Is it just me or is commenting on Blogger-hosted blogs massively frustrating? Between the login errors, the captcha that is impossible to read half the time, to it eating what you wrote, it takes me ten times as long to comment on those blogs than on others, to the point that I generally don’t bother.
Is it as bad for Blogger-people when they come to WordPress sites, or is it a one-way street of suck?
/end rant.
18 Comments | 
Rant, Site update | 
Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
I’ve been blogging here for half a decade. Yikes.
And having just finished re-reading my 2011 write-up post, things today are not all that different from last year (which mostly sucks). DF2.0 is still not out or even close (no beta), Dominion is dead, GW2 is about to release, EVE is EVE, and the rest of the genre is still more or less in the toilet. At least Tortanic has been more entertaining than I expected blog-wise, good stuff there. I really, really hope the 2013 edition of this post is not me repeating the above.
To the numbers!
Blog Stats as of 8/13/2012
Total views: 1,420,684
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 1,474
Comments: 21,858
Blog Stats as of 8/12/2011
Total views: 1,035,401
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 1,166
Comments: 16,129
Blog Stats 2010
Total views: 692,972
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 843
Comments: 11,790
Blog Stats 2009
Total views: 335,842
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 523
Comments: 5,393
Blog Stats 2008
Total views: 104,123
Busiest day: 11,852 – Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 253
Comments: 1,658
I think at this point I need to pay off a major website to link to some post to knock off that Sep 6th, 2007 post. It’s getting kinda silly. Comments increased nicely, thanks to everyone who took the time. I made a total of 308 posts, which while not a record seems like a huge amount to me right now, especially in a year when the general MMO trend was “Game X is coming ‘soon’” and soon never happened.
Top Posts for all days ending 2012-08-13
Rift Review (EG Style) – 54,525
The love and hate game, WoW style. – 18,228
The real Rift review – 18,100
EQ2, trial of the neverending download. – 12,542
Kingdom Conquest tips – 12,367
Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk battleship. – 11,373
iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday. – 10,792
Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. – 9,442
DarkFall Review: One Year Later – 7,863
Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it. – 7,709
Top Posts for all days ending 2011-08-12
Rift Review (EG Style) 53,619
The love and hate game, WoW style. 17,966
The real Rift review 12,737
EQ2, trial of the neverending download. 11,812
iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday. 10,749
Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk battleship. 9,641
Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. 8,809
Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it. 7,572
DarkFall Review: One Year Later 6,581
Warhammer’s major problem, the players. 6,191
The top spots remain unchanged, and with only some minor bump-ups in numbers. The big gainer was the real Rift review, which at least is a ‘real’ post. The top ten here is seriously looking like “slow blog day, better type something random/dumb/pointless” all-star list. The gift that is Google everyone. Also something should be said about that Kingdom Conquest post and how iPhone gaming is a big deal and really important now and blablabla.
WordPress, as they seem to always do, changed how they display stats and have made it no longer possible to copy/paste Referrers over, so this section is going to look a little different.
They also group things like search engines now. Thanks… Out of the 60k+ referrers from the Search Engine category, 55k was from Google. To state the obvious, Google is the only search engine in town that matters. Bing is a pathetic 1628, and it’s second.
Jestertrek takes the next spot with 11,612, followed by Google Reader (6491), WordPress.com (3806), Nilsmmoblog (1923), evenews24 (1820), TAGN (1817), Reddit (1744), Keen and Graev (1545), and finally Werit (1237) .
I question WordPress here, not only because the overall numbers look fishy, but because Kill Ten Rats is not even in the top 20. Sad, as I always liked seeing who brings people here, and found how that whole aspect of blogging works interesting.
Search Terms for all days ending 2012-08-13
rift review 50,531
hardcore casual 12,655
syncaine 9,453
darkfall review 6,005
rift reviews 5,495
elo hell 3,242
field runners 3,149
kingdom conquest 2,948
dragon age review 2,778
darkfall reviews 1,707
umadbro 1,707
Search Terms for all days ending 2011-08-12
rift review – 47,448
hardcore casual – 10,242
syncaine – 5,560
darkfall review – 5,503
rift reviews – 5,279
field runners – 3,149
elo hell – 2,791
dragon age review – 2,764
kingdom conquest – 1,865
darkfall reviews – 1,604
perpetuum review – 1,386
First the obvious, how funny is it that “darkfall reviews” and “umadbro” are tied for 10th at exactly 1707? Other than that, again just more of the same. The list is largely unchanged, and the numbers overall have gone up just a bit. The lesson here is that once your site is associated with a particular search term, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.
