End All - Be All Gaming News Sites?

Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 6:19 pm

Hey trust me when I say I know every bit of support helps. Hal you should prolly register though so I can give you a custom title.

Surprised

Irix WAnnabe Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 122

It's sad how UnrealPlanet has faded.
Despite being part of the infamous GameSpy network, it was quite a good site up until recently. It was pretty thorough.

Now it has only a handful of news posts, as if it was a site dedicated to a failed game like Red Faction.

The nature of all Web Sites. Only as good as the enthusiasm of it's maintainers.

Guest

Wah wah wah, GameSpy is evil, Blah Blah Blah. Too bad you forgot to mention part of the reason BU left PU was because they thought they could make more money on their own.

"BeyondUnreal is a financially sound project, and should be cash-positive in a short amount of time."
- QA Pete - October 14, 2001.

"BeyondUnreal's bandwidth costs for 2002 were $3476.95. This doesn't include electricity, equipment, or anyone's time. This is exactly what we paid Speakeasy for our bandwidth to run this site, including all hosted sites and forums. Our total donations and other revenues that went directly to paying off these bandwith charges added up to $1620.49. That left the rest - $1856.46 - to come out of my pocket. Oh, and BTW, that doesn't include the $1200 or so of electricity the site sucked up last year."
- QA Pete - April 9, 2003

Ooops.

And that whole losing all BU's forum posts thing wasn't too smart, even I know how to dump a database every couple weeks. I feel really sorry for the mod developers that relied on your services, that was just really irresponsible.

What y'all don't seem to realize is that the Unreal community is TINY. Even though PlanetUnreal is the biggest Unreal site, it doesn't get nearly as much traffic as the other sites I run\have run\worked for. The only reason I bother is because I like Unreal, but I don't like the attitude of complainers like you. A lot of it is just jealously.

If you don't like PlanetUnreal, don't visit it.

And Tycho, keep up the good work.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 12:54 pm

Frag,

Are those real quotes from QAPete? Just out of morbid curiousity do you know how many hits and Bwidth PU uses in a month?

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 1:11 pm

I really don't like giving out numbers, besides, the quality of your site is more important. And I'll agree with the guy above who said the news has sucked a little lately, we totally blew it this weekend because both redef and I were busy. But usually we get stuff first.

I apologize for kind of bashing BU above, but it's really frustrating to see them continue to trash us. I usually don't say anything because A) it's pointless to try to change their minds and B) it's only a few... vocal... members of the team doing it. I respect that they're doing BU on their own and I'm glad they're around, "competition" only makes us all strive to do better sites. I've tried to help get on their good side by helping them distribute the DE Bonus Pack and some other minor stuff, but at this point I've given up.

I can't speak for the rest of the company, but I think the GameSpy Network (which is currently just staffed by me and one other guy) is a pretty good service. We provide reliable free hosting and we've given a lot of talented people their start. Would there be a BeyondUnreal without GameSpy? Hell no, heck, BeyondUnreal's design was done by a guy I used to sit next to in GameSpy's office.

Oh yeah, and I also agree with the guy who said the major Unreal sites should never consider a merger. We all serve different audiences and focus on different things. Diversity is good.

And if we were all smart, we'd waste less time posting on forums, and more time working on our respective sites Wink

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 1:32 pm

LOL. Some valid points Frag. The only real reason I was wondering about hits is that before UT2004 news was released I saw a drop in readers. I was wondering if it was just more or the Unreal Community as a whole. Compared to the traffic we got last fall (UT2003) related it is half of what it used to be.

Overall we have about 3,000 regular readers and I appreciate every single one of them. Hell until Mark yelled at me about something one day I didn't even know that many Devs stopped by here. UO is just about where I want it to be. Once we make the move to PHP our writers will have an easy as pie time posting news and then I can concentrate on getting some really cool articles.

I will say this I know that most of the BU team is level headed but some of them are like me and put their foots in their mouths. Over all I think the community is fine with 3 leading sites. BU's forums are the best bar none. PU has the biggest readership and definitely the hosting power. I am going to stick with cool articles and interviews.

I know there are others i.e. Unreal Playground and Unreality but I don't think they fall in the same category because they don't offer anything exclusive.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:41 pm

Well Tycho, the greatness of UnrealPlayground lies in its free map hosting and mapping community... most of the mapping action that was concentrating on the NaliCity forums before UT2k3 was released has moved to UP, and there's a lot of mapping talent there. But of course, their news kinda suck Smile

It's a great, probably the greatest mapping community site at this point of time IMO.
Well, I probably said it myself: It's a mapping and modding community, not a place for gamers... No wait, that's wrong too, they started out as a CTF server community... lol, I always miss those things because my crappy connection doesn't really let me enjoy playing online...

