Tag Archives: meta-blog

alts, druid, screenshots

To Tree or Not to Tree?

14 Comments

I’ve gotten a couple comments asking who “won” the contest. I tallied up the votes and yes, the druid won. (To be fair, the reasons given for “hunter” tended to be much more passionate and convincing! But I decided to go purely on numbers.)

So I’ve been playing the druid and having a surprising amount of fun. I’m making good headway on the Wrathgate storyline (thanks to dual specs, I am able to quest more often than I could before), and I even got to experience being a Moonkin and not a Tree in a Violet Hold.

wow_boomkinop

…by the way, they’re OP. *cough* >.>

Boomkinning is interesting; playstyle-wise it feels like a somewhat less hectic version of Survival Huntering, in that you are waiting for a proc (in this case, Eclipse) which then changes up your rotation. (Said proc likes to happen on the last spell you cast before the mob dies, by the way.) I gotta say though, you’ll never be able to take the hunter out of the girl, as was evident to me anytime my treants died and I went into a panic and reached for my Revive Pet button. Overall it was a very interesting experience to do something I’ve done so many times on my hunter– DPS a familiar instance– as… well… a non-hunter.

Okay, clearing-things-up time. I think a lot of people are worried that either a.) I am not interested in my hunter anymore, or b.) I will be writing less huntery things here now. Neither of those could be farther from the truth. You should all know by now that I’d never be able to leave huntering, and on top of that, I’ve had several great huntery post ideas hatch in the incubator that is my head recently and I’m really looking forward to doing some of these posts. I’m mostly just waiting for next week because I’m OCD and like to start things on Monday.

I also think that there is a misconception going around that I am making a conscious effort to fill the shoes of BRK and as such I am actively trying to change the direction of the blog. The truth is, I’m not. As in, I’m not either actively trying to be or not-be the new BM hunter hotspot. Aspect of the Hare has always been an amalgamation of information, education, personal stories, and an attempt to document the WoW experience from the standpoint of someone who is okay at the game but not great and would rather set 80s dance music over thrash metal to her WoW movies. Because there are a lot more of us out there than people realize. That’s what I’ve always been, and that is, well, what I still am. If that makes me the new BRK, then hey, that’s great! And if not, then well, I wasn’t trying to be the new BRK anyway! =P

The only effect that other bloggers quitting blogs has had on my own blogging is that I am determined more than ever to not become a victim of the disease where blogging usurps playing. Blogging about WoW, especially once you have an audience, is hard work. You play for yourself but you have that “Would my audience find this interesting? Would this make a good post idea?” in the back of your head. I don’t think it’s bad to have that in the back of your head, especially if you enjoy blogging (which I do); it becomes bad when that jumps over to the front of your head, if that makes sense. I’m not gonna let that happen. I was never really one of those people that tried to become THE-BESTEST-BLOGGER-EVER anyway, beyond the basics.

All that said, believe me, it does flatter me greatly when I receive positive comparisons to BRK or other blogging “greats”. The comments I get from people saying I helped make them a better player, or I brighten up their day, or they love my writing style– all of these combined with my general enjoyment of blogging are what keep me going. So, thanks, and I hope to provide lots of fun and hunteryness for many months to come. ^_^

/off soapbox

non-wow

Can't Buy Me Blogging

19 Comments

As a warning, this post is not really WoW related so much as it is sort of “a state of the blog” related so if you’re looking for WoW guides and the like it won’t hurt my feelings if ya skip this one.

Basically some stuff has been going on with me RL-wise and as it may have the potential to affect my blogging it seemed appropriate to mention it here.

Without either beating around the bush or turning this into some sort of sob story– between a job that has been cutting back my hours as much as they can while still technically keeping me “full time” and various other strokes of misfortune, I am not exactly doing well financially at the moment. I am, yes, still playing WoW– although the temptation to temporarily cancel my account in the name of financial tightness is sometimes strong, on the other hand I refuse to let a crappy economy and some bad luck destroy something which I’ve really enjoyed doing– playing and blogging about a video game. Why yes, I am a stubborn fool.

