Tag: blogging

Extended Hiatus

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s tough to write posts like this, but here goes: Mana Obscura is going on extended hiatus. After two years of having a great time discussing opinions and sharing ideas about MMOs and online gaming, it’s time for me to take an extended break.

The past few months have seen a dramatic change. I’ve gone from a hobbyist blogger to becoming a staff writer at ZAM. I’ll still be writing there every week, so make sure you’re following me on Twitter to stay updated. I’ll also be attending Rezzed in Brighton, Gamescom in Cologne, and Eurogamer Expo in London. Let me know if you’re heading to any of these!

I won’t be shutting Mana Obscura down anytime soon, so all historic posts and archives will remain up. Keep me in your feed readers though, as there’s no telling when I’ll return. This isn’t a goodbye, more of a “back in a bit”.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for more great content to read, you’ll find many fine and stimulating writers in my blogroll.

All the best,

Gaz

You Can Write Too!

Posted on by Gazimoff

Boxes of chocolates are like boxes of frogs. They’re both boxes. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarity ends, as anyone who’s received a box of frogs on Valentine’s Day will surely agree. So, boxes of frogs are actually nothing like boxes of chocolates, and should under no circumstances be used as a gift for loved ones. In fact, putting frogs in boxes is a ludicrous idea, unless you happen to be a biologist specialising in amphibians.

Another thing completely unlike a box of frogs is a blog about massively multiplayer online role-playing games, such as this one. The construction, creation and maintenance of a collection of articles about your favourite MMOs is a happy, frog-free zone in which you can share your thoughts, opinions and ideas on the games you play. It can be anything you like, from the straight-talking dispenser of sage advice to the surreal idealist struggling against an inner pessimist.

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Getting Started with MMO Blogging

Posted on by Gazimoff

In the time since I started blogging about MMOs, I’ve learned a huge amount about writing, sharing and being part of a staggeringly huge community. In many respects though I’m still a noob, bumbling around and making mistakes. Things like the blog going offline due to setup or configuration errors because I’m too stubborn to use a free service, or losing my entire blogroll moving from one host to another.

I also look at the other bloggers and still feel amazed. How on earth does Tobold manage to come up with a new topic to write about every day? Where do Psynister and Cynwise find the time to put together their detailed, well researched guides? How does Spinks manage to read all the things and pull it all together into a well researched reflection of both the community and her own opinion? What inspired I Like Bubbles to convert the rant into an entertaining art form? How is The Daily Blink regularly and consistently funny?

When MMO Melting Pot mentioned that people felt intimidated by long-standing bloggers I was surprised to see my name listed there. I guess I still see myself as a newcomer to blogging compared to a lot of other people. It also reminds me how lucky I am to have created something that seems to work, even though I have no clue how I managed it. Part of me puts it down to trial and error, while another part reasons that it’s just fluke.

Even so, when I started out with MMO blogging I was given a bucketload of advice from a range of different people. There were many good lessons that I learned, but the four most important ones were these. I don’t know if they’re common sense (something I don’t have) or based on old proverbs, but they’ve worked for me. If you’re starting out as an MMO blogger or you’ve been doing it for a while but you’re struggling with it, I hope these are helpful.

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Fear of the Fansites

Posted on by Gazimoff

Back in May 2010 the Warcraft blogging community were asked if they’d consider writing for the World of Warcraft Official Magazine. I have to be honest with you: I considered it, asked a few questions but ultimately didn’t go through with it. I was a new blogger on the scene (still am by most accounts), still finding my voice and didn’t think I’d have anything the editors would be interested in.

While my opinion of my own writing hasn’t changed much (Gaz in print? Ludicrous idea!) it’s something I’d like other bloggers to achieve if it’s the career they want to go for. Which made me all the more surprised when I read this blogpost from the first Editor In Chief of the aforementioned magazine.

The first question that came to mind was that two well known and respected contributors to the community had their names stripped from the first issue on Blizzard’s request. I’m not sure why they’d ask for such a thing and I don’t really want to second guess their motives, but it does raise some troubling questions.

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Getting the Most out of Game Time

Posted on by Gazimoff

I find being a gamer these days is pretty tough. There are a ton of good quality titles out there that I’m desperate to try out. I want to get my teeth into every single one of them and wring them dry of every single droplet of Fun Essence. I want to be able to talk about the phases of the game – how they start out, what the endgame or finish is like and so on. I want to both have my cake and devour it in a noisy, icing-shrapnel inducing manner.

Do I have time? In a word, no.

I’ve become one of those “mature gamers” you hear about these days – people who read Edge and Retro Gamer and talk about how good games were in the good old days. The kind of gamer who holds down a full time job and a family, trying to fit gaming around everything else. Add to that running a blog, doing podcasts and everything else and it’s easy to see time vanish. Apparently I have twenty minutes a week to play Warcraft, and that’s during server maintenance.

