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.)
yeah, things slowed down a lot in the last years I think. You need to open up, is there a discord community ? ours have thousands of members for example (different theme).
ReplyDeleteHaving brief reviews, or just, played the first 20 minutes post seems like the worst idea. Covering such little of a game, and then basing the rest on other reviews will put me off completely, what's the point ? I can do that myself by watching a youtube video and fast forward a walkthough to get a very quick impression. The idea is to have people with almost no knowledge of classic adventure games try to get through, document the struggles and have a good idea of when a game slows down, when it picks up, what were good ideas, what didn't work, etc.
Having said that, some posts have too many jokes or gags (even internal gags) and links to random youtube videos or random music videos or random wikipedia articles, that people from other places (like myself) won't get the reference like 90% of the time. Sorry, but I understand that those must be very famous in your home country, but not anywhere else. Those are a slog and bring down the enjoyment of the games a lot. I want to see your impressions on the game, not read tvtropes articles within articles. If you keep the posts game-centered, they will be fewer posts, and games can be finished in a month (not a year as it happened with some games)
Obscure games are also a great inclusion, I hope you don't reduce those since it's in some cases the only way to experience in full weird obscure games forgotten by history.
Again, the main problem is having the blog be treated as a closed sect. That probably worked in 2005 or so, but not anymore.
Prior to my involvement with the blog, they discussed the possibility of a Discord, but wasn't interested at the time. We could revisit that, but the argument was that the comments here would serve as the message board.
DeleteAdmittedly, my writing style is both praised and condemned -- you can't win them all -- but some of the references I make are what make writing the posts fun to me. I know I'm not the only one, because both myself and Vetinari (who lives an ocean away from me) both referenced the same film in posts written over the summer.
Again, the main problem is having the blog be treated as a closed sect.
I'm not sure I follow. We want outsiders to get involved. Over the years, there have been a handful of posts that remind people that reviewers are desperately needed. Am I misunderstanding what you mean?
The best choice seems to be reducing the amount of detail in the posts (especially when the reviewer isn't particularly interested in a game). I dislike the proposed brief playthroughs; I want real attempts to play the games to completion, and summarising games' critical receptions is done by other sites like Metacritic and Wikipedia already.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think the least radical options should be tried first, and implement more if deemed necessary.
The main problem seems to be the amount of time it takes a player to complete a game. For exemple, Gabriel Knight 1 was started in December 2024, and only completed in August 2025. Alone in the Dark two started in March and still isn't finished. I used to read every post during the Trickster era. Nowadays I just look at the final ratings. Why does it take so long the review games that generally take no more than 5 hours to beat? Do the players get stuck? Do they have to little time to play? Or is it the writing of the post that take so much time? Maybe shorter post would help.
ReplyDeleteGregory
After I took over the gameplay of Gabriel Knight, I played it rather quickly. But if I had posted as quickly, we would have had weeks without content.
DeleteI have been stretching out the posts in order to keep us posting regularly. Donkey Island and Dragonsphere are both completed, and I have written posts for the next games on my list. I want to post them sooner, but I cannot until other reviewers have more free time.
During the summer, I had some time when my job slowed down, and I created a backlog of posts. We're using them now. If I had posted them twice a week (like we did last year) there would be no posts right now at all.
For me, it takes about 2 hours to prepare and write a post for a one hour gameplay session. But that's me. As for the other reviewers, I can only speculate it's similar. And many of the past reviewers have had real life interfere with the promises they made to the readers of this blog. As a reader, it is incredibly frustrating to me, but as a human, I understand that this unpaid, volunteer project isn't a priority in that situation.
Part of me wants to suggest adding banner ads to generate an income for the writers as an incentive to honor their commitments, but that would change the flavor of the site way too much.
Writing a post definitely takes a lot longer than playing it. As does sorting through screenshots and checking notes. I appreciate I've taken a long while to get through AitD2. Some of the sections involve a lot of trial and error, and so I tend to play in bursts and write 2 or 3 posts at a time. I am also probably guilty of being to verbose... but it can be difficult to both write about a thing and cut it down too much, or you can lose nuance and detail that might be interesting.
DeleteI read these for the detail and analysis. I am not reading them for the ratings to decide which 30-year-old game to play next.
ReplyDeleteI think you should not focus on completionism. Play the "whales"--whether that's sales, historical importance, general consensus of quality, or some combination thereof--and reserve some number for, IDK, put up a list of 50 "maybe I'll do them" games for a given year and review the ten that get the most votes from the readership, something like that.
I like the idea of BRIEFs, so that games are at least mentioned (I like discovering new games, and also read on games I might not be interested in playing but that could be interesting). And if someone later feels strongly, they can do a full review.
ReplyDeleteThis appears to be the most polarizing suggestion -- and it wasn't mine. Someone else suggested it back when we did a previous post about the blog.
Delete** What follows is my own opinion and not necessarily that of other blog admins: ** Personally, I don't think we should do them, but I think we should be stricter in our criteria. No more text games. No more foreign language games. No more disregarded games, although it was an interesting way to get people to spend CAPs. (That said, my next game is a disregarded game).
But I know that at least two other admins would disagree with me, because I am complaining about their favorite pet projects. But as a reader, I cannot lie, I find myself skipping those posts.
Raising the CAP prices for games would be an option. Perhaps with even higher cost for foreign-language games and such. That way fewer games would be bought, but companions could still theoretically buy interesting but barely eligible games.
DeleteYou should go back to posting the same game consecutive, instead of bouncing from game to game
ReplyDeleteLess intensive detail per game, fewer posts per game overall, would be my vote. It doesn't really need to be a minute-by-minute kind of thing as the posts sometimes have been. Especially when a post is laden with screenshots, I start skimming. But I wouldn't be a fan of "brief" ones that are not based on a complete playthrough (or at least a serious attempt at one). There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in just rounding up others' pre-existing reviews. I want "pure" new original opinions/experiences, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI have no objection to a Discord, but only as an additional social space for chat, especially on things not directly related to the content of a specific blog post, which is maybe a bit more tractable than blog comments. It should definitely not be treated as a replacement.