Man, it’s a little sad how often I’ve had to do these updates, eh?
That’s life, though. It’s messy, it’s crazy, and stuff you plan for doesn’t always pan out the way you planned it. So then you make new plans, which will hopefully work out better than the first plans but will probably be derailed at some point as well. And the cycle continues.
I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling, looking for a new house, preparing for a new job, and during that time trying to figure out what all these changes in my life are going to mean for Adventure Rules. Doing that brought to a point where I needed to look at what the blog has become, what’s working and what isn’t, and what I realistically think I can do going forward. Having now come to conclusions about all of those things, I have quite a few announcements to make concerning the future of the blog.
NO MORE FANFICTION
This is something I’ve been resisting for a little while. But Fanfic Friday has honestly been on life support for quite some time. In something like eight months of Fanfic Friday being a proclaimed segment on the site, I have finished only TWO fanfics. Time constraints factor a lot into that – it’s a lot harder to write a planned-out fanfiction than it is to type out my visceral reactions to a recent announcement. Time isn’t something I have in excess, and often when I needed to buckle down and write a fanfic it took a lot of mental effort. It felt like trying to break down a brick wall with my bare hands. And while you as readers might only see a couple of complete fanfics and a couple of half-finished ones, there are actually a lot of posts I put together – or tried to – that never got published, writing hours that just went to waste.
Now this level of work can be worth it, if there’s a strong fanbase and it’s helping the blog to grow. But that just isn’t happening. While a few of you are definitely here because of a fanfiction you enjoyed on the site, most of you are here for opinion pieces, reactions, or posts about the latest gaming news. Fanfic Friday draws a fraction of the viewership that my other content does, facilitates growth less than that content, yet takes way more effort to put together. See the problem there? The months that I do manage to get some fanfic writing done, I’m putting way too much juice into something that is not reaping rewards for Adventure Rules. So Fanfic Friday – indeed, fanfic in general – is going away.
There’s another reason for that too, one we’ll get into in a little bit.
TABLETOP TUESDAY WILL NO LONGER BE WEEKLY
Tabletop Tuesday is one of my favorite segments on the blog. It’s been around for a long time, quite a few of you like it, and discussing tabletop content is generally pretty enjoyable for me. The problem is, tabletops are not in my life as frequently as video games are. I’m lucky to get to play once a week – with my new job just around the corner, I don’t know if even that will be manageable anymore. If I’m not engaging the tabletop scene on a regular basis, I can’t write intellectually about it on a regular basis.
Now this doesn’t mean that I’m never talking tabletops again, or that Tabletop Tuesday as a concept is going away. It just won’t happen on a weekly basis anymore, and when it does happen, it may very well not be Tuesday. Whatever day I end up talking about tabletops with you, I’m still going to call the segment Tabletop Tuesday, partly as a joke and partly as an homage to this segment that’s been a part of Adventure Rules since almost the very beginning. So don’t lose heart, pen-and-paper fans; you’ll still be able to count on Adventure Rules to bring you tabletop content. It just won’t be as strictly scheduled.
NO MORE “DAILY AT 9 AM EST”
This change is one that I loathe to make even now, but I think it needs to happen. When I start work, I won’t be able to commit to a daily posting schedule. Between work concerns, sometimes being on call, parenting, being a husband, and actually playing some video games so I can talk about them, it’s just not going to be feasible for me to have something to say every single day.
This is a bittersweet decision for me. It is my belief that daily content helps promote growth. If I get my name out there every single day, eventually interest is going to build up. The chances of people seeing my content go up, and the quality of my content improves as I practice more and more. But as well as that system has worked for me starting out, the practicality of such a schedule is disappearing more and more.
There are benefits to this besides relieving some of my time-based concerns. By only posting a few times a week, when I really have something to say, it’s going to eliminate a lot of “fluff” posts that just kind of fill in the days where I HAVE to post something but have no idea what to say. That means better content, and more importantly it means more focused content. I am at my most experimental when I am trying to shove something new in every single day, and while sometimes this can result in gems, often it just results in me inventing a new segment that’s gonna pop up twice and then never be mentioned again. If I only post every other day or every couple of days, that’s gonna eliminate the need for filler. Each post will mean more and have meatier content. And while I don’t know how the lack of a daily schedule is going to affect growth, I think having better posts is certainly going to promote positive change here on Adventure Rules.
So for the time being, at least, there is no set schedule for when Adventure Rules will post. Sometimes it might be the morning, sometimes it might be the evening. It could be five days one week and two the next. I know this isn’t ideal, and maybe once I’m more grounded in my new job I can create a more reliable schedule, but for the time being just know this: I WILL post stuff. It’ll just be more organic and happen when it happens.
A MORE PROFESSIONAL DIRECTION
In a relatively recent update I spoke about wanting to move the blog in a direction that is more professional. When I say “professional,” I mean that I want the blog to have content with some journalistic repute and an original voice. I don’t want posts to become stale or unfunny. But I do want new adventurers to come here and be able to trust that the content is of good quality. This is another reason why Fanfic Friday no longer has a place here – while there are incredibly talented fanfic writers out there (certainly better ones than me), the regular presence of fanfiction on the site can create the impression that Adventure Rules is something less than professional. That’s also why I want to focus the purpose and content of the site by having fewer segments and meatier posts.
This is also why some of the 2016 Blog Goals on the site have changed. I wanted to narrow the site’s goals to those that help the site expand its reach and improve its content. If you’re interested in seeing the changes to the goals, just click on the “2016 Blog Goals” tab at the top of the page.
IN SUMMARY
TL;DR – Adventure Rules will no longer post daily, and there will be no weekly segments. I will post whenever I am able, and am dedicated to posting better quality, more professional content for the adventurers.
As always, I want to thank you all for the support you’ve shown, particularly through E3. A lot of folks have been commenting or liking posts about E3 and a lot of you are taking the time to really read them, and I greatly appreciate that. I will do my best to continue to bring you the latest news from the video game world and to present that news in a way that is both fun and meaningful. It is my hope that the changes I am announcing today will improve the quality of Adventure Rules and improve your experience with the site.
Adventure Rules 
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