On 8/16/2019 at 10:10 AM, Elf Prince said:

You know Trilog. In our country we have saying: "Every merchandise has a buyer."  

In my country we have a similar saying, just a bit classier ? "There's an ass for every chair."

23 hours ago, Tirloque said:

there were also some who liked the merchandise and forgot to leave a like.

It's okay, you can name and shame 

I think we have all had entries that we thought would really resonate with people only to have them underperform our expectations and it really sucks.

That said I would not take it too personally for a few reasons:

First, the blog section lately has been a bit of what I like to call a "giant, uncontrollable dumpster fire" (and before you get your pitchforks this is not to say everything has been bad, it's to say that the ratio of bad to good has been swinging way too far to the smelly side of the pendulum). I think this has led to fewer people paying attention to the section in general (I know I am guilty of this myself, I have been only really checking in on the weekends). Basically I think people are more likely to just read authors they actively follow than to just browse and look for something cool at this particular time in history because the odds of randomly finding something new and cool are not what I like to call "good".

Now Devianna and I for example have a huge advantage if that is the case: We publish fairly often and have published a lot in the past few months so we have a lot of still active readers. I have really found that LL in general and the blog section in particular has a pretty rapid turnover rate and if you don't actively keep "recruiting" (for lack of a better word) new readers you will really see the effects (just look at newer blogs with only 30 or so followers routinely getting more likes than older blogs with over a hundred to see what I'm talking about, then realize that most of the older blog's followers don't even sign in anymore).    

Looking back at the likes of your first few chapters of this saga I see a lot of names I haven't seen in months so I feel this phenomenon is hitting you particularly hard due to a combination of bad timing and a slower publishing rate.

Second Devianna and Resdayn and myself all put stuff up on Thursday or Friday and you put stuff up on Sunday making it not entirely a fair comparison. There is a pretty massive difference in site activity between Saturday and Sunday and missing Saturday will generally mean fewer likes (Sunday-Tuesday tend to be really slow and your stuff will get buried in that time). That makes the only really fair comparison with DJregs, and while he did get slightly more likes he also got way less than he typically does. That was a shitty day for traffic and you both got a bit screwed by it, it just hit you a bit harder since you publish less frequently and have been working on this one for much longer.

And for reason three, I think DJregs may have gotten a bit more attention simply because (and I mean this as constructive criticism so please don't take it the wrong way) your preview screen is not so engaging. He had boobs, you had a book, this is loverslab ?. Sometimes you gotta sell the sizzle, not the steak. I think the fact that we have had an absolute plague of scumbags bumping their shit to the top of the blog section for attention (see above RE: dumpster fire, do they really think we don't notice ?) and the fact that your entries all have the same cover shot might have hurt too if people just thought it was an old entry. 

I think you got hit with a bit of a perfect storm of bullshit basically and I know it really makes you feel like quitting when that happens but I wouldn't! At the end of the day we really just have to make these stories for ourselves, in the great scheme of things and the number of people on this site 30 likes or 12 likes or whatever are both a small number, even smaller when you compare them to the views we all get and realize that the vast majority of the people who click on our stuff are probably just there to scroll through looking for naughty bits and never read our text or leave a like or a comment and we will never know who they were.

The point isn't to be the most popular, or else we'd all just be taking the same five glamour shots over and over and posting them every Friday (and sometimes Sundays) it's to do this because we enjoy it or because it's a fun challenge to figure out how to make an outdated game engine do the things we want or whatever it is that got us into this in the first place and we enjoy sharing it with this tiny little subcommunity. If doing those things no longer make you happy then by all means stop, but don't let the ? be the metric of your enjoyment.

Anyway, sorry for the long and somewhat serious post, it's gross, I know! I'll get back to the dad jokes and shitposting now.   

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

It's okay, you can name and shame

No, there are quite a lot of readers that do just follow, or sometimes just comment, and do not "like". That being said if I want the likes to mean something, they have to be spontaneous, and so my policy is not to ask actively for them (except for a reminder before the entries themselves), and most of all never by name. I'd be grateful if you could remove that notification in your message (just the notifcation part).

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

That said I would not take it too personally for a few reasons:

 

First, the blog section lately has been a bit of what I like to call a "giant, uncontrollable dumpster fire" (and before you get your pitchforks this is not to say everything has been bad, it's to say that the ratio of bad to good has been swinging way too far to the smelly side of the pendulum). I think this has led to fewer people paying attention to the section in general (I know I am guilty of this myself, I have been only really checking in on the weekends). Basically I think people are more likely to just read authors they actively follow than to just browse and look for something cool at this particular time in history because the odds of randomly finding something new and cool are not what I like to call "good".

 

Now Devianna and I for example have a huge advantage if that is the case: We publish fairly often and have published a lot in the past few months so we have a lot of still active readers. I have really found that LL in general and the blog section in particular has a pretty rapid turnover rate and if you don't actively keep "recruiting" (for lack of a better word) new readers you will really see the effects (just look at newer blogs with only 30 or so followers routinely getting more likes than older blogs with over a hundred to see what I'm talking about, then realize that most of the older blog's followers don't even sign in anymore).    

(...)

Looking back at the likes of your first few chapters of this saga I see a lot of names I haven't seen in months so I feel this phenomenon is hitting you particularly hard due to a combination of bad timing and a slower publishing rate.

