Written by The TAG Team
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| Which way should we go? |
The Adventurer’s Guild started nearly 13 years ago, lovingly inspired by another blog, the CRPG Addict. Over the years, both blogs have been covering a loose timeline of games in their respective genres.
So when Chet, the chief bottlewasher at CRPG, started to have concerns over the pace of his blog lately, it made us take a look at ourselves as well.
We started the gaming year of 1993 over eight years ago, and haven’t really finished it. Even though we’ve started a few games from 1994, it is unlikely that we will even start 1995 in the next decade, at the pace we’re playing. For those of us who read Trickster’s review of The Secret of Monkey Island 11 years ago, wouldn’t it be nice to come full-circle and read the reviews of the Telltale episode games and the Ron Gilbert reboot from a couple of years ago? At the current rate, we will never get there in our natural lifespans.
Some of us would like to see a broader selection of games. It’s not helping that many of our past reviewers have had changes in their real-life situations that have interfered with their prior commitments to the blog. We have been just as dissatisfied as the readers with the slow pace of posts over the last handful of months.
So, we have a few ideas. None of these are set in stone, we want your feedback and other ideas. Because we love this blog, and don’t want it to fail. Right now, it’s having a little bit of trouble.
One idea that has been suggested before is an emulation of the “BRIEF” at CRPG. A single post for a game, where a reviewer installs the game, plays it for a little bit, researches past reviews of the games, and posts a comprehensive account. No score issued, but the game gets the attention. This would be great for some of the “lesser” titles that often get relegated to "Missed Classic" status, but also would be an option for some of the games on our playlist that no one is rushing to volunteer to play.
Are there still readers out there who might be interested in writing these smaller, less comprehensive posts?
This would also be great for some of the disregarded or borderline titles. Someone paid CAPs to force someone to review MTVs Club Dead, for example, but no one wants to play it. Given how little time some of our reviewers have, is this really a good use of their time?
Chet also suggested limiting the number of games per year, and cycling back through the years later to catch up with the ones that are missed. While it may be too late to do that for 1994, it’s a thought. Cover most of the mainline games, but only some of the borderline/disregarded titles. A lot of those titles have bogged down the blog over the years, in the opinions of some, and based on the comment activity on the posts, they are sometimes less favorably received.
Should we make our review posts less detailed? Most of our posts now are narrated walkthroughs, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the early days, Trickster left out a lot of details, and most games were finished in about two gameplay posts.
Even the comments on Chet’s post brings up some interesting points. We’re quoting a few because we’d like some feedback. Are these valid thoughts about our own blog?
“To be honest it has been a while since you played a game I found really interesting. Sure, it is sort of interesting what kind of rather unknown games are out there, but a lot of them are just not that interesting.”
“I'd also suggest that it makes even more sense to focus on 'particularly notable, fun, or important'”
“Being mechanical about covering every obscurity in order would just mean missing out on more recent obscurities in favor of older ones”
Should we tighten the standards for the games we play? We’ve sometimes become very loose, for example, with games without an English-language release. Do people enjoy reading the entries where the entire game has to be translated for them?
Maybe some of these ideas can help solve the problem of reviewers not having enough time to blog through enough games each year.
Please, please comment below with any ideas or suggestions you have, or thoughts about the ideas above.
There's some very good food for thought here. As much as I love the way the blog currently does things, I am forced to agree that it's probably causing things to move slower than many of us would prefer.
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to find a way to contribute for a long while now, but the thought of blogging a completed, detailed playthrough has always felt beyond me. However, I love the thought of writing much shorter "BRIEFs", they sound like a good idea. I would, however, want to be able to give my own thoughts on the game rather than just relying on what other reviewers have said.
There is probably some logic in reducing the games per year to focus on the more notable or important ones. I do, however, really enjoy the slightly more offbeat things too. As we get into the mid-'90s these do become more prevalent, with the delightfully silly FMV interactive movies and the like which pop up. These may of course be prime candidates for the BRIEF format, but I wouldn't want thing to be TOO glossed over.
And yes, it may be worthwhile to reduce the detail of the main posts. I'm not sure we need beat-by-beat narrated walkthroughs (although don't get me wrong, the writing of them all here is wonderful and the authors are doing fantastic jobs which I enjoy reading). An abridged playthrough, with detail given to notable events and puzzles may be more sensible. Could getting every game wrapped up in 2-3 posts be a happy compromise? (Depending on the game length, of course.)