Sunday, December 12, 2010

Time for some feedback


Alright guys, it's been a while since I got this whole thing started.

Let's reflect all the things I've done this year:
  • Got my Space Marine section going; doing strategy, army lists and guides on C:SM, Blood Angels and Space Wolves.
  • Got my Warmachine section going; the same thing to my Cygnar and Retribution armies.
  • Got my High Elves and Dwarfs going; but don't have as much going for it as I would like.
  • Got my Dark Eldar section going; from start to finish and covering a lot of army lists and strategic analysis.
  • Joined a shit ton of blogging networks to get my blog out there and share my ideas with other bloggers world wide.
  • Lastly, I've obtained over 130k visits and frequent viewers from around the world.  I started this blog in March and worked like a crazy man all year.. so this I'm especially proud at.

So let's see what I do well:
  • Brainstorming competitive army lists
  • Building strategy guides
  • Going over strategic options
  • Analyzing other people's work and giving them feedback

Things I don't do well:
  • I can't seem to finish what I started either because of work, family or lack of interest.  This isn't going to change I don't think.  High Elves and the army specific guides is a perfect example of this.  Overtime hit at the same time as this and by the time it was over, I ran out of steam.  Such is life.
  • The YDIW was a bad idea and I would like to apologize for my more sensitive readers.  Even though I'm a competitive player, I have to accept the fact that the majority of the players in miniatures gaming is not.  So... I took down the section and I'm looking for other ideas.

So where does that leave us.. oh yes, feedback:
  • What would you like to see more of in terms of content?  More BRs, more guides, more what?  Keep in mind that I'm a competitive player so a fluff bunny section is not going to happen.
  • Google Analytics is telling me that my Dark Eldar section is very popular.  I guess keep up the good work on that?
  • What about the site layout/color?  Is the new color scheme alright?  I need something that players can browse as easily as home as on their mobile phones.
The floor's open guys.  Here's your turn to tell me exactly what you like/dislike about my blog.  Oh and yes, sorry for the lack of updates.  I've been sick lately and playing the game I've been working on for the last few months, WoW: Cataclysm.  Pretty exciting game!

10 comments:

Gareth said...

Hey HERO,

I just wanted to say I think your blog is superbly written and I have benefited a great deal from your advice, lists, and tactics. I know it is not the most helpful feedback, but... just keep doing what you are doing! I check your blog daily and always find your posts to be an interesting read even if they are not relevant to one of my armies. I have enjoyed your "all-comers" lists the most and they have helped me to improve my game. The new colour scheme is fine, it is a little bright if I check it in the dark, lol. Your site layout is also good but you might be able to break things up into more detailed categories (look at the Space Wolves blog for an example). You are starting to get enough content that it wouldn't be overkill to break up things like your space marine articles. I think your Dark Eldar stuff is solid but Google Analytics information is probably a little skewed because of their recent release.

Anyway dude, keep up the great work! Cataclysm... I stopped playing WoW about 9 months ago because it was getting a little too repetitive... but I may have to start up again, it looks pretty damn sweet.

Anonymous said...

Hi there Hero, I've been lurking about your blog for almost five months now and I really appreciate what you're doing here. I strongly support your 'realistic' approach to gaming and blogging.

On the topic of YDIW. I'm a competitive player who plays in chicago and throughout the midwest. Though I enjoy sporting competition and by no means consider myself one of your 'sensitive' readers, I did find your YDIW section a bit out of character and rather tasteless.

Either way, I recommend your blog to all of my friends and continue to read your posts with anticipation.

J.T said...

I have been following this blog sinc for a couple of months sinc early summer i think or is my memory failing me?! I am from sweden and we lack good blogs as yours truly are, i like it alot and always look on it acouple of times after coming home from work to see if some updates have been made.

Things i want to se more of is how your armys are doing? are you painting anything at all or is it just going very very slowly, i find these things interesting to follow but i understand if you are mor of the gaming type.