So what to expect for year 5? I’m guessing GW2 will (continue) to cause waves, and hopefully we are not writing “what went wrong” posts in three months. Because if GW2 does indeed fail to truly entertain on an MMO scale (6+ months at the absolute minimum), 2013 is going to be a lot more of the same (EVE).
Speaking of EVE, I’ll be interested to see where INQ-E goes. We are in a bit of a summer lull right now, and still trying to figure out exactly what we want out of HAHA and deep WH space. I expect that once summer is over, alliance-wide activity will ramp back up, and with it INQ-E’s role. The winter expansion will likely play a pretty key role here as well.
Aria and I still play LoL almost daily. Playing the game is easy when your wife fiends for it, and it’s hard to say “no honey, I don’t want to play that computer game with you” with a straight face. That said, I will be forcing her to play GW2 with the rest of INQ, and have (jokingly but not really but yea) threatened to have her LoL account temp-banned to make that happen. The things we do for our loved ones, right?
Long-shots: DF2.0 comes out. Pathfinder comes out and is not a technical mess like 90% of all indy MMOs. Some random MMO comes out of left field and surprises us. Tortanic is a massive hit as a F2P title (haha just kidding, 0.0 chance of that happening).
5 years. I feel so old…
(Sorry for some of the formatting and lack of links. WordPress + Word + Copy/paste does not always yield great results)
15 Comments | Blogroll, Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
Its Fantasy Football time again.
If you would like to play in the league I’ve been running for the last few years, just drop me an email (syncaine at yahoo) and I’ll send you an invite. It’s not a super-serious league, but if you do sign up please play out the season regardless of how badly I’m destroying you.
Coaches from last year have been sent a reminder/invite. If you have any issues, also drop me a note.
Leave a Comment » | Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
I’m off on no-Internet vacation until August 6th, so this blog will be quiet until then.
When I get back I’ll be sure to talk a little about SW:TOR shutting down (that’s still scheduled for next week, right?), as well as likely reopen recruitment in EVE (train up those scanning skills).
Behave yourselves until then.
Dear EAWare and SOE: Please don’t release any blog-worthy announcements until I get back. I so do hate missing quality bash opportunities.
Ah who am I kidding, zero chance you guys can go a week without something stupid coming out.
4 Comments | EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, Site update, SW:TOR | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
RL interruption: I’m currently looking for a new job. I’m a business analyst in IT right now, with experience running projects and just received my PMP. If you work at a place near Boston MA that has an opening, or know someone who might, please email me.
If you help me land a job I’ll let you join my EVE Corp!
12 Comments | Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
The only fact that exists about WoW right now related to its success and failure is that it went from a game that was rapidly growing to one that is rapidly shrinking.
Every comment or theory behind the ‘why’ is an opinion. Blizzard has an opinion, I have an opinion, and commentators here have an opinion. I’m waiting for Azuriel to give his opinion. He has so far spent a lot of time, a lot of typing, and a lot of quoting to show that my opinion of the ‘why’ is not a fact.
Thanks.
Backing up an opinion with a fact (WoW is shrinking) does not make the original opinion a fact itself. I find it terribly boring to debate this, since, you know, it’s not a debate.
What I don’t find boring, and clearly what others are interested in reading, are just those opinions about the ‘why’. It’s actually what this blog is mostly about (well that and shilling Darkfall).
You know what else is boring? Spending a lot of time/typing arguing something that was never actually said (At least seriously, good trolling is an art after all). Counter-arguing that making WoW harder/easier would not have completely solved all its woes is pointless. Difficulty/accessibility is not some be-all end-all cure/disease for an MMO. It’s a factor, and perhaps a very important one, but not THE one and only factor. But in order to keep posts focused, and in order to keep them at a length that most people find readable, I often talk about one factor at a time. That does not mean that magically that one point is now all-important, and pointing this out in every post is a waste of everyone’s time.
