What kind of articles do you want on the front page?

Mr. White said:

I wasn't as keen on the shotgun 'what media I've been consuming' type articles that became prevalent, but as one who didn't provide any front page content, I couldn't complain. It seemed like each of those could have spawned multiple active threads in the forums.

Who else is in agreement? What do you want to see? I notice most discussion in the articles is around non-boardgaming stuff, which is frankly sad. Should it be that way?

My favorite kinds of articles are articles about games, usually specific, that are not necessarily reviews (strategy, aars, comparisons, etc). That's still problematic because if a lot of people haven't played that game. So a better question right now might be "what can generate a discussion related to games?" I don't know the answer to that, apriori.

Articles about games that I've played and enjoy. That way I can comment on them beyond just "that looks great, can't wait to play." I think I'm in the minority though as most seem more interested in recent/upcoming releases. I thought it was great seeing a review of Eclipse pop up there. Even if a game has been reviewed elsewhere 20 times three years ago, I still want to hear the F:ATties take on it.

Yeah, I agree. I love reading any piece, even for a game I haven't played, that is based on playing a game a solid number of times with some actual insight into play. But that's a tall order.

charlest wrote: Mr. White said:

I wasn't as keen on the shotgun 'what media I've been consuming' type articles that became prevalent, but as one who didn't provide any front page content, I couldn't complain. It seemed like each of those could have spawned multiple active threads in the forums.

Who else is in agreement? What do you want to see? I notice most discussion in the articles is around non-boardgaming stuff, which is frankly sad. Should it be that way?

I'd guess it goes back to what was mentioned in that other thread. Too many games. Chances are more members have seen movie 'XXX' than have played just released boardgame 'YYY'.

As far was what I like about The Fort? I do like how it's a one stop catch-all for opinion across various media and I feel like I know some of the personalities, so it's interesting to hear their take on things. That's all clubhouse stuff though...

Front page? A few ideas:

* Maybe a weekly post of: 'Released 5/10/15/20 years ago this week/month...'. Probably get a lot of responses and I'd think the conversation could be interesting. Who's still playing these? Do the games have legs? Have they influenced anything? These sorts of things would get discussed. I'd probably do all four (5, 10, 15, & 20) in the same post to cast the widest net. Maybe 10, 20, 30 years...but whatever.

* Showcases on how folks have pimped out their games. I dig customizations.

* Tournament reports. If someone is playing at a tourney, they probably have plenty of experience with the title so can dig a little more into it as well as go over the personalities, locale, etc of the event.

* Interviews. Always interesting.

* Games From the Crypt. Bring this back!

I do think it would be neat if we held community-wide events. I tried last summer with that 'summer challenge' but it went nowhere fast. I think it'd be awesome if, say, we all decided to buy/obtain in our group a copy of a chosen game, then play the hell out of it in our groups for a month or two. We'd have plenty of recent, relevant conversation on a game. Hell, I'd sell and rotate this title out every period we chose...unless it's a keeper. Maybe chose the game a bit ahead of time so folks have time to sell/trade for it. Maybe folks are more anal about the integrity of their collections than I am though.

None of these are focused on reviewing new releases though, so aren't helpful if trying to bring eyes to The Fort via keeping up with current titles. However, most are topics current with how people are playing games, so it's not like all content would be backward facing. Still, I'd imagine these would be shuffled in with some new reviews. I guess I feel the above topics would help shift focus more on the game playing end of the hobby.

EDIT: How about links to some other fringe gaming blogs? Like that Black Diamond Games guy. I'd love to hear F:ATties comments on his posts as they come out. Maybe that isn't something for the front page though.

EDIT EDIT: Oh, I also like articles on the history of some gaming event/company/series. The Rise and Fall of TSR. The era of Mage Knight and Heroclix. The History of the Vampire LARP. An Expose on the C&C/ Combat Commander/Empire Builder/Fighting Fantasy Gamebook series. CCGs Magic killed in the 90's. And so forth. These sort of things may require more work than we pay though.

I miss reading interviews with game designers.

Interviews are hard work, even just the back-and-forth email ones. I love doing them, but there again, the incentive to do one is very low. I'm sorry Doc, but having you nod affirmatively in silence at your work PC is not enough of a ROI.

