…to those of you who’ve expressed interest in contributing to the site, especially to those who’ve either impressed me with your work, or bent over backwards in an attempt to please. It’s been a pleasure reading so many fine articles from my fellow Hunters. 
That said, I am officially putting an indefinite lock on any future submissions. In other words, I am no longer pursuing contributors at this time, and I am currently up to my elbows in dealing with the after effect of this overwhelming response. You guys answered the call, that’s for sure.
Of course, I’ll still accept e-mail inquiries concerning possible contribution to the site, but I’m not actively looking as of now. If you are interested and feel you have some great ideas and would bring an immeasurable amount of value to the site, then you’d better have a bang-up application. 
The influx of articles was more than expected, and thus caused me to actually get further behind. The whole idea behind bringing in additional assistance was to lessen my burden as sole proprietor here at Huntsmans’s Lodge. I’ve quickly realized that waving a banner and sending out an open invitation to contribute was a mistake.
What I’ve learned from this:
Should I choose to expand the site in future, I need to be very specific about the particular area of discussion. No more “show me what you got” recruiting.
I am very protective of this site. To me, it’s like a big beautiful Macaw that I raised from an egg. The site has been all me up until now, so the realization of letting outside contributors in on a regular basis has filled me with a trepidation. This is the primary reason I’d put off this endeavor for so long. I didn’t want any other cooks in the kitchen, well save for my pal Drackmire, he’s always welcome. Anyway, I felt I’d be alright with routinely sharing the blog this time around, but I’m still not completely settled with the idea.
I need to be more critical. This is tough for me, because I am such a nice guy. No, really, I am. I was liking just about everything being tossed my way, which eventually made the selection process quite difficult, as I wanted nearly everyone. This appraoch will not work.
Editing and formatting other people’s entries takes almost as much time, and in some cases more time, than writing an original one myself. This doesn’t take into account all of the rejected submissions that required an in depth explanation on my part.
HuntsmansLodge is a community driven site, but it needs me to steer it. Sharing the wheel with other writers while I dick around with templates, layout, SEO and other administrative duties, is not necessarily the best course. This blog is Garwulf’s blog. Whether you like what I have to say or not, agree or disagree, this site is unique because of one thing… me.
I had felt that the site needed to grow beyond what I was capable of putting into it. I know now this isn’t true. In the time it’s taken me to review, respond to, edit, format, and publish user articles, I could have:
- written my raiding primer for Survival
- gotten out a few other posts I have swirling around in the noggin’.
- kept up better with user comments
- been done with this site makeover
- actually logged on to play some f**king WoW!
Over the past five days, I’ve seen maybe an hour of play time. That really sucks considering all of the juicy goodness contained within Patch 3.3. Now granted a lot of my time away is work and family related, however, I could have manged to squeeze a few heroics in and possibly some late night ICC fun.
I’d felt guilty about not being able to keep up with the posting as much as I’d liked to. I now truly see this as an assumed pressure that is really unwarranted. In other words, I’m going back to my old attitude of, “If I don’t have the time to post, then there won’t be any. Deal with it”. Of course, when I say “deal with it”, I mean it in a most endearing way.
So what now..?
Well, I’ll tell ya… I have every intention of publishing the remaining select few posts. Those of you who’d sent me something and are still awaiting its presence here on the front page, hang tight. It may appear here within the next day or so.
Those of you who’ve had your articles posted… grats. You not only impressed me in some way with your work, but you also got top priority by submitting sound article(s) requiring little to no finish work on my part. It’s not to say that others weren’t of the same quality, it’s just that for the initial user submitted posts, I ran through what was in front of me and grabbed the first couple that were practically post-ready.
In addition to Anariell, Solaryn, Mousie and Tamarlane, I still have a few left that I’ll proudly post. I’m still waiting for revisions and/or additional materials from some of you, but I hope to get the remaining ones all up by the first part of next week.
Some of the new names I’m introducing you to may appear fairly regularly in the coming weeks and months. Others may get a hearty thank you, and an “I appreciate your time and effort”.
It’s doubtful that I’ll add any other “columnists” to the site, as I believe “guest poster” is a more appropriate title. “Guest poster” implies a casual treat, where as “columnist” signifies a routine responsibility. Being that I can’t afford nor justify paying anyone to contribute, I’d rather approach the idea of contributing as, “if you have the time and are willing, then send me something”.
I think some of you who’ve submitted articles for consideration have quickly realized just how much work this WoW blogging stuff entails. Also, don’t forget I still have to format, add tooltips, hyperlinks and SEO the posts before they go live. Even though it may seem the hard part’s over once it’s written, there is still a great deal of work to put forth when preparing it for publishing. It’s not something to be taken lightly, and should only be pursued if you truly enjoy it, as I do.
Having said that, there are some of you that I’d really like to work with in future, if you’re interested of course. One reason I did the mass recruiting was because I assumed some of the contributors would probably drop off the radar sooner than later, due to either RL or learning how much “work” blogging can be. However, I feel that the ones who made the cut are doing it because they enjoy WoW and writing about WoW, which translated into their articles.
In closing…
This was not only a fun experience for me, getting to work with all of you aspiring hunter bloggers, but also a very educational one. While I had no intention of bringing everyone on board, I did want to at least give most of you the opportunity to get an article or two published on the site. In retrospect, I probably should have been more of a hardass, but damn… I guess I’m just too easy to please.
Anyway, stick around, because I have a few more hunters to introduce you to. As for who’s going to be popping in on occasion, only time will tell.
Regardless, I see good things in store here for HuntsmansLodge. Now if I can just get some damn playing time in..! 
Night all.
Awesome! Im excited for the new content.
