2003-01-13 - 10:21 a.m.
I decided to wait a few days before making any firm decisions, regarding the topics in my last post, so that I would have time to think about things, chat with friends, and, most importantly, see if there would be any email response. There was very little of the latter -- only a couple of notes, which were, at least, positive. Based on all of these factors -- especially, the lack of general interest -- I have decided that I will definitely be taking a break from producing netbooks for a while. I have no idea for how long. It all really comes down to if and when I will feel inspired to put in so much work again, gratis (needless to say, I am not feeling so inspired at the moment). For now, I'm going to start putting my time and energy back into producing stuff for my own players and, occasionally, my own pocketbook.
As for the blog... Well, given the above announcement, I once again have to wonder whether it serves any useful purpose, at this point. Still, I'm not sure if I want to burn this particular bridge. My current plan is to take a break from it for a while, as well, but return later with new stuff -- news, reviews, non-d20 game mechanics, etc. (whatever I happen to feel like chatting about, at the time). In other words, it will become more of a normal (albeit, game-related) blog. Again, I'm not sure when this will occur, but I am fairly sure that it will be well before I work on any more netbooks (which means that the blog will still be a good place to find related announcements).
Anyway, I'll still be involved in the various other communities and projects that usually hold my interest -- no change there -- and I'll still be available to answer questions and the like (just hit the "Contact" link, on the left). Most of you who have been in regular contact with me -- you know who you are :-) -- will see no change there. For those who entered my little world only through this blog, I guess this is au revoir, if not goodbye. Good luck and good gaming.
Pax!
Cwylric
2003-01-07 - 10:50 a.m.
I have a couple of announcements to make, which, I suppose, are probably not going to be welcome to my few regular readers. I thought about splitting them up over a few days, but I figured I might as well get everything out of the way at once. So, on to the first one...
Although it may seem a bit odd, given the additions I made to the site during my last post, I'm starting to seriously think about phasing out this blog -- or, at least, changing its emphasis. By "phasing out", I don't mean "deleting" (the links page and Dark Ascension stuff would, at least, be left for posterity) -- I just mean that I would be adding few, if any, new posts. I have several reasons for considering this, which, given the severity of this announcement, I should probably share with you.
First of all, I am beginning to wonder if the usefulness of this site has pretty much come to an end. Those who have been here from the beginning (or who simply read the older posts) will know that this blog was not originally meant for general consumption. It was simply supposed to be a forum for those who were involved in the Vancouver: 2020 project -- a way for me to keep everyone involved up-to-date in a quick, painless manner. Once that book was released, I thought about terminating the blog, but it seemed that it could still be of use in keeping everyone informed about Paragon: Apocalypse. Now, with that book finished, I'm once again wondering if the blog has outlived its usefulness -- at least, in its current form.
Second, I'm beginning to feel as though I'm working in a vacuum. As previously noted, the blog was originally supposed to be a forum, not just a place for me to stand on a soapbox. Back when Paragon and V:2020 were in full swing, I received a lot of email tidbits that ended up getting posted here, either directly or via my answer to the correspondence in question, if it seemed to be of general interest. While I still receive Paragon-related emails off and on, I frankly can't remember that last time that anyone commented on the blog or contributed anything that was worth posting on it. You have probably noticed the result of this, i.e. that my posts have become less common, less focused, and -- I think, anyway -- less useful to the average gamer. In fact, I can't help thinking that the blog has turned into a sort of on-going ad for my books, which was definitely not the original intent.
Third, as near as I can tell, a large portion of my audience is made up of people interested in d20 stuff. The problem with this is that I'm getting a little burned out on d20, in general, and am starting to shift my attention to other projects. The end result is that there has been a marked decrease in useful game system information being posted here, in recent weeks, simply because I have not been working on anything worth posting (other than P:A, of course). Over time, I could see shifting the emphasis of this site over to my new interests, but it is an open question as to whether anyone else would want to read about it.
Finally -- and, possibly, in answer to that last question -- I have noticed a slow but steady decrease in the number of visitors this site has been receiving over the last month or two. I imagine that this has a lot to do with numbers 2 and 3, above. Back when Paragon made its big splash, I didn't have an actual hit counter but was able to make indirect weekly checks on how things were going. This site was often getting well over a hundred unique hits each week -- which is pretty impressive for a blog that was only supposed to be read by the dozen or so people working on the V:2020 project (in fact, I almost considered changing it to a private blog at one point, so that we could keep things under our hats before the big release). Ironically, once the book was put on hold (during summer vacation) and then later released, allowing me to shift the focus to items of more general interest, such as Dark Ascension, the number of hits actually began to drop off. These days, the site receives only about a third as many weekly hits as it used to, and many of these are repeat viewings. To put this into perspective: when the site was supposed to be private, it was public (in a big way), but, now that it is open to the public, it has effectively become private (that is, accessed by only a small number of loyal readers). Which brings me back to point number 1, above...
So, this is as good a time as any to see whether anyone out there is actually reading this and cares about the result. Jot me a note and tell me what you think. Should the blog: a) continue as is; b) shift focus; or c) simply come to a graceful end? Within the context of the points I made above (including the fact that I don't want to keep doing all d20 stuff), what would you like to see here?
Now, on to the second topic, which is of a similar nature...
I'm am thinking about taking a break from working on netbooks, for a while (d20 ones, anyway). Again, I have several reasons for considering this...
First, these projects have been taking up a lot of my free time, ever since the general release of Paragon, back in April, and I'm starting to find other uses for that time. In particular, as I noted above, my gaming interests have been shifting, lately, so, even if I kept working on netbooks, they would probably not be d20-related. I would like to think that this would not be a big problem for my readers, but I have to face the fact that most people came to this site because of its d20 connection, so...
