Second Blogiversary & Giveaway

Wow! I can't believe it's been two years already since I started rambling about rares on this blog. Seriously, where has the time gone?! I have to say, this past year of blogging has been even better than my first. With the addition of like eight bazillion rares in Pandaria, and a heaping ton of fun new hunter pets - I've had a LOT of fun things to write about.

Let's take a look at what's been happening around here this past year. ~

One of my goals was to improve navigation, and I think I've somewhat accomplished that with my tabs up above. The first tab I added was the List of Rares by Zone, after that addition I just continued adding tabs from there to help people find more specific rares. The List of Rares by Zone tab gets the most hits by far, but I notice plenty of people using the rest of the tabs as well - specifically the hunter pet related ones. I notice people using the search option too, but not nearly as often.

In the last year I've written a total of 82 posts (83 counting this one), bringing my total post count to 248. Although I have produced less posts than the previous year, I'd like to think that the quality of posts has gone up. On average I've been spending a lot more time on each one compared to last year.

Some of my posts have been wildly successful (based on the number of views), and then there are ones that I'm simply proud of based on quality and content. First, let me tell you all which posts were deemed most popular according to their view count.

Top Five Posts from the Previous Year based on Views:

5. Sha of Anger - MoP World Boss - I had written up this post last summer while I was playing early on in the mop beta. At the time of writing this he was not only quite difficult to kill, but he would despawn and reappear somewhere else on the map every time he was engaged and reset. Between his difficulty level and griefers I never did get to participate in a kill until mop was released.

4. New Rares and Mounts Coming in patch 5.2 - With the promise of so many new rares coming in patch 5.2 I just had to get the down low on the ptr. This post covered a lot of the earlier patch 5.2 ptr related rares. The IoT rares weren't all in their live locations yet and many of them had placeholder names. Goda wasn't even a turtle - he was a super badass elite Drakkari Golem that really packed a punch. I really enjoyed the research involved in putting this particular post together.

3. Map of Rare Pandarian Champions by Type - Not a whole lot of text goin' on in this post, just one heck of a detailed map. This post was very popular when MoP was first released. In the last few months people viewing this post have steadily decreased, while posts on rare champions in specific zones have gone up.

2. The Jade Forest Rare Champions - I'm not sure why, but for some reason the rare champions in The Jade Forest are much more popular than the ones in other zones on this blog. This post has seen about double the views as any of the other zones I've covered in Pandaria.

1. Map of Rare Spawns on the Isle of Thunder - Bleh, it just figures. The post viewed most on this blog is one that I spent the least amount of time on. I literally threw this map together in no time at all to have a quick reference to glance at. The post I would have preferred people to be looking at instead is this one: Isle of Thunder Rares Spawns. I put a lot of time into that post, and there is SO much more useful info.

Between our good friend Google, the navigation on my blog and whatever other factors, those were the top posts this past year based on the numbers. Now, if I could choose five different posts - ones I believe more worthy based on time and effort put into them, quality, content, etc.. they would be completely different. Here are the posts that I believe should have been in the top five.

My Top Five Picks from the Previous Year:

5. Patrannache - Trackable Hunter Pet (Crane) - This bird was a total #$@*% to track down. When I finally did find him, I wanted to make sure I could get as much info on him as possible. I definitely put more time into following stinky pinky here than any other pet. The fraps video of my following him was over an hour and a half long unedited. Using footage from that video I put together an incredibly accurate map of his ridiculous path. At the end of the day I was extremely happy with what I put together.

4. How to Tame Degu, Hutia & Gumi (Spectral Porcupines) - Yeah, I know there are technically three posts here, but I am equally proud of them and believe they should be listed together. I really enjoyed not only writing these posts, but doing the research and learning these tames was a ton of fun. As much as I appreciated having to track down rare pets early on in the Mop expansion, I always love a good Molten Front/Hyjal style taming challenge.

3. Where to Find the Riches of Pandaria - One of my readers (Cain) suggested that I write this post after reading Lost and Found Achievement: Where to Find Lost Treasures in Pandaria (which also came very close to making this list). I thought it was a great idea, and conveniently a few days after seeing his suggestion Blizzard added the Riches of Pandaria Achievements.

2. New 5.1 Rare Faction Champions in Krasarang Wilds - A Closer Look - This is another post that I really enjoyed doing the research on and writing about. I spent a lot of time camping these guys with my hubby, and things got pretty competitive for a while - which made putting it together even more fun. At the end of the day I just felt really good about how well this post came together, and I was not the least bit afraid to hit "publish".

1. The Darkmoon Rabbit - I had a blast writing this post. I loved how Blizzard used Monty Python and the Holy Grail references like crazy with this fuzzy little ball of death, and I had fun with it! Even looking back at it now I have to chuckle a bit.

So my lists don't coincide - at all, but that's fine. Even the posts that I thought should have made the top of the list still had a lot of views. I know they have been helping people as well, and ultimately that is what this blog is all about after all - helping people find those elusive rares and taming some sweet new pets. Although people don't always comment, I know I have some lurkers out there too. You know who you are!

My Thanks to all of You:

So, as a way of saying thanks to my readers, I am going to have a little giveaway again this year. I am giving away two battle pets to two lucky commenters: the Crawling Claw and another from the WoW TCG.

All you have to do to enter is simply comment on this post. I will choose TWO winners from the comments randomly using a /roll in game.

The first roll will win the Crawling Claw pet shown above - I hear this pet is quite OP in the pet battling world, and they are still pretty hard to come by these days. The second roll winner will get to choose one pet from the list of TCG pets below:

• Eye of the Legion
• Gregarious Grell
• Purple Puffer
• Landro's Lichling
• Landro's Lil XT
• Sand Scarab

(For example, if there are 23 comments I will do two rolls (/roll (1-23)) in game. If the rolls are 14 and then 21, that means the 14th commenter wins the Crawling Claw and the 23rd commenter has their choice of TCG pets listed above.)

These are not TCG codes I'm giving away, they are caged battle pets that need to be traded in game. Winners will need to have an active World of Warcraft subscription in order to receive their pet. Anonymous replies, or anyone not registered with Blogger will need to put some contact info in their reply. (This is so that I can contact the winners.) An email address, twitter info or even a character name & realm will be fine.

The contest will be open for 10 days (ending Midnight on Sunday, June 16th EST). I will post who the winners are shortly after. Winners will have one week to claim their prize. (If anyone simply wishes to comment but doesn't want to participate, please state so.)


Thanks all for another wonderful year!

Much Love, Euphyley <3