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The Anvil of Crom: Surviving the craftpocalypse
So last week we started talking a bit about Age of Conan's 2012 crafting revamp. I laid out a few things that foul up the current system -- from a tradeskiller's point of view, naturally -- but I didn't quite get around to talking about solutions. Though that's on the to-do list, I may not get around to it this week either, since a few mails and some forum discussions brought up a couple of interesting tangential points that I hadn't considered. Surprisingly, I got email from folks who aren't really looking forward to the big tradeskill upheaval that Funcom game director Craig Morrison hinted at in the August development update. Even more mind-boggling was the fact that these folks aren't even crafters.
Storyboard: Lore -- what is it good for?
Over the course of the long holiday weekend, I took the opportunity to apply to a guild. (That's right -- I don't get free passes; I have to apply just like everyone else. On a related note, keep an eye out for my list of guilds that I'm not in that are also horrible.) Among the many questions on the application was one that immediately made me sit up and take notice. To summarize, the question was asking how important it was to the applicant that all RP remain grounded in the game's lore. In my mind, lore has a strange relationship with roleplayers. On the one hand, it's rare that you'll start playing in the world if the lore doesn't interest you at least somewhat -- no one wants to play in a game that doesn't feel like a remotely plausible world. (Yes, we're using "plausible" in the sense that dragons, alien invasions, and human-like robots can all be accepted. Plausibility for unreal settings is an odd concept.) Yet at the same time, the lore is its own creature, not really actively supporting roleplayers and sometimes ruling out cool stuff. How do we deal with our simultaneous friend and enemy?
The Daily Grind: How are we doing?
The last time we checked in with you all to ask this question, you gave us some really great feedback. Since then, we've worked hard to incorporate some of the things that you asked for, and have found ways to change up some other things so as to make the site more friendly and enjoyable overall. As some of you may have noticed, we've changed our back-linking policy so that every first mention of a game in our recent posts now takes you to that game's website. (The second one still goes to the category for those who want more news.) Another thing that was talked about was the density of Second Life postings on the front page, which we had to find a more creative workaround for. We actually opted to test out feed-specific postings, using the Second Life category combined with their morning "newspaper" post. So far, response has been good. Beyond that, we've also added more great folks to our staff covering even more games. From seasoned blogosphere veterans to relative newcomers, we've tried to make sure our staff is a good mix. We've snagged interviews and exclusives -- something we're continuing to ramp up even now. On top of that, we added both our Massively Speaking podcast and a Twitter feed, for those who like to get their news on the go interspersed with a healthy dose of us being very silly! But as before -- we want this site to be all it can be for you, our readers. You've helped us grow like mad, and we want to be sure we're doing the best we can possibly do in return. So tell us, how are we doing? What do you think is good? Where can we improve?
