20 days of WoW Blogging – Intro

As is often the way with me, this post is actually because of reading someone elses. In this instance it was Jasyla’s latest post in which she picks up an idea started by Saga back in February – 20 days of Wow Blogging. As I read both Jasyla’s post and Saga’s, I got thinking – this is a good way to get into a habit of regularly posting and writing something, as well as looking at why and how I play, so I thought what the heck I would give it a go

Below is a rundown of the title for each day for those too lazy to go and check the link above (I will also make these linked to each post as it is written). These may get posted consecutively over 20 days, but it’s more likely they will be every couple of days and maybe with other stuff interspersed. I hope you enjoy them

• Day 01 – Introduce yourself
• Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
• Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
• Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
• Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
• Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
• Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
• Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
• Day 09 – Your first blog post
• Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
• Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
• Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
• Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
• Day 14 – This upsets you
• Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
• Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
• Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
• Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
• Day 19 – In your bags/bank
• Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

So then, an introduction.

As most of my readers should know by now, I am Katarnas (Kat for short or Dave to some people). I am 30 (>< SOOOO OLD!) and have been an alcoho-I mean gamer for a very long time. I started out as a wargamer and pen & paper RPGer but then moved into computer gaming as well. As I enjoyed the programming aspects of computers I have always been a micro and pc gamer rather than console (first computer was a Spectrum 128k +2, that got me hooked on collecting old Sinclair machines^^)

Due to having a family now (wife, 2 kids, 4 cats) my time for wargaming and P&P RPGs have rather gone the way of the dodo, though I do still have all figures, books etc for those odd occasions that I get the chance to play. Luckily I have my wife to paint minis for me as I am hopeless at it, my area of expertise is much more the strategy and playing of wargames as well as making terrain and background histories/storylines etc.

While my RPG back catalogue is long and varied (D&D, most White Wolf games, Paranoia, Warhammer RPG, Dragon Warriors, Inomine and a host of others), my wargaming history is pretty much confined to Games Workshop stuff – used to be 40k and Necromunda, now it’s Fantasy instead and I am currently sitting on a decent sized Empire army (with some pretty cool conversions I am proud of) and a Chaos army (soon to be swapped out for Wood elves I think), as well as my old Escher gang from Necromunda.

As well as “playing” with little models and stuff, I am also a Dark Age re-enactor and go around the UK (and sometimes to Norway) demonstrating my craft (bone/antler working) and beating seven bells out of people with my weaponry (ok, maybe some of the time I am the one getting beaten, but heyho ), a nice long pokey spear is definitely weapon of choice. NOTE: before anyone jumps in with comments, this is NOT LARPing, no foam swords here, these are real steel weapons that are simply blunted and we are trying to accurately portray the period in question (either Viking or Saxon).

Additionally I also like other crafty things such as woodturning, blacksmithing, general woodwork and other stuff like that (things you can saw, hammer, put in a vice etc, none of this “sewing” malarky ). The root of getting into the re-enactment was my love of archaeology and history – I was brought up surrounded by it (both my parents were archaeologists) and after studying archaeology was originally aiming to go into zooarchaeology (study of animal bones).

When I am not playing with little models, hitting people with swords or healing a raid, I work as a technician for a fibre optic lighting company – this is pretty cool as I get to play around making starcloths and such all day as well as being paid to learn about stars and constellations and such (we live in the countryside and so I am rather into star gazing as we have such clear skies) as well as getting to occasionally travel around (some hotels you can raid from, others you can’t ><). It’s also nice that they gave me a gaming PC so I can play WoW at lunchtime

As some of my readers may already know, I am relatively new to WoW (started just before the beginning of Wrath) despite having played Warcraft games since the original Orcs vs Humans came out in 1994. I have tried Horde, but am Alliance through and through. Likewise I have tried all roles, but have definitely found healing (especially on my druid) to be my niche within the game. I am assistant Guild Master and the RL for Otaku, an Alliance guild on Chamber of Aspects (EU).

Other than the stuff listed above my last main interest is reading. I tend to read as often as I can and devour books at a silly rate (I am always running out of new stuff to read^^). Currently I am working my way through a large pile of fantasy fiction (my favourite genre) though I also quite other authors and genres (John Grisham, Wilbur Smith, some thriller and crimes series and various others). I generally don’t watch a lot of TV (though I am rather into Game of Thrones atm despite not liking the books),  but I do enjoy films (historical, fantasy, sci fi etc) and recently got into anime (watched most of Hellsing and Ikkitousen and currently working through Deathnote). I also enjoy the Miyazaki films (Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away etc)

Hmm, I think that just about covers it Feel free to ask anything else you want to know

Kat