Blaugust is over and I am already blogging again – what is this madness??
One of my prompts I didn’t get back to in August was a sort of memory lane thing where I’d browse my own blog for my top 3 to 5 favorite articles of all time. Seeing how more bloggers have done similar lately and also Murf telling me about his blogging bonanza for MMOgames, I thought this could be a fun if not entirely easy thing to do.
What are top posts anyway? Are they our personal favorites or our most popular posts? The ones with the most hits or the most comments? I guess that depends on who you are as a blogger. For me, my best posts are those that stand the test of time and where I feel I was being particularly insightful or well-spoken. I can already tell you that my most-ever visited post on both mmogypsy.com and raging-monkeys.blogspot.com (for those who don’t know my former url) was this guide on Skyrim clothing. Yes really, over 161’000 hits on a guide with some pictures that no one else had uploaded at the time (and which are now offline due to me losing the old webspace). That’s a third of my all time hits on the old blog. It took two major tumblr and pinterest re-blogs to spiral matters out of control.
See, this is why I really don’t give a big toss about stats – they are completely out of order. If you ever posted a guide on anything particularly popular, such as WoW or other bigger titles, you’ll understand. Stats have no meaning toward my enjoyment in writing and not even toward more sought-after things like content quality or popularity (not a personal one anyway). I enjoy interactions and great discussions, not even just the number of comments but the quality; my most ever commented on post was one ravaged by a troll. Who wants that?
Anywho, without further ado I present to you some of my alltime favorite posts from the last 5 years on this here blog in no particular order, chosen because they still stir something inside of me, make me care and resonated with others too. Maybe also, because I feel they represent me most as a person, blogger and MMO player.
1) Holding on to your Escapism
“When less informed people talk about game-related escapism (for that still seems to be less established than the literary form), they only ever focus on the escape; the negative distancing, the social estrangement. Hardly ever do they understand that when we do, when we need to, we escape to a better place – maybe to the only, currently right place in our life. That it’s only there where we find shelter, safety and peace of mind. For a little while. And that it may save us from something. That it gives us hope.”
2) The Deathbed Fallacy. Or: Spare me your Gamer’s Remorse, Thank you!
“….but spare me and the rest of the happily ever after gaming crowd. Spare me the underachiever complex and lamentation of failed grandeur which you so graciously bestow on everyone around you in one sweeping, condescending blow of rotten hindsight wisdom. I think videogames are fucking great – they have been for the past 28 years of my life!”
3) What the Players want – Who can say?
“”What the players wanted” and any variation thereof is a commonly used phrase and reaction to MMO design, more often MMO design changes, that vexes me on a personal level. And oh, I have done it myself: how many times did I not do the “now reap what you sowed! (and I hope you suffocate on it)” fist-shake in gloomy retrospective whenever WoW changed for the worse over the years since 2004, in my very personal opinion? In a less considerate moment I’d love to blame all of you out there who are still playing for the state of the game. You ruined WoW for me or something.”
4) Achievement Hate, Exploration and Mystery
“The epic quest of kill ten rats has humble beginnings. Once upon a time the explorers of virtual worlds received hardly a hint of where to go or what to do but such are not the times we live in. Those who embarked on this journey before Blizzard’s time will remember that era of glorious uncertainty but early WoW players too, know how considerably the questing experience has changed over the course of a decade. The “kill ten rats” of yore and the “kill ten rats” of today have precious little in common.”
5) Placeholders for Real Things, Shortcuts to Nowhere
“Many good things in life, surprises and chance encounters happen while we’re not on plan, not on time. They happen while we’re waiting. They happen on the side of a winding road. They happen because we got distracted and our eyes weren’t fixed on one point in the distance. Maybe “timesinks” are where life really happens.
If we remove all the “unnecessary detours” in games that people consider a nuisance, what exactly are we “saving and optimizing ” that time for? When you arrive faster at treasure and glory, where do you go from there? And just how much have you missed on that shorter journey?”
(P.S. I suck at title capitalization.)
Aw, thank you so much! This helps a ton.
While I haven’t lucked into a 100,000+ view post (yet), I know what you mean about guides. I was checking my stats the past few days, and my #3 most-visited post for the month of August was… “Splendid Chest Farming in GW2.” Written 9/10/12. Almost three years to the day, and still apparently outperforming anything and everything else.
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or download GW2 again and update it.
All three. Come join the “I’m so happy that I can’t stop crying…” hordes.
/shoo =P
@Azuriel
Jep my most visited posts are like one third guides, one third wow.com (joystiq whatever) pingbacks and one third ‘genuine’ although there too, it’s usually because something turned into a meme. That’s just how it is.
I think there’s a maximum exposure you can manage as a single person running an MMO blog – after that you need either a different plan and bigger platform or you content yourself with what you’ve got.