What is happening to all the rogue blogs? This week the best rogue blog for hard technical information in the rogue blogosphere, One Rogues Journey, was pulled. Zaltu has decided to call it quits on not just his blog but the game itself. This led me to check out all the other rogue blogs out there to see what the current blog situation is. And it’s not very good. If we go down my own blogroll on the right hand side of my home page you start to get an idea.
And Two Rogues, a blog that I have always enjoyed had its last post back in July. That post is somewhat ironically titled, ‘Not Dead Yet.’ Well he may not be dead but he sure hasn’t stirred in a while.
Ravenholdt Manor is one of the few still being consistantly updated. A lot of Dariaia’s posts are about factions and famous rogues in the game, but with the dearth of information on rogues for the last month or so it’s commendable that this blog is still being so regularly updated. A rare victory as we shall see.
Forever a Noob is also being regularly updated, so good on ya bro for shining the torch in a sea of darkness.
Gone Rogue is gone. The link now connects to some strange site in another language whose safety I cannot guarantee. So don’t click on it and it’s coming down from tomorrow on my list. I was not aware of this until just now. A pity for this to happen as I liked that blog.
Ninja Chimp retired from both blogging and the game back in September. I was sad to see this one go.
As stated above, One rogue’s journey has reached its final destination. Zaltu was the source for quick and easy access to first-rate rogue technical information. This is a great loss, no doubt about it.
Rogue Rogue is, along with One rogues journey, one of the best rogue blogs out there for technical analysis. So far in November he has made only one post. Things are not looking good here either.
Slice & Dice is still flying the flag, but even Sam has been hard pressed to find much to write about this month. Keep at it brother!
That’s it for rogue blogs on my links. Over at Twisted Nether the rogue blogs listed are mostly either inactive, deleted or dying a slow death. It’s well known that Parry! Dodge! Spin! was last updated almost a year ago. Lets face it, there aren’t many of us left. Apparently in the comments for Zaltu’s farewell post, my own blog has died. This is news to me. I am still here. I might have made a few posts this month bemoaning the state of the game, but I am still here. Here I am. This is me waving my hand frantically.
So why is the current number of active rogue blogs small enough to be counted on one hand? I think that the game could be in trouble. I have said this very month that things are not that great in the game, as I have said that I am not happy with the direction that it is going in or with decisions taken by Blizzard recently. Check out this post from WoW insider from yesterday. The topic is, ‘When will you Quit WoW?’ There are over 250 comments, which is a huge amount, the majority of which state that they already have quit or will do so soon. Many reasons are given, but it seems that players are broadly dis-satisfied with the game. They are logging on because they feel that they have to, or they log off because they are bored.
The thing that interests me the most with this post is the number of ex-players posting a comment in it, players who quit the game some time ago. They state that they regularly check sites such as WoW Insider to keep themselves updated, informed, or to just get their WoW fix. This tells me that they did not want to leave the game, they want to keep going with WoW. But the state of the game is so dire that they are just not able to, and they are reduced to quitting playing and then checking online sites so as they still feel part of the community.
Another frequently cited motive for players staying in the game longer than they wish to is their guild or social network within the game. They do not want to play the game any longer but they are unable to leave as they dread abandoning the friends that they have built up during their online stay. This is the great strength of a good MMO: the ability to keep people playing far longer than they normally would based on their in-game social network. And WoW has the strongest player community out there. Is this factor artificially prolonging a game that would otherwise have fallen by the wayside? It could very well be. But with the dramatic fall in rogue blogs, perhaps this social “guilt-trip” is not as strong as it once was or maybe it is not strong enough to overcome the games negative points, perceived or not.
Bloggers are a vital part of an online community, they reflect its state of health. Age of Conan, which I am currently trying out, has an incredibly poor blogging community. The most recent podcast I can find for Conan was last updated in October 2008. I listened to that last episode. The host used the word, ‘disappointing’, about 4356 times. This is an apt word to use when considering Zaltu packing up shop and the state of the game at this time: disappointing. I hope that the state of the game can change for the better, that great players and bloggers like Zaltu will come back. I do not wish the game to decline in this way, nor to gloat over it from some lofty perch. But I will call out failings that I see. And I hope myself to keep flag waving for some more time to come.
The Noisy Rogue 
November 30, 2009 at 5:37 am
I think there are a few things contributing to the decline.
The fact that rogues as a CLASS have declined as mains, more often now they are alts or only used for PvP not PvE.
Blizzard LIKES where we as a class are at. They LIKE that our numbers are small. They LIKE where our dps is at. As compared to other classes we really have not seen many HUGE significant changes this entire expansion.
