Nineteen Years of Shifting Targets

It’s time for 19!

Quantity 19 – Corvette

No, not that 19.  The weblog turns 19 at the moment.  Ever WP.com admits I’ve been round that lengthy.

The annual WP.com greeting

And 19 years is sort of a very long time, with almost a 3rd of my life involving me tapping out typo stuffed first drafts and urgent the publish button greater than 7,500 occasions.  However we’ll get to the foolish stats a bit additional down the web page.

And but it feels a bit like a lesser turning of the years, only one shy of 20, a pleasant massive spherical quantity that’s a lot extra spectacular than 19.  19 seems like it’s virtually there, whereas 20 has arrived.  Or so it goes with these of us who depend in base 10 I suppose.

As a part of Blaugust I mirrored a bit on the writing course of, as I’m wont to do, but additionally thought of the targets of the weblog, what my writing task right here is, was, and may find yourself being.  I say that as a result of I definitely didn’t begin out the way in which issues are actually.  It took some time to determine no matter we name what I’m doing now.

If we return to that very first publish again in September of 2006, I appeared to wish to write about video games I had already performed, to go over my historical past.  And I definitely did a few of that.  I wrote about early on-line video games like Stellar Emperor and Air Warrior and TorilMUD.  I attempted to tease out recollections of issues like Starsiege: Tribes and the early days of EverQuest.

You’ll find various posts about video games I performed earlier than I began running a blog.  However issues shortly turned to speaking about MMOs and what may come subsequent.  We had been in each the age of running a blog and of MMORPG reputation.  We had been going to have all kinds of MMOs, they usually had been going to be about something and every little thing.  Even Micheal Jackson.

Planet Michael… solely to be imaged, by no means to be seen

After which the WoW killer… as a result of absolutely someone would come alongside and dethrone the mighty king of MMORPGs… by no means appeared.  It captured and dominated the market and its peak was by no means eclipsed within the west and builders sport up on that and began making an attempt to money in on the subsequent pattern, which was Fb video games or free to play MMOs or MOBAs or Kickstarted nostalgia farming title pushed initiatives… all of which I coated some right here and there.  Nearly all of them didn’t reside as much as their promise and most didn’t survive for very lengthy.

As a part of that I began posting about occasions and launches and expansions and updates, if solely simply to determine a timeline in order that I may bear in mind what modified when.

Alongside the way in which I wrote about what I used to be enjoying.  At first these posts had been haphazard, missing intimately and principally simply “I did a factor” with out a lot round it.  That developed as a method, targeted across the occasion group and our adventures in Azeroth, but additionally round EVE On-line and the continued wrestle to seek out the sport within the sandbox.

That expanded to different video games we performed and acquired extra detailed.  Likewise, as soon as I discovered my area of interest in null sec, posts concerning the ups and downs of house empires in New Eden started to determine way more.

For no actual purpose past “it appeared like a good suggestion on the time” I wrote a Month in Overview publish on the finish of that first September and have continued to take action each since.  Whereas these posts characteristic fairly a little bit of fluff, the revisiting of what I wrote a few 12 months in the past, 5 years in the past, ten years in the past, and so forth… that turned a cornerstone of my very own expertise with the weblog, reminding me of the previous and the place I’ve been and what I’ve achieved on-line.

In the long run, it turned out the weblog turned out to be about video games I had performed, my gaming historical past and such.  I used to be simply writing it because it went and it slowly turned almost twenty years of historical past, and never all of it an entire waste.

There’s a complete web page or so in Empires of EVE: Vol II that reprints my observations on the battle at 6VDT-H.  My account, written the subsequent day whereas the occasions of the battle had been nonetheless contemporary in my thoughts ended up being, ended up with the ability to present some taste of the battle in a e-book concerning the battle of empires through which I used to be only one man in a ship.

And I nonetheless get a nod at times for having written up one thing that didn’t make the information or different retailers.  Just lately I even acquired a pleasant message from Asher Elias, head of the Imperium, who’s engaged on his personal historical past of the sport and null sec who stated:

your website has been so useful it’s exhausting to overstate the worth

I really feel fairly good about that.  The weblog, in the long run, turned  one thing of what I meant, if not in precisely how I envisioned getting there.  Although, once more, which may apply extra to EVE On-line that different titles because of the nature of the sport.  The participant pushed nature of New Eden implies that main occasions, battles and such, are one time distinctive occasions.  In the meantime, in WoW for instance, each Deadmines run faces the very same set of challenges, so the story of our group is hardly distinctive save for the truth that we had been there for that individual second.

What do I take from that?  Don’t hesitate to write down down some occasion?  Perhaps.  Totally different from the place I began for certain.

