March 2010 in Review

The Site

The site actually hit another milestone in March.  TAGN has passed the one million page view mark.

Now, as I have said before, I generally do not write about the numbers this blog gets.  Some bloggers may be envious of reaching that number of page views while others will be dismissive, having reached that number in a shorter time or exceeding that number many times over in the same time frame.

But a million of anything is a lot, so just this once I thought I would share some actual raw data on page views.

Total and Average Page Views per month

WordPress.com only keeps track of page views and not daily unique visitors.  However, I have used some third-party tracking for that at times, and uniques seem to run between 70-80% of page views on any given day.

This also does not count anybody who reads via RSS.  Following the philosophy of creating a blog that I would want to read, I push all the content out on the feed, rarely ever putting something behind a “more” prompt.

Judging from what WordPress.com and FeedReader tell me (because I have two RSS feeds, just to make sure I can’t get any consistent information) anywhere between 3 and 10 times as many people view any given post via RSS compared to the number of people who actually click on it.

Then again, since I rarely hide any of the content, most people just go to the main page to read any given post, so it is tough to get any real measure of how much RSS might change my page view numbers.

All of which I can sum up by saying I don’t really know how many people read this blog, but it is a lot more than I thought ever would.

One Year Ago

Last March we were excited about Pokemon Platinum around our house, although we weren’t really finished with Pokemon Diamond yet.  This year we’re excited about Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, and our excitement seems to have been more fully rewarded.

I spent a day up at GDC in San Francisco.

In WoW we finished up a short hiatus and started back in at the SteamVault.  My daughter was tearing up Warsong Gulch.  Meanwhile, the Lich King seemed to have laid a curse on my new video card.  Nothing I did ever seemed to change this issue, though it did seem to go away eventually.

In EVE Online, Apocrypha came out, and with it the classic graphics were swept away.  Adam though, was making his own adventures in New Eden.

Somebody tried to put together a list of the Ten Most Important MMORPGs.  Like all such list, this one started the comments rolling.

It was launch day and I was already complaining about Runes of Magic… well, about the patcher in any case.

I finished up the last book of the Wheel of Time series.  Of course, a new book in the series has come out since then.  I am not going there until the remain two are out.

The 10th EverQuest 10th anniversary just wasn’t evoking the level of nostalgia in me that I thought it would.

And we had to say goodbye to an old friend and family member.  The picture my daughter drew is still up on the wall.  It still draws the occasional tear later in the evenings when people are tired and a bit more emotionally fragile.

New Linking Sites

I would like to thank the following site for linking here.

• CDN Dragoon
• Echo Underground
• Football Cards and Other Musings
• Velzak’s Gaming Blog

Please take a moment to visit them in return.

Most Viewed Posts in March

1. Jirachi GameStop Event Announced
2. Jirachi Download Event Dates Announced
3. Play On: Guild Name Generator
4. How To Find An Agent in EVE Online
5. We Never Learn: Another Example
6. Heroic Deadmines!
7. Motorcycle for My Birthday
8. STO – Season One Updates Coming
9. April Fools Contest
10. STO – Lifetime Subscription Perks
11. A Quick Pass Through GDC 2010
12. TTH Picks the Top Ten PvP MMOs

Spam Comment of the Month

Learn to Sing Without Nasal Sound
[Not sure that nasal sound is the main problem with my singing]

EVE Online

While I hit 50 million skill points in EVE, not much else was going on.  I blew some ISK on a Tengu, but haven’t finished fitting it.  My account will still be active when Tyrannis comes out, but unless there is something that real grabs me, I am probably heading for a hiatus.

Facebook

Prompted by the buzz at GDC (which was palpable even to me, an outsider wandering around the expo floor) and in the name of research for a podcast, I spent a chunk of time playing games on Facebook.  I wrote up my experience with FarmVille and have a few more games to cover on that front.

Star Trek Online

STO suffers from being in second or third place when it comes to my gaming choices.  I seem to have all the ambition in Star Fleet as that alternate time-line Picard who never got in that bar fight and got stabbed through the chest.  I mean I spent time playing FarmVille rather than STO in March.  Still, some day I will become the dreaded rear admiral.

World of Warcraft

Long the staple of my MMO gaming and the venue for our weekly gaming, there are some cracks showing in the shiny veneer of Azeroth.  The instance group is getting a little tedious with the weekly walk-over in old Azeroth.  We are, however, almost the Burning Crusade content (should I cheer or groan?) where we can hope the instances might be a bit more of challenge.  We had problems with some of it the first time around.

DS

Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver finally arrived at our house, which helped dramatically cut my already small STO play time.  But the wait for the new Pokemon game was not in vain.  While I have much to say about it, once I find the time, in general I declare it “Good.”

Coming Up

Tomorrow is April Fools Day!

In addition to checking out the usual hi-jinks offered up by Blizzard and other companies, I have to announce the winner of my own April Fools Contest.  Somebody will get a WoW in-game pet tomorrow.

And while we’re on April Fools, somebody needs to make a blogosphere April Fools Day bingo card.  It can having things like:

• Complaint about April Fools Day post
• Deliberate non-participation in April Fools Day post
• Fake press release announce a new game
• Fake press release about an expansion
• “This site is shutting down” joke post
• Obligatory link to Blizzard’s yearly April Fools Joke (center square)

What else could go on that bingo card?

Meanwhile, in April, there will no doubt be some further words on Facebook games, whether you like it or not, some views on the new Pokemon, the further adventures of the instance group in WoW, and the usual nonsense.