Here’s the Deal

I began this post earlier today, but then life intervened as it often does, and the post sat unfinished. During the several hours that passed from when I left my desk until now, I’d considered letting it disappear into the abyss and go unpublished. In fact, this is something I’ve done quite a few times over the past year. There have been at least a dozen posts with anywhere from 1K-3K words that I could not bring myself to hit the publish button on.

Why, you ask..? 9 times out of 10 is because I believe the tone is too negative for my tastes. I find there are too many people online as it is who feel the need to expend so much emotion and get so riled up over something so silly as a video game. I try my best to not be one of them. Once in awhile something such as the great BM PvP Nerf will get my dander up, but my incidences of nerd-rage are pretty few and far between and typically pretty mild. Instead, my irritation is usually caused by the people who get so pumped up over WoW, identify so closely with their avatars, and then behave badly without fear of consequence. Anyway, that’s another story entirely and I won’t expound upon that.

Anyway, after working my ass off this afternoon leveling our front yard and trenching for a sprinkler system that will be installed tomorrow, I decided I would go through with the post. I also approached it with a crankier tone. Being that my usual tools of the trade are a mouse, keyboard, and on rare occasions a microphone, manual labor (especially trench digging) irritates me. Of course, the end result will be a beautiful front yard, so I suppose it’s a labor of love.

Whether or not I will regret posting this, I dunno. I just feel compelled to get a few things off my chest. Essentially, I just want to present you with a state of the HuntsmansLodge Address, answer a few possible concerns, and speak my peace.

Here’s the resumed and edited post from earlier today…

I’m well aware that the site’s been a little void of activity lately. Apart from yesterday’s post about my UI, I haven’t given visitors too many reasons to stop by the past few weeks.

On one hand, you could say I’ve been slacking a bit. I made mention of leveling a Death Knight, which to some may have been seen as a slap in the face considering I’d been promising a post about my new UI for quite some time.

On the other hand, you could say that Garwulf’s time is his own and perhaps he’s too busy to post. Or, maybe he’s choosing to spend his free time playing WoW so as to blow off steam, and when things settle down he’ll return to better posting habits. Both of those statements are true.

Between work, family, friends and various projects around the home, there is only a certain amount of time left to either:

a) Venture into Azeroth and slay beasties and/or other players.

b) Talk about venturing into Azeroth and slaying beasties and/or other players.

Lately I’ve preferred to engage in choice a.

However, just because I’ve leveled a Death Knight and have been a little weak in the posting department does not mean I’ve forsaken the Hunter community. The fact is, the DK was something I’d been chipping away at for months and months. It’s not like I power leveled him to 80. I mainly played him to replenish my funds, as it was a more rewarding way of farming gold than grinding out dailies. I also wanted to become more familiar with the class, so that I can be more efficient at getting them more acquainted with the Spirit Healer. It just so happened that I eventually made it to level 80.

The other reason I’d been playing my Death Knight is because he’s unguilded. If you’re anything like me, then sometimes you just want to log on and be anonymous. It’s a refreshing change of pace for me to be able to log on and play at my own pace, go afk when and I want, and not feel the pressures of having to join some late night 10 man that the guild’s decided to begin at 11:00pm.

Also, during this time I was spending a lot of time tweaking my UI in-game. It was important to me that I have any bugs or minor kinks worked out before I posted the compilation here for download. Transferring the UI to another toon and adapting it to a new class helped me work out some of the final few issues.

Another major reason I’ve been somewhat lax on the posting, is because I’ve been raiding a lot more than usual. Being one of the top DPS’ers in our guild, I feel somewhat of a responsibility to be available when it’s time to push through new content. I’m not always able to be on-hand come raid night, so since my schedule has permitted it lately, I’ve been answering the call. I’m happy to say, we’re now one-shotting TotC 25 man. Anub’arak was even so kind as to give me a new Polearm on my last visit.

Then there’s also that time sink known as arena. Fortunately for me, my 3v3 team has called it quits, which leaves me with only my cozy little 2v2 team. I’m very happy with this change, as trying to manage a raid schedule in addition to multiple arena teams can be a bit much. Now that I’m just down to a casual 2s setup, I have a little more free time, which is most refreshing. One of my former 3s partners was one of the “we’re just about to go on a tear” individuals who’d manage to keep our other partner and I in arena til the wee hours of the morning until one of us (namely me) would throw in the towel. Needless to say, this didn’t afford me much time at night to keep up with the blog.