And even these anniversary posts have developed over time.  As I at all times say, have a look at all of the work I put into a few of these early posts.  That they had themes!  Now… nicely, return and have a look at among the outdated ones in order for you fancy.  Right here they’re:

That’s the preliminaries.  Truly, I even gave you a lot of the reflections up entrance this time.  Undecided what I’ll have on the again finish.  We will see.

The Primary Stats

Days since launch: 6,940 (+376, as a result of I needed to calculate early final 12 months)
Posts complete: 7,572 (+400)
Complete Phrases: 6,783,396
Common phrases per publish: 895 (+58)
Submit Likes: 25,294
Common posts per day: 1.091 (-0.001… I’m slowing…  so very slowly)
Feedback: 40068 (+1,089)
Common feedback per publish: 5.29 (-0.12)
Common feedback per day: 5.77 (-0.25)
Feedback written by me: 8,264 or 20.6%
House utilized by pictures: 4.7 GB used, 9.1 GB (70.2%) add house remaining.
Weblog Subscribers: 3,523 (+975, principally spammers)
US Presidents since launch: 4
British Monarchs since launch: 2
Prime Ministers of Italy since launch: 9

Abstract: I write a number of phrases nonetheless and now we have a retread president.  Additionally, final 12 months in my rush to get on a aircraft for our twenty fifth marriage ceremony anniversary journey I completely didn’t replace a few of these numbers and I’m too lazy to go re-figure the increment.  However no person commented on my, for instance, saying I had surpassed the phrase depend for the Wheel of Time sequence of books when the quantity I used to be exhibiting was clearly lower than that.  However I’m nicely previous that now.

Knowledge Unfiltered

So what’s going on right here on the weblog? Individuals nonetheless come to go to. Not as many as used to, however many greater than I figured ever would. So let’s see what the numbers are, beginning with web page views.

Yr 19 – Web page views by month

In the event you add up the numbers alongside the best hand aspect it comes out to one thing like 6,863,443 web page views over the lifetime of the weblog.  That’s greater than I ever anticipated, although in all probability lower than someone like Amazon will get over the course of a minute on any given day.

You may see the peaks and valleys of the location through the years.  The excessive level was 2012, as I’ve oft indicated.  Issues actually fell off after Covid, with 2021 and 2022 seeing the bottom numbers for the reason that first 12 months of the weblog.  Then issues have revived a bit.

Summed up by full 12 months… so leaving out 2006 and 2025 thus far… the pattern seems to be like this.

TAGN Web page View Visitors by Full Years – 2007 via 2024

2007 stays the complete 12 months with the bottom depend, however 2022 wasn’t that far behind.

After which there may be yet another chart I traditional toss in right here. I often simply paste in a picture of it, however I desire precise numbers relatively than photos of numbers, so I’m as soon as once more going to let WP format some information from Excel.

So that’s both a properly formatted chart with numbers or a bunch of mushed up rubbish, doubtless the latter for those who’re studying this in your cellphone.  Sorry about that.

As you’ll be able to see, till this 12 months the variety of phrases per publish had been principally rising.  I don’t know what acquired into me in 2024, the place I acquired near 1,500 phrases per publish, however this 12 months I’m down considerably.

A part of the rise in phrases needs to be my month in overview posts, which get a bit longer each 5 years.  However most of it’s doubtless me taking care to fill in additional particulars about issues in posts as you by no means know what will find yourself being a crucial or fascinating tidbit of knowledge years down the street.

Who Sends Individuals Right here?

Serps.  Critically, that’s a lot of the site visitors.  And Google is 98% of the search engine site visitors.  He’s how serps shake out.

1. Google Search – 150,804
2. Android Google Fast Search Field – 21,508
3. Bing – 1,228
4. duckduckgo.com – 917
5. Baidu – 616
6. Yandex – 292
7. Yahoo Search – 148
8. search.courageous.com – 91
9. ya.ru – 32
10. starsreach.com – 25
11. reside.com – 4
12. AOL – 2
13. Google Picture Search – 1

Google is on there 3 times… although Google Picture Search isn’t the mighty referral engine it as soon as was… as a result of Google determined to only obtain all of your pictures… excuse me, it cached them.

On the brilliant aspect, Bing acknowledges me once more.  It had de-indexed me for a stretch. On the flip aspect of that, does it matter?  Additionally, good day my two AOL customers, as a result of I doubt the identical AOL person landed right here twice.

Then there may be social media and social media like websites… who now not ship me that a lot site visitors anymore.

1. WordPress.com Reader – 2025
2. Reddit – 1,252
3. evebloggers.com – 787
4. Fb – 373
5. Hacker Information – 273
6. bsky.app – 102
7. X – 89
8. flipboard.com – 38
9. tumblr.com – 23
10. youtube.com – 20
11. inoreader.com – 16
12. bloggers.feedspot.com – 11
13. feedly.com – 11
14. l.threads.web – 8
15. blogroll.membership – 5
16. newsblur.com – 5
17. Pinterest – 5
18. twitch.television – 4

At one time social media was quite a bit higher at sending site visitors out.  However now websites like X exit of their solution to hold folks from leaving.  Not that I publish something to X in any case, I deleted my account there greater than a 12 months again.