EVE is not solely successful because everyone plays on one server.
EVE is in-part successful because everyone plays on one server.
And the above is not fact. It’s my opinion. We all on the same page here?
I love to debate MMO design and theory. Tell me why you think something works. Tell me why you think it doesn’t. Feel free to use past experiences or the success/failure of games to support this. Bring up some little-known fact from some game as an example of something. All good. Really good actually.
But don’t attempt to turn a discussion of opinion into some scientific formula where you plug in a few values and get an absolute result. Not only does it not work, it’s not very entertaining.
And at the end of the day, that’s why we read blogs, to be entertained (fact).
(Bonus points if you can tell me the source of this post’s title)
17 Comments | Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
Prompted by a comment, I have 19 (across two accounts) available Buddy invites for EVE, which gives you a 21 day extended trial (if you sign up for the game I get 30 days credited to my account). If you would be interested in the trail please comment here, and use a valid email account (I’ll see the email account and send you the invite, no need to post your actual email in the text of the comment itself).
The Corporation I’m in, DiS, is also looking for a few more pilots, new or old, to grow our numbers and enable us to do some of the bigger content (lvl 5 missions, incursions, large-scale mining Ops, low/null-sec PvP trips). The first bit of advice all new pilots are given is to join a Corp, and we at DiS are more than happy to assist new players in learning the ropes. My two pilots are SynCaine and Zealot Syn, feel free to contact either of them when you get in-game.
17 Comments | EVE Online, Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
The Hardcore Sunday Casual Funday fantasy football league is back! If you are interested let me know here and I’ll send you an invite. Please only join up if you can stay active the entire season.
17 Comments | Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
I’m like the WoW Magazine of yearly blog reviews; each one is out just a little later than the previous one.
Four years.
Now officially longer than any job I’ve had, longer than any relationship I’ve had other than to Ms. SynCaine, and certainly longer than any MMO I’ve played.
Let’s knock out the numbers first.
Blog Stats as of 8/12/2011
Total views: 1,035,401
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 1,166
Comments: 16,129
Blog Stats 2010
Total views: 692,972
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 843
Comments: 11,790
Blog Stats 2009
Total views: 335,842
Busiest day: 11,852 — Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 523
Comments: 5,393
Blog Stats 2008
Total views: 104,123
Busiest day: 11,852 – Thursday, September 6, 2007
Posts: 253
Comments: 1,658
So I never did a “hey look, a million views” post. Consider this it. Hey look, a million+ views.
Still no one has dethroned that Sept 6th day, although I believe one day earlier this year came close. Maybe next year.
Not much to report on the posts-per-year front either. Very similar to 2010. I consider that a good thing, and I’m always amazed that after four+ years, I still find something to write about almost every day.
Bit of a dip in comments this year than last. Not sure how to explain that one, although a lack of blog wars is surely to blame. I think it says something about the state of the genre when I agree with too many blogs too often to even warrant a cross-post. Everyone get off my “WoW sucks” bandwagon, please?
Rift Review (EG Style) 53,619
The love and hate game, WoW style. 17,966
The real Rift review 12,737
EQ2, trial of the neverending download. 11,812
iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday. 10,749
Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk battleship. 9,641
Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. 8,809
Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it. 7,572
DarkFall Review: One Year Later 6,581
Warhammer’s major problem, the players. 6,191
The love and hate game, WoW style. – 17,626
iPhone MMO, Field Runners, and a slow Friday – 10,564
EQ2, trial of the neverending download. – 9,796
Aion end-game, way ahead of WoW and WAR. – 7,701
Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finished it- 7,488
Level 4 missions in EVE, and my silly Rohk – 7,130
Warhammer’s major problem, the players. – 5,694
Dragon Age review – 5,378
DarkFall: 3 month review – 4,624
Screen shot comparison. – 4,260
Not hard to see the big change here. Due to some luck with Google, and showing that EG-style reporting ‘works’, we have a new highest viewed post, and by a large margin. Why is it that all the big number stuff around blogs (top post, top pageview day, etc) is always a random stupid joke? Why can’t it be that one post you really poured some effort into? It’s almost like it would be better to invent the pet rock than to cure cancer. Wait… Nevermind.
