Do you visit Runescape related forums and sites often? Do you go to only one site or several? How about loyalty to a particular fan site? Is it a good thing? I think not, at least not at the degree it is done nowadays.
What I noticed while participating on several major Runescape forums is that there is an undeclared ‘cold war’ between Runescape fan sites. While it is somewhat understandable, it still saddens me a lot.
The world gets more open every day, boundaries between countries and cultures get erased, free and open software and services are everywhere, but we keep and keep building new boundaries and walls. As an owner of a smaller Runescape fan site (Runewise) I can see these walls very clearly. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try to get any kind of partnership with a bigger site! In most cases you won’t even get a polite refusal – just silent emptiness. Well, I am a big boy and can cope with it. But another aspect of this ‘war’ is Runescape knowledge being scattered and hidden. There are so many interesting articles, blogs, guides, posts, topics out there behind those walls.
I can’t help with ‘boundaries’, but at least I can point Runescape players to most interesting materials out there regardless on what fan site or blog they are located. That is it. My mission statement right there…
So, here I am with my Runescape wisdom ‘aggregation’ blogs.
This is the older one I maintain at Runewise: http://www.runewise.net/rs/rdigest.php
And the newest addition for regular bloggers at Blogspot: http://runescapereader.blogspot.com/
Welcome! And if you would like to point me to an interesting Runescape related source, by all means, please, let me know!
Let’s make the Runescape world a little bit more open!
Erik Said:
on December 13, 2008 at 7:17 pm
This resistance to partnering is not just a runescape thing; most people with large sites will want to partner and link share with other sites close to their own size. The strategy to get up with the big boys is to a) partner with enough sites your own size that you start to grow; and b) make sure your content is good enough to keep the traffic coming back.
This is true for any subject on the Web; that’s just how it works.
In fact, it reminds me a lot of playing RS itself; you simply need to work your levels up until you can do certain things, use certain items and go to certain areas.
Anyway, that’s my two gp’s worth