I noticed that you stopped after 6 or so for MM at least, but regardless, finding each tier number was slightly annoying using the search function, but that doesnt matter due to the fact that the new layout should/will change that.
The Chimaera eh? I was under the impression that the special ability was only for a single target and not an AOE…maybe that was the way it used to be? I still use http://wow-petopia.com/html/skills/skills.html as a source of info on pets, so maybe their info is out of date on the chimaera ability. If it is AOE, i can see the extremely useful 5 sec slowdown ability to be a great, especially to supplement with frost trap! I love laying down a frost trap before i am pummeled by 5-10 horde at once and then they all(or most) have to limp away to their next victim. mawhahahaha! Its going to be very difficult choosing which 4 pets to keep in my stables when i get BM with dual spec. I can swap out my wasp for the worm, but the others i have will be tough to let go. I love the spiders immobilizing effect, and while i know i wont be utilizing it very often, i like having my turtle around in the rare case that he needs to tank(the new cower really works well when switching back and forth between that and shell shield). Maybe its my Bird of Prey that will end up getting the boot, although that 6 second disarm ability can be real handy at times(i just had an idea to make a macro including that ability in it). Im not sure im willing to sacrifice a pet slot for the acclaimed wolf…is the added dps buff really worth it/significant for instances? On the other hand, after seeing that blue translucent wolf that you had up in one of your posts, i just might be forced to get one! Ooohh the curse of limited choices! I guess having at least one instance-useful ability pet would be a good idea, right?
So, would you be able to provide a quick list of stat priorities for a MM pvp build? I know armor penetration is still popular, but i hear its only worth it to itemize when you have much better gear. Is haste a valuable pvp stat, or are survivability stats more important than ranged speed?
I’ll post any further comments that are un-related to this post elsewhere as to not clutter it up the comments section more than i have.
Thankyoouse
Hey there Garwulf! Im not sure if i should have posted here or on the forum, but here goes anyway…
Id like to express my thanks to you as one of the many passer-byers that have come to your site and have considered the content extremely valuable. I just reached level 80 with my hunter last week, and i immediately decided to go research hunter pvp builds. Google may be our best friend most days, but for this particular area of interest it was somewhat hard to get the information i was looking for.
…and then I came upon your website, and immediately appreciated the in depth explanations you gave about talents, specs and builds. I am currently a MM spec, but very soon i will be getting dualspec to try out BM, and im very excited! The pet i want the most for its special ability is the worm. Its almost like the ability is too good to be true, although it may not be the best choice for pvp.
One issue that i had with some guides and explanations of builds that i found is that while many did list stat priorities, none of them were very comprehensive at explaining and differentiating between instance/raiding stats and pvp stats, and also what you should focus on(talent wise to) given your current access to gear.
Eventually, after spending many hours researching I had a bit of a better idea on what stats i should be trying to itemize for pvp. Right now, I pretty much use the same gear for pvp and instances since I have only just turned 80 and just started getting my epics, but of course i plan on having at least 2-3 sets of gear to use for MM and BM pvp for instances/raiding.
I will be starting to raid soon, and i also plan on trying out arenas at some point, but the idea of doing arenas is very intimidating! I’ll have to find a good guild to work with for sure.
I look forward to the new layout for this site that you alluded to in this post, as there are so many articles on this site that it makes it a bit difficult to navigate. One suggestion for the talent tiers articles would be to link the other talent spec tiers at the bottom of the article, as the search function was not sufficient in easily locating the other tiers.
Okay, im done wasting your time with text, but i must be another of many to ask, do you have any suggestions based on my aspirations as a hunter? I really want to try to be the best hunter i can be in all cases, and would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.
Happy holidays to you!
Thank you Psilocybe. Your comment was very thoughtful and sincere.
First off, I want to tell you that you’re in luck, because a BM PvP guide is on my short list of upcoming topics. I probably won’t get to it within the next day or so, but I hope to have it done by Monday or Tuesday.
The site’s close to done as far as layout is concerned, but I do have plans for easier navigation of the content. Unfortunately, I never got around to finishing my talent tiers, which may be why you couldn’t find them via the search. I stopped around tier 7 or so, then got behind and never picked it back up. That’s unfinished business, so I may revisit that series of articles.
As for your choice of using a worm for PvP, I think that’s great. Worms are excellent pets for burning through plate, plus they have all those lovely Tenacity PvP talents. However, I have to urge you to try out a Chimaera if you haven’t already. They are beast.
If you plan on raiding as a Beast Master, I suggest checking out my guide on raiding as BM, if you haven’t already.
https://huntsmanslodge.com/the-raiding-hunter-beast-mastery
Stay tuned for more, and happy holidays to you too..!
HaHa, thanks Kazador.
I’ll still be posting guest contributions from time to time, but I’m going to narrow down my list of contributors to something more reasonable. I’ve met some great writers as a result of my recruitment, so I’d still like to feature their work on here from time to time. Just probably not to the degree that I’d initially planned.
Once I get my Survival guide finished, I was thinking of tackling my BM PvP spec, pet choice, pet build, glyphs, etc… My only real arena experience lately has been 2v2 DPS, so I can’t really comment on 3v3 or 5v5 strats. At any rate, I’m sure some of what I have to say will benefit those who choose to PvP as Beast Masters, even if just for BGs.
In other words, I should have a BM PvP intro-guide as it were, up soon.
I must say I heaved a sigh of relief after reading this. Your site became rather overwhelming with all the new contributions, and after finally reading them all, I’ve decided I’m really most interested in the Garwulf blog. Glad to hear he’s firmly back in the driver’s seat, and I hope he get’s busy on all of those “other posts he could have done”. Plus the BM PVP guide, hopefully!