Anyways, now on to the point. Right now, since the hunt for a new full-time job is going rather dismally, and the chances of me ever getting paid to blog are somewhere between a decimal point and a bunch of zeros, the smartest thing for me to do would probably be to get a second job or invest in the forex market at an online trading platform. If this were to happen I fear it would pretty much mean game over for WoW and for the blog. See, I’m one of those weirdos who has never had access to a computer at work (in fact, it’s still a foreign concept for me), so all of my blogging/researching/reading other blogs goes on at home. As does all my other home-related stuff like, you know, spending quality time with my friends or with The Significant Other, or making sure my apartment isn’t a (complete) disaster area. If my “home time” dwindles, as it would if I got a second job, then unfortunately WoW and the blog, as much as I love them, would be rather low on the totem pole and I couldn’t guarantee I’d get it any time for them at all. And since I am the aforementioned stubborn fool I refuse to let this happen.

Which brings us to the “good news” portion of this post, which is that I am going to start doing art commissions. Yes, I am going to try doing that as a “second job”. It would net me more control over my schedule and more “home time”– busy home time, but still, home time. Hopefully enough to continue to allow me to blog and play the game that powers my blog. And it’d be rather enjoyable work, to boot. More details on this will come later after I’ve finished up some projects I’d like to finish up before jumping into this; so it’s not officially underway. But! Soon.

Another thing– I have in the past had people suggest to me that I put up some sort of donation button on my blog to help offset site costs and WoW subscriptions. For several months my pride has prevented me from doing this. However, I think now is probably a good time to swallow my pride so there is now a PayPal “Donate” button on my about page. I don’t plan on hawking it or mentioning it again because I don’t want anyone to feel pressured into donating, but it is there.

So, there you have it. My crazy plans for a last-ditch effort to maintain blog quality while still keeping microwave pizzas on the table. Er, computer desk. Obviously if things take a turn for the worse then I will have to suck it up and put the blog on hiatus for a while. But I figured it was worth it to exhaust other possibilities before getting to that point– you’re not getting rid of me that easily. =P

Uncategorized

I Have Never Been More Confused

12 Comments

This morning I wrote a post, posted it, got like twenty comments on it according to my e-mail inbox… (I’m sure most of you saw it and many of you even commented on it), and I come home from work and it’s completely 100% gone. It’s like it never existed. Heck, there’s even a 10% done version of it saved in my Drafts. It’s like my blog rolled itself back a day or something.

If any of you guys have any clue what could have possibly happened let me know… otherwise I’ll be reposting it later, sadly sans-comments.

*extremely confused*

Uncategorized

We Interrupt This Program

11 Comments

My apologies that this isn’t a real post, but I’ve got a couple things I’d like to address really quick!

Firstly, and I know I never thought I’d say this, but… I get a lot of blog-related e-mail these days. And it’s kind of hard for me to keep track of sometimes. Now before you think that this is me saying “don’t e-mail me”, it’s not. I love e-mail from you guys. But I think lately a lot of e-mail has slipped through the cracks; i.e., I’ve read it and forgotten to reply, or I’ve opened up a link you sent me in a tab and then my browser crashed and the link went byebye and I can’t find it… etc. So I guess what I’m trying to say is: if you e-mail me and don’t get a response, I’m very sorry, and it’s nothing personal. It’s hard for me to keep track of all my e-mail. I do read everything, I promise, and I do try to respond to everything but I’m 99% sure that hasn’t happened, so I wanted to explain why =P

I do encourage people to check out my FAQ before e-mailing me though, those questions there are called “Frequently Asked” questions for a reason! *nods* Scroll down to the bottom of the “About” page to see them. Again though, I do love getting e-mail. Just wanted to make that clear. >.>