New on the record, the AI websites are coming for us!

1. chatgpt.com – 205
2. perplexity.ai – 54
3. gemini.google.com – 43
4. copilot.microsoft.com – 4
5. chat.deepseek.com – 3

Probably not a drive to be reckoned with at this level, however a few of these websites solely lately began making an attempt to indicate their work.

Then there are my fellow bloggers.  They do ship me a little bit of site visitors, greater than some social media websites I publish to every day.  Listed below are the highest ten blogs that ship me site visitors.

1. Parallel Context – 421
2. Stock Full – 399
3. Blessing of Kings – 330
4. In An Age – 186
5. Werit’s Weblog – 98
6. Going Commando – 61
7. The Nosy Gamer – 51
8. Priest with a Trigger – 49
9. The Greybill – 44
10. I Has PC – 36

Eight of these ten are Blogger primarily based blogs that use the dynamic blogroll sidebar widget.  Two of these eight aren’t even up to date commonly, however nonetheless ship me site visitors on account of that blogroll choice.

The Greybill is a fellow WP.com weblog and simply linked to me about a few EVE On-line issues, which I respect.  After which there may be I Has PC… or there isn’t I Has PC, as the location now not responds.  However is distributed me a little bit of site visitors proper up till the very finish.

Extra Frivolous Knowledge

We’ll begin as soon as once more with the highest ten classes of posts right here, and the change since final 12 months. Out of 104 complete classes, a quantity unchanged since final 12 months, these are, had been, and stay, essentially the most used.

1. EVE On-line – 2,403 (+118)
2. World of Warcraft – 1,773 (+42)
3. Null Sec – 949 (new to the record)
4. EverQuest II – 810 (+7)
5. EverQuest – 712 (+17)
6. Blizzard – 585 (+12)
7. Lord of the Rings On-line – 549 (+61)
8. WoW Basic – 483 (+35)
9. Occasion Group – 473 (+21)
10. CCP – 455 (+33)

Null Sec, which is a sub-category, made it on to the record this 12 months.  In the meantime, Sony On-line Leisure, a class that hasn’t been legitimate or used for the final decade, that lastly fell off the highest ten.

Then there are tags, which symbolize the land of chaos.  Tags I slap on a publish at a whim, as a joke, as a futile try and sign tone or intention.  And generally I exploit tags for video games I’m not certain fairly deserve a class but.  No Man’s Sky is just a tag thus far.  So there are 5,065 tags used on the weblog, up 287 from final 12 months.

For tags I really feel like I’ve to do a prime 20 simply to get some scope.

1. Delve – 146
2. World Conflict Bee – 130
3. Development Server – 127
4. Asher Elias – 123
5. Meaningless Milestones – 121
6. Reavers – 101
7. MMO Expansions – 100
8. Imperium – 93
9. Wrath of the Lich King – 91
10. Rambling Detected – 88
11. Council of Stellar Administration – 86
12. Cataclysm – 86
13. Fippy Darkpaw – 85
14. Nostalgia – 82
15. EVE Updates
16. Star Trek On-line – 78 (transformed to a tag this 12 months)
17. Warlords of Draenor – 66
18. Free-To-Play – 64
19. Talent Factors – 64
20. SuperData Analysis – 61

As at all times, the class usually drives the tags used.  If I write extra EVE On-line posts than the rest, then there are extra EVE On-line associated tags.

And, as I’ve achieved up to now, listed here are the tags I’ve used precisely 19 occasions over the past 19 years.  It turns on the market are ten of them.

1. Deadmines
2. Mounts
3. Station Money
4. Neighborhood
5. Trion Worlds
6. Pet Battles
7. Storm Legion
8. Weblog Banter
9. Nintendo Swap
10. Google Bard

I truly know what all of these are associated to.  Final 12 months I had a few “uh?” objects on the record.

What Do Individuals Learn Right here?

