In the MMO writing community as a whole there's currently a project called "The Newbie Blogger Initiative" going on, which is supposed to encourage people to start their own blogs about MMOs. I wasn't originally going to get involved simply because I don't feel that I have a lot to say on the subject. My blogging is very niche and I do quite a few things that people usually advise against, such as writing only about a single game and producing walls of text that aren't broken up by any images, so I'm probably not the best person to go to for advice.
However, looking at my SWTOR blog roll on the side gave me food for thought. I used to be quite strict about purging inactive blogs after three months, but lately I've been giving them more and more time simply because I hate to take blogs off the list and have nothing to replace them with. Maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places, but I don't see a lot of personal SWTOR blogs starting up right now, and I think that's a shame. Just because the game isn't the hottest new thing on the block anymore, doesn't mean that there isn't still a lot to be said about it!
Why should you blog? Well, it definitely isn't for everyone, however I've met plenty of people online that made me think "this person should definitely have a blog". Mostly it's about whether you like expressing yourself in writing. Basically, blogging is a logical next step if you're the type of person who likes to leave long comments on other people's posts or writes a lot on forums. The problem with these forms of writing is that things tend to get lost and buried. This is annoying if you think that what you've said was relevant and deserves more exposure, but also when it comes to archiving. Ever found yourself in a situation where you went: "I know I wrote my thoughts on this down somewhere, but I don't remember where"? Yeah, this is why it's good to have your own blog and a solid archive function. I can still go back and look at stuff I wrote about WoW four years ago, and that's nice.
So if you've got things to say about SWTOR and have ever considered starting your own blog about it, now is a good time. Just head on over to the NBI site for lots of advice on how to get started as well as plenty of opportunities to get your new blog promoted. And of course I want to hear about it too! Need more things to add to the blog roll...
P.S. You know I'm looking at you, Mace...
Need more SWTOR blogs!
ReplyDeleteHear hear!!
Seems like most of the SWTOR fandom is on Tumblr, rather than more traditional blog sites.
ReplyDelete...
Has blogging been around long enough to _have_ traditions?
Got any good SWTOR Tumblrs to recommend then?
DeleteMy problem with Tumblr is the same as with Twitter really... it's too "spammy" for my liking, as the frequent updates that are very light on original and meaningful content make it hard to just follow the stuff I find interesting.
If I come across any that seem fitting, I'll let you know. Mostly people seem to be into making fanworks.
DeleteGlad you made this call! Now just hope people will act upon it. I for one as an old-NBI newbie can tell that it was great fun to participate in this event, and it gave my blog an amazing headstart. I would also have spent a lot of time figuring things out by myself the hard way without it.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, there's definitely space for more SWTOR blogs out there. I for one would really love some more on my blogroll as well!
@Shintar: I think single-topic blogs are actually great. They have an easy time profiling themselves and readers love them because they know exactly what to expect (= stuff about their favorite game). The only danger might lie in the blogger getting bored by the game and feeling obliged to post about it instead of having fun - but as long as that's not the case I don't think you should think of it as a bad.
Also, no pics are fine as long as you put some space in between paragraphs so it doesn't end up as one big soup of words. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Tobold's blog? I believe it's a pretty well known blog, but I haven't seen a single picture there yet. Like, ever.
So you're being way too modest and would totally work as a NBI sponsor - doesn't mean you have to do it, though, of course. :D
I would love more blogs to read! I'm not a fan of tumblr or reddit because I don't feel like you get the same depth of coverage or the same quality of conversation. Especially wtih reddit, thar be trolls. And twitter is nice for posting that you HAVE a new post, but not so great for conversation.
ReplyDeleteMaybe people are going toward more short-form everything. But I'm not a big fan and I will fight with claws to keep writing, reading, and supporting long-form blog posts, regardless of what Google reader says that we do and don't read. I won't be bullied into a specific format that leads itself to terse and incomplete answers.
Write a new blog, y'all, and I will promote it! Unless you have ads from gold sellers, in which case you're on your own.
I'm right there with you. I've warmed up to Twitter a little and can see its use for some things, but let's just say that it's a very different medium and simply not something that I personally want to spend large quantities of time on.
DeleteAs a fellow Blogspot user, my approach to inactive blogs on the blogroll is to sort by most recent post and have a cutoff on how many blogs to display. This way, the inactive sites aren't really bothering anyone, but they don't fall off your radar in case they ever come back.
ReplyDeleteAnother helpful Blogspot tip - those little icons that can be displayed on the blogroll widget, such as the ones on your site? Those are remotely hosted images, which means that they're a security risk to your site. Casual Stroll to Mordor got hacked one time and were serving up some sort of malware through their little icon. They were fixed and back up and running within hours, but in that time Google flagged my blog as serving third-party malware and it took me over a day to get the site removed from the blacklist.
Well, it's not really a matter of it "bothering" anyone... I just don't like linking to sites that have gone completely dead. Personal preference I guess.
DeleteAnd I remember that particular incident... however to be honest it struck me as an odd one-time thing, and I like the little icons, so I kept them. :P