plaguelands.comI’m in ur blogz farming ur posts
I swear to the blogging public that I did not have sexual relations with Tobold’s blog post: Is 2007 a bad year for MMORPGs? Tobold is more or less concerned that I’m some dense retarded gorilla incapable of any original thought, flailing about in my underground laboratory pilfering ideas with a time machine. Tobold suggests I used a common idea from his post and senses a deeper disturbance in the force as he found I used a similar tone in my post. “Copy cat, copy cat! Foul there, FOUL Krones!” What I want to know is how did he find my hideout? This is clearly ‘trespassing’ since he fended off my ice weasel guards by melting them and setting them free in The Fantasy Forest of Clichés. Yes, I will exact my revenge on the ice weasel’s families since the ranger danger alarms failed.
A “my thoughts on the state of the industry” post isn’t a unique little snowflake in the mmog blogscape that requires a massive amount of Tobold IQ in a bottle to be an original idea. If only they sold the Tobold sauce in stores we could all be superstar bloggers and receive a job offer from Red 5 Studios. Btw, I think that’s awesome. I did not plagiarize Tobold’s post or come down with a case of cryptomnesia and I think the tone and style between those particular posts differ greatly.
When I heard about Ryzom dying, I was already running with the thought that this year’s wrap-up post would be written in a bleak tone. I did a similar post last year titled: Who all MMOG –’06 Edition-. I was planning on doing another edition this year. I enjoy cracking some jokes and ranting, but really I want every mmog that deserves it too succeed, even if I don’t like it personally. After hearing and writing about Gods and Heroes inspiration came to a rolling-boil, I began a rough draft for a new post on the state of the genre thus far in the year. I originally wanted to call it Doom and Bloom. But the post was becoming reams and realms of toilet paper and even after numerous shredding I decided there would be no room for the bloom, we all know how everyone loves reading 10 pages of tripe on some guy’s blog.
My mojo is slow. When I work on a magnitude post nearing a few thousand words, I let the doggerel stew and simmer for a bit. It’s not uncommon for one of my posts to stay in draft form for a few days while I beat it with a stick. What’s the rush? I like writing and the craft is always a constant struggle for me as my rampant thoughts bounce inside my head like beavers humping on meth. So it really came as no surprise to me when I checked my rss feeder (as I do everyday) and I came across Tobold’s post. I wasn’t in the least bit disappointed he shared his thoughts on the state of the industry because it really doesn’t matter in the “he beat me to the punch” way and because our voices are vastly different.
I decided against delaying my post because I worked hard on it and wanted something meaty sprinkled with some funny for my readers. I don’t think I should delay an opinion piece because someone else wrote about the same topic. I do consider it common courtesy to take another blogger posting in “your niche” into consideration when publishing a post. You know on a first come, first serve basis sort of thing, but there are so many mmog bloggers out there now that practicing this is ludicrous. It’s fine writing about the same ideas if we all express and present the information in our own biased thoughts and outlook. As for a link credit, I’m pretty good about linking to a source that had a direct impact or influence on my writing. In this case it was Auto Assault, Ryzom, and Gods and Heroes termination that contributed to my thoughts and idea for the Doom and Gloom post. I’m sure many other bloggers had the same idea but didn’t act on it.
I admire Tobold’s dedication to his readers and this hobby we call blogging. His writing is clear, concise, mature, insightful and all this combined with his consistency has paid off in spades as he has become one of the most popular voices on “general mmog” commentary and theory-crafting. His success is well deserved and I’m happy a level-headed guy is at the top as opposed to some crazy pontificator rabidly foaming at the mouth. It’s not easy coming up with several daily posts (that don’t all suck bawls or are rehashed news blurbs) and sticking with it for years on end. It is is something I have yet to do, even though I started this blogging side-gag years ago.
About this entry
You’re currently reading “I’m in ur blogz farming ur posts,” an entry on Plaguelands
- Published:
- 10.12.07 / 11am
- Category:
- Blog Wars
I’ll start by saying Tobald writes some good stuff that I read sometimes. Like you said, it’s good to have someone level-headed have such a strong voice in this area.
