Beginnings

So here it is. My first attempt at blogging. Heck, my first attempt at writing anything original in probably 10 years (outside of college papers which, while technically orginal, I would hesitate to designate as writing). Where to begin with this though... I've followed many blogs over the last few years, but for whatever reason I have never given a thought to writing something of my own. I think I've always felt more comfortable with absorbing other people's thoughts than with sharing my own. That being said, here I am finally trying to find a way to spill out all these years' worth of random brain droppings. I figure the best way to go about it is to try to keep things simple, or at least dispense my ramblings in shorter posts to start rather than trying to put everything out there at once.

So...Warcraft. That's what this all is nominally about. Or centered on. Or something. I started playing back in February of 2006. I always told myself I wouldn't get into any of these MMORPG things because I was certain they would easily eat my life. Console games, that would have to be my passion, with the occasional PC game like Civ or Fallout thrown in. Heck, I'd even be amused to fire up my dad's old Apple IIGS and break out some Wizardry and Ultima. Then my oldest friend moved to Minnesota for his job and started playing WoW as a way to chat with his wife when he had to spend a week here or there around the US on various assignments. Needless to say he talked me into starting up as a way to keep in touch and game together as internet based gaming was realistic while carting his Xbox around was not. Jeez, wall 'o text forming whether I want it or not!

Warcraft...what to even say about starting this journey? I was hooked inside of the first 5 minutes, and I knew it was going to be nothing but trouble. And talk about noobness! We epitomized it. I feel like I still do 4 years later. It probably didn't help that my first and for a long time only toon was a pally with a randomly generated name of Beromalann. How was I to know that paladins were both abhorred by the community and generally broken as a class? And I went ret no less! But I loved almost every minute of it and it was fun as hell to play with my friend and his wife who were both hunters. We quickly made a couple of random friends who we leveled from about 20 to 60 with. As a shining example of our noobness, our group of five did basically all of the Vanilla 5mans as this makeup: 2 hunters, a mage, a holy pally and a ret pally. It certainly wasn't pretty, but we made it work largely due to the lost arts of sheeping and multitrapping/kiting. Ok, and a lot of dumb luck. Damn, now I'm feeling all nostalgic (where did I put that Imperial Plate and Truesilver Champion...). Well we five went on to form our own guild which I could go on forever about. However, I think I'll leave the guild for a separate post.

Anyway, this is getting longer than I wanted it to be for a first post. 4 years later and I have seen a world of changes in the game. I have raised an unhealthy number of alts in an effort to understand other players' points of view and to stave off boredom. I'm a casual player in a mostly casual guild. Would I like to raid more? Hell yes! Am I willing to give up time with family and friends and running and cycling and eating good food to do it? Not so much. Thus the casual title. I like to read blogs and guides and such to get a better idea of how to improve myself. Will I ever be great? Will I ever see all the content I want to? I doubt it. But I do generally get the job done. And I see enough to keep me coming back for more. And I have fun doing it. Mostly. So this is the start of putting my own 2 cents out there for anyone to glance over and say what they will. Now if I could just get some more exciting pictures or colors or something on this page...

Bero