My WoW History:
I started playing WoW in December 2006 less then a week before patch 2.0 was released. I was a big fan of Blizzards RTS games and decided to take advantage of a free trial that I got with one of the games. It's fair to say I was hooked very quickly and have maintained my subscription ever since.
When I started playing all I knew about MMOs was what I had read on the official WoW website and had absolutely no idea of what I was doing or what to expect. As a result I choose to play a druid almost by default, and my choice to go Balance was completely by default. I had read online that tanks and healers were in high demand. I also read that druids were relatively easy to solo. So, I put two and two together and rolled a druid.
I went balance because it was the only spec that made sense early on. As a druid you spend your first few levels as a caster by default. When I got to level 10 and got to spend my first talent point the choice was easy. Any talent in the Resto Tree was out of the question because they didn't help me kill stuff. The feral tree was equally useless, because I had to do special quests to get bear form and cat form didn't come until level 20. Then there was Starlight Wrath. I had just spent ten levels casting Wrath to kill stuff, and here was a talent to help me do it faster. It was the obvious choice.
That choice did not sit well however. I was a noob in every sense of the word and I had no idea what I was doing. As I leveled up I started to put a few points in the Resto tree in hopes of making a better healer for 5mans. Little did I know I could have healed fine as Balance in those early levels. I would also use Agi gear because it was leather and I didn't completely understand how the stats benefited my performance. Plus, despite having absolutely zero points in the feral tree I spend a lot of my leveling time in cat form because I was to cheap to buy water to regain mana. In short, I was a walking failure, and I spent a lot of time debating my choice. However, I had very little gold and as ultimately to cheap to respec.
Then at level 55 or so I realized that if I respecced I could pick up Moonkin Form, and at this point I committed to the Balance tree. I still didn't know about the stigma that was attached to the spec, but it felt good to put all the uncertainty behind me. Plus I was able to go to Outland soon after and good gear was very abundant. I ended up getting to 70 as Balance and started looking for a raiding guild. I won't get into the details of each guild, but I've been in 10 guilds on 9 servers since Dec 2006. My druid has always been my main, though I do have quite a few "serious" alts and other low level alts. My play focus has always been raiding.
My Blog History:
Before I started playing WoW I read quite a bit about the game online. My primary information source was the official website, but I did stumble upon a couple of blogs that I thought were interesting. As I leveled Graylo up, I had all of these mixed feeling and subjects I wanted to talk about, but I didn't know anyone who played the game or would want to talk to me about it. Because I had read a couple of wow blogs I almost immediately thought about starting a blog and using it as a kind of WoW journal, but it took me many months to give it a shot.
In Sept. 2007, I made my first post. In the beginning my blog was almost completely a WoW journal. I talked about bosses I killed, gear I won, and general things that I now realize few people cared about. Around the same time I started to raid at a semi-serious level, and started to think more about theorycrafting. While reading the official forums I would see people make claims about this and that, but I wasn't sure who and what to believe so I started to do the math for myself. I learned a lot as a result, and in an effort to get more readers for my blog I started to post my calculations on the blog.
For my first year of blogging I was fairly unknown, but in the run up to Wrath of the Lich King the blog took off in popularity. The Balance spec was becoming a lot more popular and was getting a lot of attention from the developers. I had a lot of interesting topics to write about like Eclipse, and eventually my blog started getting noticed by the wider WoW community and a couple of blue posters.
Looking back, I'm amazed at what Gray Matter has become. If you told me in the beginning that my blog would eventually get several thousand hits a day I probably would have laughed at you. I think a lot of the credit goes to me being in the right place at the right time, but it's amazing what you can do with some hard work and dedication.
My Guild:
Skunkworks - Balnazzar - PvP Realm - again
Armory page
Past guilds:
Resurgence - Stonemaul - PvP Realm
Future/Adrenaline - Cenarius/Korgath - PvE/PvP - Disbanded
Equilibrium - Cho'gall - PvP Realm - Disbanded
OBSCURE REFERENCE - Zuluhed - PvP Realm
Aversion - Laughing Skull - PvP Realm - Disbanded
Skunkworks - Balnazzar - PvP Realm
Lords of Eternity - Garona - PvE
Lastt Standd - Hyjal - PvE Realm - Disbanded
Wandering Alliance - Eitrigg - PvE Realm - Disbanded
Full of Crit - Eitrigg - PvE Realm - - Disbanded
My Toons:
On Balnazzar
Graylo - lvl 90 Troll Druid - This is my Main Toon
On Stonemaul
Grayqin - lvl 85 Undead Rogue
Graysin - lvl 85 Tauren Paladin
Grayjin - lvl 85 Troll Hunter
On Garona
Graypal - lvl 85 Draenei Priest
Grayfel - lvl 85 Gnome Warlock
Grayvik - lvl 85 Human Mage
Graybel - lvl 85 Draenei Shaman
On Cenarius
Graysun - lvl 51 Dwarf Paladin
On Laughing Skull
Graytan - lvl 28 Goblin Warrior
On Cho'gall*
Graylo - lvl 62 Tauren Druid
Graysin - lvl 23 Blood Elf Paladin
Graydin - lvl 19 Undead Warrior
Graymiz - lvl 11 Orc Rogue
* These toons were never serious projects. I started the Pally during a period of guild drama to get away from it all. I chose Cho'gall because it was a PvP realm with some very good guilds at the time, and I wanted to see some of the Horde content. When they announced Cataclysm I started the other toons just to see the starting areas before they got changed in the expansion. That said, I may transfer Graylo eventually because I'm having fun learning feral.
On Eitrigg*
Graydin - lvl 16 Human Warrior
Graybon - lvl 13 Dwarf Hunter
* Eitrigg was my first server, and these are two toons that I created in my first week of playing. I probably shouldn't even list them, because I haven't played them in a very long time.
The Man Behind the Blog:
I am a thirtysomething professional with a wife, 2 kids, 2 dogs, and a mortgage. Other then WoW my interests include soccer, reading books, cooking, watching movies and tv.
