Knock knock, is this thing on?

So here it is then, my first blog post... Let me use it to describe what you can expect from this blog.

What is this blog about?

The main topic will be the game of World of Warcraft, my activities in it and my views on it. Well, that is the plan at least. There may be an occasional digression on topics related to programming.

Who am I?

No, that cute troll lady you see in the image box is not really me - in real life I am neither a troll, nor female, nor called Yoco. In the real world I am a forty-something year old guy, born in The Netherlands, but living in Finland. In the World of Warcraft and its associated internet locations I tend to go by the moniker Yoco - it is the name I use on forums and on twitter (@yoco68) for my warcraft-related stuff. The story behind that name is something for another day.

What do I play?

At this point you may expect me to disclose my in-game "main" character, or at least give hints about her class, spec, faction, achievements and more. I won't. That is not because I don't want to give out that information, but because I don't have a main...

Hello world, I am Yoco, and I am alt-o-holic

(and have been since the World of Warcraft European launch in February 2005).

Instead of a single main I play a large number of different characters. Sometimes I'm in the mood for leveling a young character, other days I spend my in-game time playing one of several maximum level characters. At the point of writing this I have a level 90 Death Knight, Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Rogue, Warrior and Monk, and among those are Trolls, Goblins, a Forsaken, a Dwarf and a Pandaren. There is a whole bunch of younger characters as well. Most of my activities are horde side on the Arathor(EU) realm, some are alliance side on Nordrassil(EU) and occasionally my old alliance toons on Stormrage(EU) get some play time too.

One of the great things about World of Warcraft is how it caters to very different people. Some seek hard challenges in raids and dungeons, others see WoW as an advanced chat medium, and there are many other ways the game can supply entertainment.

For me it is more about the breadth than about the depth of the game. You won't find my characters in cutting-edge raid content. In fact, you won't find them in any raid content - except an occasional trip to an old raid instance and ask the bosses nicely if they have some spare battle pets... However I am fully committed to get a set of maximum level characters containing all classes and all races. (No, not all race-class combinations, there are limits to the madness :) ). I am in no hurry with that though - I enjoy the lessons from all those Pandaren that tell you to slow down, the game is to be savored...