Second, as I mentioned above, I'm starting to feel as though I'm working in a vacuum. When Paragon was released, it generated a veritable flood of email, 90% of which was positive and/or interesting. There were a lot of intelligent comments, and some even changed the way the game later developed. Very cool. Vancouver: 2020 netted less than half as many letters, which was a little disappointing, given the amount of work we all put into it. They were about 95% positive, which was nice, but an awful lot were of the "that's neat, now do this for me" variety (i.e. "gimme, gimme", contributing nothing in the process). Tolemica found the number of letters dropping, yet again, and, while they were uniformly positive, they were also mostly of the "but it would be even better if you did this" variety. I started to wonder if I should have bothered releasing it at all. Now, Paragon: Apocalypse has been out for several weeks, and I have received a grand total of six emails -- four of which were from long-time Paragon regulars, who probably would have written to me about other stuff, anyway. The only good news is that all of the letters have been positive -- but that was hardly surprising, given their origins. Frankly, I miss the give-and-take that went along with the projects I was involved in prior to d20 (i.e. Brave New World, World of Darkness, Ars Magica, etc.). Maybe it has something to do with the d20 community... I'm also starting to feel like Paragon was just the "flavor of the week", which has now gone out of style.
Third, and on a related note, I can't help but notice that only the people who don't like the books have been rating them at RPG Hoard, lately. I hinted at this in my last blog. The real problem is not that some moron decided to play roulette with my ratings and, thus, reduced the number of long-term downloads. The real problem is that it was so easy for him to foul them up, since so few people bothered to rate the books positively (i.e. those nifty 9s and 10s that were sitting there up until a few days ago were obviously handed out by only one or two people and, thus, were easily negated by even a single low score). Given that over a thousand people have downloaded Paragon and the related books, from RPG Hoard alone, I find it vaguely discouraging that so few bothered to rate them or send me comments. It begs the question of why I'm putting in so much work in the first place, if only a handful of people really care about the result.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, my own players have started to hint that the time I am putting into projects for general distribution is eating into our gaming time (or, at least, the time I have to prepare for it). And they're right. Paragon wasn't a problem, in this regard, since I created it first for us and second for the world at large. Ditto for Dark Ascension. V:2020 was a bit more problematic, since I didn't really need new characters, myself, so the book, which took a lot of effort, was really just for outside readers. P:A was purely for net release (well... and my own interest), since we are not even using d20 stuff right now, aside from the occasional D&D one-shotter. It becomes tempting to think that the time I spent on P:A could have been better spent on something for my own players, who would have enjoyed it more. Really, it comes down to whether I should produce stuff for a large, mostly unappreciative audience or a small, very appreciative one. When I look at it that way, the choice seems pretty clear.
So, once again: Questions? Comments?
It should be obvious, by now, that these two announcements are related. Obviously, if I'm not turning out new books, the focus of the blog has to change. And, if it does change, I have to wonder who will be reading it.
Looking back over this rather lengthy post, I can see that some people might read bitterness into it. Please believe that no such feeling exists. I have enjoyed working on these books, for the most part, and tinkering with this blog. I have met a lot of cool people, in the process, and that, alone, made it worthwhile. So, while I may be feeling a little discouraged, at the moment, that is really the worst that can be said. And I am confident that heading off into new territory -- working on new projects, with new people -- will quickly solve that problem. The question now, of course, is where that will lead -- and whether this blog will have any part in it.
2003-01-06 - 3:24 p.m.
I figured that it was long past time that I started a new page, what with it being a new year and all. I also finally got around to working on something that I have meant to do for a while now. Quite a number of people have asked me about my various game-related projects and where they might be found on-line, so I compiled a list of them, complete with up-to-date links. You can find it here. Keep in mind that this only includes stuff I have done relatively recently (even I haven't kept track of the older stuff, although most of it is sitting on my hard drive or on various floppies), so if you want something that seems to be missing, just get in touch with me.
While we're on the subject of my game-related documents and their mirrors, I just noticed that some charming person has amused himself by rating all of my stuff in the Systems/Miscellaneous section of RPG Hoard with repeated 1's (either that, or a whole bunch of people just suddenly decided, all at once, that they really hate my stuff...). As a result, all of my ratings have dropped from 8-10 down to 1-4, which will probably result in a drop-off in downloads. *sigh* I'm giving serious thought to no longer uploading to RPG Hoard. Since people seem to download based on these (completely unmonitored) ratings, each document's distribution drops as soon as some chimp with too much time on his hands pulls a stunt like this, which kind of makes the whole effort seem a bit futile. Of course, maybe a bunch of people really did suddenly decide they hate my stuff... Either way, it doesn't exactly encourage me to upload more.
On a cheerier note, I just picked up Demon: The Fallen, which is the first World of Darkness book I have purchased in a while, and it looks pretty good, so far. I haven't read much beyond the introduction, yet, but the background seems interesting -- more so than a lot of their recent stuff. My one concern is that the game seems to use the same "cookie cutter" character creation system that all of the other WoD books use (this must be at least the eighth one to do so). I have no problem with general system consistency, since it allows one to combine games, but I'm getting tired of every type of character, no matter how weird, getting the same number of dots in Attributes, Abilities, etc. It seems kind of silly, especially for a game like this one. Oh well. Hopefully, the rest of the book will live up to the promise of the introduction, and I'll be able to overlook that minor annoyance. It has attracted the attention of my gaming group, anyway, so I imagine we'll try it out soon.
