So, I dusted off the long-neglected @rpgblog2 twitter, and I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions on who to follow for RPG-related news/chat/discussion? I know many are of the opinion that twitter is about as useful as a fart in a tornado, but I thought I'd at least ask.
Additionally, if you have any positive or negative (meltdown) stories regarding gaming and Twitter, let's hear them!
I'm on twitter.
@Silverlionprime.
Nothing big going on.
@Airlock14 - big traveller guy
@thefreerpgblog - runs the free RPG blog, kind of annoying (PLAY SOMETHING WITH MAGIC IN IT ROB) but a good man
@Darien_Mason - steampunker
@firestormink - game designer
I never really got into twitter myself, it serves a purpose for a particular cachet. Maybe in future.
All the cool gamers are apparently using Google+ now, or so I'm told.
I'm on Google+ as well. You should come over Tommy.
Quote from: Silverlion;600798I'm on Google+ as well. You should come over Tommy.
Don't you have to do some sort of fancy ritual like bathe in a pool of mithril/blood of virgins under the light of the third new moon of the year in order to use G+ though?
Quote from: pandesmos;600799Don't you have to do some sort of fancy ritual like bathe in a pool of mithril/blood of virgins under the light of the third new moon of the year in order to use G+ though?
I ain't saying. Nope. :D
More seriously, you can just sign up. I did.
Quote from: Silverlion;600798I'm on Google+ as well. You should come over Tommy.
...I've been there, since the very early days...just not impressed with it.
Hrrmm? Not on Twitter any more. Closed my account just about a year ago. I had over a thousand followers on my main account and was following almost 1,200 twitter accounts. I tweeted out a request instead of a resource, for a change of pace, and received exactly zero responses. ...on Twitter.
I follow about 250 folks and have 80 followers on G+ and if I post a question or request at least three or four folks respond, more if I hashtag it. Folks even respond to my comments on G+. That's when I figured out that the majority of people on Twitter aren't reading the bulk of the tweets, and I would have to hashtag every question or post.
I just don't have enough time to put into that to make it amenable. That and Twitters war on 3rd party tweeting tools. G+ is open, you can look at the data six ways to Sunday, to figure out trends and patterns, and all kinds of neat stuff. The G+ advanced search options are quite useful for research as well. On G+ you can post, ask questions, and add comments to specific circles of people (Circles that are interested in specific subjects) which greatly increases the number of likely responses since the posts are actually being read.
Twitter also changed their search tools on their streams. I would use two different accounts to search the twitter stream using the same hashtag and got random results that weren't even close to matching, so the algorithims they are using for search are heavily biased, so heavily biased, I believe I'm missing some important posts there, and not by accident. Also they tightened up the date range on Twitter search. Used to be I could look at the entire hashtag stream from a convention or game show and see every tweet. Now, if it's more than 24 hours old, it is excluded from the search results making historical data gathering very difficult. You have to be on events for the entire duration of the event to collect the relevant tweets. It was really great from 2008 to 2010 or so, and there's a couple folks whose Tweets I miss. Can still look them up though from time-to-time and see what they are up to.
I can't express the depth of my annoyance at G+ becoming the center of gravity for our little hobby.
Ugh.
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;600839...I've been there, since the very early days...just not impressed with it.
It needs the ability to centrally focus topic--so only topics tagged with my interested show up..
G+ Photo of the day for gaming goodness!
https://plus.google.com/photos/101244862096579455055/albums/5812964526991997089/5812964534379830338 (https://plus.google.com/photos/101244862096579455055/albums/5812964526991997089/5812964534379830338)
The stream it came from. All open.
https://plus.google.com/101244862096579455055/posts (https://plus.google.com/101244862096579455055/posts)
Quote from: Silverlion;601104It needs the ability to centrally focus topic--so only topics tagged with my interested show up..
Thats what circles are for. For example, I have an RPG circle with 160 or so in it.
I click on that circle, the only feeds I get from G+ are RPG streams.
You can always click n another of your circles, or choose "home" to get all the streams.
Best part is you get to decide who's in the circles so the signal to noise ratio is very high. High quality posts by dedicated gamers, and lots of them.
You only have to do this once. With Twitter and hashtags, you have to hashtag every one of your own posts, and maybe someone else who is interested in gaming will see it through all the other Tweets and respond.
Less work. More quality posts. It is the future.
Quote from: GameDaddy;601321Thats what circles are for. For example, I have an RPG circle with 160 or so in it.
I click on that circle, the only feeds I get from G+ are RPG streams.
You can always click n another of your circles, or choose "home" to get all the streams.
Best part is you get to decide who's in the circles so the signal to noise ratio is very high. High quality posts by dedicated gamers, and lots of them.