 

And for reason three, I think DJregs may have gotten a bit more attention simply because (and I mean this as constructive criticism so please don't take it the wrong way) your preview screen is not so engaging. He had boobs, you had a book, this is loverslab ?. Sometimes you gotta sell the sizzle, not the steak. I think the fact that we have had an absolute plague of scumbags bumping their shit to the top of the blog section for attention (see above RE: dumpster fire, do they really think we don't notice ?) and the fact that your entries all have the same cover shot might have hurt too if people just thought it was an old entry.

I have time to think about this. Devianna and Resdayn could confirm, the thumbnail and the slow publishing rate have indeed been mentioned. That, plus the relatively decreasing amount of sexual content (possibly leading the readers searching for this to lose interest), and possibly the "private-joke" aspect of that cross-over (even though I tried to integrate reminders of who was Stranger for those not knowing about him).

I do recall Mourning White entries had thumbnails with a face on it, and different colors. Maybe I underestimated that factor indeed. About the publishing rate however, I'm not sure I can do a thing, unless publishing my entries by halves, which would in fact lead to make the sexual content even more irregular. So it would serve as much at it would deter.

The "low quality" aspect of some publications of the blogs section is a factor I didn't think to. First, I think "low quality" could be a factor of point of view, as I might not be interested in a mod creator's journal, while his entries might be rather decently made. Same for pure screens entry, technically those do take less work than stories, but who am I to judge ? And so even if all that was AAA quality, their mere nature would still make them interesting or uninteresting for part of the viewers.

As for stories, my small library, and I believe some of my feedback are an incitation for the authors to consider the quality of their work. If they don't, well it's volunteer work, so as long as they have a blast sharing it/doing it, so be it.

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Second Devianna and Resdayn and myself all put stuff up on Thursday or Friday and you put stuff up on Sunday making it not entirely a fair comparison. There is a pretty massive difference in site activity between Saturday and Sunday and missing Saturday will generally mean fewer likes (Sunday-Tuesday tend to be really slow and your stuff will get buried in that time). That makes the only really fair comparison with DJregs, and while he did get slightly more likes he also got way less than he typically does. That was a shitty day for traffic and you both got a bit screwed by it, it just hit you a bit harder since you publish less frequently and have been working on this one for much longer.

That's an interesting observation. That being said, that could be double edged : if I publish an entry on Thursday (with no white stockings on ?), and you do publish yours at the same time, wouldn't the (entirely deserved) popularity of your more steady work attract viewing time that would've been spread more evenly otherwise ? I think I nearly always published on Sundays (with one of those having 1.5k views), aside of few exceptions Monday and Saturday. Though it's interesting to consider, I'm not sure of how much of the amounts of view relate to that. Though as I do publish rather slowly, I could be more watchful about this.

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

I think the fact that we have had an absolute plague of scumbags bumping their shit to the top of the blog section for attention (see above RE: dumpster fire, do they really think we don't notice ?) and the fact that your entries all have the same cover shot might have hurt too if people just thought it was an old entry.

I know who you're talking about. ^^ That being said, some entries are designed to be progressively updated (I could do so for the library or even a summary entry), and a significant addition could legitimately lead to a bump instead of a new entry. But, you're right, for some authors, it looks like adding a comma somewhere is legitimate enough to place their entry in front of all others... 

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

The point isn't to be the most popular, or else we'd all just be taking the same five glamour shots over and over and posting them every Friday (and sometimes Sundays) it's to do this because we enjoy it or because it's a fun challenge to figure out how to make an outdated game engine do the things we want or whatever it is that got us into this in the first place and we enjoy sharing it with this tiny little subcommunity. If doing those things no longer make you happy then by all means stop, but don't let the ? be the metric of your enjoyment.

As I said I'm proud of that entry, and I enjoy the final result, however underwhelming its reception may be. That being said, unless you specifically negociate with Bethesda/Zenimax, you don't have full ownership of that kind of work. And there could be other exercises done as an author, which may not be uninteresting either. I've did tributes for my characters in the past for my own sake ; but the amount of time I was investing then was considerably lesser. And with this one, the amount of work was quite high (even fitting and centering the text to bubbles, there are even people specialized into that in comics ^^). And so, while fun, having it become too confidential could lead to me changing the respective amounts of time I'm investing in my activities.

14 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Anyway, sorry for the long and somewhat serious post, it's gross, I know! I'll get back to the dad jokes and shitposting now.   

Malicia : « And pony-sending, yup. ? »

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

No, I there are quite a lot of readers that do just follow, or sometimes just comment, and do not "like". That being said if I want the likes to mean something, they have to be spontaneous, and so my policy is not to ask actively for them (except for a reminder before the entries themselves), and most of all never by name. I'd be grateful if you could remove that notification in your message (just the notifcation part).

 

You can edit people's posts on your blog so you can make it look like they said all sorts of silly things (or just take out stuff you don't like but that's no fun).

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

I do recall Mourning White entries had thumbnails with a face on it, and different colors. Maybe I underestimated that factor indeed. About the publishing rate however, I'm not sure I can do a thing, unless publishing my entries by halves, which would in fact lead to make the sexual content even more irregular. So it would serve as much at it would deter.

Well it may not be a solution as much as an explanation. Of course we can all only create things at the rate real life allows ?

