Sunday, August 17, 2008

What's With WoW Insider?

I'm not sure how many of you read WoW Insider but lately I've been getting kinda irked by some of the articles I've read on there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really trying to bash them or anything, hell, I have them linked on the sidebar, but the problem is so many of the articles are full of fallacies, generalities and overall give me a sense that they haven't done their homework on whatever they're writing about. IE maybe an article written by some guy in beta that makes you think "Is this guy *really* in beta?"

I seem to get a sort of vibe that many of them are journalists with a passing interest in WoW rather than WoW players who like to write about WoW. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that, but as a very detail oriented guy it tends to grate on my nerves a little from time to time. I like to think everything I post on here is totally accurate and any opinion I venture has sound reasoning, but I do have it a lot easier since my subject matter is so very narrowly focused on one class. They have to write about several subjects so perfect accuracy perhaps isn't a luxury they can afford.

Just my thoughts for the day.

4 comments:

TeePee said...

You're definitely not alone there, I've found myself straying further from the fold as time goes on for nearly the exact reasons you've mentioned.

QueueTip said...

Before it got banned at my work, I used to visit WoWInsider a lot. You're journalist comment sounds about right. Sometimes the articles just seem cranked out so that they have content.

Similar some of those WikiHow pages.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Quick-Snack

http://www.wikihow.com/Rip-Paper

Anonymous said...

queuetip, is your workplace using iprism/st. bernard? Just asking because that's what they use at my workplace, and it just recently went from an accessible website to a "games and entertainment rated" aka banned one.

Anyway, I totally noticed what you're talking about too, draele. I remember they came out with a "duh-duh-duhhhh, the NEW warlock PVP spec -- SL/SL!" article. Which of course was about 6 months after this spec was being used by 90 pct of arena-ing locks. They need to have more articles like "macros to use for your felguard when wotlk hits", or something like that.

QueueTip said...

No, my company uses their own smart filter. They started blocking it about a year ago (coincidentally, the day after I visited it many times).


WoWInsider has a lot of bloggers, and while WoW is a huge, in depth game, there is only so much you can write about before running out of content. If they post less frequently then the spoiled kids will complain, but if they post more, then the content becomes repetitive and generalized, and they lose some respect from the more intelligent crowd. It's a tough balance.