Soft Open

Hello - just cleaning out the cobwebs.

I've changed the look of the blog but not married to it. It shall likely change again.

I've left Jim Surge, Melissa Muromets, and Pete Peters as authors here at UWoW, but I feel as their courseload at university and other real-life responsibilities increase that we shall see very little of them in the coming weeks and months. They'll officially be considered "contributors at-large" for our purposes. I have known Jim for a while, both online and 3D, and would like to thank him for his thoughtful work here and I hope I can continue on with something close to the brand of honest critique that has been a hallmark of UWoW since the start.

I'm not sold on the idea of solely reviewing WoW podcasts - there are some great casts for other games as well. Jim made a halfhearted attempt at starting to listen to other shows on a regular basis like STO and Aion, but his interest didn't last long. I'll always be on the lookout for something good despite the game, and maybe even despite the genre.

For WoW, I'd like to at least be giving regular shouts to the shows that go above and beyond the typical here's what I did last week format, and of course mark significant anniversaries and the like.

But my vision for the blog is more to mine the content of some of these casts and drill down a little deeper and in more depth about the current issues of the day. The flexibility of a blog lends itself to such deeper considerations and I do hope readers will help contribute and help set the agenda.

I'm not a WoW-robot, as wasting half of 2010 on a bunch of alts I deleted before hitting lvl 30 should back up. I'm a fairly large baseball (Boston Red Sox) and proper football fan (Arsenal). I am also a huge fan of the Grateful Dead and Widespread Panic, I go to games and concerts, and these sorts of things are going to creep into the blog from time to time. Sorry, it's just me!

In terms of World of Warcraft, I am a complete endgame noob. I'm on Twisting Nether-US which is RPPVP, and I've leveled a blood elf priest to 80 last fall/winter, going shadow, and then for most of 2010 I've just been messing with alts of both factions until I started seriously working on a feral druid, now level 41, loving cat form.

Priest: Weledis (Herbalism 450 Tailoring 300)

Druid: Chuon (leveling with Herbalism / Skinning)

Poor Wel hasn't been dusted off since I got him a Brewfest stein back in July! I do also have one other "regular" toon, a level one bank alt blood elf huntress who operates out of Silvermoon, that I started when I started leveling Chuon.

I have a lot of rep grinding ahead for both of these characters. I still also have never run any level 80 dungeons or heroics, and am worried about ever getting there since I don't expect to have Chuon to 80 until sometime this fall, probably close to Cataclysm's release. We shall see. If anyone's on Twisting Nether and wants to help out, I'm all for it!

All for now, just wanted to say hey. So, hey.