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

The "low quality" aspect of some publications of the blogs section is a factor I didn't think to. First, I think "low quality" could be a factor of point of view, as I might not be interested in a mod creator's journal, while his entries might be rather decently made. Same for pure screens entry, technically those do take less work than stories, but who am I to judge ? And so even if all that was AAA quality, their mere nature would still make them interesting or uninteresting for part of the viewers.

 

Of course it's completely subjective... but so are statements like "poop is not a good thing to eat" and "dropping the soap in prison is a bad idea" sure a few people might disagree but for the most part everyone's subjectivity tends to line up on a few things ?

I'd say it goes beyond taste. There are blogs or entries I don't enjoy because they aren't my style but they are still made with just as much love and attention as anything I do like and that's just down to personal preference which is great, not everything needs to be or should be for everybody! But then there is also super low effort stuff that I'd wager the vast majority of people would not rate as being quite on the same level as the blogs you chronicle in your small library for example. 

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

That's an interesting observation. That being said, that could be double edged : if I publish an entry on Thursday (with no white stockings on ?), and you do publish yours at the same time, wouldn't the (entirely deserved) popularity of your more steady work attract viewing time that would've been spread more evenly otherwise ? I think I nearly always published on Sundays (with one of those having 1.5k views), aside of few exceptions Monday and Saturday. Though it's interesting to consider, I'm not sure of how much of the amounts of view relate to that. Though as I do publish rather slowly, I could be more watchful about this.

 

Well I think you'd really need to get into some nitty gritty white lab coat stuff to fully prove or disprove all the "what ifs" and concretely prove what I have casually observed but i have definitely noticed that things seem more lively on Saturday at least recently. I suppose if someone only has time to read one story then sure they could end up not choosing yours but I would think that a bigger number of potential eyes ends up being a net positive in the long run.

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

I know who you're talking about. ^^ That being said, some entries are designed to be progressively updated (I could do so for the library or even a summary entry), and a significant addition could legitimately lead to a bump instead of a new entry. But, you're right, for some authors, it looks like adding a comma somewhere is legitimate enough to place their entry in front of all others... 

 

I think some people do it just out of a poor knowledge of teh forum software but others 100% do it just to get back to the top ?

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

As I said I'm proud of that entry, and I enjoy the final result, however underwhelming its reception may be. That being said, unless you specifically negociate with Bethesda/Zenimax, you don't have full ownership of that kind of work. And there could be other exercises done as an author, which may not be uninteresting either. I've did tributes for my characters in the past for my own sake ; but the amount of time I was investing then was considerably lesser. And with this one, the amount of work was quite high (even fitting and centering the text to bubbles, there are even people specialized into that in comics ^^). And so, while fun, having it become too confidential could lead to me changing the respective amounts of time I'm investing in my activities.

 

 

Well like I said in closing above if that's your motivation then definitely don't hesitate to use your time for something you prefer doing, even if just for a bit of a hiatus (I think we all have those from time to time). It would just be a shame to lose one of the great LL blogs over what I still think mainly boils down to bad timing and lo the pendulum would get a little bit smellier that day. 

7 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

You can edit people's posts on your blog so you can make it look like they said all sorts of silly things (or just take out stuff you don't like but that's no fun).

I am fully aware of that. But having the power to force something upon someone does not make it legitimate. Which is why I do ask it to you as friendly community member to another friendly fellow : I don't want naming and shaming here, please remove that mention from your comment. 
 

7 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Of course it's completely subjective... but so are statements like "poop is not a good thing to eat" and "dropping the soap in prison is a bad idea" sure a few people might disagree but for the most part everyone's subjectivity tends to line up on a few things ?

 

I'd say it goes beyond taste. There are blogs or entries I don't enjoy because they aren't my style but they are still made with just as much love and attention as anything I do like and that's just down to personal preference which is great, not everything needs to be or should be for everybody! But then there is also super low effort stuff that I'd wager the vast majority of people would not rate as being quite on the same level as the blogs you chronicle in your small library for example.

You certainly have a point here. Though if you stop at the first glance, you might say it looks like shit and miss the potential underneath. Sometimes.

Other times, it looks like shit, and tastes like it. ^^

7 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Well I think you'd really need to get into some nitty gritty white lab coat stuff to fully prove or disprove all the "what ifs" and concretely prove what I have casually observed but i have definitely noticed that things seem more lively on Saturday at least recently. I suppose if someone only has time to read one story then sure they could end up not choosing yours but I would think that a bigger number of potential eyes ends up being a net positive in the long run.

One has to create his luck, indeed. But take in account your blog is now among the biggest ones around her, and that publishing at the same time might be double edged as well.

7 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Well like I said in closing above if that's your motivation then definitely don't hesitate to use your time for something you prefer doing, even if just for a bit of a hiatus (I think we all have those from time to time). It would just be a shame to lose one of the great LL blogs over what I still think mainly boils down to bad timing and lo the pendulum would get a little bit smellier that day. 

I still do like doing my comics, a lot even. Depending on how things go (if they went wrong in particular), I may just reduce them in size and dimension. But thanks for your words Spy, I appreciate it.

3 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

I am fully aware of that. But having the power to force something upon someone does not make it legitimate. Which is why I do ask it to you as friendly community member to another friendly fellow : I don't want naming and shaming here, please remove that mention from your comment. 