I needed a plan. Something to help me manage what time I have available to make sure I get the most out of the time I have. It’s not perfect but it’s useful to me in helping me work out what’s important.

Why share all this now? A while back, Windsoar asked me this very question at her A-Muse-ment Party:

I know you recently started playing and blogging about your time in Rift. How do you balance your time between two games? What, if anything, have your experiences in WoW/Rift helped you with or made you wish was different in the other? How has being involved in multiple game worlds affected your in-game goals and expectations when embarking on a new MMO?

I’ll be honest with you – this isn’t the first time I’ve been playing two games. I’ve had Warcraft running while playing Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Age of Conan, Aion and more, as well as a handful of betas and single player RPGs. How do I manage that balance? Let me explain.

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Tired of MMOs?

Posted on by Gazimoff

There’s been a discussion kicking around Twitter for the past week or so, which seemed to end up with a single question. I think it was probably best said by Wolfshead: “is there anything left to say about today’s MMOs that hasn’t already been said?”

If we’re talking about the current crop of MMORPG games then no, there probably isn’t anything more that can be said about them. While our experiences playing those games is as varied and unique as our daily lives, the core mechanics used are almost identical. No wonder we’re all getting so jaded!

So why do we keep playing (and writing about) these games when there seems to be diminishing returns? When you’re comparing Dishwashing Online and Washing Up World, you’re still virtually washing dishes. Surely there’s only so much you can say?

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5 Ways to Help The Warcraft Community

Posted on by Gazimoff

Official Warcraft Forums screenshot

I was flicking through the list of recent blue posts when I came across this little gem on the EU forums. Turns out that there’s a lot of thread deletion going on, particularly when a topic gets derailed or descends into anarchy. I can’t say for certain if much useful content is being lost as I don’t tend to get involved on the official forums, but if people are putting in time and effort trying to be helpful then it’s a bad thing to see that effort get wasted.

The great thing is that the official forums aren’t the only place where someone can contribute to the Warcraft community. There are a whole stack of other places where you can help out other players, either by highlighting a new discovery you’ve made or by sharing your thoughts and experience.

If you’re interested in getting involved and helping out other players or just sharing your thoughts and opinions, don’t feel that you’re limited to what the official forums provide. Have a look at this list and see if any of these grab your interest.

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Blog Azeroth Secret Santa

Posted on by Gazimoff

Every year Blog Azeroth organises a Secret Santa event where bloggers from across the community write guest posts for each other. This year was the first time I entered, with Arphalas from The Dark Order pulling my blog in the draw. I’d like to thank him for putting together such a great post and I’ll be sharing my own Secret Santa soon. Enjoy!

Greetings everyone!

secret santa bannerThis is a bit different than your normal blog post, but instead of Gazimoff I will call the shots tonight! My name is Arphalas and I am a Death Knight Blogger from The Dark Order on a mission called ‘Blog Azeroth’s Secret Santa’.

With that out of the way shall we begin?

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Mage Resources Need You!

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s incredible to think that we’re days away from the next expansion. In less than a week, we’ll be doing the new quests, entering the new dungeons and collecting the new gear. Expansions are the great equaliser – everyone starts at the same position again. Newer mages get a fresh chance to join raidgroups at the start of an expansion, as almost all are recruiting to replace tired veterans or character changes.

It also means that it’s time to sweep away the older guides that no longer apply to a sundered world. A lot of the core mechanics have changed, while guides to the new dungeons, heroics and raids are sorely needed. There’s also a need for gear information, upgrade paths and so on. Think of all the questions you’re likely to ask as you level through the new content, and these are the ones that are likely to be asked.

Over the next few days I’ll be refreshing the content in the Mage Resources page to ensure all the links are relevant for 4.0 and Cataclysm. But this also means that I need your help to update it and ensure all the great guides and articles that everyone has written get included.

If you’ve written a guide or article on anything mage related for 4.0/Cataclysm – or know of one that someone else has written – please leave a link in the comments.

If you’re thinking about writing something  but don’t yet have a blog, feel free to post it in the relevant part of the Mage Forums. I’ll be sure to include a link to it from the Mage Resources page, plus other forumites can provide their own thoughts and feedback on it!

Thanks for all your help!

Where Did The Obscurecast Go?

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s been a quiet week on the pages of Mana Obscura. There’s normally an update here at least twice a week, but the last post was nearly ten days ago. Ten days. That’s over a week, in case you’re counting.

So what’s been happening to keep me away from blogging for the last ten days? Well, a number of projects have been in the works which have been eating up my time. The first (and possibly the biggest) one is that The Obscurecast has moved to a new home. Feel free to check it out at it’s new location, subscribe to the feed and share your thoughts. All the original episodes will still be on both sites to preserve links, but all new episodes will only be on the new site. If you haven’t checked it out, there’s two more waiting for you to download!

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