You only have to do this once. With Twitter and hashtags, you have to hashtag every one of your own posts, and maybe someone else who is interested in gaming will see it through all the other Tweets and respond.
Less work. More quality posts. It is the future.
It's good, but I don't know if it really is the future.
It requires a hunt to find these quality circles.
Then it takes a rep grind to become included.
Finally, because the circles are inherently closed systems, often with content that cannot be viewed by the non-initiated and un-invited the knowledge will become lost as the groups ultimately begin to fragment apart due to drama or natural attrition.
It's good because it's very narrowly focused, but if ideas don't spread beyond it they're basically dead ideas.
Please understand, I'm not saying that your group doesn't share or anything like that, I'm just trying to point out that while G+ is good, I think it's ultimately creating specialized mini clerisies, or walled gardens of thought.
As far as I'm aware, that gamer, disgruntled with D&D 12th edition isn't ever going to be able to rediscover the great ideas discussed in most of these G+ circles.
Sorry if that got a little out there, but the history major/crazy archivist in me has been thinking about this a lot lately. :D
I am also on Google+, but just haven't posted much. I don't like the interface with my iPhone, for one, but when I first started, there wasn't a lot of quality content. I think that's changed quite a bit, but I still mainly lurk.
Twitter is an abomination.
As for G+, I have yet to hear any reason why I should go there; what does it offer that the forums don't?
RPGPundit
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;600788All the cool gamers are apparently using Google+ now, or so I'm told.
Funny thing on Monday. I posted my blog post, and noticed that it was getting more hits than usual, almost all from Google+ - in just a day, it became the sixth-most read post on my blog, with thirteen "+1" ratings.
Yet nearly all of the handful of comments left on the post came from my regular visitors.
It's shame to see such a sharp line between the Google+ crowd and the plain ol' bloggerverse.
Quote from: RPGPundit;601680As for G+, I have yet to hear any reason why I should go there; what does it offer that the forums don't?
RPGPundit
They just started with communities. Real interesting. Have met more gamers in the last two days than I would meet in a year, unless I went to a convention.
Case in point, I get a recommendation in the RPG community in Thai no less, to checkout an RPG called
Lords of Arcana.
So I look up the G+ user. Turns out it's a Buddhist Priest who, and I quote:
"I ordain the locations Tudgc Lanna Chiang Mai on Apr 9, 2555 10,000 priests in the form of our temple in Thailand. Now under the Capital District Drug Pong Nam Ron district,"
Occupation: Buddhist heritage.
Employment: I said I was a slave.
Places lived:Chiang Mai, Fang, Capital Ram Temple medicine (Piang Kok).
So I just met a Buddhist slave priest who ordains sacred locations who also happens to be over in the new RPG community at G+ pimping RPGs.
I naturally added him to my RPG circles and look forward to checking out
Lords of Arcana. I hope that's in English btw, as it would take me awhile to translate a full Thai RPG.
Ok then...
Quote from: Piestrio;601102I can't express the depth of my annoyance at G+ becoming the center of gravity for our little hobby.
Ugh.
Pretty sure it is the great new thing for a lot of people, but as far as someone who isn't part of the network may be concerned, it amounts to a few excited squeaks coming from inside a black box. Outside the box, there is a growing silence. Something important is being lost, I say.
WRT Twitter, never saw the point.
Quote from: Melan;607030Pretty sure it is the great new thing for a lot of people, but as far as someone who isn't part of the network may be concerned, it amounts to a few excited squeaks coming from inside a black box. Outside the box, there is a growing silence. Something important is being lost, I say.
That's what I said back in 2003 as I watched the Usenet Newsgroups dying as gamers left there in droves to setup their own websites and forums.
Now the pendulum is swinging back again. RPG, the largest two day old community there, is almost 1,800 strong. There are several other RPG groups 500 strong, and more than a score of special interest RPG groups with 100 or more members.
I believe interest will subside a bit after a week or two, but it's easy to visit all those different groups just by visiting one portal.
Also, just got invites to the
Hemp & Cannabis for Health Community.
Should I join?
Quote from: GameDaddy;607039Also, just got invites to the Hemp & Cannabis for Health Community.
Should I join?
Only if they're offering free samples.
Another good reason to join G+, from the Pen & Paper RPG Bloggers community there:
"Chris Birch
7:32 AM - Discussion
Hi guys I'm looking for bloggers and podcasters who'd like to receive review copies of our Achtung! Cthulhu setting for Call of Cthulhu or Savage Worlds - you can see more at //www.modiphius.com or drop me a line (chris@modiphius.com) if you'd like to be on our reviews list. I'm trying to encourage other publishers to support more bloggers with review copies as well :-)"
I'm already on his reviews list.
So, tell me again, just how does this google+ thing work? How do you create an account and find all these amazing groups and whatnot?