 

 

Actually I did when I replied before but I guess I didn't hit save or something. Oh well done properly now. 

5 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

 

One has to create his luck, indeed. But take in account your blog is now among the biggest ones around her, and that publishing at the same time might be double edged as well.

 

Well I'm still not convinced that the popularity of one blog would have any effect on another but it is an interesting thought and something I hadn't considered. 

6 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

 

I still do like doing my comics, a lot even. Depending on how things go, I may just reduce them in size and dimension. But thanks for your words Spy, I appreciate it.

 

 

?

1 hour ago, Tirloque said:

 

One has to create his luck, indeed. But take in account your blog is now among the biggest ones around her, and that publishing at the same time might be double edged as well.

 

SpyvsPie

Well I'm still not convinced that the popularity of one blog would have any effect on another but it is an interesting thought and something I hadn't considered.

@SpyVsPie Your popularity and number of followers rapidly increased which is saying only one thing: your blog entries are very high quality and people likes your stories. I'm happy for you.

@Tirloque belongs to same league (high quality posters) and I agree with you that's one's popularity doesn't reduce other poster's popularity. I noticed that great majority of the poster's lost visitation in this period of time. It is summer, it is hot, time for vacations and people just aren't around in the frequency they used to be. It's gonna change soon.

You two and several others are kings of blog thread and we, Eva, Ivy and myself like to read your blogs and have honor to be your followers.

1 hour ago, Elf Prince said:

SpyvsPie

Well I'm still not convinced that the popularity of one blog would have any effect on another but it is an interesting thought and something I hadn't considered.

 

@SpyVsPie Your popularity and number of followers rapidly increased which is saying only one thing: your blog entries are very high quality and people likes your stories. I'm happy for you.

@Tirloque belongs to same league (high quality posters) and I agree with you that's one's popularity doesn't reduce other poster's popularity. I noticed that great majority of the poster's lost visitation in this period of time. It is summer, it is hot, time for vacations and people just aren't around in the frequency they used to be. It's gonna change soon.

 

You two and several others are kings of blog thread and we, Eva, Ivy and myself like to read your blogs and have honor to be your followers.

Yeah the summertime factor is something I have considered and mentioned to Resdayn a few times. 

Fewer authors are posting, so readers stop visiting the section, so authors get less response when they do post so authors post less. It's like a big vicious cycle. 

So first about the entry itself:

Congratulations on finishing the story! The editing and all the added small details were great as usual and really make your blog stand out from the rest! There's always something new to discover, even when reading some images or scenes twice!

I'm looking forward to seeing what else you have planned for us on some potentially more serious entries.   

Btw. that dress looks actually great on her, the colors go really well with her hair color. 

About the discussion that's going on here:

Here's a lesson we can all learn from Nora: Care about yourself, because that's what makes you happy in the long run. 

If you're not doing this for yourself it's all for nothing. Nobody cares about Tirloque's Blog in twenty years. Nobody cares about Alter Native's blog in twenty years except you yourself. If you don't do it for yourself you're working for the bin.

Basically only 3-4% of a blogs audience actually upvotes and actively comments on blogs and for the most part these are people that you're already friends with and the usual suspects. You still got several hundreds of views within a couple of days. There is definitely interest of the audience! Go to the blog section an check the views on entries people don't care about and you'll see how actual disinterest looks like. For some reason parts of the "core community" didn't upvote, which I don't understand (more on that below). For my part, I didn't get a notification of your blog even though I'm following and I was gone the first half of the week. 

Of course it would be nice if more people would actively participate in commenting and upvoting, but that's the same here as in other platforms. For example only a tiny fraction of people  write comments under youtube videos or likes. 

Also LoversLab is not the center of the world for Skyrim content, there are other strong platforms with a lot of very enfranchised and competent people. Tumblr until last year, now Twitter and/or Discord. I personally think LoversLab is poorly managed and moderated, not just the blog section but other parts of this website as well. It always feels like the spam is increasing in the blog section and it occasionally does, but for the most part I think the amount and quality of entries is pretty constant over the last years.

What helps my blog tremendously is having all entries permanently linked on each entry with the menu. So once people found and liked your content it's easy for them to access other content of yours. 

For the "success-dependence" of entries, here are my experiences: The publishing day is not important for the total amount of views and upvotes after a week. I tend to get a lot of upvotes and reads during the weekend. I had entries published on Mondays that got stuck on 10 likes for the whole week and suddenly doubled on the weekend. 
Sexual content or not doesn't matter either. I do however get more views on sexual content but the same - or even less upvotes. Some of my most boring and dialogue heavy entries got the most upvotes (like 5.5).

Regular posting certainly helps.

There's also a huge amount of variance on the amount of upvotes. I tend to get something like 21 +- 4 on average, but sometimes it's just 16 sometimes it's 27 like my previous entry (my second highest entry). Without any reasonable explanation or pattern or quality difference. That entry for sure wasn't my second best entry. It just happend.

I consider the remake of Chapter 1 some of the best content I ever put out, especially C1S2 that got 15 upvotes. 
Why? I don't know... And I stopped caring around that time. 

There are people that put a tiny fraction of the work you do in their entries or their content and they get a lot more recognition. There are people on Twitch or Youtube or elsewhere that do plain nothing and thousands of people watch and throw money at the screen while others work their ass off and nobody gives two shits about them.
Nobody cares how much work someone puts into something.
If you're not doing it for yourself you're doing it for no one. (Unless it's your job, but in that case you're doing it for yourself again.) 