The last one I did was with Brett Murrell, the Duel of Ages guy. Barely anyone read it, barely anyone talked about it. It was a two-parter, and I felt like it was pretty good. You just don't get heat on most interviews, and if it's for a game or designer that people don't care much about it vanishes. And it's very, very difficult to get something going with someone that would be REALLY awesome to hear from, like Knizia, Kramer or someone of that stature.

I did have this one interview in my secret vaults...I can never publish it, but man, it would have been like Frost/Nixon. It was shaping up to be awesome but the other party pulled the plug on it.

Since the format change I never look at the front page anymore. I just jump on recent topics button.

On the retro reviews- well, I tried to do that last year and y'all bitched and whined...remember the ERP?

Seriously though, I like those kinds of retrospectives too, I think they are important and they can give folks insight into great games that are still relevant today. But here again, the incentive to write this kind of material is very low. Getting Jeff to break his puritanical vows and get on eBay to find a copy of Barbarian Kings or whatever is not enough of an ROI, sorry.

With the new material, there IS incentive, especially if you are doing review copies. Either you add a game to your collection, you have something to sell or trade, or something to gift to someone else. It's really quite a pittance, to be honest, for the time and effort most reviews take. But the problem is, especially now, it's hard to get any action on those kinds of reviews because people are either playing something else, not interested, or they're only looking to get a quick read on a "should buy/shouldn't buy" paradigm. For me, there is also the incentive of supporting the kinds of games and designers I like and using my stature, such as it is, to promote things like Shadows of Malice. If 100 people read that review and five go on to buy it, then I feel like I've done good. But I never really know what, if any, impact there is so it's still speculative. For all I know, 10,000 people read it, zero bought it, and one guy set a copy on fire in spite.

I said this years ago. If you want quality writing consistently, there has to be incentive and a degree of professionalism.

Michael Barnes wrote: 100 people read that review and five go on to buy it, then I feel like I've done good. But I never really know what, if any, impact there is so it's still speculative. For all I know, 10,000 people read it, zero bought it, and one guy set a copy on fire in spite.

Yes. I hold you responsible for making me buy too many games. You bastard. Set fire to them you say? Wish I had thought of that.

It sounds like what is needed are good amateur reviewers looking to build up their reputation. Its completely understandable that once someone is an established reviewer they wouldn't want to do charity reviews just because they like the website. But everyone has to start somewhere.

I hone in more on the game-related stuff (board and video). But the other material generates a lot of discussion too, and that can only be good.

I really like that articles now show up as forum posts. Keep that feature.

It's interesting that front page content tends to get views counted in the thousands, while normal forum post views can usually be counted in the hundreds. Seems to me that there are a lot of readers out there who aren't posting. I know it's been said before, but a lot of people here write some really great stuff that gets lost in the forums that probably deserves to be on the front page. Getting that good forum material to the front page might boost F:AT's visibility and maybe convert a few readers to posters.

Michael Barnes wrote: But here again, the incentive to write this kind of material is very low.

I said this years ago. If you want quality writing consistently, there has to be incentive and a degree of professionalism.

One option seems to be to charge a fee or run a donation drive or whatever so that staff writers can be paid (and of course is that even feasible, what would the actual charge need to be, all kinds of overhead to set it up, etc). Traditionally Shellie and others have been reluctant to go this route. Otherwise someone needs to find a different incentive - experience, as Mad Dog mentions, or love of F:AT, as lots of folks have shown in this thread. Not sure what other incentives there would be...

...actually what about Patreon? Donations to fund writing is basically what that site is for. Not sure if it works for a staff of people vice a singular. And the regular crowd plus lurkers may not be enough to get anywhere.

And of course there's Kickstarter - Penny Arcade famously got a ridiculous sum for basically nothing at all, but there are also podcasts and websites raising money there constantly. Even if people would be willing to run one, though, it's still work involved.

Just brainstorming here. Also mulling if I could commit to writing anything of any quality for any length of time whatsoever...

A completely off the wall idea would be piggybacking off Mr White's idea - pick a game of the year, get people to donate. Each person who donated gets it for a month and is obligated to write ... something (flashbacks to school essays) on it before sending it on. Probably won't work.

Also...and we haven't had one in a while...but could we just get rid of the Friday Freakouts and all that surrounding nonsense once and for all? I realize some folks like it somehow but I'm pretty sure it and its like have driven off more people than basically anything else.

F:AT Patreon is an interesting thought to provide a pot to distribute to F:AT writers. I'd go on the hook for some money every month for site upkeep and a little cash to people who write content.