Blog, huh! What is it good for?

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m sadly excited by the fact I have for the first time exceeded 13 posts in one month, or the fact that I missed the anniversary of my hundredth post on this blog. I think this is the 102nd post. Indeed it may be because I’m stuck at work twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone else to produce a report so I can produce mine, but whatever the reason, I’m blog crazy today.

So what’s next up? Well aside from the Fruity Crumble I am enjoying with my cup of Rosey Lea at the moment and using my scissors to remove the escaped crumble from my keyboard (I dread to think what else is in there) I’ve been thinking about EQ2 and the blogging community. What got me to thinking this is I started cleaning up my favourites list whilst waiting for the report a few minutes ago and there are quite a lot of blogs there listed that no longer exist, or the last post was an age ago. Just have a look at the left hand column and you’ll see a few blogs that haven’t posted for a long long time. One of them is my old Revenants blog, and another by one of my friends who moved to Japan for a year with work and blogged about their experiences there and that is all it was ever going to be. So it’s understandable why they are so ancient.

But it got me to thinking why people stop blogging and about the community in general. Let’s start with that, the community. For me I guess it’s not much of a community. I have been to other bloggers sites and have some I regularly read, but aside from that I don’t delve much in to the community of EQ2 bloggers. Probably one of the biggest and most well known EQ2 bloggers is Stargrace over at MMOQuests and Nomadic Gamer. She has been blogging since she was in nappies (or so it seems) and still churns out good digestible content, although not always about EQ2. She is a true gaming blogger. I was actually guilded with Stargrace back in KoS days on AB. Seems like a really nice decent person, although I’m pretty sure she didn’t like me too much. That’s understandable though. I can be disagreeable at times [HAHAHAHA. Best laugh I’ve had all day ”at times” HAHAHA – Ed]. Just like Keen and Graev, they are true all gaming bloggers and report on many games and their opinions are valued (or rallied against depending on who comments on their blog). The point I am trying to get at I guess, is that a huge amount of people read their blogs. I think I have about 6 or 7 readers. One of whom is my Bro and he reads to make sure his little Bruv is loved and cared for :) yeah, I’m sure that’s why. Unless he’s keeping tabs on me and reporting back to Mom!

Now, go back to the start of most EQ2 gaming blogs and pretty much most of them say something along the (paraphrased) lines of;

“I’m starting this blog so my friends and I can stay in touch out of game”

“I’m starting this blog for me, just so I can track my own progress and experiences”

For me, it’s no different. I started the Revenants blog for the same reasons and in fact started this one when I found out that I missed blogging on Revenants and to keep my buddies updated and a nice little history record of my MMO gaming for nostalgia at a later date. I mean, what else is one going to do with lunch hour?

So, how do they go from being a small personal blog to the bloggin’ Leviathans they are today? You know, I’m not sure. I guess that over time more and more people found their blog and because of the quality of writing decided to stay and keep updated. Over time that must have grown. Then there is the ‘link’ love bloggers get, just like my ‘Jolly Good Read’ section to the left. They promote each others blogs. So I guess a new reader hits blog A and then gets hooked on blog B, C & D also. A nice way to build your reader base. Problem for me is I don’t get on with or majorly support any other blogger. Don’t get me wrong, I visit their sites and read, but don’t really comment on anything and move on to the next. So I guess no reciprocal love there from my part.

One thing I have to stop and consider is that I do get a lot of first time readers, and they simply don’t like the way I write or present this blog. So they don’t stick around. Maybe I’m just not as good as I think I am [Of course – Ed]. Or, indeed, as I have never bothered to find out an analytics program to track this blog, I really have no idea how many readers in total I have. I’m assuming the 6 or 7 from people who have commented to me in game and knowing which of my close friends read, but in reality I could have a thousand readers and have no idea at all about that. Anyhow, none of this changes why I write my blog. I DO write mainly for friends, fellow guildies, players and for the main reason, my own satisfaction. Even if I had a hundred readers, or 5 thousand readers I would still write as if I am writing for my own peers and own enjoyment. That would not change, because that’s why I do it.

Maybe one day I’ll become a blogging Leviathan. Thing is I don’t think I would know anything about it, not tracking who visits here. Maybe Adurj should become a Twit, err, start Tweeting I mean. Surely that would be interesting?

“Adurj just ran through West Freeport, they still haven’t cleared the mess up from Lucans Tower coming down” /yawn. Maybe not.

So why do people stop blogging? I guess usually it’s a change in circumstance that dictates the cessation of bloggage. Either they stop playing the game they were blogging about and hence lose interest in the blog, or real life changes such as a new job, new city, new partner. Whatever the reason, I have noticed that reading through some of these old blogs (for example Brackish Water or Gestalt Mind, both blogs I used to read and admire) there is a huge amount of content there for the original authors to get all nostaligic over at some point. I mean I got a bit nostalgic reading the older posts, thinking, ‘Wow, I remember this from the first time I read it’. So even if our blogging heroes do stop the blog, it is a medium that as long as the web pages exist the history they scribed is still there, for all to see. I dunno, I guess it’s just nice to leave ones mark on the world of web.

On a completely different matter I have left my mark on a different webspace recently, although I’m not sure if it’s been accepted by the editors yet. Head over to the Urban Dictionary to see if FlipFatFoot is listed.

Until next time,

Be well.