The bar to make the top ten has increased by about 2500 views, knocking some longstanding posts off, so it’s nice to see the Darkfall review post hang on. It says something about EVE’s consistency that people are still looking up how to run level 4 missions in a Rohk (how many people are looking up how to down Onyxia these days?), and I’m always amused that people are STILL Googling about that EQ2 download and how brisk it is.
Referrers for 365 days ending 2011-08-12
virginworlds.com – 4,351
Google Reader – 3,810
killtenrats.com – 2,637
greedygoblin.blogspot.com – 1,865
Google – 1,806
biobreak.wordpress.com – 1,601
tagn.wordpress.com – 1,138
massively.joystiq.com – 839
tobolds.blogspot.com – 803
solomid.net – 628
New to this year’s review is a 365 day overview of referrers, rather than an all-time list. What’s interesting is that VirginWorlds is still #1, despite the site not linking this blog for some time now thanks to me registering the syncaine.com domain. I’m not sure if Brent is WoW-ing VW and has moved on or what, but I’ve noticed fewer and fewer blogs get linked over there. Fix it up Brent, VW was/is a great site!
KTR was the #1 blog for sending people here. I love that site, and where else can you get a comprehensive list of engineers with turrets from various MMOs? Exactly.
Funny that GreedyGoblin is on the list, but I guess it was only a matter of time before he started linking to the #1 WoW blog, right?
Rounding out the top 10 is solomid, which is a League of Legends guide site. Guess people liked that Warwick guide I had up there (now outdated thanks to WW getting nerfed, thanks Riot).
Search Terms for all days ending 2011-08-12
rift review – 47,448
hardcore casual – 10,242
syncaine – 5,560
darkfall review – 5,503
rift reviews – 5,279
field runners – 3,149
elo hell – 2,791
dragon age review – 2,764
kingdom conquest – 1,865
darkfall reviews – 1,604
perpetuum review – 1,386
Search Terms for all days ending 2010-08-02
hardcore casual – 6,772
syncaine – 3,466
darkfall review – 3,275
field runners – 3,149
dragon age review – 2,439
darkfall reviews – 1,097
aion endgame – 1,038
wotlk – 1,000
darkfall account – 913
wheel of time mmo – 773
People go to Google to search for reviews. Especially Rift.
I have to say it was pretty disappointing year overall for me with MMOs. Rift fell off the “Not in Azeroth” wagon in record time, Aventurine has basically stopped updating DF1 to play “is it vaporware?” with Darkfall 2.0, and the only things on the horizon that I’m even remotely interested in is GW2 (and that’s very 50/50) and Prime, which is also a 50/50 based on some of the info we know (3-way PvP, good. ‘Discovery’ crafting, bad).
With that said, if DF2.0 actually gets released in 2012, I’m guessing I’ll be back to playing one single game for a while. Or if Prime shapes up and gets Inquisition playing as a clan, that would be cool. Maybe GW2 will actually be a decent PvP MMO. Could happen. Problem is, none of those things are even close to a “sure thing”, and the next few months look like they will be filled with more LoL and whatever single player game crosses my desktop. Not terrible by any means, but I am an MMO gamer at heart, and not having a solid title to play for so long is disappointing.
Four years though; still kinda unreal.
4 Comments | Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
On vacation right now, so blogging activity might take a little dip for the next week or so. I’ve got a laptop so I should be able to post a bit, but we’ll see.
Azuriel over at Player Vs Auction House makes a very interesting point: even if someone loves sRPGs, but plays anywhere close to the amount MMO players play, they very quickly “run out of content” even if they pick up all the sRPG offering for a given year. Many of them then turn to MMOs.
IMO devs should not be trying to recreate the single player experience with stuff like solo instances and phasing, but instead trying to ease RPG fans into what really makes an MMO great, the massive multiplayer aspect. Soloing should be an option, because even die-hard MMO players sometimes want to just do something quick, but the really good stuff should be multiplayer, be it group content or just a random gathering of players doing something. I have some thoughts on all that, but figured I’d throw the idea out here first with a quick post.
14 Comments | MMO design, Site update | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine
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