As promised, this is the final post on Egotistical Priest.

Two years of advice, opinions, theorycraft, and hilarity has come to an end.

Bloggers

Many, many thanks to my guest bloggers and regular contributors.

• Hannelore - Your Monday posts generated their own fan following, and your snarking stories will be missed by more people than I think you realize. My offer to host a blog for you still stands (see how I say that out in public, so you can’t just politely refuse via email anymore?)
• Zasp - Your Wednesday theorycraft and tips made my silly little blog seem like we actually knew what the heck we were talking about. Thank you. Even though I was tempted to totally leave you off of the thank you list because your The Insane post actually broke my webhost three times in a row, and that ONE post accounts for over 20% of this site’s pageviews, second only to the friggin homepage (razzle frazzlin).  Where was I? Oh, right. I was thanking you. Why was I thanking you again? I can’t recall. *winks*
• Aensu – Your tanking tips are still one of my most-requested pages, and even though I was never able to con/bribe/blackmail/convince you to become a regular blogger, I always wished I’d managed to do so. Aside from that, your in-game tanking totally ruined me for healing anyone else. Thanks for being awesome, for making healing fun, and for keeping me not deaded.
• Rhotley/Kwane/Quane – You never posted enough, either, and the fact that you’re my husband means I really suck at this whole “forcing my loved ones to blog with me” thing. Still, you proofread and edited almost every single post I wrote, and your puns devastated millions. Thanks for always being there. Not just for me, but also for the blog. It wouldn’t have existed without your prodding, and it certainly wouldn’t have been maintained without your encouragement.

Commenters

Ego had the best community ever. Period.

You guys totally rock my world. Every blogger (and I feel I can say this with near-certainty) cherishes every comment and every reader they have, and I pity all of them. Why? Because there’s no way they had commenters as awesome as you.

When my comments grew to the point where I couldn’t feasibly answer them all, YOU stepped up to the plate and fielded the questions and fostered the communication that made this blog great.

I  mean this in every way possible – Ego could not have existed without all of you. I don’t want to do individual callouts to commenters because a) that would take too friggin long and none of us has all day and b) I’m terrified I’d leave out someone important and they’d think I don’t care.

Thank you. Every single one of you, thank you.

/bow

Readers

Every blog has more readers than commenters, and I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t also value those who came and saw, but said nothing. Thank you for visiting. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read our blog. I hope that you found it both entertaining and useful.

The End

And…that’s it. I don’t know what else to say without getting all weepy-eyed and sentimental, which I’m already doing anyway.

Thank you. I will miss all of you. I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished here with the Egotistical Priest, and I will always be a Warcraft player, till the day I die.

Tiny Addendum

I’ve linked before, but I’ll go ahead and link one last time. I am no longer blogging about World of Warcraft, but I do have a personal blog where I talk about everything from pie and pushups to writing and drawing. Almost all of my World of Warcraft fanfiction has been posted there, along with my non warcraft short stories and links to my webserial blogs (Choose and Blue Moon) and the writing podcast that I co-host (Saucy Wenches).

• http://tamimoore.com

A tauren druid bookmark for Jerran and the poor, shortsighted dwarf hunter. Click to embiggen.

That is the last of the contest winners who have contacted me or responded to my emails.

Methras, if you’re watching, you still have a little time left to claim your sketch prize!

A dragon sketch for Honorable Mention for Copra, with the retirement package. As a side note, I TRIED to draw a “serious” dragon, and just didn’t have the room. I keep wanting to draw BIG wings. Result? A semi-chibi Onyxia.

UPDATE : Thank you for the screenshot! My question has been answered.

Is there anyone out there with a tauren druid who would be willing to take a screenshot for me?

I’m working on Jerran’s bookmark prize and I drew the tauren kitty from the side before realizing that the side-view of the new tauren druid cat form is apparently top secret and not to be leaked via google image searches.

If possible, is there anyone who can email me a screenshot of a tauren druid cat from the side? I’d like to see what that shoulder marking looks like, and make sure there aren’t any other secret markings, designs, bling, or hair ridges that I need to  include. Bonus points if the kitty is the dark red color in the upper-left hand corner of the popular “druid cat form” images, like the following > http://thedailydruid.com/wp-content/uploads/image/tdd-tauren-druid-cat-form-preview.jpg

If you have a link, you can add it in the comments, or email the image to me at egotisticalpriest@gmail.com.

MUCH obliged.

~Vonya

Fourth Ego contest prize is done! An Honorable Mention sketch for Jess, of her faithful wolf.

The third Ego contest prize art is complete! Ann’s Undaunted Tallstrider. I wasn’t able to get the colors quite where I wanted on this one, but I like it anyway. It was also supposed to be a bookmark, but I spoke with Ann and she agreed that I could send the fully colored picture and she would decide if she wanted to trim it down for a bookmark when it reached her.