As I’ve indicated in the past, my wife and I live in a relatively small home, which became quite a bit smaller once this guy arrived. Recently, in an attempt to create a better work situation for myself (I work from home), I proposed a living room makeover plan to my wife. She was digging the idea, so I began the process of dismantling the Garwulf Command Center and relocating it to the common area of the home (prior to that, I had my home-office in our bedroom).

This little home makeover was not an overnight job, as it had a huge ripple effect on the layout of our living room, bedroom, as well as our son’s room. When you only have so much space and limited fundage, you have to be creative and resourceful when trying to redo things. Anyway, this mini home makeover was quite a task, I’ll tell you that.

At any rate, this little project ate up a considerable amount of my free time the past few weeks, not to mention, anyone with a small child knows that everything takes 5-10 times longer when you have a toddler around trying to “help”.

I reach a point where when things get a little more hectic than usual, something has to give. In this case, it was the blog. However, regardless of how busy I am, I check the site regularly and try to reply to each and every comment that gets posted. I’m also active in the forum. Plus, some of my forum replies are just as in depth as a blog post.

I try to devote only so much time to WoW endeavors (even though it’s probably a considerable amount), because well, it’s not really all that important. I mean, it’s fun as hell to play and we all enjoy it, but c’mon… Anyhow, as I’d indicated in a recent post, there are only so many hours in a day and sometimes WoW blogging can’t work its way into the schedule.

That said, I am getting to a point now where I should be more on top of things as far as the site is concerned. I’m feeling not just a need, but a compulsion to shift some focus away from the game and turn it back to the site. I have some posts swirling around the ol’ noggin, as well as some unfinished business posts (ie: MM and SV raiding primers).

So there yo go… I’ve been off enjoying myself in Azeroth, while the rest of you have been checking the site going, “sigh… no new post… guess I’ll check back tomorrow…”.

I’ve been feeling a little guilty about letting things slide, but when one of my readers posted his criticism of the site in one of his comments, it really struck a nerve. My knee-jerk reaction was, “What an a$$”! “I maintain this site using my ‘free time’… how dare he criticize me and demean my site. I’ve written well over 300 posts and pages of helpful and relevant information, plus I pay nearly sixty bucks a month to host this beast. Last I checked, no one was paying me to update this blog, and ffs… just 2 weeks ago I wrote a comprehensive guide on raiding for Beast Mastery Hunters“!

Then I realized, that was the wrong reaction. After all, people are entitled to their opinion. It’d been two weeks since I’d posted anything of real value, and by my standards, that is pretty weak I must say. Although this site is primarily a hobby that I don’t get paid for, it does attract a lot of visitors. Therefore, I do have somewhat of an obligation to try and not disappoint. I’ve worked very hard on this site and I hate to think that people would turn their back on it just because of a few weeks here and there of sparse posting.

Now maybe I’m overreacting somewhat, and perhaps the one comment I received was the voice of maybe only a handful of people. Perhaps most others realize that all the work I do here is a charitable contribution to the WoW Hunter Community and don’t feel the need to ride my nuts about it. Regardless, I am what you would consider a sensitive individual. When someone feels the need to let me know that my site is a disappointment, initially I feel a little upset that I’ve let someone down. Then, the caged tiger in me comes out.

Once this site started really attracting some attention, I tried my best to meet the demands of new and repeat visitors by trying my darnedest to continually serve up juicy posts and helpful information. I’ve worked my ass off on this site over the past 13 months. So what if I need to take a few weeks off here and there. It happens. Go visit one of the other regularly updated sites among the plethora of Hunter blogs on the web. Come back when I have something to say. Until then, don’t send me any, “no offense but…” comments. Grrr…

To those of you who think that HuntsmansLodge has lost its lustre, understand that I don’t mean to let things sag, but as I’d said… sometimes something’s gotta give. More power to the elite WoW bloggers who manage to maintain their busy lifestyles, while at the same time being able to not only immerse themselves in Azeroth, but also to have the dedication and desire to maintain their WoW blogs, put together instructional videos, guides, record f**king podcasts, and continue to deliver quality posts. I marvel at that.

As I’d said, I do intend to get back to better posting habits, so hopefully I can get this train back on its tracks. I will say this though… because I know when to let things like WoW blogging and/or WoW fall off my plate, I’m one of the least likely bloggers to publish one of the dreaded, “WoW’s consumed my life, so I’m quitting the game posts.” In other words, Garwulf and HuntsmansLodge.com will be around for awhile, like it or not.

/hops off soapbox

I feel much better.

Thank you for listening.

Tagged as: family, life, work, wow bloggers