Glad to hear you're having fun! This was one of my favourite metas back in the day and might need to squeeze some games in to relive a bit of the memories. So much Jade!
I'm still trying to figure out exactly which direction we want to head for this.
Previously, a lot of the folks that have come and gone from the team would add a single article to the site each week, maybe two if it was a particularly interesting week. Although I have nothing but love for those contributions and the people that created them, it becomes difficult to have a very large team of folks who aren't contributing a ton of content because there are very real costs involved in every person that is added to the team (mostly it is a time to train people thing). It has also been my experience that people who contribute so infrequently also tend to last very long, so I want to lean in the direction of "let's find people who want to post quality content 4-5 times a week at least on the site".
With that said, I think there is definitely a plus to having both kinds of people on our staff - more eyeballs in general keep everyone on their toes and it's something I miss having.
We're undergoing a lot of just different stuff though right now and we're getting close to opening up another round of staff applications to find new folks who want to come in and make this place awesome. Our biggest problem in attracting talent is the way our pay structure works (it's all revenue based, you get what you earn) which fluctuates with site traffic, the time of the year, and even just the topics at hand - so much time spent on Mercenaries content and Legends of Runeterra that never did particularly well.
One thing that I will say though is we're going to be moving in a direction of more about the community here, which is something that has unfortunately decreased over the years. I can't really explain more than that right now.
I gotta say, I really dig the all-red design and the subtle Mario on the reverse. The coins are a nice easter egg for all those times when you need to dig into the back to swap your HDMI cord with another console... not that I have to do that all the time or anything.
TVs and as an extension, AVRs need more HDMI ports. How am I supposed to plug all my things in at once with only 7?
Criticism is certainly deserved. We simply haven't been giving Hearthstone the care it deserves. Our team is a lot smaller than it used to be and not all of us are playing the game like we used to and in some cases some folks simply aren't around anymore at the usual times when content drops - life changes can suck for that!
Had I of been around yesterday, we'd have had the patch notes up when Blizzard posted them. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was get the patch notes up and kickstarted our datamining process so that we can have fresh card images up later on.
This is, however, something I do want to change. We need to find a couple of dedicated, passionate Hearthstone players who can deliver timely and well-put-together articles for everyone. We certainly have the audience for it still and I'd rather people avoid the cesspool that are a couple of the other sites in the HS community if we can push out good content for them. Hearthstone will likely always be a pillar of our website and it's certainly important to know your roots.
Bad gateway errors are never intentional. Receiving one just means the server had an issue processing your request. If it immediately resolves itself, it's not really an issue. If a page only ever gives you a 502, that's a problem. Ideally we'd never have any 502s happening, but certain race conditions have them pop up on occasion and it can be annoying to track down.
Cloudflare check on posting is intentional. It breaks enough of the automated bots that it has become a neccessary evil.
The scariest part about it is the people who are leveling just to grief others when you finally get to the end content. The mental torture that is involved in playing hardcore WoW isn't something I want to think about much.
Will I play it? I'll probably level something, casually, for fun. Almost zero chance of doing a raid though and if we're talking dungeons, I'd only play with friends that I know won't screw anything up.
Yeah there are some interesting texture issues. It seems like they did an engine upgrade to the same engine (or parts of it) that run PoE 2 now that they've shown more of it off which will hopefully mean when the beta for that drops next year, these issues will get fixed. I've never seen a missing strongbox - though I suppose I wouldn't know if I didn't catch a tooltip!
I've been having client lockups that have resulted in many lost experience bars and even the odd trial =(
Yeah they didn't really do a good introduction for it. It's a bit like the Syndicate stuff where the only helping hand is a little (?) that you can click on. And don't get me wrong, Path of Exile is already a game that requires a lot of outside-the-game resources so I lean towards it being okay, but just a little bit more would be nice.
I feel that GGG must think that the community will do a better job anyway so let them handle it.
I have zero desire to accept money from parties in exchange for talking about their games. It's one thing to affiliate link games where possible (Amazon, Humble) but getting paid by developers is not a road I want to go down because that's how you end up with IGN dishing out 9/10 reviews for trash.
If devs want to provide a review copy of a game with the understanding that it isn't going to influence our coverage or opinions, sure. But if anyone on the team accepts any money from a developer to write a review or cover a game, they're getting kicked to the curb. That's one of the biggest problems with games journalism.
A lot of tabletop products go straight for kickstarters. Let's you better estimate the print run you'll need out of the gates, let's you offer people upgrades, and most importantly, mitigates the financial risk entirely.
I do kinda hate it, but I also can't ignore the hype that can be generated through crowdfunding. That in turn creates FOMO and now you've got yourself a copy of a game you maybe didn't really need to be buy right then and there lol.
I bought a copy of Riot's Mechs vs Minions when it originally launched due to FOMO. It's quite a fun game but if it wasn't marketed as having limited supply and being serialized, I don't know if I would have ever bought it. It was a couple of years before I actually ended up playing it.