Accusing you of ripping him off on a end of year look at the sad state MMO’s were in is kind of silly, and I would have thought far below him. Is anyone accusing him of dredging through the Lum the Mad archives of many years ago, and re-writing them all? No! no we aren’t.
I’ve had it out with Tobold before, but I find it a bit wierd that he would say anyone is stealing his ideas or posts. I mean, blogging is really about seeing something and posting about it.
Unfortunately for Tobold, he is pretty much an ebb and flow type of blogger. He sort of follows the main stream. He really isn’t the source of any news, but more of a well read opinion that a lot of people agree with. But I think where he gains his popularity is that he has a much longer history than any other blogger and that sort of gives him “street cred”. The danger for him is that he makes a lot of assumptions without research. Not saying we bloggers aren’t all guilty of it, but having more visitors increases the chances of a mistake costing and he often times tries to hold the line of popular opinion which is often very very wrong. But he is a euro so he can do such things
j/k
Tobold and I have fairly different view points. I personally don’t think he does anything special with his blog and he will be the first to admit it is just a good google page rank that keeps his blog on the radar. Whats funny, when he stops talking about World of Warcraft, his ranking starts tracking off.
Tobold thinks quite a bit of himself and I frequently get the feeling he believes he is writing for the Daily Planet. So you guys wrote on the same idea, so what? It’s a blog, it isn’t like he has copyright priviledges or something.
Two people CAN have the same opinion right?
I’m relatively new to the whole community MMOG blogs have, but I read a bunch of them every day at work. From what I’ve seen, everyone copies everyone. They either write about the news (which usually is dumb news that no one cares about but hey, we gotta get 3 new blog entries so lets lower the bar a bit), their recent experiences in “insert MMO here”, or they try and eloquently babble about some stupid shit that almost matters to MMOs.
This was almost a case of drama excitement in this little blogosphere (god I hate that fucking word) but you defused it valiantly. This community needs a little more excitement imo, everyone’s so gdamn depressed about everything and if not, then they’re happy with shit that doesn’t relate to MMOs. Where’s the action, where’s the excitement? There needs to be a race or competition or something. Challenge Tobold’s to a /duel Mr. Krones! Excitement!
haha, yea, expect more “insert mmo I’m playing” commentary from me soon, seriously. The collective groans of “NOOOOOOOO!” permeate through these hollow blog walls. Yeaaaaa. Action blogs, interesting. What did you have in mind - a race or a competition for what exactly? If you mean stats, I already lost.
My apologies, but it wasn’t meant like that. What I said was that it didn’t matter whether you copied or whether we just had the same idea on the same day (which I considered more likely). Both cases lead to several bloggers writing exactly the same stuff at the same time, a problem of groupthink. It was a comment on the general state of the MMO blogosphere, where we are all reading the same news and in many cases all react to that news in the same predictable way.
Your post was just the trigger for that, and I really didn’t want to accuse you of having no original thought or plagiarizing me. Hey, I even said it was well written. The last thing I want is the mudflinging to start. But I wonder how we all can turn our blogs into something more individual and less looking just like the next guy’s blog. As some other commenter pointed out, I wrote another blog entry the same day which again had a mirror image somewhere else, only that in that case it was me who posted later.
Should we all (all MMO bloggers that isà stop reading the MMO news and each other’s blogs so that our thoughts diverge more?
I don’t read other blogs everyday, only because my schedule does not really permit it. And when I do, sometimes it shocks me to find out that others have been talking about something I just wrote on, like weeks before it even occurred to me to write about it. But, since I know that my readers don’t all do the “blog hop” (some of them aren’t even interested in MMOs) I don’t really mind sounding like someone’s echo, albeit unintentionally.
Would you accept a public apology?
You are very graceful, but I must refuse, you are my enemy! I will slay you with words. I’m kidding, there is no need to apologize, actually I think it’s a little bit embarrassing. I wasn’t upset at all, definitely intrigued. As for the sensational parts in the post that’s just me attempting humor.