Ah well, whatever you make of it. Smile

And btw, I agree that the whole PU vs. BU discussion is pointless... BU is an awesome and very dedicated news site, but PU is home - to me and to many other talented guys whose news not neccessarily always make it to every front page... so even though the news posting at PU has been going down a bit lately, it's still a great community resource for me.

Peace, Lugg

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:59 pm

I didn't know Unreal Playground was taking the place of Nali City for most people. I shall give them some pimpage later this week!

Smile

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:08 pm

Well, Nalicity and its forums are still there, and the community is still excessively abusing the off-topic forum... but there aren't many maps being released for beta in the forums anymore, at least not what used to be there.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:08 pm

Long post: I feel kinda stupid for even saying all of this, but I need to clear up some things raised by Fragmaster:

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Err, hold on a second there, Fragmaster.

You've got a funny impression that only skirts around the truth.

Everything that I said is true. There's no disputing that. I don't dislike Gamespy or PlanetUnreal really. I think they provide a valuable resource in free hosting and general news.

What I don't like is how Gamespy rumbled over so many people that put a lot of effort into the Planets (no, I'm not even talking about PU here). I don't like how PlanetUnreal is the Gamespy step-child and is being run by people who could care less about the game (despite what you say here, you come across much different in your actions and in your writing).

You see, PlanetUnreal was my home for a long time. I (and others) put a lot of effort into that site and even though it didn't rival PHL in numbers, it was a strong site. We built it to what it was.

We didn't start BeyondUnreal to make money. We NEVER had that as a goal. You'd have to be foolish to think you could get rich off of a single site like that. The ad money just isn't there like it used to be. Oh yeah, we want to have the site pay for itself (which it is now doing), but it's no money making scheme or you'd see big ass ads plastered all over it like you've done to PU. There's no jealousy there. Just a little bit of sadness to see those resources go to waste on an apathetically run site about a game that we love.

Well, no, not apathetically, but you guys write for an entire network and can't devote the time to the Unreal series that it deserves. Maybe I'll just have to accept that PU will never be (nor does it want to be) what it was again. Yeah, Unreal may be a "tiny" (as you say) community when you put it up next to Quake or Half-Life, but it's a great game and deserves more than it gets from you guys. You ought to just let someone run it who cares.

You're right about the forum backup. That was bad on our part (well.. I don't do the backups, but.. ). At least I see you're doing a better job keeping up with the community.

If I come across as harsh, I'm sorry. But I speak from experience and what I say is true. I'm sure you're a nice guy. The irritation with Gamespy you hear is not just from people like me, (I rarely ever even say anything about it) but from people all over the world. Gamespy is not "evil" as you say, and it does do some good things, but sometimes when lots of people complain, you need to listen.

Look no further than the PlanetUnreal forums. Dead as a doornail. No involvement from yourself or Redef. Poor Kaf is left there to tell everyone to forget trying to get your attention via the forum and just email the PU staff. Such a large, high-traffic site should have a sizable forum, shouldn't it?

Maybe Epic IS right... Gamespy = Corporate Community Killers. http://www.beyondunreal.com/daedalus/img.php?potd_image_id=9

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About UP. UnrealPlayground rocks. It's everything that NaliCity3 should have been. I'm really glad to see someone pick up the ball where they dropped it.

We pimp them regularly.

Guest

That last post was mine, btw. Silly me, forgot to put my name in! Laughing

I did have an account here before, Tycho. Maybe it was lost when you switched forum software.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:44 pm

Hal I wasn't able to import the info from Ikonboard to PHPbb so you will have to resign up. As far as the debate is concerned, only bad thing would be to not talk about this. Talking gets it out in the open and sometimes resolves things. I, however, didn't know that Frag and Redef do other sites as well. No wonder their time is short. I have a hard time with the new GF, full time job and running UO, let alone running other news sites. Crazy I say!

Laughing

Guest

Whatever. Get over it already and stop crying over old shit. And I will try to keep in mind you don't speak for the rest of BU.

If you weren't jealous of PU, you wouldn't find some excuse to bash it every single chance you got. Outside of my outburst above, you don't see me pointing out BU's various flaws because A) this community is negative enough (look in the mirror for a prime example, Halster) and B) it's not my problem. I try to mind my own business and concentrate on posting news faster than you can.

Alright, I'm done. Jesus, you people are incredible.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 7:18 pm

lol
Well, but that wasn't exactly polite either

UO Staff Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 190 Location: BoooooM

UnrealPlayground is a great site when it comes to maps! One of the best sites if not The best unreal map site. I often go there to see if I can find any new cool UT2003 maps Smile

-dp-