Step by step, tell it to me like as if I was retarded.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;607496I'm already on his reviews list.
So, tell me again, just how does this google+ thing work? How do you create an account and find all these amazing groups and whatnot?
Step by step, tell it to me like as if I was retarded.
RPGPundit
Step one: sign up for a google account.
You don't need to signup to check it out, but you can signup from any page you visit...
G+ Tabletop Roleplaying
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107422815813208456454?cfem=1
Gamemaster Tips
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115293460193268073217?cfem=1
Roleplaying Games (718 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115336206234034239085?cfem=1
Pen & Paper RPG Bloggers (201 Members currently)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115336206234034239085?cfem=1
RPG (2,142 subscribed in the last three days)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106022701838596878185?cfem=1
OSR (493 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118190724629075727878
2,000 Coppers (232 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115059664568026915110
Mutants & Masterminds (75 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104627906123814220434
Fate Core (386 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104627906123814220434
Story Games (372 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105298743270221910970?cfem=1
Savage Worlds (263 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114543562362623476863
Community Page for Doctor Who which is bigger on the inside!
(2,182 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115078169539467279272
Firefly Community (778 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115078169539467279272
Suppressed Transmission (102 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108381378671514337441
Pathfinder RPG (328 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/109371885284435835324
DCC RPG (190 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105339967712243499289
d20 Pfsrd (352 members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/110505275409537332470
Horror & Dark Fantasy Roleplaying (101 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/110544275735406304394
Exploration (7,462 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103473332841972047889
Star Wars (11,200 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105293481108015270231
G+ RPG Hangouts(488 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101466247068767710475
Digital Publishing (426 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118069007276527859892
Savage Worlds RPG (263 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114543562362623476863
There are many, many more. Can't seem to find a decent sized Superhero RPG group here though (M&M was one of the largest communities with 75, that I came across. I'm not subscribed to all of these, of course, but it's a fair representation).
Oh, and for Koltar, The Star Trek Community @187 strong and conversing in Klingon at the moment...
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101346536769426310475
Space the Final Frontier (Star Trek 584 members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116821698597553773070
Quote from: Piestrio;601102I can't express the depth of my annoyance at G+ becoming the center of gravity for our little hobby.
Ugh.
What would better serve the hobby, in your opinion? Legitimately curious.
Good forums dedicated to open, largely constructive discussion.
Quote from: Melan;607951Good forums dedicated to open, largely constructive discussion.
G+ hasn't hurt us any. I think that there are things that those communities and the likes can do, which is fine, but that the Forum format offers something different.
I think it'd be a lot harder to get long and deep conversations about a subject on one of those communities than in a thread here.
RPGPundit
Quote from: GameDaddy;607734You don't need to signup to check it out, but you can signup from any page you visit...
G+ Tabletop Roleplaying
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107422815813208456454?cfem=1
Gamemaster Tips
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115293460193268073217?cfem=1
Roleplaying Games (718 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115336206234034239085?cfem=1
Pen & Paper RPG Bloggers (201 Members currently)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115336206234034239085?cfem=1
RPG (2,142 subscribed in the last three days)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106022701838596878185?cfem=1
OSR (493 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118190724629075727878
2,000 Coppers (232 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115059664568026915110
Mutants & Masterminds (75 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104627906123814220434
Fate Core (386 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104627906123814220434
Story Games (372 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105298743270221910970?cfem=1
Savage Worlds (263 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114543562362623476863
Community Page for Doctor Who which is bigger on the inside!
(2,182 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115078169539467279272
Firefly Community (778 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115078169539467279272
Suppressed Transmission (102 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108381378671514337441
Pathfinder RPG (328 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/109371885284435835324
DCC RPG (190 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105339967712243499289
d20 Pfsrd (352 members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/110505275409537332470
Horror & Dark Fantasy Roleplaying (101 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/110544275735406304394
Exploration (7,462 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103473332841972047889
Star Wars (11,200 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105293481108015270231
G+ RPG Hangouts(488 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101466247068767710475
Digital Publishing (426 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/118069007276527859892
Savage Worlds RPG (263 Members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114543562362623476863
There are many, many more. Can't seem to find a decent sized Superhero RPG group here though (M&M was one of the largest communities with 75, that I came across. I'm not subscribed to all of these, of course, but it's a fair representation).
Oh, and for Koltar, The Star Trek Community @187 strong and conversing in Klingon at the moment...
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101346536769426310475
Space the Final Frontier (Star Trek 584 members)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/116821698597553773070
Oh god, its like Usenet and Twitter got drunk and forgot to use protection.
Quote from: The Traveller;608250Oh god, its like Usenet and Twitter got drunk and forgot to use protection.
an apt analogy, yes.