I created this website initially to entertain. I wanted to show what life was like for your average Alliance member on the Ravenholdt server of World of Warcraft. The Horde had a minimum of a 2 to 1 advantage at all times, so I tried to keep a sarcastic tone for entertainment purposes. Cataclysm came and our guild really exploded. Along with all new game content to explore, the pace for my content became too much for me. That’s why I stopped. In all, I played World of Warcraft for just shy of eight years.
- World of Warcraft
When I played World of Warcraft, I only played World of Warcraft. When I left, I found myself playing multiple games. League of Legends and World of Tanks were the two games I discovered and stuck with. I felt like I was enjoying myself more. When I restarted this website, I had planned to cover a wide variety of games for that reason:
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- World of Tanks
- League of Legends
- Battlefield 3
- End of Nations*
- Firefall*
Firefall and End of Nations weren’t out just yet. They were in development.
A lot of what motivates me to play games are the people I play with. If I don’t have friends to play with, my motivation takes a drastic hit. Both League of Legends and World of Tanks fell into this category, although League of Legends I felt had some balance issues as well. I still would recommend it for anyone to try. That narrowed the list.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- Battlefield 3
- End of Nations*
- Firefall*
End of Nations started beta testing, and Firefall was still in development.
I have one friend in particular that I enjoy gaming with, and we have been gaming together for probably nine years or more. Battlefield 3 and Firefall I started following because of my friend. He also made me take a second look at Guild Wars 2 as initially it didn’t interest me. Now, I am TERRIBLE at Battlefield 3. One thing I insist on in gaming is pulling my own weight. I kept dragging us down in BF3, and for the life of me could not improve enough. I was no longer enjoying BF3, even with friends. Guild Wars 2 stuck because of the PvP, and because I had to drop Star Wars: The Old Republic because of some IRL issues. That thinned things out again.
- Guild Wars 2
- End of Nations*
- Firefall*
End of Nations held several beta events, and Firefall finally announced their beta would begin soon.
I had envisioned a PvP focus for this website. Guild Wars 2 really shook things up for me. The horizontal scaling in sPvP for Guild Wars 2 really appealed to me. As it turns out, I have done very little sPvP. World versus World has consumed my PvP time. I’ve also created some more informational content (Vistas, magic find, etc) as opposed to PvP-centric content. I’m fine with this, as it’s followed my progression through the game. As I was leveling up, I needed to do the vistas. Once I got to 80, I needed a magic find set for gold farming. Then I branched out more into World versus World. I still plan to keep a PvP focus, I just plan to continue elaborating on what it takes behind the scenes to PvP. Repair bills don’t pay themselves, and armor isn’t cheap. The gold has to come from somewhere. The latest End of Nations beta event was the only one where the NDA was lifted, so I wouldn’t have been able to share anything until now. I enjoyed End of Nations, and am still looking forward to playing.
- PvP focus
- Informational Resources
So where do things stand for me now?
- Guild Wars 2 is amazing. I don’t see myself dropping it any time soon. As I shift more of my time to WvW and PvP from leveling and gold farming, I expect my content will change.
- Firefall sent me a beta invitation for this past weekend, but I had to work the entire time. I hope to get another.
- I’m also signed up for the End of Nations open beta coming up. I have not found any friends interested in playing it yet, so I hope that changes.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic is going Free to Play soon. I’m considering running out my cartel coins on the unlimited warzone play. I miss my smuggler, and hate not being able to update my Saboteur PvP guide. Looking at the changes for 1.4 though, it seems relevant still as there weren’t many big changes for smugglers.
Please let me know what you think about this site and my content. I’m starting to get more comments and feedback, and to me that’s great. If there’s anything you’d like to see, suggest that too. I really like knowing that what I put here helps people, or keeps them entertained at the very least.
Thanks again for reading and watching!
Well, fwiw, I’ve referred people to your wvw explanations and to the warrior build you posted. And frankly, some of the stuff you posted earlier than that contributed to me trying out gw2 in the first place. So it definitely “helps people” 🙂
A strength of what you’ve been posting is that you’re not sitting back and thinking “what can I write quickly to get content up?” but rather, you’re posting things that actually come up while you’re playing — which means its things that are relevant to other players.
Given that you’re one of the few “Commanders” on the wvw field who are actually competent at it and not just someone who managed to get the gold together for the book, you might consider writing some articles on leading on the field. It’s a lot different from large-scale pvp in most other games but I don’t think some of the commanders we’ve seen understand that…
Well thank you for the compliment and referrals, Aydrien. Now I almost feel bad for what I said to you in WvW the other night. Almost!
That’s a good idea regarding some commander related content. I’ll definitely use that. Thanks!
LOL I don’t even remember what you said. I’m sure it was terrible. 😉 I’m like a duck, these things just roll off my back.
On a related note, I’ve been working on my Mesmer build to try to help my survivability, my ability to help/heal/res others and most importantly, to maximize the number of clones/phantasms I’m creating and the damage they do. I find I don’t do any shredding with it, which I guess is not usual for a mesmer. I’m going to be looking to do some testing with it in WvW at some point in the next couple weeks if you’d be interested in that. It’s OP in PvE — ask Jennen about Mari and the bosses in the Fractals 😉 — but it’s easy for an actual player to figure out which one is me still, which seems to be its fatal weakness for pvp. I’ve been calling it “I _am_ the brute squad!”
I’ve been wanting to get some WvW footage of the nights we team up. Maybe closer to Christmas when I have a weekend off on nights again. Then you can ‘mezmerize’ us with your magnificent Mesmer moves!
I might be up for that. 😀 Pretty sure the guys will be too. If we can get enough people between our guilds maybe we can demonstrate the effectiveness of a dedicated supply/siege team too…