as quickly as possible.

Clearly there was confusion, as half of the remaining party members were with him, and one was even in front of him (as evidenced by the fact that one member drew aggro because he was too close to a mob).

I assume that, if nothing else, the tank had the impression that Frost was simply a dumb huntard, only there to do DPS, and would comply with what the tank silently willed.

Ineptitude followed by asshattery

When the other party member drew aggro, Frost stepped in to save him. Quickly sending his ferocity pet to take the heat off of the guy, Frost proceeded to work on finishing off the mob while the other two ran away. To quote Frost, “Then the other two turned and ran off toward the tank, leaving me and my pet with aggro. Well, with cower and Mend Pet and a lot of DPS I managed to take the Faceless One down…”

Well, that was nice of them. I’m assuming that one of them was the healer, which would have greatly benefited Frost’s pet, and the other was a DPS, which would have greatly benefited both the pet and Frost himself. But no, they ran away, effectively saying “screw you, buddy!” while he did his best to prevent anyone from being needlessly killed.

Responding to respect with disrespect

After finishing off the Faceless One, Frost typed the following (again, quoting his post): “Hey guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were doing the optional bosses. I said I don’t have time, and I don’t have time for them.”

This is where he got the responses addressing him as “Hunter”: “Hunter come here” etc.

Frost quote (again): “I had been about to apologize and leave, but these guys had annoyed me just enough. Screw ‘em, I figured, I’ll finish off the instance on my own.”

Acting with respect goes a long way toward peace. The opposite is also true.

I know that there are a large number of people out there who are disrespected in WoW (etc.). Some choose to respond in kind, while others choose to overlook the asshattery and go with the flow, “for the good of the group.” This is how I usually respond, although a certain amount of feeling ignored/ disrespected/ abandoned can push me over the edge. On my druid, I’ve kicked tanks who ignored the spoken will of the rest of the group (running past bosses in UP, for instance) and taken over as tank, or pulled bosses who were skipped and tanked them without heals at times. Sometimes, I’ve felt correct in overriding the tank’s silent “I’m the tank” middle finger to people who need badges/points. But this is the exception, not the norm. Usually, I do whatever the tank wants, or whatever the group wants, however much I’m hating the experience, because I am “being mature” about it.

Frost’s decision

However, even mature people can get stepped on too many times, and I think that this was one of those times for Frost. At some point, a person can reach a threshold where, once passed, he says “screw it, we’re doing this my way, because I just don’t care about you anymore.” Frost reached this point, after being ignored, unappreciated, abandoned and disrespected. In addition, his personality is such that an opportunity to extreme-solo a boss is akin to someone offering you the chance to eat a free, delicious meal – most people wouldn’t pass it up, and neither would he. He also didn’t figure that he was hurting the rest of the party, but simply spiting them. As far as I can tell, these were the major factors that led to his decision to clear the rest of the trash and pull the Herald.

Thoughts on Frostheim, his writing and analysis, and whether he should be fired

There are some people on Twitter and around the flame-net who are calling for Frostheim to be fired, boycotted, or chastised. As you can see above, some commenters are saying that Frostheim promotes “huntard,” that he showed no class, that he “doesn’t represent (So-and-so) as a hunter,” etc.

The post at I Like Bubbles contains comments that seem to cover most of the opinions on it.

My take: it’s probably not something that I would have done. However, as Frost had reached a point where he lost his concern for the other party members’ desire to do the complete instance, and understanding his personality, I don’t think that his actions deserve to be flamed like they are.

If one reads the articles that Frost writes, one finds that they are filled with information, helpful discussion, and huge doses of his personality. In his writing, both on WHU and WoW Insider, he continuously preaches team play, and discusses how to get the most out of your hunter in almost any situation while being the solution, not the problem. As a player, he strives to top the meters while being an indispensable member of a raid team. He is a huge fan of hunters, and his enthusiasm for the minutia of hunter play is infectious. His articles are insightful and humorous, and he is tirelessly dedicated to bringing his readers the best information possible, constantly testing and refining and bringing new ideas to the public. His track record is very good, and so, to me, “being a bit of an ass” in this situation, with no intent to actually kill off the other members of the party, is certainly not one of the defining traits of his play. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a very positive member of, and contributor to, the hunter/WoW community.

He even admitted to being a bit of an ass in the title of his post, so he’s certainly aware that the content of his story didn’t follow purist, conventional wisdom.

So no, I don’t think that he should be fired. I found his story to be funny, and I while I wouldn’t have done it myself, it does not strike me as outrageous that he decided to do it. It definitely was not a low move along the lines of a tank intentionally pulling and then dropping group, for instance.

It’s probably not something that he will do again – that’s not the type of player that he is. In the course of dealing with a lost cause, he found out something that excited him, and shared it with his audience.

And to those who argue that it sets a bad example: I am highly skeptical that this one incident is going to put a bigger black mark on the hunter community. There are hunters who play their classes well and are team players, and then there are hunters who define their unfortunate, derogatory nickname. That’s not going to change as a result of Frostheim’s article.

