When looking through my blog stats, I noticed that my last post on the ptr updates happened to be the 200th blog post here on Thrill of the Wild. Since I forgot to do a One Year post back when that milestone came around, I figured 200 posts is as good of milestone as any to do a special post.
How it all began:
It was a normal morning, in early April of 2014. I logged onto my computer, and then of course onto all favorite blogs. The Warcraft Hunters Union had been closed for five or six weeks at this point, but I would still go check it every once in a while. To my delight, Arth had put up a new post, spelling out in detail all these amazing new hunter projects: the return of the Hunting Party Podcast featuring a weekly segment from none other than Ghostcrawler, the return of Frostheim to Hunter blogging, several other exciting prospects that I couldn't believe! Of course, as I scrolled down the page the claims became more and more ridiculous, until eventually Arth admitted to this all being an April Fools' day joke.
With my heart completely crushed, I decided then and there that it was time for me to start my own hunter blog, in hopes of carrying on the amazing hunter blogging tradition I'd seen on the WHU, the Brewhall, Hunter's Rhok, the Grumpy Elf, and elsewhere.
The Thrill of the Spreadsheet:
When I started this blog, I didn't really have much of a vision of what I wanted to write about other than the general topics of Hunters. Then one day, on a whim, I decided to write a blog post about some investigations I'd been doing on the probabilities of crazy long Lock and Load chains we were getting from the Tier 16 4 piece set bonus.
For several years, I'd been keeping my own spreadsheets of hunter math, so I could work out my own stat weights and ability priorities / rotations. It was a very strange hobby to most people, as there were already much better tools out there (like SimulationCraft or Zeherah's DPS analyzer), but it was fun, and I felt like having to know abilities to work them into my spreadsheet insured that I would know them well enough to really get the most out of them when playing. Anyhow, it had never occurred to me that anyone else would be interested in this sort of math-heavy blog post.
However, that post on Lock 'n' Load proc's quickly became my most linked blog post (it's not anymore, but at that time it was by far the most linked post). After thinking about it, it definitely makes sense that a game like WoW would have a nerdy enough following that people would be interested in reading a 2000 word blog post on the the probability of a set bonus mechanic (that isn't even relevant to playing the spec).
It was that realization that made me decide to shift the direction of the blog to what it is now. Though I still enjoy occasionally writing about general news, and of course my opinions on that news, it seems clear that most people who come to this site are most interested in the hunter maths, which works out great for me, because all of the spreadsheet work I would've done anyway, regardless of having a blog to post it on.
Who Am I:
Someone mentioned to me recently that I haven't ever written much about myself (irl). I've never really been that good at biographically summarizing myself, so instead, here's some random bits about me.
The photo to the right is of me when hiking on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It's one of my favorite memories. The night before we had stayed up late drinking wine (from one of those waxed paper/cardboard portable wines they have in cheap grocery stores) and taking turns reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle aloud. Had I not cropped the photo, you'd see one of my favorite friends still sleeping in the background. I probably should have been sleeping too, but decided I was more excited about making breakfast than sleeping in.
In my day to day life, I work for a not-for-profit organization here in Chicago. The organization uses what's called a "graduated housing program" to try to get people out of homelessness. What that means is, we have, at the base level, a traditional "shelter" which serves for emergency cases. Then from there, people can move into our SRO (single room occupancy) building, which, for those unfamiliar, is sort of like a dorm, with shared bathrooms/kitchens, but private rooms. The goal is there that people can get a taste for living on their own, paying bills, etc, but if they miss a month's rent or something, it's not a big deal. The end goal is to get people into Full Equity Coops. In the Coops, instead of paying "rent" every month, you're actually buying a portion of the building every month. So not only can you (hopefully) take pride of ownership in the building, but also build equity, so after 10 or 15 years (it takes a long time), you can sell your share of the building back to the Coop, and have enough money to put a down payment on a home. At least, that's the general idea of how it's supposed to work. As for my involvement, I primarily do IT stuff for the office, but also get to do some basic computers teaching, and run a computer club with some of the kids who live in our buildings, where we strip donated/discarded computers, and try to turn them into a working computer, with the goal of making computers we can do some amount of gaming on (and the side effect of learning a lot about computers in general).