I'm going to be diving deep into Path of Exile's new league, Trial of the Ancestors, on August 18. I'm thankful they launch these at night here so it doesn't typically interfere with the day. I've currently got a playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, which I started for the first time the other night when it was clear I wasn't getting to sleep anytime soon. Oracle of Seasons and Ages just dropped on Switch Online so I will need to find a time to play that as well. World of Warcraft will certainly also make an appearance, as it does during the month to complete the Trading Post as a bare minimum.
Last month I had a chance to sneak in a play of Techtonica which released a couple weeks ago. I've got most of the outline of a review ready to go, I just need to fill in the missing parts. Spoiler alert: It's a great factory/automation game and although it's a bit on the shallow end right now, you can see where it is going and I'm pumped for it.
Link, after getting to read all your Baldgur's Gate content, it makes me want to check it out (would be my first BG game) but I have no idea if I'll actually have the time considering there is a million other things to do outside of playing games. Maybe one day when it goes on sale...
It also sounds like you have a ton of games on the go which would drive me crazy. I'm already worried about my simple Cyberpunk playthrough that I started (and Tears of the Kingdom which I have yet to finish) being left in the dust to everything else and then if I do return to it one day, I'll have forgotten where I was and either alt+f4 or restart entirely.
Cheers to August!
Oh, also, I need to find some time to play more F1 2023. I have like an hour in it which is kinda sad times. No race weekends this month due to the F1 mandatory summer break does open up some time.
100% report the issue to Blizzard. I saw some code changes they made with the game update this week regarding how tradeable works internally so I wouldn't be surprised if there are issues with it on the client-side.
For those interested, the deck region to change cards now can have more than just one or two types of cards dragged on top of it to perform actions. Maybe they are planning on more drag to deck functionality of cards.
These cards ended up being lost during a data migration which is why we're... rendering the entire card database again. It's a lengthy project with there being almost 30k cards to render but we will be fixing cards on the site in batches. I am expecting us to have the stuff in standard done first, which should help with deckbuilding.
Glad to hear you're having fun! This was one of my favourite metas back in the day and might need to squeeze some games in to relive a bit of the memories. So much Jade!
Ah shoot, I had this written down incorrectly on my calendar. We'll get a reminder up for folks soonish.
I had tomorrow, the launch of Twist, as being the date for Caverns of Time.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly which direction we want to head for this.
Previously, a lot of the folks that have come and gone from the team would add a single article to the site each week, maybe two if it was a particularly interesting week. Although I have nothing but love for those contributions and the people that created them, it becomes difficult to have a very large team of folks who aren't contributing a ton of content because there are very real costs involved in every person that is added to the team (mostly it is a time to train people thing). It has also been my experience that people who contribute so infrequently also tend to last very long, so I want to lean in the direction of "let's find people who want to post quality content 4-5 times a week at least on the site".
With that said, I think there is definitely a plus to having both kinds of people on our staff - more eyeballs in general keep everyone on their toes and it's something I miss having.
We're undergoing a lot of just different stuff though right now and we're getting close to opening up another round of staff applications to find new folks who want to come in and make this place awesome. Our biggest problem in attracting talent is the way our pay structure works (it's all revenue based, you get what you earn) which fluctuates with site traffic, the time of the year, and even just the topics at hand - so much time spent on Mercenaries content and Legends of Runeterra that never did particularly well.
One thing that I will say though is we're going to be moving in a direction of more about the community here, which is something that has unfortunately decreased over the years. I can't really explain more than that right now.
I gotta say, I really dig the all-red design and the subtle Mario on the reverse. The coins are a nice easter egg for all those times when you need to dig into the back to swap your HDMI cord with another console... not that I have to do that all the time or anything.
TVs and as an extension, AVRs need more HDMI ports. How am I supposed to plug all my things in at once with only 7?
Criticism is certainly deserved. We simply haven't been giving Hearthstone the care it deserves. Our team is a lot smaller than it used to be and not all of us are playing the game like we used to and in some cases some folks simply aren't around anymore at the usual times when content drops - life changes can suck for that!
Had I of been around yesterday, we'd have had the patch notes up when Blizzard posted them. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was get the patch notes up and kickstarted our datamining process so that we can have fresh card images up later on.
This is, however, something I do want to change. We need to find a couple of dedicated, passionate Hearthstone players who can deliver timely and well-put-together articles for everyone. We certainly have the audience for it still and I'd rather people avoid the cesspool that are a couple of the other sites in the HS community if we can push out good content for them. Hearthstone will likely always be a pillar of our website and it's certainly important to know your roots.
Bad gateway errors are never intentional. Receiving one just means the server had an issue processing your request. If it immediately resolves itself, it's not really an issue. If a page only ever gives you a 502, that's a problem. Ideally we'd never have any 502s happening, but certain race conditions have them pop up on occasion and it can be annoying to track down.
