w_earle_wheeler
First Post
I like the idea of Kickstarter projects, but I don't think they should be in the "News" category.
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COMING SOON! -- Archetype Anthology: A Dozen Archetypes for D&D 5th Edition on Kickstarter! From dual-wielding tempests to planar explorers -- a softcover collection of new archetypes for your 5th Edition game!
Kickstarter Too many Kickstarter projects? Is Kickstarter the new d20 glut?
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
gamerprinter
First Post
I don't know. RPG Kickstarters tend to be about new products for gamers not yet in existence - sounds like news to me. And as I mentioned further up, most of the other 'News' items other than Kickstarters aren't very 'new-sy' to me.
Everyone has a different perspective on it, I suppose.
Well you got half your wish! They're all on the separate site. It's just the inclusion here that's at question.
The idea of just having the [in my opinion] cool ones here will mean me effectively saying "no, yours isn't cool enough" to a lot of insistent people who will get really pissed at me. Not that I'm not used to that, but it's another factor.
And putting them in a separate forum here on ENW is - let's all be honest - the same fate as not covering them at all.
Tricky little thread to tread.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Well you got half your wish! They're all on the separate site. It's just the inclusion here that's at question.
The idea of just having the [in my opinion] cool ones here will mean me effectively saying "no, yours isn't cool enough" to a lot of insistent people who will get really pissed at me. Not that I'm not used to that, but it's another factor.
And putting them in a separate forum here on ENW is - let's all be honest - the same fate as not covering them at all.
Tricky little thread to tread.
Yeah, it's a fine line. Do you want to be a full-coverage news site with little to no appearance of bias or a site that gives the opinions of yourself and a select few as to what is newsworthy? Ultimately, there's no real conflict in being either provided you are up front about what kind of site it is. Where it would be problematic is in professing to be the former but becoming the latter. I still advocate for roundups with breakouts based on the traction they gain in the community. It also allows you as first citizen of the community, so to speak, to keep things tidy, cover all of the cool stuff, and not miss the things that the community finds cool even if it doesn't necessarily appeal to you on first blush. Seems like the best of all worlds.
prosfilaes
Adventurer
I'm not sure I see the distinction. Any news site shows a limited number of articles selected for newsworthiness by a small group of people.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Naw. In a niche market (or industry) where there's a limited amount of actual news a "full-coverage" site has the luxury of not needing to pick and choose, nor editorialize based on their own likes/dislikes etc. Another way to go is to focus on the few large companies in the field, and a handful of personal favorites from the broad field below the big companies, but that can have the effect of causing those looking for news to divide their time between numerous sites to get the full range of news. Covering too few of the sites overall, and folks looking for news will go direct to the source of the few being covered, particularly if there isn't much perspective given beyond the straight news itself. This site has one advantage in that a lot of discussion happens here in the forums, which helps bring folks around.
The advent of mirroring threads between the news forum/front page and the other forums has done much to revitalize the front page after a period where Morrus seemed concerned that too much traffic was skpping the front page and only using the forums. There's still no guarantee that such mirroring will continue to have that desired outcome if the news/front page doesn't have enough additional material as a drawn in its own right. Right now I can imagine there are some folks, those who are only interersted in 5E information, frequent the 5E forum and don't bother checking the front page because much, if not all, of the info they want exists in the 5E forum as mirrored threads from the front page without the need to wade through other news items (items that also don't retabulate based on how lively they happen to be). That might be one of the downsides of this mirroring. Plus, of course, there aren't new 5E products or reviews of same yet to draw 5E-only folks toward the front page.
Anyway, the broader the news coverage, the more likely folks will use EN world, and its front page, as their main andpossibly only news source for RPGs and related items. That's my own opinion anyway.
Anthraxus
Explorer
Well you got half your wish! They're all on the separate site. It's just the inclusion here that's at question.
The idea of just having the [in my opinion] cool ones here will mean me effectively saying "no, yours isn't cool enough" to a lot of insistent people who will get really pissed at me. Not that I'm not used to that, but it's another factor.
And putting them in a separate forum here on ENW is - let's all be honest - the same fate as not covering them at all.
Tricky little thread to tread.
In that case, Morrus- It's not that bad reading through all the kickstarter announcements on the news page. You can ignore them at your leisure. And I do like the separate site that shows all the RPG focused kickstarters. There's a bunch I would have missed that I am interested in, if I had not seen them collected on the separate site!
IronWolf
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This seems like a nice compromise to me. A digest for kickstarters, link off to the Tumblr site which can have more details. As some seem to get more attention by buzz on the social networks or other places, then possibly a more highlighted news entry.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
Yup. The "more details" can come in the form of a critique/editorial, discussing the potential merits of the product, the history (if any) of the producer, perhaps even how well presented the actual Kickstarter page/video happens to be. There can also be a running followup to see how some of them turn out.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
It is awfully generous of you guys to volunteer me for more work! Anything else you'd like done?
Well, you've got a WotC guy and a Paizo guy. It's probably never been worthwhile to get a guy for each publisher below the level of those two larger companies but maybe getting a Kickstarter guy might be useful to you?
IronWolf
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These guys cost money!
Maybe see if you can reinstitute the newshound position and toss the person chosen for digesting and focusing on Kickstarters gets a free copper or silver subscription. Still costs you some money, but not a lot and eases the workload.
Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
These guys cost money!
Perhaps you can approach Kickstarter to see if they will advertise on EN World to offset the cost of a third roundup guy?
So - find a guy that will do it for a few coffees per year? Man, you're optimistic! You know this has occured to me, right?
Lwaxy
Cute but dangerous
What about making it so that kickstarters and similar stuff get condensed into one post each week? Anyone who wants theirs included could just submit it to whoever is in charge, and whoever is in charge might as well rotate through the mods or volunteers?
Really shouldn't be so hard, it's done like that elsewhere.
Really shouldn't be so hard, it's done like that elsewhere.
IronWolf
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So - find a guy that will do it for a few coffees per year? Man, you're optimistic! You know this has occured to me, right?
Heh! Well, with some of the perks of the Silver level it isn't an all bad deal if someone on the site happens to already keep up with the Kickstarter world. Craft up a digest post everyday, watch to see what seems to be popular or choose one or two a week to do a focus news blurb on.
pogre
Legend
Yes.
Options I would like:
- a round-up of kickstarters; or
- a more select group of kickstarters highlighted
both would cost you either time or money.
If it's a choice between the current state and no kickstarters - I vote no kickstarters.
A couple of days ago I started dodging the front page and going straight to the forums because of the kickstarter stuff.
KidSnide
Adventurer
I agree with the sentiment that the kickstarter announcements are taking up too much space in the news thread. I look to the left of my screen and 9 of the 15 "hottest news items" are kickstarter threads (including this one). I like finding out about new projects, but too few of these announcements generate enough replies to be worth the mindspace they are taking up. I think a weekly summary of RPG-related projects would be a more sensible way of presenting the information.
I don't mind that each of the WotC articles are given a separate thread. I'm not sure that more than half are actually newsworthy, but this is a D&D news site and the uninteresting threads were dropping of the hottest news list fast enough (even before kickstarted started pushing everything off the list).
-KS
I don't mind that each of the WotC articles are given a separate thread. I'm not sure that more than half are actually newsworthy, but this is a D&D news site and the uninteresting threads were dropping of the hottest news list fast enough (even before kickstarted started pushing everything off the list).
-KS