Blogging RPG RPGBA

The RPGBA is Dead! Long Live The RPGBA!

rpgba_260x200A couple of years ago, Jeff Brissette and me (actually mostly Jeff), started the RPG Blog Alliance as an alternative to the RPG Bloggers Network. The latter used a pretty outdated and ill-fitting software which was pretty hard to maintain. We thought there might be a better way to do things and Jeff decided to write a blog aggregation software from scratch.

Many people told us that they don’t think a new blog network was needed, but the success of the RPGBA proved them wrong pretty quickly. As of today the RPGBA has about 639 members. Of course not every blog is still active and not everyone posts once per day, but overall there’s still a lot of activity. So why is the RPGBA closing down?

Blog networks used to be very helpful back in the day. The RPG Bloggers Network community helped me a lot when I started this blog. It brought me readers, helpful advice and I even made some friends in the community. But nowadays social networks like Facebook or Google+ are way more important if you want to get connected to other bloggers and get blog updates out to your readers.

Another reason is that the RPGBA’s software has become the victim of several hacker attacks over the last years. Fixing the loopholes used by the hackers and repairing the damage done takes a lot of time and effort. Over time the question arised if it was still worth it. When we started out we wanted the RPGBA not only a blog aggregator but also a community. Alas the latter aspect never came to fruition.

Overall we came to the conclusion that it was probably the best to shut the RPGBA down. As far as I know it should be offline in about 2 days’ time. But some of the former RPGBA members want to keep the spirit of the RPG Blog Alliance alive on Google+. Scot Newbury created a Google+ community, everyone can join (Members have to get approved though). There we can help other RPG bloggers by sharing resources, experiences, and discuss RPG blogging in general.

So while the old RPGBA may be dead, the new RPGBA is alive and kicking and will hopefully be a great community for veteran and newbie RPG bloggers alike!

Tag
Stargazer

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

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4 comments

comments user
Scot Newbury

Looking forward to sharing with you in the new community.

Long live the RPGBA!
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comments user
garrisonjames

It was a good run and all the hard work was–and is–very much appreciated. Looking forward to version 2.0 as things progress and evolve onwards…
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comments user
Old Guy

I appreciate the hard work you put in, maintaining the RPG Blog Alliance, and given the effort it requires to protect against (and repair after) a hacker attack, I understand your decision to shut down.

But I don’t agree with your conclusions. The RPG Blog Alliance could still fill a great need in the community (especially since the alternative RPG Bloggers Network has been completely unmanned for years now).

Google+ is not an ideal solution. It is not as visible or accessible and some of us just don’t like using it.

Sorry to see you go. You will definitely be missed!
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comments user
louis clark

Glad to see it is still around in some form, wish I had remained more active over the years and now I hoping to become more active again. I might have no interest in blogging at all if it hadn’t been for the RPGBA helping me get into it.
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