I often find myself daydreaming about life on this continent around 15 thousand years ago. The ice sheets having recently receded, and megafauna being largely in control of the land (sometimes I'm very sad that there are no more mastadons). I think I'd do well in gatherer-hunter band-society. The indigenous people of the Ozark Plateau, where I grew up, lived in the areas many spring-fed caves. Due to the thick vegetation, they were able to remain in loosely organized band society for many centuries longer than indigenous people in neighboring areas, like the Cohokia/Mississipian civilizations, or later on the Osage. Anyhow, the point is I'm a pretty big fan of paleoanthropology.
Perhaps I'll add some more when I get to 400 posts...
Moving Forward:
Moving forward, I certainly plan on continuing with math-centric hunter analysis. Also, I have hopes of also finding another writer to make Thrill of the Wild a team effort, and hopefully cover a couple of topics that I'd like to see on here, but rarely feel like writing about.
One of my hopes in writing this post is that I can perhaps solicit those of you that read this blog, to to leave a comment with what you'd like from it. So, kindly let me know in the comments: if you're happy with the direction of the blog, or if there's something you'd like to see added, or something I used to do that I don't anymore? Or really anything at all that you'd like to say.
I've been amazed at the number of kind responses I've had over this last year or so, and really appreciate the support, from the already-in-existence hunter blogger community, and from everyone who's linked my blog posts on MMO-Champion forums, the Battle.net forums, or in their streams, and of course all the re-tweets when I link a blog post on twitter.
Thanks to all the hunters out there that have made this easily the greatest community in WoW, (probably in any game, really).
Gratz on 200 posts! Keep up the great work.
ReplyDeleteI still recall fondly the first time I saw you link to here on your blog. I only had few dozen or so readers at the time, so I got real excited! Thanks for the support.
DeleteCongrats! As much as people complain about WoW right now (who am I kidding, people have always complained about something), it continues to be a means of linking total strangers around the world. I have a friend in Perth, Australia that I would never have known if WoW didn't exist. The Hunter class is the most played class in the game and has the most Blogs dedicated to it. But even though there are multiple hunter blogs, most of us hunters read most of them.
ReplyDeleteI retired my hunter last month (too many hunters in my guild and the need to expand on the limited other roles to help the whole, but I still wear mail: Shaman for life). But I keep up with the info because of the community.
Keep up the good work. It's nice that you don't post a bunch of negativity (I can get that over at Grumpy's page).
yeah, that's been one of the most appealing things about WoW for me too. Having friends in Greece or New Zealand or Singapore that I get to chat with most days is pretty amazing.
DeleteSorry to hear they're making you play a support class, but thanks for continuing to read anyway. :-P
Congrats on 200 posts.
ReplyDeleteYour blog has become one of my favorites. It has become one of those blogs where I have to check out the new post as soon as I see it.
Keep up the good work.
You know, I was going to put in a part about how I actually got my start "blogging" about hunters over in the comment section of your blog. I've often wondered what it is about your writing style or your content that keeps a lot of people commenting (I, at least, had probably never commented on a wow blog until after reading yours for a while). Brian once commented that at the WHU, he saw about 1 comment for every 700 readers. That seems to be about what I get here, as well. Of course, I have no idea how many readers your blog gets, but I've always been impressed with the way the content engages readers to want to comment.
DeleteAnyhow, thanks for your part in getting me started. You may not recall, but you commented about one blog post here that was about multistrike when they first opened the beta. It definitely made me feel like continuing with the "thrill of the spreadsheet" type posts was the way to go.
