Middle-earth Center Staff Blog

We all knew it was coming. Nobody knew for sure what it was.

I’m happy to say that MOST of the rumours we posted turned out true. Yeah, I know - we got the name wrong. Its pretty much in the same direction though, wouldn’t be surprised if Battlegrounds was the actual working title of the game.

So yea, I’ve been having an overflow of ideas for features on the site to abuse the f*ck out of the buzz around the game, and most importantly, continue support once it’s launched.

What they are?
I’m not going to tell. The game is still at least half a year away, and anything I’d promise here could very well turn out to be an empty promise in the end. Rest assured, we’re very exited about this game and are already working on getting some exclusive time with the devs to answer some of the burning questions our members have.

So I guess I did tell you something. Either way, let’s just keep it at the fact I have a lot more on my sleeve. A few of my ideas are quite drastic and may or may not even be possible technically. Seeing as most of them depend on the game itself, I’m just going to keep them in my own little idea box until we know more about the game and its actual release date.

So a few days ago, I posted this announcement requesting gaming staff for the site.

The amount of replies I got? 0, null, zero or none. Any way you put it, this is a sad number for a forum memberbase that feels its needed to initiate a riot when an admin does not have gaming experience. I feel that a number of people (you know if this is you) just come on to criticise and sometimes even make suggestions now and then, especially during our infamous forum riots - but do not contribute anything when it is being asked.

At any rate, I realise many people here no longer play the games, but still. The only staff position that seems to be popular at times, is when a new moderator is requested. Maybe someone can explain that to me, but a writing positon allows for much more freedom, creativity and a hell of a lot less criticism then you would get as a moderator.

But meh, its probably just me. But some of these old-members-turned-lurkers are usually just pissing me off rather then contributing anything.

On a related note, Zach has been helping out on the RoTWK pages. I myself am working in the LotRO ones.

WP

Well it appears that vBulletin likes throwing out minor releases before their major releases. I just upgraded the forums from vBulletin 3.6.8 to 3.6.9, which probably means you haven’t noticed anything :). All the changes are bugfixes and secuirity fixes.

Regardless, the forums were offline for a few minutes so you may have noticed that. Just thought I’d inform you guys.

In the mean time, I’ve also fixed and tweaked a few site features. The news banners will now take you to the archive for that category, which makes browsing the news for your favourite games a bit easier. All the post details and archive pages have also been altered, as these held a few bugs.The forums have received a few visual updates, including the subforums which are now presented in a tidy list. You probably also noted the strategy forums that have been re-added.

To close this post down, we are looking for staff for some of our games. Check out the news message with details. We have a number of features up and coming we think you will enjoy, in addition to the tournament still going strong with the first 2 rounds just behind us.

Stay tuned!

For some reason the first post in a blog is always he hardest, and for some reason the title I use for it is always the same.

So yea… it’s up. It is! It’s still not getting any easier, so I’ll probably just go on ahead and explain what it’s for!

Well, for one reason it’s just very neat to have a staff blog. Other large sites have it, and its a great way for users to see what their staff is, has been or will be up to. Secondly, it adds yet another perk to the still voluntary staff positions, so that people might see it as another incentive to join our staff in the future.

But most of all, its just very neat, and wordpress is an awesome blogging platform to use. We might be expanding this in the future, depending on how many staff will actually use it. In the mean time, don’t be shy and use our comments system to let us know what you think!