News, Views and Previews!

News!

The Blackwell Trivia Contest Winners
are - Ginuk (Shany) and Xchain! Ginuk already owned the Unbound game and is a self-proclaimed die hard fan of the Blackwell series, so the free copy of Unbound passed to Xchain! Congrats! That wasn't just a nice thing to happen, it was an added bonus as Xchain's copy of Legacy has an odd bug and she can't even play it anymore! (Though I think Dave Gilbert took care of that problem too!)

It was a great night with some tough questions! I was very impressed with the amount of correct answers - I had the answers in front of me and I didn't even get as many answers correct as Ginuk! lol

I will be posting the 5 extra tie-breaker questions (the super hard ones!) on the Game Cafe forum today for anyone to take a stab at!

I'd like to say thank you to Dave Gilbert for coming to visit with us in the chat and sponsoring this event! It was so nice to get to know the person behind the games that have brought us so many hours of enjoyment!

I'll be doing a feature post on Blackwell Unbound so stay tuned :)

Game Cafe News
The Game Cafe is expanding! We'll be adding a series of walk-throughs for as many games as we can! As I'm the only one writing them right now, this will be a slow process, lol, but if you'd like to submit your own walk-throughs, please let me know!

This section of the forum is only open to registered members and may not be copied or reproduced anywhere, in any form, so register today for free!

Previews!

Sneak Preview - Purrfect Pet Shop!
There is a new game coming out soon that I'm really excited about! It's called Purrfect Pet Shop from eGames! In this game you assume responsibility for your Aunt's Animal Rescue Center while she's away.

You take in stray animals - many of whom need special care such as medicine, food, a good bath and more. When the animals are happy and healthy once again they can be matched up to the perfect (or is that purrfect?) owner! Pay special attention to the customers that want to adopt a pet and match them to the pet of their dreams.

The overall game play is a time management mechanic, which is very well done. It's not frustratingly slow and it's not too fast and hectic either. Plenty of upgrades are available in the game to help things along!

A new and unique feature of this game (that I loved!) was the Special Pet addition! Sometimes a very special animal will be rescued that needs extra attention! With a "design your own pet" feature, you get to choose the type of pet, it's name, the fur, color and markings, eye color and more! Create the pet of your dreams and give it that extra special TLC. I quickly became attached to my special pet and can't wait to get to see him in between the main levels of the game!

Purrfect Pet Shop is heads and tails above the other pet themed games that I've tried. (Pun intended! Sorry! lol) I'll let you know as soon as it's released!

Sneak Preview! Dream Chronicles 2!
Word on the street is that PlayFirst is putting the finishing touches on Dream Chronicles 2! The game is just as gorgeous as the first - if not even more so! I can't say much about it yet, but as soon as it's released, I'll blog a review with download links! I simply CANNOT WAIT for this game!

While we wait, why not check out the first Dream Chronicles if you haven't played it yet? You can get the demo here!

Views!

Everyone once in awhile I learn something new. Hard to believe, I know! lol I've been around the internet for a very long time. I remember the first version of AOL and that ancient connection thingy - "dial up" ugh!

I've had all kinds of websites, from personal blogs to commercial games. I've built for MUDs and MMORPGs, moderated huge health and wellness forums, even have my own web design company!

However, none of that prepared me for the intensity of running my own forum, populated in part by several self-proclaimed divas of the gaming world. lol. There was a post long ago on the PlayFirst grapevine which was about how "There is one on every board...". You know the type, always has something negative to say no matter what the topic is about, always instigating arguments and the like. And that is very true. There IS one of those on every board I've ever seen. One thing that post failed to mention, which might have prepared me for my own experience, was that there is also one of another type on every board as well - the "drama llama". lol

I've been pondering this a lot lately, as the drama llama spit has hit the fan on my own forum. How do these other boards deal with it? What's the best way to handle it? I've come up with a few answers.

1) Most other forum admins and site owners are not directly involved with their board users. Take PlayFirst for example. The PF employees and site admins occasionally post to the board, but rarely. It's exciting when they do post and now I can completely understand why they don't take an active role in the discussions. You just can't get involved as a site owner or you will inevitably be drawn into the drama circle.

2) Most other forums tend to handle the drama llamas by letting the users duke it out amongst themselves, ensuring only that the boards terms of service are not violated. Eventually the issues will come to a head between the users and either the ones responsible for the drama will leave the board in a huff, or they will be talked through it by their peers and the issues will be resolved. But the site owners stay well away from it - for good reason.

A few people that I know are embarking upon the creation of their own websites, so here are some of the lessons I've learned the hard way, hopefully it will spare them the same problems!

Lesson 1 - Don't get involved on a personal level with your site users. Although the desire to be friends is strong, eventually it will bite you in the rear as you'll be put into situations where you'll have to choose sides.

Lesson 2 - Do not ever discuss your own personal feelings about another board user with anyone else. Although others may agree with you, whatever you say to anyone will end up repeated and often twisted!

Lesson 3 - Do not ever send personal emails to your users about anything off-topic. Stick to business lest your personal emails end up forwarded to the rest of the board!

Lesson 4 - You cannot please everyone all of the time. Don't even try. Stick to your own game plan, take all suggestions into consideration, but ultimately make your own decisions. Sure, not everyone will like it, but there is no other way.

Lesson 5 - Just because someone volunteers to help, doesn't mean you should take them up on their offer! Thankfully, I've been blessed with users that have volunteered. The majority of them have truly wanted to help out and have done a phenomenal job! (Thanks to Gable for filling in last night with the contest!) However, every once in awhile you will get those that want THE POWER... lol. They confuse helping run a site with some sort of twisted self-validating power trip of being in CONTROL and will generally abuse the authority they are given. This will cause huge problems among the rest of the board and then you find yourself back at lesson 1!

Lesson 6 - Understand going into any venture such as running your own website that eventually things will go wrong and no matter how it started or who was responsible, you will take the blame. Be prepared for it and when it happens, cut your losses quickly and move on. Keep forging ahead as the internet is a vast place and site users will come and go. Keep building. Keep expanding. Keep marketing.

I hope this will help those breaking out into their own sites. It's not as easy as it looks. It's a lot of work and it can be emotionally draining as well. Stand strong and all will fall into place. :)