In the pen and paper role-playing world, “crunch” and “fluff” describe either the mechanical or story aspects of source material. I think those terms apply equally well to blogs. Crunchier blogs will have plenty of theorycrafting and analyses of raids, often relying on various data-mining addons to provide fuel for extensive math and number crunching (see? crunch!). Fluffier blogs have anecdotes, progress diaries, and plenty of non-WoW-oriented posts. We’re going to be veering away from the crunch this week for the fluffy goodness that is Need More Rage. Need More Rage is a blog from the in-character perspective of an orc warrior. He does touch on crunchier topics now and again, but there is as much entertainment value in reading Ratshag’s blog as there is informational, probably more so. You can still mine his blogroll for goodies though. He’s got links to some tanking resources as well as a few of the more prominent blogs in the community.
I’m firmly of the opinion that people need to spend some time in another class’ shoes to learn how to play their own class better. While creating seventeen characters is an option (whistles innocently…), reading class-based blogs is mite easier. Perhaps I’m biased because my main is a level 70 priest, but I think that people need to understand how healers operate in both small and large groups. Granted, healers are only 1/3rd of the Tank-DPS-Heal balance scheme, but the ratio of tanks & DPSers in the game to healers is a little uneven. The implication of which is that fewer people understand healers in general then say, DPSers. Which goes back to my original point: if you’re not going to play a healer, then you still need to read about them and how they work in order to better work with them. Week 2’s blog, The Egotistical Priest, is a great resource for non-healers.
There is a staggering amount of information available within the WoW community. It’s only recently that I’ve discovered the smaller subculture of WoW bloggers. Which is unfortunate, because I’ve learned more about all aspects of the game in the last few months from blogs than the last few years of playing, Thottbot-searching, forum trawling, et cetera. The Blog of the Week feature is an effort to highlight useful blogs for members of the Knights That Say Ni.
This is the new website, blog, and forum for the Knights That Say Ni of Hyjal. We intend this to be a repository of information as well as a community for guild members to connect with one another.
Please make an effort to read and post in the forums on a regular basis. If you come across something interesting, post it for other members to see. If you have a question about anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.
You can find the guild forums under Resources at the bottom of the page. Guild members are required to read and sign the Guild Rules thread (which would also require them to register for the forums).