I also want more battle reports, 40k that is.

Love to read youw analyses on your armys what is good and not and i find it quite helpful.

Also i want to see a change in colours on the blog the white is just not of my taste, black and red was a winner.

Good luck in the future and i hope you continue whit the good work you have done so far.

Minijunkie said...

Color wise I'm easy - I come for the content.

For me, I really like the unit by unit evaluations, tactics etc. Especially dark elder :)

Unknown said...

This apparently got lost in the blogger void yesterday... (or went to spam).

Advice from one blogger to another...

Back-logging. The issue blogs have compared to forums is finding information. Search and label functions only go so far, especially when you have got a lot of content (even 20 articles for one topic is annoying to trawl through). These aren’t bad functions but it can be irksome to wade through DE army lists when you're looking for DE tactics or analysis (one day Google may do a combine label search function which would be good; i.e. posts with labels Dark Eldar + Tactics).

Anyway what this all boils down to is making backlink pages rather than label pages. Rather I'd put the Labels as a cloud or drop-down menu in the side bar and have in-site pages for your primary armies and then split everything up.

For example, the Dark ELdar page, rather than having all the Dark Eldar labelled related content is a separate page with backlinks relating to Army Lists, Tactics, Battle-reports, analysis/reviews, etc. This way a new user or old user can easily find what they want rather than back-tracking through a bunch of articles through labels they may have no interest in.

This is what I did on my blog and although it's a pain to keep up to date with them at times, they get a lot of traffic and ensure there isn't a lot of repetition of people asking the same questions and people can find what they need. For example, the Armies in 5th page on my blog gets over 3000 hits a month which re-directs viewers to more than 30 pages. Whilst my pages really need some layout formatting (I too, am limited by time :P), I've found these pages are a great way to overcome some of the limitations of blogging.

Anyway, that’s my recommendation ^^. Congrats on the success btw.

Anonymous said...

Just a quick idea, just like some papers have a chess move of the day or something like that you can do a move of the month. As in, set up a scenario, turn 3, DE vs SM for example and a picture of it and let the readers submit their ideas on what to do. And at the month you can present interesting ideas and also show us the "right" choice. Aka what you would have done and why.

Eh, not the best explanation of it but I'm sure you get what I mean.

Cheers
PS: Love the blog. Keep up the good work.

Frost said...

I came here originally for the High Elves content and I would love to see more of that. I also LOVE the Warmahordes stuff. I guess at the end of the day I like more of your non-40k stuff since everyone is beating the crap out of DE...Anyways, more WM strategy please!

Also, nice work on the blog, its always an interesting read.

Arasaka said...

I've been enjoying your blog also. I prefer the white background to the black, and I also come here more for the WM/H stuff since I moved on from GW.

I quite like your Battle Reports and also your strategy musings. I think all players, competitive and otherwise, can learn a lot from them. Nobody really plays to lose games, right?

Anonymous said...

I miss the black background.

I also thought YDIW was both funny and informative. I can see how some people were offended, but the concept of the section is solid and I think if reworked slightly people would support it. There's a lot of "this sucks" on gaming sites and a lot of "this works and here's why", but not enough "this sucks, here's why, this is how it should be improved". Vitriol with substance, if you will. Maybe if the point of the section wasn't to go out and find a list to tear apart but rather to go out and find a popular list and then either praise or belittle it as necessary? You'd never run out of material at least.

I'd like to see more High Elf stuff, personally. Even if you don't have time to do matchup analysis for every single army (a daunting task to be sure, especially because there are bound to be shifts in the metagame while you're in the middle of it) even some potpourri kind of articles that are just like "this is how I kill thorek; this is how I kill steam tanks; this is how I kill a slann" would be cool. 'Grats on the success.

Anonymous said...

Great blog, really liked the High Elves articles, but want some more, especially analysis of the different matchups. I'd really like an guide on Warriors of Chaos for example.. :)

Post a Comment