Here's something I got from another story blogger and good friend a while back who puts tones of work into his blog and deserves much more recognition than he gets.

 



 

On another note, you're a pillar of our small skyrim story community, you care about even the smallest content creator give constructive feedback, keep the story club alive and motivate people. 

 

Holy cheese wheel! If you ever needed proof that your blog is magical, Tirloque, then here it is : you got SpyVsPie to make a serious post and Alter's Nora just gave us all a life lesson. ? Jokes aside, what it does show is that we all care about your work and appreciate it very much.

I agree with everything said before me : sometimes you just get hit with a very bad timing, no matter how good your work is. Sometimes people are here only for the naughty bits, and speaking of that - even the presence of lewd content does not guarantee that people will upvote or comment. (heck, as my latest poll shows there actually are readers who do NOT want sex-heavy episodes or unfriendly characters). So as long as you are enjoying creating your own stories it's all worth it, regardless of the views or votes. Plus you've gathered quite a devoted following (as you said - there are people that always upvote your content) and that in itself is extremely impressive. ?

P.S. We spoke about that earlier and while the amount of views was very similar at the start, my Nightlive is still in the low 400s, while your EoP is at 650. So it's safe to say your blog is as popular as ever. ?

First of all, I want to say to you guys (and ladies) : thanks you ! Ok, that entry only did 12 likes in a week, but the concern, the advices, the support, the listening... All that you spontaneously did for me if what friends would've done when sensing one of their siblings would feel down. I think, actually our little community of storytellers does matter way more to me than knowing how many unknown bystanders did make the effort to click on a like button. What you did for me has value in my eyes.

So, THANK YOU, my friends !

5 hours ago, Elf Prince said:

@Tirloque belongs to same league (high quality posters) and I agree with you that's one's popularity doesn't reduce other poster's popularity. I noticed that great majority of the poster's lost visitation in this period of time. It is summer, it is hot, time for vacations and people just aren't around in the frequency they used to be. It's gonna change soon.

 

You two and several others are kings of blog thread and we, Eva, Ivy and myself like to read your blogs and have honor to be your followers.

You may be right about summer. Some people are AFK in vacations somewhere (Wanobi being an example), some could have other occupations or be in places where the heat from a computer isn't too welcome. It might play a role. ?

And the honor is all for me, Prince.

3 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Fewer authors are posting, so readers stop visiting the section, so authors get less response when they do post so authors post less. It's like a big vicious cycle. 

It seems we have a problem of "glass half full" or half empty here. To me if there are less entries posted, it means that my entry will stay longer on the main page, and thus have less disputed views. If there are several quality blogs publishing, I'll have to make a choice on which to read first. Choice that may become "which to read" in the case of people being a bit less fond of stories I think.

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

So first about the entry itself:

Congratulations on finishing the story! The editing and all the added small details were great as usual and really make your blog stand out from the rest! There's always something new to discover, even when reading some images or scenes twice!

I'm looking forward to seeing what else you have planned for us on some potentially more serious entries.   

Btw. that dress looks actually great on her, the colors go really well with her hair color.

Thanks, Alter ! I'm glad my work could be appreciated to that level, for that is the one of a good story. And I see many blogs featuring stories just as good if not better. That is why you saw me writing about regretting we having limited rights upon our work, as I've see regular commercial work considerably less funny, artistic or creative than some entries posted around.

The serious entries are going to be a 180° change compare to those of Malicia though. Tabrielle's story so far went darker and darker, and the next entries will be even greater dips in that direction.

Even more reasons to be curious about how they'll be received, but hey I'm gonna stop harassing you guys about reception.

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

About the discussion that's going on here:

Here's a lesson we can all learn from Nora: Care about yourself, because that's what makes you happy in the long run. 

If you're not doing this for yourself it's all for nothing. Nobody cares about Tirloque's Blog in twenty years. Nobody cares about Alter Native's blog in twenty years except you yourself. If you don't do it for yourself you're working for the bin.

 

(...)

Here's something I got from another story blogger and good friend a while back who puts tones of work into his blog and deserves much more recognition than he gets.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 



 

On another note, you're a pillar of our small skyrim story community, you care about even the smallest content creator give constructive feedback, keep the story club alive and motivate people. 

 
 

 

 

You are right, Alter, we are primarily doing this work for ourselves. Yet, it's storytelling, and to someone telling a story, it's the public that allows him to know if he makes his art the right way.

Plus I think the skills we are acquiring here might be helpful later, would it be if some future law enforced the creators as owners of their creations, or if authors did later turn themselves towards more classical medias.

Though your friend is so true in what he's describing, that I admire that small comic strip. Would he allow me to post it in the library ?

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

Basically only 3-4% of a blogs audience actually upvotes and actively comments on blogs and for the most part these are people that you're already friends with and the usual suspects. You still got several hundreds of views within a couple of days. There is definitely interest of the audience! Go to the blog section an check the views on entries people don't care about and you'll see how actual disinterest looks like. For some reason parts of the "core community" didn't upvote, which I don't understand (more on that below). For my part, I didn't get a notification of your blog even though I'm following and I was gone the first half of the week. 

(...)