 

Feeling anti-social: thoughts on Blizzcon detractors, Twitter, and other social networking stuff that is annoying me lately

I’m going through a negative phase this week, with regard to The Internet. There seems to have been a bit of communication overload in the circles I hang around, from Twitter to Facebook to the blogs I follow, and around the web in general. It seems odd, because a couple of months ago there was a lot of “there’s nothing going on” going on, but recently there has been a flurry of everything, and it’s making my brain and eyes hurt.

A little real-life stress doesn’t help. But that’s beside the point.

I follow a lot of WoW/MMO blogs, and I also follow sports. Over the past couple of weeks, that has meant that I’ve subjected myself to a lot of news and discussion regarding the Major League Baseball playoffs, the NFL season, sports-related concussions, 4.0.1, Cataclysm, Blizzcon, and F2P MMOs.

In addition to this, I’ve been playing some WoW, and most of my time in WoW has been spent doing BGs with my druid as I work toward a full set of feral Wrathful gear. Anyone who plays WoW with their hearthstone set in Dalaran and runs a lot of BGs knows that this is a recipe for exposing one’s self to a ton of name-calling and other totally useless or socially destructive chat.

So that type of thing doesn’t help my mood.

Let me preface what I say by reiterating something that I’ve said before – people have the right to say whatever they want; to give opinions, to express themselves, etc. I am 100% in favor of this.

However, a lot of chatter (and chat) seems to be getting on my nerves lately. Here goes…

Blizzcon

Well, I may as well get this out of the way.

The amount of negative coverage that Blizzcon has gotten this year has surprised me. With the knowledge that there was no big announcement in the works, Blizzard claims that they wrestled with whether to actually have a Blizzcon this year. They eventually decided that not holding the event would be disappointing to the people who love to attend. From what I’ve read, people who attended had a blast. Fans of the game, from new players to old players to writers, loved having opportunities to talk with developers, see some new content, check out some gear, play Blizzard’s games, and hang out with – and talk WoW with – fellow WoW-players for three days. All things considered, I would say that it was a success.

However, I’ve wasted more life-experience over the past two weeks reading articles poo-pooing Blizzard’s annual convention than I ever cared to. The ad nauseam complaining that “Blizzard didn’t have a big reveal, so they ripped off their fans” and “Blizzard won’t give players extra character slots, or wardrobes/closets for gear set storage, so they don’t care about their fans” is so tired at this point.

Blizzcon certainly wasn’t perfect. They didn’t answer everyone’s questions, and there were some questions that weren’t answered particularly well. However, it was an event for the fans, and it seems that a fun time was had by, if not every single person, the overwhelming majority of the people who attended. I think that that’s the most important thing.

I didn’t go to Blizzcon, and I didn’t watch much of the video footage. It’s not my bag, but for thousands of people, it is, and I’m glad that Blizzard gave them the chance to get together and celebrate some of their favorite games.

Blizzcon part 2: the “broken leg”

(Subtitled: If nobody likes an asshole, then why are there so many of them out there?)

The problem, in this case, wasn’t the fan who fell and apparently broke his leg during the dance competition. The guy actually “broke a ligament” in his knee, according to what he told WoW Insider. Whether or not it can be argued that one “tears” rather than “breaks” a ligament, the guy suffered some serious damage. Ligament injuries are fixable, but they aren’t easy procedures, and usually require quite a bit of therapy before the knee is back to normal. In addition, the injury could cause him suffering down the road, depending on a variety of factors.

However, the injury was not the issue for me. Ligaments can be damaged by slipping, or your foot landing awkwardly, or being knocked at a bad angle during a sports competition.

The problem was that it happened during the dance competition, which was recorded and seen, not just by the people attending, but by people watching at home, and later by YouTube visitors, who have, as of this writing, viewed it around 650,000 times (here’s one of the links to it). Since it was a legitimate injury that happened to a “nerd” in a “nerdy” competition and is widely available to view on the Internet, the kid is not only physically injured, but is now famous for being “that guy…”

As we all know, YouTube is one of the largest troll-havens on the planet, and a quick glance through some of the comments on the video confirms that to the fullest.

It appalls me that name-calling and derision (of the magnitude that we see now) is the norm in this day and age. The downside to being socially networked these days is having to sort through all of the anonymous disrespect, callousness and misanthropy.

Hey assholes: the guy didn’t hurt himself because he’s retarded, has Asperger syndrome, is a douche, or a nerd with no life, or a virgin, or any of that crap. He fell because he took part in a dance competition for fun, and, unfortunately, the stage was extremely slippery (witness all of the other people who fell while dancing – some fell multiple times).

I’m disgusted by the hatred that is spewed by so many people on the Internet. Even if he did have a disorder, it wouldn’t be funny or cool to make fun of it.

Twitter: too much info

I like Twitter because I can follow some my favorite writers, like Andrew, Tesh, Krist, and Gordon. And a few others.