Listed below are the High 20 most seen posts over the past 12 months right here on the location:

1. The No Man’s Sky Worlds Half II Replace Overwhelms Me – 14,115
2. The Blizzard WoW Basic 2025 Highway Map consists of Pandaria and New Vanilla Development Servers – 7,776
3. Caught on the Stage 47 Necessities for Pokemon Go – 7,318
4. No Man’s Sky – Taking part in with Pals – 6,685
5. Threads is Lifeless – 5,314
6. Stage 45 at Final in Pokemon Go – 4,371
7. Timing these Fortunate Eggs for Friendship Milestones in Pokemon Go – 4,148
8. EverQuest and the Coming Expanded Begin Particular Server – 3,783
9. Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID! – 3,230
10. Stage 48 Achieved and the Stage 49 Job Necessities in Pokemon Go – 2,992
11. Binge Watching – The Lazarus Challenge – 2,986
12. My Music Listening was Wrecked by iTunes – 2,955
13. Answering Gaming Questions with AI – Discovering a Heat Ocean in Minecraft – 2,896
14. Cat Catching in Enshrouded – 2,870
15. Twin Universe is Going Offline Tomorrow – 2,686
16. Stage 47 Achieved and the Stage 48 Necessities in Pokemon Go – 2,413
17. The Altar of Zul and Jintha’alor – 2,061
18. WoW Midnight Editions and Pricing Revealed with Early Entry for Housing – 2,036
19. Enshrouded After the Dragon – 1,929
20. EVE Galaxy Conquest is In all probability Not the 4X New Eden Recreation You had been Hoping For – 1,823

That tells you what’s standard, or a minimum of what Google sends me.  I appear to be answering some Pokemon Go questions for folks, with 5 posts on the record.

I’m additionally to see how a lot No Man’s Sky traction I’ve gotten.  As a sport I haven’t elevated it to its personal class but as a result of I’ve solely written 16 posts with the related tag, and a few these are month in overview summaries.

Perhaps I ought to repair that.  I gave Elite Harmful a class slot and solely used it 4 occasions.  Definitely NMS has gotten extra play outing of me.

Additionally, I appear to have hit a nerve with my iTunes publish.  That was… final week, and it made the highest 20 for the final 12 months?

Then there may be the ALL TIME TOP 20 posts record.

1. Play On: Guild Identify Generator – 66,146
2. Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID! – 62,788
3. Operating Civilization II on Home windows 7 64-bit – 56,976
4. How To Discover An Agent in EVE On-line – 40,272
5. The way to Catch Zorua and Zoroark – 36,259
6. First Pokemon Black and White Obtain Occasion – Victini – 33,324
7. Minecraft and the Seek for a Heat Ocean – 30,333
8. From Alola Pokedex to Nationwide Pokedex in Pokemon Solar – 26,001
9. April Fools at Blizzard – 2013 – 24,758
10. Contemplating Star Wars Galaxies Emulation? Higher Seize a Disk! – 24,644
11. Getting Higher Blackrock Spire Entry – 23,746
12. Diablo III vs. Torchlight II – A Matter of Particulars – 22,273
13. Timing these Fortunate Eggs for Friendship Milestones in Pokemon Go – 21,565
14. 20 Video games that Outlined the Apple II – 20,771
15. EVE On-line – The Tutorial – 18,698
16. The Mighty Insta-90 Query – Which Class to Increase? – 18,697
17. Kind 59 Being Pulled from the World of Tanks Retailer – 15,983
18. World of Warcraft Journal – Subject 2 – 15,969
19. Stage 85 in EverQuest… Now What? – 15,875
20. April Fools at Blizzard 2017 – Not A lot to Discuss About – 15,071

Initially, I doubt I’ll ever have one other publish cross the 50K web page view mark.  The three which are up there are cemented by having been standard through the peak period of the weblog.  The typical variety of web page views for the highest 500 posts, which is all WP.com will let me see, is 1,457.  The typical for all 7,572 posts might be double digits, even with Alamo and the Play On Guild Identify Generator sitting above 60K.  There are a number of posts with 5 web page views.

There are additionally some classics in there.  The EVE On-line tutorial publish, which was the fourth publish on the location, and the primary one addressing a sport I used to be actively enjoying… nicely, it was a distinct time.  No display photographs, simply ire.  I’ve urged that it was my want to rant about that tutorial that lastly drove me to begin a weblog.

In any other case, that could be a load of stuff that Google preferred at one level or one other.

The Inevitable Summing Up

Typically I arrive at this level in these annual posts and surprise aloud if I ought to take a break, not write a lot, or change up what I write about.

However for those who’ve learn down this far you’re not falling for that.  I can’t even idiot myself on that entrance anymore. Hell, final 12 months I stated I won’t trouble to do an annual overview publish, however right here I’m, Mister Unreliable Narrator.

Regardless of how drained I’m on the finish of the day, I in some way at all times have one thing I wish to publish about.  And it’s even about video video games most days!

My aim, which I ended up setting a 12 months or two in after I determined to reign in chaos and possibly have a plan, was to have a publish on each week day, leaving apart weekends for overflow or non-gaming subjects of no matter.  I’ve in some way exceeded that plan… to the purpose that I’ve posted daily for the final 1,993 days in a row, or daily since March 29, 2020.

Perhaps I may hand over on that streak… although, once more, simply seven extra days for a spherical quantity.

Actually, although, I’m questioning what I ought to do for the twentieth subsequent 12 months.  Open to concepts.

Simply 12 months to work that out.