We Don’t Like Change

There is a lot of Rift vs. Warcraft discussion across the blogosphere right now – we’ve all read the posts, the recriminations and fanboi postings on both sides, as well as the declarations of “Rift free zones”. It’s silly, but it is human nature. None of us want change unless we are the ones doing the changing. We want our friends to share the same interests with us, we want the blogs we read to be about the games that we play…until we ourselves start playing something else.

Although I myself would probably classify this blog as a gaming blog, it isn’t exclusively about that. I do write about personal matters, books, depression, web design and development, and a lot of other things. It started as a blog describing my experiences as an American in the UK. After I discovered Warcraft and gaming addiction, it slowly changed to being a Warcraft gaming blog. And now I write a lot about Rift. Once Secret World or GW2 or World of Darkness come out, I’ll be writing exclusively about those games…because I tend to go overboard on everything that I do. Someday (theoretically speaking) this will no longer be a gaming blog at all, because I will have gotten bored with gaming. Probably not, but you never know.

There is a place for in-depth theorycrafting blogs – when you are trying to figure out how to play your class, or how to raid effectively, those blogs and forums are essential. Being so game-specific, however, means that they will inevitably close some day, when that MMO goes dark or the owner of the site stops playing the game. Bloggers who have a wider range of interests have more longevity, in my opinion. If I like the twists and turns of someone’s thought processes, if I love the way that they describe things in relation to themselves personally, I will continue reading their blogs no matter what they are writing. For example, Daniel Howell remains intelligent and funny whether he is “being” BigRedKitty or himself on his new blog. I still read it. I miss Righteous Orbs a lot – I would have continued reading that no matter what Tam and Chastity were writing about, because the blog was smart, biting at times, and deeply funny.

For me it’s the blogger, not the game.