I don’t like Twitter because some of the other writers that I follow tweet at a rate of about fifty times per day. It ends up becoming a lot to sort through, and it’s more work than I really care to do.

What Twitter ends up being, from my perspective, is a chaotic way to converse. Followers of the more prolific Twitter users often have to sift through a deluge of abbreviated partial-conversations in order to get a cohesive idea of what’s going on. Last weekend, I was reading an amazing amount of tweets about baseball, football, and Blizzcon, and felt as if my brain was going to explode. As a result, I have removed nine users from the list of people I follow, and I’m thinking of trimming that list down to the people mentioned above, along with a few others, and leaving it at that. This would be something completely Twitter-related; I still love reading Peter King and Joe Posnanski, etc., but I don’t necessarily know if I need to follow every one of their tweets.

WoW/PvP chat

Um…

Yell chat. PvP chat. I don’t think I need to say anything more. It’s as ridiculous as ever. See above rant regarding the dancer injuring his leg…

I really wish that there were options for disabling /bg (temporarily, “for this BG,” for times when I’ve reached my breaking point in a “fail BG”) and /yell (permanently) in this game. If there are, please let me know, because I will do it!

Blogs

I follow more than 125 blogs in my reader. Lately, I’ve been skipping a lot of them, and reading only the core blogs that I really like. The sites/blogs that I read every article from are:

1. Multi-subject/gaming: Systemic Babble,  Tish Tosh Tesh, We Fly Spitfires, Krist Novoselic
2. WoW class-specific: Warcraft Hunters Union, Feral Aggression, Think Tank, Primal Precision, The Fluid Druid, OutDPS!, The Brew Hall, One Man Raid, Tree Bark Jacket, From The Barrow Dens
3. WoW general: WoW Insider
4. Sports: Joe Posnanski’s blog, Peter King’s columns at SI.com
5. Music: Blabbermouth.net (well, I don’t read every article due to the sheer volume, but I read it every day)

*all of these are linked in my blogroll

I have a ton of unread posts in my reader right now. A few months ago, I spent a lot of time raiding others’ blogrolls, culling as much new reading material as I could. However, I’m sort of burned out at the moment, as far as reading so much. So this is all on me, and does not in any way reflect negatively on the quality of others’ writing; I’ve simply come to a point where only so much holds my interest at the moment. I’m sure that will change soon enough!

The news

ugh… the news… ugh… /shakes head

SO…

All of that, to say this: I am suffering from a kind of severe case of information overload, along with an even-lower-than-usual tolerance for asshattery.

As such, I scaled back my blog-reading/Internet-time/WoW-playing over the past few days. In addition to playing quite a bit more guitar this week, I also dusted off my copy of Fable 2 (360) a couple of days ago, and have put eight or nine hours into it.

It’s the first time that I’ve put more than a couple of hours into it before giving up. This time, I started a new character and began getting over my discomfort with the control scheme and UI issues, which I’ve written about in the past. Fortunately, I’ve succeeded in this endeavor enough that I’ve really started to enjoy the game.

I’m taking my time with it, playing with a toon who is generally balanced both morally and in combat. I’m trying to make some gold, working jobs and completing side quests, and trying to become even more comfortable with the 360 controls (I’m spoiled by the WoW UI in this regard).

It’s great to be playing a game where there is no interaction with other people. Sometimes, breaks from things like these are necessary. I’ve been largely avoiding the blog, the reader, the news, and Twitter, and I’ve been logged out of WoW quite a bit this week, and it’s refreshing.

Closing

Thus, my rant for this week is over. Hopefully, a few more days of diminished social networking will leave me feeling somewhat refreshed, and I can get around to the 500+ articles that I have left unread at this point.

Saniel: if you’re reading this, I know that you commented on my Feral PvP post a few days ago, and I apologize for not responding to it before today. I’ve remained logged out of WordPress for the past few days, so I didn’t respond to anything until now. However, I appreciate the comment!

* * * * *

Possible near-future article ideas: impressions of Google Chrome as compared with Safari, my Feral PvP spec, maybe a Fable 2 post (um, yeah, fresh on the heals of the Fable 3 release – sounds about right for me!).

Old posts = old milk

Well, some of them do, anyway.

I went back this afternoon and did something that I’ve been sort of dreading doing for weeks now: putting a disclaimer on some of my old feral druid posts that contain outdated information. I didn’t do it with all of them, since some of my writing has just been general druid-happiness. However, some of them contain discussion or commentary on stats, gear, specs, etc. that are no longer current. These now have the following header:

*Note: Some of the information in this article is outdated, as it was written prior to Patch 4.0.1 or the launch of Cataclysm. Please do not take the following info as gospel, as it is not current!

The process wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, since there were only 12 posts that I felt contained information that could be detrimental to others. The reason I did it is because people still seem to find and read these posts through Google searches, and I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone.

Hopefully this will eventually help stifle the rate at which people find and read my “Feral druids: multiple gear sets and the T10 4-piece bonus” post, if nothing else.