Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.

For a while now I seem to have lost my direction, both in game and with the blog.

When I first started this blog way back in the dark days of the Burning Crusade it was designed to be a place where I could keep the little guides and lists I created. I did not really didn’t think that many folks would read my random drivel.

At the time I was running Karazhan on my priest while working on gearing up my hunter.  The kind of things that I was creating for myself at the time were also of use to others. So I published my little guides and lists, they were well received. Every now and again I would plug in a little story about my time in game and try to make it funny. Those were fairly well received as well.

I became a story teller, gathering folks about the campfire that is my blog. Sometimes we would run long into the night with grand tales, sometimes we would just tell a joke or two and call it a day. I miss that time.

I know that both the quality and quantity of posting here has steadily declined since I finalized my “how to gear your fresh 80 for Naxx” guide. Believe me, I have seen it.

More, I have felt it.

As the Burning Crusade drew to a close and Wrath descended upon us I tried to keep up content similar to my earlier work. There came a problem with this however. A problem that was mostly the result of my place within the game.

I am not raiding other than the occasional Naxx pug. If I am not raiding I can’t really justify writing about it. There are others that do a fine job of it. 

I have never been much into the PvP thing, so I have not written much on that topic. Well, I have written about how getting camped sucks, and a little about leveling in Alterac Valley. (which got the crap nerfed out of it yesterday, no more AV for me…) 

I have always been one to put together little guides and gear lists and such. That was just my thing, somehow I got away from it. My hunter is already well enough geared that I won’t be replacing anything outside of raid drops, so lists became immaterial to me.

 My time in game has been a real joy the last several months. No drama, no horrible pugs, no loot ninjas, although I felt like one last night in BRD.

The first guild group I went with I brought my Death Knight. In five runs she ended up with both the tanking and Dps trinkets, even though she is only 75. The second group I brought my hunter Drupadi and she left with a shiny new Brewfest Ram. That’s not the point of this post though. 

This all left me with a big hollow feeling about where to take the blog from here. I simply could not think of anything to write about that was not already being covered elsewhere and better. I had actually narrowed it down to just a few choices. I figured I could do one of three things.

• Keep on doing what I have been for the last couple of months, simply stringing nearly useless posts together until the Cataclysm comes, giving me new things to write lists and guides about.
• Go on hiatus until the Cataclysm beta hits, then start writing my guides and such as soon as I can beg/buy/extort a beta key from someone.
• Simply close my doors as so many others have before me.

To be quite honest when I sat down to write this morning I was planning on going with the second, and hoping it did not turn into the third.

 As I was writing up the “so long and thanks for all the fish, I might be back come next expansion” post this morning something happened. I was chatting on Twitter as I do most mornings when Copra made an interesting observation.

He noticed a trend of writing more towards the long time player. There is little out there for someone just starting out. Once mentioned it was obvious.

This is perfectly understandable given that most of those who have branched out into reading blogs already have the basics down. Not everyone mind you, but most.

Well, I pondered, What about the newcomers that do go hunting for information online? Do we leave them to the tender mercies of the official forums? Throw them to the wolves of the account stealing, paid for guide writing, blog scraping, gold sellers?

No.

I may no longer be running around with the raiding pack, but that does not mean that there are not guides I can write.

I can find tons of posts on how to gear for end game, how to spec for endgame, which pets and addons and this that and the other for endgame.

I can find a goodly number of articles written on how to get from one to ten, even a few that make it to the twenties.

Then there are crickets chirping from there until eighty.

I now have my new direction, a new focus if you will. I am ready to sit back down by the fire and tell tales to the new players among us. It’s just going to take me a bit to get started.

First things first, this place needs a facelift. 

There are going to be a few changes coming around to Dechion’s place, bear with me.

The new banner was the least of them.