Crowd-funded Chaos

First of all, I want to come right out and say that the opinions stated on my blog are not the views of Ravenwood Radio, Pieces of 8 Radio, or any other official fansite. My opinions are solely mine, and while I help out occasionally in different roles in the community, these views are not to be taken as anything more than that. I speak for no one else on this blog, capiche?

In other news, Through the Eyes of a Privateer is soon to be no more, I think. It will be far easier to maintain if I incorporate the stuff over here. I have more readers here and it takes me less time to manage different aspects of stuff if it's all in one place. And as a college student, saving time is a great thing.  Now for the meat of the post.

KingsIsle has announced the launch of two bundles to herald the coming of their new game, Pirate101. Both bundles include a year subscription as well as exclusive goodies. One of the bundles, for $59.99, is called the Gandry Bundle and nets you a year subscription, 1 week head start, and a Scarakeet pet. The other, the Boochbeard Bundle (at a whopping $89.99), nets you everything from Gandry along with Castaway's Cove (House), a Ruby Slicer weapon, Dread Pirate Gear, and a Parrot Mount...oh, and Beta access for the remainder of Beta.

Fine, great, woohoo. Awesome stuff. I'd have loved to see similar bundled available for those who had planned to take the Crown method (rather than the year membership, provide 60,000 Crowns...they're worth the same amount on a sale as it is). That's not why I'm writing today, either, though.

KingsIsle has opted to allow players to "ask" (beg) family/friends to help fund a Boochbeard Bundle via Facebook. Yes, the social media giant has now stepped into crowd-funding. While I'm fine with crowd-funding in general (Kickstarter projects are GREAT!), asking for money from people to help one person get a perk is kind of irritating and a bit disgusting to me. Asking parents is one thing. Asking your friends from school to throw a few nickels your way just really rubs me the wrong way. And don't get me started should you choose to share your Facebook page via Twitter or other social platforms to ask complete strangers that you know in-game to help you pay for it.

Brilliant marketing move, KI. Really, the amount of people sharing pages will lead to a lot more exposure for them. Even those who don't help poor little Jimmy fund his bundle will still see news about the game.

What do you all think? Is Crowd-funding for an individual a direction we want to move in? How about if that individual is basically a stranger? Your thoughts, as usual, are welcome in the comments section and via email. Please make sure to ask an adult for permission, as always.

Your [Flabbergasted] Friend Always,
John Lifeglen

Some Food for Blogger-y Thought

Hey-o! Dropping in to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I've been playing with my Nexus 7 lately and haven't exactly been keeping up with posting (though there is an app for that). Anywho, on to business. It occurred to me earlier that all blogs have readers. And that, even though it's all one big community, not everyone reads all of the same people. A great way to share your favorite blogs is with a blogroll (which I have, along the right side and a bit under all of the announcement-y type stuff). Unfortunately, not everyone wants to go scrolling through a blogroll on a regular basis. I propose the following:

Write up a blog post about another blog (either a general "hey, go check this out!" to your readers, an interview with the other blog owner, whatever.) and post it. Do this as often as you like, and it's even better if it's mutual. Who doesn't like getting extra traffic, right? If you contact the person you're talking about, they might even be willing to post something about you and get YOU some extra traffic from their audience.

Hopefully this has inspired some of you to spread the community love and get extra traffic all around.

Your Friend Always,
John Lifeglen

Hall Monitors

Two posts in two days? I promise, I'm not sick. Hope all is going well for everyone. I'm here today to discuss the Hall Monitors that will be appearing in-game as of tomorrow morning.

From the Patch Notes:

Something we take very seriously at KingsIsle is making sure that the Spiral is a fun and appropriate place for Players of all ages.  We are expanding our current reporting tools for a select group of players who have earned the privilege of being a “Hall Monitor”. This group of players will operate anonymously and anyone claiming to be a Hall Monitor is certainly not one at all. 

These Hall Monitors, who are selected by invitation only, will have the ability to take direct action when they see behavior that violates our Terms of Use. This action includes warning and muting players who circumvent our chat filters. These sanctions will be reviewed by our senior Wizards to ensure the correct action was taken, and may escalate sanctions as necessary. 

Hall Monitors are not to be confused with other player run reporting groups and while we appreciate their initiative, we'll take it from here. We will continue to be diligent to keep the Spiral a clean and safe place for all our young Wizards.

Let's hope that those selected are truly deserving and won't abuse power (and should they be discovered to be abusing the power, that they have action taken against them directly by KingsIsle).

Your Friend Always,

John Lifeglen

Uh, Hello...?

So, hi everyone. Sorry it's been over a month since a left an update here. I've still be fairly active on Twitter, but life has gotten in the way once again. My third year of college is starting to pick up and I've been Beta testing P101 (hence no news of Test Realm antics). I can tell you all that my name for P101 will be Witty John Loughton, and that he'll be a privateer. For more information on that stuff you'll have to check Through the Eyes of a Privateer, though.

I can also tell you all that I'm moderating Pieces of Eight Radio on a regular basis now. And that I bought a Nexus 7 Tablet and love it. I'm contemplating modifying my name on Words with Friends to allow for more people to play. That's up in the air right now.

Anyway, I have class in the morning so I should be turning in soon. Hope to talk to you all soon. And for more information on me, check the sidebar to see about my Twitter shenanigans.

Your Friend Always,
John Lifeglen

Pirate101 Central

Hey guys! Did I mention that I'm on Pirate101 Central? Well, I am. Feel free to add me HERE.

--Witty John Loughton