Supporting Wow Blogger:
Today we have a very special post. I am honoured to have interviewed Matticus, the author of the fabulous wow blog The World of Matticus. I confess that I stole his format and idea but I really wanted to get to know the person behind the questions. So without further ado let us begin!
1. Lets kick off with a bit of personal stuff. You’re Canadian – what’s the WoW scene like across the pond?
Dull. There’s a few WoW players up north. I know of a lot of WoW players in my area. Heading into the various LAN centers, you’ll see three types of gamers: Players on Counterstrike, playing DoTA, or playing WoW. I know there’s a few notable WoW Canadian bloggers (who escape me because I have the memory of an ostrich).
2. You blog with 2 females. Do you know either of them IRL and do you argue a lot?
Nope! We all telecommute when we blog. Generally for the most part we don’t argue. There’s lots of idea and concept bouncing going back and forth. We may disagree at times, but we all have a friendly working relationship with each other. I would love to get to know them and meet them IRL. Who knows? It might happen one day!
3. What was your inspiration for setting up your blog?
There weren’t a lot of in depth Priest blogs at the time. I felt that I had accumulated a lot of experience and knowledge and I wanted to share what I learned with other players, Priests, and healers. The amount of Priests who were unsure of themselves about what to do, how to gear, or other things on my server was amazing and I figured that there just might be a demand for it. I started the blog as a place where I could pen down my thoughts on healing and raiding and would refer it to others whenever they had questions. And ever since then, it’s exploded for which I’m amazed and truly grateful for!
4. Was it your first blog and how long did it take to grow to its current position in the WoW Blogosphere?
Nope, my first blog is a personal one and it revolves mostly around academics and hockey. I’ve blogged almost every day on World of Matticus for a little over a year now. I never anticipated it would catch on this much.
5. Did you code it yourself and do the design or is that not your style?
World of Matticus utilizes the latest version of Wordpress. The design is a premium theme that I purchased and modified in other (subtle) ways. I don’t have the time to design themes from the ground up and implement it. If I had the money, I’d rather outsource that work to a designer so I could focus on other tasks (such as blogging!).
6. What advice would you give to any player who is reading this and wants to start their own blog?
I could deliver a whole lecture about this and I still wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But the best advice I can give is to not give up and believe in perseverance. I didn’t get 100000 visitor hits over night. It takes a lot of time, energy and hard work. If you want to be successful at blogging, the main ingredient is perseverance. Keep writing, and don’t stop. Even if you have nothing to say, find something to say.
7. Is your blog your sole income or does it just pay for hosting cost and the occasional coffee?
No, aside from the various ad partnerships I have going, I’m also a contracted writer for WoW Insider (which means I do get paid). I can say that I’ve paid off hosting for the next year or so and have reinvested funds into other areas of the blog (like the design).
8. What are you most excited about seeing/experiencing in WOTLK?
Arthas. I’ve been an avid Blizzard player ever since Warcraft 1. I can’t wait to see Arthas and take him down! As you can imagine, raiding’s one of my biggest thrills.
9. Have you ever competed seriously in arenas and if not do you ever intend to?
I used to be a competitive Counterstrike player back in the day. I wasn’t good at it, but I loved the game and had the ambition. I’ve tried competing seriously in arena, but it’s difficult to do that when you’re also working on progression raids. Not only that, I’m trying to balance school as well as my blogging duties. PvP is something I’ll always enjoy doing and I may revisit it in the future when Wrath opens up. At the moment, I just can’t commit to it.
10. Will you be going hardcore in WOTLK or savouring the new areas? Will you be playing priest?
Oh yes. I already have plans in place and my 10 man Naxx core has been planned out. All of us have agreed to do the best we can to power ourselves to 80 as quick as possible and launch into raiding. I will indeed continue to play my Priest. I can’t deliver cutting edge blog posts and do my job at WI if I make my main another class =).
11. Does Death Knight tempt you even in the slightest seeing as it is not a healing class but just looks… yummy?
Yes, I’ll most likely play it for the lore part. It’s not high on the priority list. Once I finish leveling all 4 of my healers, I’ll play around with the Death Knight.
12. How did your exams go and what do you see yourself doing in 10 years?
Exams are exams. I’m generally above average as a student. My greatest weakness is my inability to take tests. In an ideal fantasy world, I’d love to see myself writing professionally or even running a network of blogs on various games and such. Realistically, I’ll be looking into a career in law enforcement or legal.
13. Will the blog still be going? For that matter do you forsee WoW itself still alive in a decade?
The blog itself will be up. I chose this name so that it wouldn’t exactly be limited to just World of Warcraft. It’s World of Matticus and whatever happens to be contained in that world will be up to me. Blizzard’s stories have been compelling in every game they’ve produced. If they keep up story telling and designing the games the way they are now there is no reason to see WoW even remotely slowing down at all.
1. Beer or WoW or are you dangerous and mix?
WoW to calm me down after school. Beer to calm me down during WoW.
2. Top 5 wow blogs
Oof, you play a dangerous game. I’ll pull out a random sample of 5 from my reader because I read all of the blogs for different reasons (Entertainment, knowledge, etc). Ergo, in no particular order:
ChickGM
World of Snarkcraft
Lume the Mad
Murloc Queen
Casual Raid Leader
3. Top 5 non wow related sites
Here it’s not so random. In addition to WoW stuff, I read an equal amount of non-WoW stuff.
Copyblogger - For boosting promotional and marketing pieces
Zen Habits - For ways to relax and boost my productivity
Write to Done - Different writing and blogging techniques
Wired - Keeping up with the latest tech trends
Presentation Zen - Blog on presentations, visuals, and style
4. Favourite song
Chris Brown - Forever
5. Buying the 3 man caravan mount in WOTLK for 16k gold?
Nope. That gold will be better spent on raid gear and augments.
6. Preordered already?
Yup, 2 copies. I split my Shaman off my main account. Will be dualboxing both my Shaman and my Priest to 80.
7. Any crazy launch night parties that I can come to in snowy Canada?
Sadly, no. I checked with the local gaming stores. There don’t seem to be any midnight launches or anything like that.
Thank you very much for the opportunity for the interview! The questions were truly insightful and I had to seriously think for some of them =).
No problem, it was great having you here! Subscribe to WorldofMatticus here.
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[...] It all started with a PM from Blog Azeroth which exploded into a full fledge interview. Had lots of fun answering this one from the WoW Blogger. Go read it! [...]
Lets be real here matticus has flat out lied on his site about the people in his guild to make his blog look good. He uses it as a weapon to intimidate and threaten people on the server. The guy is a royal ahole and will do anything to get people to read the pack of lies he writes. Reason why i choose to remain anonymous is this is the type of guy who will go and do all out war on his blog if someone even had a single bad word to say about him. Not a chance i would allow that. The guy should not be believed.
Ok well that is your opinion but lets keep it friendly. He posts quality content on his blog and to be honest people are more interested in that than how he acts on his server. He seems like a nice guy from the little communication we have had.