Cloudflare check on posting is intentional. It breaks enough of the automated bots that it has become a neccessary evil.
The scariest part about it is the people who are leveling just to grief others when you finally get to the end content. The mental torture that is involved in playing hardcore WoW isn't something I want to think about much.
Will I play it? I'll probably level something, casually, for fun. Almost zero chance of doing a raid though and if we're talking dungeons, I'd only play with friends that I know won't screw anything up.
Yeah there are some interesting texture issues. It seems like they did an engine upgrade to the same engine (or parts of it) that run PoE 2 now that they've shown more of it off which will hopefully mean when the beta for that drops next year, these issues will get fixed. I've never seen a missing strongbox - though I suppose I wouldn't know if I didn't catch a tooltip!
I've been having client lockups that have resulted in many lost experience bars and even the odd trial =(
Yeah they didn't really do a good introduction for it. It's a bit like the Syndicate stuff where the only helping hand is a little (?) that you can click on. And don't get me wrong, Path of Exile is already a game that requires a lot of outside-the-game resources so I lean towards it being okay, but just a little bit more would be nice.
I feel that GGG must think that the community will do a better job anyway so let them handle it.
I have zero desire to accept money from parties in exchange for talking about their games. It's one thing to affiliate link games where possible (Amazon, Humble) but getting paid by developers is not a road I want to go down because that's how you end up with IGN dishing out 9/10 reviews for trash.
If devs want to provide a review copy of a game with the understanding that it isn't going to influence our coverage or opinions, sure. But if anyone on the team accepts any money from a developer to write a review or cover a game, they're getting kicked to the curb. That's one of the biggest problems with games journalism.
A lot of tabletop products go straight for kickstarters. Let's you better estimate the print run you'll need out of the gates, let's you offer people upgrades, and most importantly, mitigates the financial risk entirely.
I do kinda hate it, but I also can't ignore the hype that can be generated through crowdfunding. That in turn creates FOMO and now you've got yourself a copy of a game you maybe didn't really need to be buy right then and there lol.
I bought a copy of Riot's Mechs vs Minions when it originally launched due to FOMO. It's quite a fun game but if it wasn't marketed as having limited supply and being serialized, I don't know if I would have ever bought it. It was a couple of years before I actually ended up playing it.
Great on getting this started, Link! Hyah!
I'm going to be diving deep into Path of Exile's new league, Trial of the Ancestors, on August 18. I'm thankful they launch these at night here so it doesn't typically interfere with the day. I've currently got a playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, which I started for the first time the other night when it was clear I wasn't getting to sleep anytime soon. Oracle of Seasons and Ages just dropped on Switch Online so I will need to find a time to play that as well. World of Warcraft will certainly also make an appearance, as it does during the month to complete the Trading Post as a bare minimum.
Last month I had a chance to sneak in a play of Techtonica which released a couple weeks ago. I've got most of the outline of a review ready to go, I just need to fill in the missing parts. Spoiler alert: It's a great factory/automation game and although it's a bit on the shallow end right now, you can see where it is going and I'm pumped for it.
Link, after getting to read all your Baldgur's Gate content, it makes me want to check it out (would be my first BG game) but I have no idea if I'll actually have the time considering there is a million other things to do outside of playing games. Maybe one day when it goes on sale...
It also sounds like you have a ton of games on the go which would drive me crazy. I'm already worried about my simple Cyberpunk playthrough that I started (and Tears of the Kingdom which I have yet to finish) being left in the dust to everything else and then if I do return to it one day, I'll have forgotten where I was and either alt+f4 or restart entirely.
Cheers to August!
Oh, also, I need to find some time to play more F1 2023. I have like an hour in it which is kinda sad times. No race weekends this month due to the F1 mandatory summer break does open up some time.
Sneak peek! Community compendium to get that hype rolling :)
https://outof.games/hearthstone/expansions/titans/community-compendium
Geniuses at Blizzard strike again!
100% report the issue to Blizzard. I saw some code changes they made with the game update this week regarding how tradeable works internally so I wouldn't be surprised if there are issues with it on the client-side.
For those interested, the deck region to change cards now can have more than just one or two types of cards dragged on top of it to perform actions. Maybe they are planning on more drag to deck functionality of cards.
Oops, these got uploaded but never flagged with their categories. Getting on that now.
Yeah its kinda wild that it's finally going to happen. It's been what, 13 years since the original April Fools joke? lol
Yes. Temporary forum vacation =)
This should be resolved.
These cards ended up being lost during a data migration which is why we're... rendering the entire card database again. It's a lengthy project with there being almost 30k cards to render but we will be fixing cards on the site in batches. I am expecting us to have the stuff in standard done first, which should help with deckbuilding.
Sorry for the trouble!