The second Ego contest prize art is complete! Iris’ hearbroken bear. I don’t know why, but when I sprayed the fixative on the art, the bottom part of the tree got a less-than-lovely silver sheen over it. I am not pleased.

The first contest prize is complete. Plastic Rat’s trusty, crazy boar.

I am officially closing the doors on The Egotistical Priest.

I’m sure this won’t come as much of a shock after the past few months of inactivity, but even I still held a glimmer of hope that the game would be revitalized after a period of time off.

It did not. I haven’t logged into WoW since the post where I mentioned I was taking a break.

It does no good for a blogger who no longer plays a game to continue and offer articles regarding it. More and more, I’d become that old biddy sitting on her front porch, sipping lemonade and cackling to herself about the good old days (and yelling at the neighbors kids to get off my lawn).

I will post the contest prizes here, and then have one final capstone post to indicate that the blog is truly dead. If you’d like to stick around long enough to see the prizes, you’re more than welcome, but there will be no further World of Warcraft theorycraft or gaming posts.

I will always remember WoW with fondness. We can complain about the drama and the loot-whoring till the Tauren come home, but that’s like complaining about mosquitoes on a camping trip. We camp despite the mosquitoes. And we play WoW despite the drama.

We play WoW for the camaraderie. We play it for the sense of accomplishment. We play it to help others, to relax, or to join our forces with our compatriots and defeat a mighty enemy.

Warcraft is more than a game. It’s more than just pixels on a screen, more than just fifteen dollars a month.

I may not play the game anymore (or if I pick it back up, I may never return to blogging about it) but I will always, till the day I die, consider myself a WoW Player. That title will always be a point of pride for me.

This was in some ways an easy decision – if I’m not playing the game, how can I reliably blog about it? – but in other ways it was incredibly difficult. One difficult decision for each and every single person who watches or comments on the blog. You guys truly are the absolute readership a blogger could ever hope for. In all the years that Ego has been going strong, I’ve had less than a handful of true trollish behavior, which is astounding for any blog.

You encouraged and educated each other (and me!). You are the true heart of Egotistical Priest, and I hope that all of you feel the same pride in what we have accomplished here that I do.

The blog may be closed, but the spirit of Ego lives on.

Farewell, Old Girl. It’s been a great ride.

~Vonya/Ego/Tami

The contest has been judged. Thanks to all the judges for helping, and a huge, HUGE thanks to everyone who entered. You guys did NOT make this easy, and there are some really incredible entries that didn’t win, but still rocked the contest back on its heels.

Without further ado : The winners!

TwitterFic

Grand Prize >> Iris, and her heartbroken bear.

Runner Up >> Jerran, with the hunter taming gone horribly wrong.

Honorable Mention 1 >> Methras, with arachnaphobia (Indiana Jones!).

Honorable Mention 2 >> Copra, with the retirement package.

World of WriteCraft

Grand Prize >> Plastic Rat, with his finicky, frustrated boar.

Runner Up >> Ann, with the Tallstrider Tale.

Honorable Mention >> Jess, into the belly of the beast.

The Prizes

Grand Prize >> A fully-colored hand-drawn illustration of the warcraft animal depicted in your story. Alternately, if you’d prefer me to write a short story (up to 1,500 words) for a character of yours, I will do that instead.

Runner Up >> A hand-drawn and colored bookmark of the warcraft animal depicted in your story -OR- a short story (again, up to 1,500 words) for one of your characters.

Honorable Mentions >> Honorable mentions will recieve a sketch of the warcraft animal depicted in your story, possibly inked if I’m feeling frisky.

Winners

Please contact me (egotisticalpriest at gmail dotcom)  and let me know which prize you choose. I’ll ask for a mailing address after I finish the art (or story) so that I can send the original to you if you like.

I will post all of the contest prizes here, on my personal website, and also on my DeviantArt account unless the winner specifically requests otherwise. The owner of the piece may do whatever they wish with it, except claim that they were the artist (not that I’m terribly concerned about that with you guys, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful).

If I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks, I’ll send out an email to the address attached to your comment, and if I haven’t heard from you by…oh…let’s say November, I’ll assume you don’t want the prize. (I have nightmares of someone conatacting me in 2020 or something, and I have no idea who they are or why they’re demanding warcraft art of me).

Addendum

So many incredible entries, I really wish I had time to do at least a sketch for all of you. The babyspiced rhino made me snort tea, as did the conversation about secret-keeping fish. Khol’s haiku was haunting, and I wish I had the artistic skill to illustrate it properly. Plops the bunny is possibly the cutest thing ever, and the heart-wrenching tale of an old wolf protecting her hunter stayed with me for hours. Really, I cannot express how incredible all of the entries were, and how many of them had me laughing or crying or smiling stupidly. You guys are an amazingly creative and talented bunch, and I am honored that you found time to enter my contest.

/bow