I am not sure it has anything to do with my personal writing style but perhaps that could play a role. I think it has more to do with the fact I am "grumpy" which gives people, agree or disagree, a reason to speak up.
DeleteAlso, as someone once said to me, or more than once, they like to comment because I answer often, that I think that plays a huge part in it. People, myself included, like to know their comment matters and to me all comments matter, even the ones that call me an idiot because they disagree with me.
It is cool to hear that you started commenting on blogs after reading mine for a while. To know I played even a tiny part in getting a great mind like yours to join our wonderful hunter community is humbling.
My favorite logician/mathematician is a fellow by the name of Kurt Godel (apparently you can't use alt-codes in google comments, weird). One things he was famous for, other than producing the single most important paper in mathematics, logic and computer sciences, was attacking his own work from every possible angle before he published it, thus avoiding any potential conflict as he'd know every objection that might ever be brought up before anyone else even had the chance to read his work, allowing ample time for constructing counter-arguments.
DeleteI think this might be my tendency as well. Though I certainly on occasion get frustrated and throw up a blog post without thinking about everything. But I also often don't publish posts I'm writing because I can't come up with solutions to every argument I can think of in my head.
What's odd though, to me, is in real life, when I try to strictly adhere to logic/math, people have no problem arguing with me and telling me that I'm wrong on the basis of intuition/gut feelings. I suppose it's possible that people who would respond like that aren't really interested in reading my blog.
Oddly enough, my most commented entry had no math, but was just sort of musings on hunter pedagogy (even eliciting a comment from the Godmother herself).
Anyhow, yeah, I was commenting on your blog anonymously for a while. Then at some point, I recall (i think in the comments section) you mentioned that you sometimes had fun guessing which anon commenters were the same person based on writing style etc. And I think at that point I started adding "~Del" or "~Delirium" after posts, before finally creating a new gmail account just for posting on wow blogs. :-P
Congrats! I've been a long-time lurker of hunter blogs since BRK's heyday, and yours is one of the few I still have bookmarked. I've linked your posts to many guild-mates as part of many "How to Hunter" talks with them, and they've become better players for it. So THANKS! (I do love the math.)
ReplyDeleteI'm here in the Ozarks myself, so it's neat to find out you're from the same (general) area. I usually hate the saying but, "Small world!"
Just curious, what are you looking for in another author, and what topics are you interested in covering that you don't?
well, that's a good question. I don't know exactly.
DeleteThe first thought that comes to mind is that there must be a PvP theorycrafter out there somewhere; that is, someone who does analyzes pvp in a methodical, mathematical/scientific way. There are certainly lots of brilliant pvp hunters, who know the class and specs backwards and forwards, but I haven't really seen much in depth mathematical analysis of PvP. It could be that PvP isn't predictable enough for such, but I think it could be really interesting to see someone attempt it. Perhaps even someone with more of a Sociological/Anthropological background who wanted to use that for a better understanding of Hunter PvP.
But really, it's not something I've put a ton of thought into; I just have this sort of feeling that teams often produce more entertaining work than individuals. Like the early WHU with Frostheim and Arust picking on each other for playing dwarf/elf. But, I don't really know what that would look like for TotW. meh.
Anyhow, thanks for reading the blog, and for representing hunters in the Ozarks!
Well, I don't know a lot about PvP or Sociology (ugh). The most time I spent PvPing was to get the "Knight" title in Vanilla (not to mention faction discounts) when I thought they were taking it away. Oh well.
DeleteMy day job is as a biologist/ecologist/scientisty type, so I thought if that was a direction you were wanting to go I'd see if I could offer some insights - I have a few about the class and the game in general (from an ecological standpoint), and know my way around statistical software.
So if you ever feel like going down that road, hit me up. Until then, I'll keep enjoying your articles. =)
Shoot me a quick message using the contact form in the right column here, so I can get a hold of you via email.
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