Second matter of bloggy business, if you are on Livejournal and want to receive updates from this blog on your friends’ list instead of a feed reader, you can do so here. I’ve subscribed to it with my own Livejournal account to help me keep an eye on any comments that wind up being posted to the entries over there rather than over here. Cause I love your comments. <3 Third matter of bloggy business, I'm thinking more and more that I need to trim down my blogroll. I fear that it isn’t accomplishing anything because it’s so big and unwieldy and intimidating that none of the links get clicked anyway. See, lemme explain something. When I started this site, I had a strict policy of “If you link to me, I will link to you!” but this site has grown far beyond any expectations I ever had for it and it’s simply becoming unfeasible to link to everyone who links to me, as much as I would like to. Especially when you toss blogs that don’t link to me but that I like anyway into the list as well. So I think over the course of the next few days I’m going to try trimming it down as much as I can. This isn’t going to be easy for me to do because I appreciate all the talent out there in the blog world and I don’t want anyone to feel left out, but I unfortunately think it’s necessary at this point. This also means that new blogs you send me may not wind up on my blogroll right away. I’ll probably make another blog post later regarding more details on this blogroll cleanup once I sort of come to a plan on how I want to go about it.

Okay, sorry for the quick sidetrack, and we will return you to your regularly scheduled hunterness momentarily…

Uncategorized

Old Banner Plus Color Equals…

25 Comments

New site banner! Basically I just took the old one and had one of my sisters color it in with color pencils. Then I had one of my other sisters and my brother help me use Photoshop to snazz it up (would you guys call me crazy if I told you today was the first day I have ever used Photoshop? For real. I use GIMP, baby. But the computer here has Photoshop instead, so!)

Anyways, I rather like this one because it combines the old “Hunter Kindergarten” motif of notebook paper and a scribbled sketch, with some color. I think it turned out well. Hopefully you guys like it too!

thoughts

Aspect of the Hunter

22 Comments

With all the changes to our class lately, I’ve found myself having to stand back and think about what this blog is and what it represents. There are a lot of really good and informative hunter blogs out there and most of them have very different focuses, and it’s really visible with this patch. There are people busily hammering out the next max-DPS spec and there are others sticking to their favorite playstyle. There are Survivalists perhaps a bit baffled that their spec is suddenly the one in the sun. There are people reporting anywhere from DPS losses to DPS gains, depending on their gear and spec and what they do. And there are others who don’t do much PvE stuff and aren’t affected very much. Everyone has a different opinion and it’s really brought out to me how unique all these dozens of hunter blogs are from each other.

What about Aspect of the Hare then? Is this a hunter kindergarten blog, or a Beast Mastery blog, or a “casual”-raiding blog, or what? That’s what I had to ask myself today, sitting here at my computer with a hunter shirt on and a Tauren Hunter figurine beside my desk and my first character standing guard over everything. What about Pike?

I decided that while this blog covers a variety of topics, it is mostly about two things. The first is that it is about teaching new hunters about their class, and also sort of reviewing these things for long-time hunters. This comes in the form of the guides that I post, for example.

Secondly, and more importantly, this blog is about three little words: “Hunters are fun.”

This blog is for anyone who has ever enjoyed the hunter class. It doesn’t matter if you PvP or PvE or fall anywhere along that spectrum. It doesn’t matter if you are decked out in epics and have screenshots of doing over 6000 DPS on a boss fight, or if you have never set foot inside a raid. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hardcore theorycrafter or if you avoid math like the plague. It doesn’t matter what spec you are, and it doesn’t even matter what level you are– if you have ever felt a little thrill at sending your pet in to attack something and proceeding to start some semblance of a shot rotation, this blog is for you.

I just figured I would get that out there; it’s never a bad thing to define a blog’s focus. Rest assured that while there may be some frustrations and nervousness as we– myself included– try to sort out our collective reactions to the latest patch, I, for one, can still log into one of my hunters and still feel that thrill.

And really, that’s what it’s about.