Thursday Reading

Hey! You!  Yeah, you, down the street there.

Don’t hide from me, I won’t bite. Craggle Wobbletop, at your service! I sell toys! You like toys, don’t you?

Oh.

You want epic PvP gear? You can go to Old Town for that.

Oh, you want epic raiding gear? Oh. Old Town for that, too.

How about a Paper Zeppelin? They don’t give you repair bills.

No?

Oh.

How about some blog posts to read, then?

• I could link to pretty much every post that Lara does over at Root and Branch, but I think you’ll enjoy A License to Print Money, which is about leveling entirely through PvP and the unexpected benefits (and drawbacks!) of that process.
• Zinn has a great post about the virtue of patience and Paragon’s H-25 Rag kill. This, so many times this. Patience, perseverance – these are the way to success.
• Icedragon rebuilds her UI for Cataclysm with some beautiful results. I love how she customizes each one for each character.
• Fulguralis has a nice post up about Warlock Trinkets, a subject near and dear to many of your hearts. Also, he wrote a book! Check it out!
• This is an older post, but Onike talks about Teamwork and the shift of PvP philosophy between Seasons 8 and 10.
• Vidyala has a problem with achievements. Achievements are an interesting compulsion. I should write more about my own issues with them.
• Anexxia has a bittersweet piece of short fiction up about her own stepping back from raiding, in A Sort of Homecoming in Brill.
• Speaking of the undead, Rades’s undead DK has a problem with her plate mail bikini. I don’t like it because it doesn’t match, but Rades has some more to say about it than just that. 🙂
• Psynister takes on Trial Account Twink Professions with his usual depth and insight. (c.f. GTG’s article for an introduction to the concept).
• Razz over at Planet of the Hats talks about Raiding Fatigue, which is hitting home for a lot of players right now. Spinks has a related, insightful post on Auction House burnout.
• Zel has a very funny non-WoW piece up on Twigisms. For the WoW parents out there.
• Syl talks about wiping expansions off the table, something I’ve been thinking about recently. I think there’s a larger discussion to be had here about the expansion model, the concept of endgame, and how we interact with “content.”
• I rather enjoyed listening to Ophelie and Oestrus on the latest episode of the Double O podcast, with Vidyala and Vosskah. That podcast is picking up steam quickly.
• In something that has become all too common, Beru considers walking away from Warcraft in The Straw. I have a lot of sympathy for Beru, as you’ll see in the comments.
• On a sadder note, Alas takes a few pages from the Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck and is taking a break from blogging. I’ve enjoyed her WoW Pride and Prejudice posts for some time, and while I’m sad to see them stop, I’m glad to see people take control of their lives. This is a game, it should be fun.
• And finally, my good friend Psynister talks about his challenges in staying motivated to play Warcraft in Three-Legged Stools. This is a tough time for players right now, and Psynister paints a great picture of his struggles with the game.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I’ve started a blogging experiment on Posterous – Cynwise’s Field Notes – for shorter, more informal posts. To quote the introduction:

I take a lot of pride in the posts that go up on my main websites, but they tend to be big – really big – and I also try to keep them very topical. It’s a good thing to be topical and thorough, but for a while now I’ve wanted a more informal place to post, someplace without a lot of bells and whistles, with a little more room than Twitter but without the pressure of focus that both CBM and GTG have.

Like my field notes, this is very much an experiment. I’m at a strange place with Warcraft now, so I offer no guarantees about content or direction. I like Posterous (really neat interface!) but it’s no WordPress replacement. This is just a simple little site that takes my emails and turns them into posts.

I’m not moving, but I am definitely keeping CBM focused on PvP, warlockery, and other guides. I have no idea where I’m going with CFN, but … well, I hope you find some of the posts interesting.

Enjoy!