It’s a year ago today since my first post on Warp Signal. I knew it was coming up when I saw Thor’s reminder of the approaching Old Stuff Day. I think I’d been going for a week or two and had one or two posts last Old Stuff Day.
Gaming has been a lot of fun this year. I’ve nearly finished a campaign; played in a couple of 40k tournaments; started a new army; started a new game and played a few video games. There’s been some drama too: I’ve weathered the death and rebirth of my beloved Witch Hunters and seen Games Workshop openly exploit their loyal Australian customers.
Blogging has been great fun and I haven’t regretted it for a moment. I’ve had some great conversations in the comments section that are a cut above most forums I’ve been to and, dare I say it, even most other blogs. I have met some smart and friendly people online who I think I can now call my friends.
So Thor, Von, Frontline Gamer, Sinsynn and David Stillberg - I feel like if I was ever in the neighbourhood I could hit any of you up for a game and/or a beer. I hope you feel the same. And Capn Stoogey: you are in the neighbourhood, so it’s all good!
Thanks to all you other readers and commentators. I genuinely appreciate it. Blogging is hard (if you plan on doing a decent job), so I’d like to urge you all to click on one of the blogs in my blogroll off to the right and have a look – maybe one you’ve never visited, or haven’t checked out for a while.
Here’s to another year! I may ebb and flow a little but rest assured I’m not going anywhere yet.
Oh yeah, here are my stats for the past year according to WordPress:
- Warp Signal got 36,463 page views in the last year. I’m impressed.
- My most popular post was Codex: Sisters of Battle 2011, with 3,005 views.
- I have 27 followers (pretty good for a blog without the Google Followers thingy), 90 posts (that’s nearly two a week!) and 450 comments (average 5 per post).
- The top search terms people used to find me were “haunted forest” (1,589 referrals) and “scary forest” (1,096), with “warhammer” (648) a distant third. Yes . . . well. That’s a bit disheartening. Maybe I should change my tag line to “Warp Signal – come for the creepy foliage, stay for the wargaming!”
February 18th, 2012 at 12:30 am
Happy birthday dude, here’s to many more!
February 18th, 2012 at 12:49 am
Congrats James. Of course you can pop round mine if you find yourself in my neck of the woods. I must give you fair warning though, I’m likely to pimp you many news games if you do. It’s an affliction I suffer with.
My Blog is still a few months away from being a year old. I’m hoping I can continue to pump out rubbish at the rate I am so I can pass through the one year old barrier myself. Glad to see you have no intention of stopping either my friend.
February 18th, 2012 at 1:11 am
Congrats!
That’s definitely an impressive amount of views in a year, especially considering you’re not posting daily. It just means you put up quality content that people are interested in.
Oh, and feel free to stop by for a beer. There’s always some in the fridge.
February 18th, 2012 at 1:23 am
Just for you:
sorry I’m a bit of a Pumpkins fan.
February 18th, 2012 at 1:58 am
Congrats! I recently turned 1 as well! You’re right, blogging is a lotta fun but it does require some work. Keep it all up, I enjoy reading about your gaming adventures. Make sure to hit me up every now and then! Grats again!
February 18th, 2012 at 2:08 am
Many happy returns to the blog and congratulations to you! It’s not surprising it’s so popular, and you’re both so deeply embedded in these parts now I almost can’t believe it’s only a year.
February 18th, 2012 at 2:47 am
Keep up the good work, mate! You’ve long surpassed me in number and quality of intelligent posts
February 19th, 2012 at 12:14 am
I will certainly raise a glass of…something this weekend and toast you, brother!
Go on with yer bad self, and happy burfday!
February 19th, 2012 at 12:30 am
Many happy returns, hoot hoot and all that!
You know, your shout-outs list sounds like an awesome D&D group in the making…
February 19th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Thanks for your support and good wishes everyone!
@Frontline Gamer, cheers, I do like the pumpkins, being a 90′s lad.
@Von, that’s not such a crazy idea, on the Paizo forum we used to do casual play-by-posts. You just write your flavour text, and your in-game action/dice results in a different colour. It also had the advantage that it was easy to PM the GM for extra deviousness.