The age of the game. Five years is a LONG time to play any game with great regularity. What was once an exclusive niche has now become “main stream” with all its inherent difficulties.
What concerns me the most is the TYPE of bloggers we are losing. The really TECHNICALLY driven blogs. Those that often interpreted all the changes happening, enjoyed theory crafting, and pushed our class to its edges. Even sites like EJ’s are seeing significantly less traffic for our class.
When it all comes down to it unless individuals are still able to find SOMETHING to talk about blogging becomes difficult. We do have new people entering the field http://evisceratespam.wordpress.com/ For example just began blogging this month.
The question then becomes “Do we have new people to step up and fill the holes left by these veterans leaving the field?”
November 30, 2009 at 8:07 am
You bring up an interesting point, namely why are all the technical blogs disappearing? Is it due to the fact that with so little rogue changes the technical people are not feeling challenged any more? And you’re right, this is a big worry. As much as I may like to be I am not a technical blogger. I relied heavilly on Zaltu for that to be honest. I could try to pull my finger out and write technical, but it would suck.
November 30, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I think it depends on what spec of Rogue we are discussing here in regards to having “nothing new to add.” While Bliz says they are “happy with where Rogues are currently,” the patch notes from 3.3 and the changes from 3.2.2 regarding Assassination Spec’ed rogues seem to paint a different picture. Right now, I would think the changes to Mutilate spec’ed rogues would be a hot-bed of discussion and conjecture in the rogue blogging community. Unfortunately, for the most part, you are right in observing a pretty quiet blogosphere related to these changes.
Anyways, I thought I’d post a comment here because, similar to your blog being seen as DOA by Zaltu’s final comments, my blog is also not being noticed per. this post, despite being listed at Twisted Nether in the rogue section. Of course, I can’t really take it personally since I am by no means an established blogger.
http://roguediary.wordpress.com
I’m not sure I would be seen as a “technical” blogger since I don’t focus solely on the mechanics and math of the class, but I do blog primarily about the state of the class in general. Also, a newer blogger over at http://dpsfordummies.com has also been blogging to some initial success.
As far as the state of which the game is seen to the general playing populace, (i.e. broken, disappointing, etc), time will tell if this slow death of rogue blogs is the death knell of WoW itself, though I think that for the most part other class’ blogs have continued to see strong showings. And though big names in WoW blogging, (such as BRK), have/are leaving, new blogs seem to be springing up all the time.
November 30, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Hey Wrthofnino,
I’ve seen your blog before but just didn’t get around to adding it as you were posting sporadically if remember correctly. But looking over it now, you’re definitely giving it a good go, so link added!
Those patch changes are so imbalanced with regards to deadly posions that I see no real need to comment on them yet. Apart from the fact that Christian covered it quite nicely, I feel that there is no way that those changes will make it to patch day in their present form, and if they do it will mean that they will have to include some major changes to combat rogues at least to balance it, and that will be worth blogging about.
New blogs are springing up, but not technical ones. As Daraia has pointed out in her excellent post today, that is an interesting problem. The links to new blogs that people are provising are to general comment style blogs only. Perhaps this means that the game might be moving away from number crunching and spreadsheets. If the hype about the new expansion is to be believed then stats will be greatly simplified. Perhaps this is all part of Blizzards plan to arrive at that point and they know that they will lose the hard core stat type player that made up a good part of the original player base but which is only a relatively small minority now.
December 1, 2009 at 3:30 pm
tyvm 🙂 link reciprocated! lol
As far as a movement away from more technical blogs, I think you are spot on in your assessment that WoW itself seems to be moving this way… we have already seen +healing rolled into +spellpower, +armPen is going away, simplifications of MP5 and spirit upcoming… as I’ve heard alot of people saying, this seems to be a “dumbing down” of the game, which does make it more accessible but makes me sad all the same 😦
Thank you for spotlighting a few rogue blogs I haven’t had a look at recently. I already read “Forever A Noob” but will give “Ravenholdt Manor” another look.
December 1, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Thanks for the shout out Wrthofnino!
Honestly the only reason I started blogging was to attempt to keep my interest in the game. But at the same time I don’t have the experience or patience needed to do some of the number crunching that is required for a technical blog.
You also have to look at the lack of Rogue mains running around. Go back to the Turkey Lurkey achievement. It took me quite a while to find enough Rogue’s to get that. Even Dinear over at Forever a Noob is running his tank more often than his Rogue due to an imbalance in his guild (Which I certainly understand).
All in all very ineteresting post and comments!
December 1, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Also taking into consideration the websites that offers good theoretical number crunching, like elitisk jerks. And the more dumbed down shadowpanther for those who blatantly look at stats and EP values.