For the "success-dependence" of entries, here are my experiences: The publishing day is not important for the total amount of views and upvotes after a week. I tend to get a lot of upvotes and reads during the weekend. I had entries published on Mondays that got stuck on 10 likes for the whole week and suddenly doubled on the weekend. 
Sexual content or not doesn't matter either. I do however get more views on sexual content but the same - or even less upvotes. Some of my most boring and dialogue heavy entries got the most upvotes (like 5.5).

Regular posting certainly helps.

There's also a huge amount of variance on the amount of upvotes. I tend to get something like 21 +- 4 on average, but sometimes it's just 16 sometimes it's 27 like my previous entry (my second highest entry). Without any reasonable explanation or pattern or quality difference. That entry for sure wasn't my second best entry. It just happend.

I consider the remake of Chapter 1 some of the best content I ever put out, especially C1S2 that got 15 upvotes. 
Why? I don't know... And I stopped caring around that time.

Well, there is a factor on what you prefer might not be what thrills the readers, and so you could get more likes on some entries you consider second rate, and less on some you consider first-order. Which is why I was put in doubt here, as I considered that entry (coupled with the previous one) as ones of the very bests I made.

In your case you're not too fond of action, and prefer to insist on the aesthetics of an entry, which may lead you to misinterpret some audiences rates. Your remade chapter 1 was indeed among your best work IMO, I have excellent memories of how complete and fulfilling they felt.

Thanks to letting me know about the notification, I wondered if some people didn't think Eop V wasn't a bumped EoP IV in fact also, as Spy said. Interesting observations about audience as well.

53 minutes ago, Devianna said:

Holy cheese wheel! If you ever needed proof that your blog is magical, Tirloque, then here it is : you got SpyVsPie to make a serious post and Alter's Nora just gave us all a life lesson. ? Jokes aside, what it does show is that we all care about your work and appreciate it very much.

You're right Devianna. I even got a private message from an extremely busy person, so I can't say nothing happened. ^^

1 hour ago, Devianna said:

I agree with everything said before me : sometimes you just get hit with a very bad timing, no matter how good your work is. Sometimes people are here only for the naughty bits, and speaking of that - even the presence of lewd content does not guarantee that people will upvote or comment. (heck, as my latest poll shows there actually are readers who do NOT want sex-heavy episodes or unfriendly characters). So as long as you are enjoying creating your own stories it's all worth it, regardless of the views or votes. Plus you've gathered quite a devoted following (as you said - there are people that always upvote your content) and that in itself is extremely impressive. ?

 

P.S. We spoke about that earlier and while the amount of views was very similar at the start, my Nightlive is still in the low 400s, while your EoP is at 650. So it's safe to say your blog is as popular as ever. ?

Well, the views metric might be a bit biased as well, as if we're ten checking the content each time it does increases the total views quite significantly. But regardless of that you're right, I've found a community so sympathetic that those missing green thumbs now seem not that important in comparison. Thanks !

23 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

...or be in places where the heat from a computer isn't too welcome. It might play a role. ?

 

This has actually been an issue for me this summer in terms of creating stories (though not reading them). My PC is pretty bad and on the opposite side of my house from the air conditioner so it sounds like a jet engine taking off whenever I play Skyrim. In the process of buying parts for a new system now so hopefully that (and my load times! I think upgrading from having Skyrim on hard drive to an M.2 NVME drive might help things a bit...) will improve soon. I never really thought about in terms of reading just due to the prevalence of smartphones and laptops but I suppose that could be true. I do think the vacation thing is more likely though.

27 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

 

It seems we have a problem of "glass half full" or half empty here. To me if there are less entries posted, it means that my entry will stay longer on the main page, and thus have less disputed views. If there are several quality blogs publishing, I'll have to make a choice on which to read first. Choice that may become "which to read" in the case of people being a bit less fond of stories I think.

 

Well if the blog section was ONLY Skyrim stories I'd say that theory would hold more weight. As it is now the rate at which authors I enjoy are making Skyrim stories is slower than it was say a few months ago but the blog section itself is just as busy as ever, just with things that don't interest me and stories definitely do NOT seem to stay longer on the main page (if anything it seems just the opposite, I think last week my entry I put up on Friday was off the main page by Monday morning and we barely get through a week around here these days without someone dropping an excessive amount of entries in a row and flooding the main page).

For me personally that doesn't lead to me saying "Oh this will give me more time to read the one story that went up in the last four days", it leads to me saying "Well this is pointless, I'll just come back and see if anything cool has happened in a week and catch up on the two or three stories that went up in that time."

Of course everyone's reaction to things is different but that has definitely been mine.

32 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

 

Thanks to letting me know about the notification, I wondered if some people didn't think Eop V wasn't a bumped EoP IV in fact also, as Spy said. Interesting observations about audience as well.

 

The update that finally fixed the forum also seems to have broken notifications (along with a few other cool features). I get them about 60ish percent of the time now I think. 

I am also curious to see how your serious entries (that you maybe expect to be a bit less "user friendly") end up fairing. For my part my two most popular entries in terms of likes are tied, one I expected to be a bit of a flop and one is my favorite entry I have ever done that I always thought would be a hit. It is really hard to judge what people will connect with I guess.  

Anyway glad we could help turn that frown upside down   

9 hours ago, Tirloque said:

You are right, Alter, we are primarily doing this work for ourselves. Yet, it's storytelling, and to someone telling a story, it's the public that allows him to know if he makes his art the right way.

We're storytellers not entertainers . Blood & Pleasure is done right when I think it's done right, not when the public think it is. 

Ok, if you want to be good at storytelling you should listen closely to your audiences feedback.  

9 hours ago, Tirloque said:

Plus I think the skills we are acquiring here might be helpful later, would it be if some future law enforced the creators as owners of their creations, or if authors did later turn themselves towards more classical medias.

I think you're taking this ownership thing with Zenimax/Bethesda a bit too serious. All of this is a giant grey area. There are people making a living of Skyrim on Youtube and elsewhere. There's unofficially fan art of a lot of different brands sold everywhere.

There are people doing things like Cosplay with characters they of course don't own and making huge amounts of money with it. 

I remember talking to you about this a while back, but unless the platform you have in mind explicitly forbids this kind of content (and enforces it) I don't see a reason to not give it a try. Worst case you have to put it down again. (Ok, more or less worst case)

Quote

 

Though your friend is so true in what he's describing, that I admire that small comic strip. Would he allow me to post it in the library ?

Got it from Collygon . As neither he nor I am the original author of this little comic you can do whatever you want with it. So feel free to post in the library.

Quote

Thanks to letting me know about the notification, I wondered if some people didn't think Eop V wasn't a bumped EoP IV in fact also, as Spy said. Interesting observations about audience as well.

Well, that actually happend to me as I mostly watch the Blog entries on the main page and didn't pay close attention to the V and IV, I saw some activity on Thursday already but was assuming you were having some (lengthy) discussion with someone on the old entry. 

11 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Well if the blog section was ONLY Skyrim stories I'd say that theory would hold more weight. As it is now the rate at which authors I enjoy are making Skyrim stories is slower than it was say a few months ago but the blog section itself is just as busy as ever, just with things that don't interest me and stories definitely do NOT seem to stay longer on the main page (if anything it seems just the opposite, I think last week my entry I put up on Friday was off the main page by Monday morning and we barely get through a week around here these days without someone dropping an excessive amount of entries in a row and flooding the main page).

 

For me personally that doesn't lead to me saying "Oh this will give me more time to read the one story that went up in the last four days", it leads to me saying "Well this is pointless, I'll just come back and see if anything cool has happened in a week and catch up on the two or three stories that went up in that time."

 

Of course everyone's reaction to things is different but that has definitely been mine.

Everyone's different. Though we've had a lot massive one time posters indeed; Talk about a strategy to get primetime exposure.

11 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

The update that finally fixed the forum also seems to have broken notifications (along with a few other cool features). I get them about 60ish percent of the time now I think.

There is one factor that may be taken in consideration this time, it being as one of the eternal bumpers just bumped his entry like 5' after I published mine (), I took profit I was editing minor mistakes to bump it back once (). That may have broken the notifications sending, which was also problematic in case of delayed publishing.

11 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Anyway glad we could help turn that frown upside down   

?

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

I think you're taking this ownership thing with Zenimax/Bethesda a bit too serious. All of this is a giant grey area. There are people making a living of Skyrim on Youtube and elsewhere. There's unofficially fan art of a lot of different brands sold everywhere.

There are people doing things like Cosplay with characters they of course don't own and making huge amounts of money with it. 

I remember talking to you about this a while back, but unless the platform you have in mind explicitly forbids this kind of content (and enforces it) I don't see a reason to not give it a try. Worst case you have to put it down again. (Ok, more or less worst case)

I've checked closely at the EULA : it is partly a grey (WTF with FF wanting me to write grAy everytime XD) area, as it is not defined who owns the screens generated when the game is used as an image creation software. But what is defined, is that the license does not allows you to make commercial use of the game. And so you cannot sell what you produce with it, unless you get an explicit agreement with Zenimax.

And so while at first I though about contacting them in order to define that grey area (just like I did with Postimage), as after all there are quantities of people monetizing their twitch gaming streams, I thought that their reactions might be the opposite of what I expected. And so that it might be better to leave it in grey, until one of us reach a state where he could commercialize his/her work (in which case he should negociate his specific case with Zenimax).

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

Well, that actually happend to me as I mostly watch the Blog entries on the main page and didn't pay close attention to the V and IV, I saw some activity on Thursday already but was assuming you were having some (lengthy) discussion with someone on the old entry. 

My associate thought it was because of the lack of stockings.

3 hours ago, Alter Native said:

We're storytellers not entertainers . Blood & Pleasure is done right when I think it's done right, not when the public think it is. 

Ok, if you want to be good at storytelling you should listen closely to your audiences feedback.

Which is why I'm partly concerned about my more serious stuff, as Tabrielle's story hasn't been made to please, but rather has been lived and I thought it might be decent enough to make a good tribute to her. Contrary to Malicia's encounter with Stranger, which was 100% designed as entertainment from the start. I've enriched Tabrielle's chronicle with more and more entertainment moments as well, that being said.

Malicia : « You're very right, Mr Native. No more blood baths, no more pointy nails, and only people being very friendly together, yes !  »

3 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

I've checked closely at the EULA : it is partly a grey (WTF with FF wanting me to write grAy everytime XD) area, as it is not defined who owns the screens generated when the game is used as an image creation software. But what is defined, is that the license does not allows you to make commercial use of the game. And so you cannot sell what you produce with it, unless you get an explicit agreement with Zenimax.

3 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

And so while at first I though about contacting them in order to define that grey area (just like I did with Postimage), as after all there are quantities of people monetizing their twitch gaming streams, I thought that their reactions might be the opposite of what I expected. And so that it might be better to leave it in grey, until one of us reach a state where he could commercialize his/her work (in which case he should negociate his specific case with Zenimax).

TbH. as long as you're not super big nobody cares.

But this is a very old debate in the community. How is it fair that modders are forbidden to make money of mods while Youtubers that just record gameplay (similar to screenshots) are allowed to make money.

Nonetheless people do sell mods by now, see various patreons. If you're creative about the monetization you can make it work. So instead of selling mods, you can just sell 3D models (that happen to work in Skyrim). Or instead of selling scripted mods, you get support for "programming in notepad++".

So you could just sell your story if you wanted and the screenshots are just a bonus.

So there's actually no problem for something like a patreon or whatever. 

Not sure how this works for large scale publications or whatever you have in mind, but tbh. I don't think anyone cares as long as you are reasonably small.

3 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

Which is why I'm partly concerned about my more serious stuff, as Tabrielle's story hasn't been made to please, but rather has been lived and I thought it might be decent enough to make a good tribute to her. Contrary to Malicia's encounter with Stranger, which was 100% designed as entertainment from the start. I've enriched Tabrielle's chronicle with more and more entertainment moments as well, that being said.

I was mostly referring to:

entertainer = Someone who is successful when entertaining people (the audience enjoys what is shown)

storyteller =  Some who is successful when he/she tells a story; Independent of reception  

43 minutes ago, Alter Native said:

I was mostly referring to:

entertainer = Someone who is successful when entertaining people (the audience enjoys what is shown)

storyteller =  Some who is successful when he/she tells a story; Independent of reception

Malicia : « Yep. But you should very listen to feedback too.  »

43 minutes ago, Alter Native said:

TbH. as long as you're not super big nobody cares.

But this is a very old debate in the community. How is it fair that modders are forbidden to make money of mods while Youtubers that just record gameplay (similar to screenshots) are allowed to make money.

Nonetheless people do sell mods by now, see various patreons. If you're creative about the monetization you can make it work. So instead of selling mods, you can just sell 3D models (that happen to work in Skyrim). Or instead of selling scripted mods, you get support for "programming in notepad++".

So you could just sell your story if you wanted and the screenshots are just a bonus.

So there's actually no problem for something like a patreon or whatever. 

Not sure how this works for large scale publications or whatever you have in mind, but tbh. I don't think anyone cares as long as you are reasonably small.

That's the issue. Which is why I wondered, as long as one of us isn't in position to become "big", if it wouldn't be better to leave it at that. Yet it's still quite unfair, even considering creation club mods are paid ones.

And images aren't a "bonus" in case of you doing a comic. But anyway, the answer could be to leave it at that as long as one is reasonably small indeed. And then to contact Zenimax by yourself once your growth becomes significant. ?

5 hours ago, Tirloque said:

Everyone's different. Though we've had a lot massive one time posters indeed; Talk about a strategy to get primetime exposure.

 

More like "How to lose friends and alienate people blog section edition" ??. Another thing to keep in mind is that I think you Wanobi and Devianna are the only ones who read even close to a majority of the stuff that gets posted, most of us just skip over most of it so our perspectives come from different places.  

5 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

 

There is one factor that may be taken in consideration this time, it being as one of the eternal bumpers just bumped his entry like 5' after I published mine (), I took profit I was editing minor mistakes to bump it back once (). 

Oh I know, nothing escapes the watchful eyes of the spy ?️‍♂️?. I will forgive it in this case, bumping the bumper is like shooting someone in self defense, fair play. 

25 minutes ago, SpyVsPie said:

Another thing to keep in mind is that I think you Wanobi and Devianna are the only ones who read even close to a majority of the stuff that gets posted, most of us just skip over most of it so our perspectives come from different places.  

True^^.

When there's something new that doesn't look like reasonable quality at first glance, I always wait for Tirloque's comment to see whether it's worth reading or not.  

2 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

More like "How to lose friends and alienate people blog section edition" ??. Another thing to keep in mind is that I think you Wanobi and Devianna are the only ones who read even close to a majority of the stuff that gets posted, most of us just skip over most of it so our perspectives come from different places. 

Indeed. ^^

2 hours ago, SpyVsPie said:

Oh I know, nothing escapes the watchful eyes of the spy ?️‍♂️?. I will forgive it in this case, bumping the bumper is like shooting someone in self defense, fair play. 

Let's just say that he must've had more training as my effort was nullified rather quickly.

2 hours ago, Alter Native said:

True^^.

When there's something new that doesn't look like reasonable quality at first glance, I always wait for Tirloque's comment to see whether it's worth reading or not.  

Haha, then if I fail at storytelling entertainement I'll still be able to retrain as critic. ^^

2 hours ago, Alter Native said:

When there's something new that doesn't look like reasonable quality at first glance, I always wait for Tirloque's and Malicia's very expert comments to see whether it's worth reading or not. 

Malicia :

3 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

Haha, then if I fail at storytelling entertainement I'll still be able to retrain as critic. ^^

 

Just be sure to get your reps in ?