Escapist heading in "a new direction"

Armadox

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Nick Calandra said:
To respond to this, I understand your worry and that my initial post was pretty vague and for that I apologize. I have no plans to alienate the longtime fans of Escapist or anything like that, we're just hoping to modernize everything, right? The tech here is really old, so how do we move everything here to new forums software without breaking everything and losing all the traffic that comes here. No plans to change how anything is operated on the forums, aside from a few bad apples, I don't see any issue with the conversations happening here.

So on the forums, we really just want to give them a facelift is all, no big major changes that would send everyone packing or anything of that sort. Same with the website, the current site design, for the lack of a better word, is quite terrible. We're working on fixing that.

On the Enthusiast merger with Aquilini GameCo Inc.

Enthusiast Gaming operates with multiple revenue streams. They have the in-house content teams via Escapist, Destructoid and a number of other outlets that all operate independently. They have their own advertising platform and lastly they have their own events platform via EGLX (big Toronto gaming convention) and that's where the e-sports stuff comes in. Doesn't have anything to do with Escapist really.

On Gameumentary.

The website hasn't been touched in years, we moved to strictly YouTube back in 2017 and produced a number of video game documentaries. Because I'm now a Managing Editor here at Escapist, financially and traffic wise, it made sense to bring that content here exclusively. We're also working on other new personality driven shows for the channel behind the scenes we haven't announced yet.

On the main Escapist website we're working on lots of new content now and shifting directions in terms of what we cover and how we cover it. We're still getting all our plans in order which is why I didn't delve into detail on all that just yet.

So this new vision isn't really "new". I may have not worded that in the best way, but this new vision is really all about how we create content and what content we're creating. We have a lot of work to do on communicating that with everyone here and that's all I really meant by the disconnect between the website / youtube / forums.

It feels like we're speaking to three distinct audiences, so starting up lines of communication to get the entire picture is the best way to bridge that, right?

Totally understand the skepticism, I'm aware of the history of the site and how much people care about it. The mere fact a lot of you have been in these forums for so many years is pretty awesome and shows the dedication and that's why I'm communicating as the team and I want to create content you're actually interested in.

Lots of work to do and it will be communicated, and I know you probably won't believe me right now, which is fine, but you don't have to worry about these big sweeping changes that will alienate the community or anything like that. I'm not here to do that, I'm here to create interesting content that the community will actually be excited about reading / watching.

I think the clown shoes comment was entirely unnecessary. I understand the skepticism, but I'm here to work with the community, not against it, so let's keep it respectful.
You know what? Before I get into the rest of this. I want to say that this here? This has to be the most transparent response we have ever gotten on an actual path to the Escapist. Cards on the table, no corporate speak. No frills. I'm genuinely impressed with this just from what feels like honest messaging. So, I'd like to welcome you to the Escapist forums, where hassling the mods is how we say hello.

And as for the rest of it... yah, pppft, anything you didn't cover you probably can't. I'm sated. And I agree. you are speaking to three distinct audiences. There are a lot of forum goers that don't watch the Youtube channel. Mostly because for a time there, it was just sad, sad Yahtzee pushing his boulder up the hill each week. As for actual content. This place has burned nearly every bridge it has ever came to it seems. I'm sure you specifically have had an up hill battle just finding people willing to saddle themselves to the brand. Though I remember when I would come on here to watch people drop shit on a slowmotion camera. I'm sure whatever you got going on is fine. This place has seen some strange content over the years. Just don't blow the site's budget on a webshow about canine video game programmers.

As for clown shoes, come on man. If I was trying to introduce myself professionally to a group of people, and I left the first link on my website as dummy text I'd accept getting ragged on too. You might not have touched your website in years but when looking up what you do it's the first thing that comes up to represent you. I'll tell you what, fair shake though, I'll go binge watch a couple of your videos on Youtube this weekend. If nothing else you've earned those view dollars just by handling this like you did.
 

Elvis Starburst

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Nick Calandra said:
So on the forums, we really just want to give them a facelift is all, no big major changes that would send everyone packing or anything of that sort. Same with the website, the current site design, for the lack of a better word, is quite terrible. We're working on fixing that.
Are you talking about the site design here? https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/
I'd love to know what ya mean by the above statement.

Armadox said:
You know what? Before I get into the rest of this. I want to say that this here? This has to be the most transparent response we have ever gotten on an actual path to the Escapist. Cards on the table, no corporate speak. No frills. I'm genuinely impressed with this just from what feels like honest messaging. So, I'd like to welcome you to the Escapist forums, where hassling the mods is how we say hello.
Yeah, holy hell, this is how it should be done. It's taken so long for anyone to actually bother talking to us in this way. I really, genuinely wished this kind of response was given when the R&P forum was wiped out. Cause, no offense to Kyle Gaddo, I'm sure you did your best there... the responses we got after the fact, and the whole talk about the new "vision" for the site without us actually being clued into what that was supposed to be was a genuinely shit answer to a highly unexpected and not well detailed decision that was made without even a sniff of warning towards the userbase. It showed a lot of disrespect to us who have made this another home that we care for, so seeing it being thrashed around without telling us what's gonna happen, all while being told "Don't worry guys, it's fine, we have a plan and it'll be great!" was not very encouraging.

I hope we can look forward to more responses like yours in the future Nick, cause that's the example that should be front and center for every person on the staff team to see. Keep it up. I also very much look forward to those monthly update posts too, that'll go a long way in keeping us informed and up to date with the team
 

Armadox

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Nick Calandra said:
And yes, I don't come from corporate or big games media, in fact I'm largely disconnected from all that because I'm from the Midwest and not part of the clique on social media and have no desire to be spending any of my time in daily fights with my readers / viewers.

I'd rather be connected with the audience and delivering content you guys actually give a damn about than writing or making videos that just constantly gets shit on even if it draws more views. I think I said most of what I needed to above regarding my intentions, but yea, I'm here to serve the audience here (within reason) and the team and I are going to be working hard to make this a fun place to be again with lots of new and exciting content.
How connected we talking? Cause the Stacked in St. Louis has this burger called the Bella Bleus. Now I know bleu cheese isn't for everyone, but hear me out. You get it, then you order a Moscow Mule. Have them add in passionfruit and lavender. I know what you're thinking, that doesn't sound like it goes together... and it doesn't, but the experience is worth it. You try it, and let me know what you think.

Elvis Starburst said:
Cause, no offense to Kyle Gaddo...
Kyle Gaddo said:
Y'all are still complaining in here?
He did come back in after all was said and done to salt the wounds. Like that was some Grade A, nonchalant trolling there.
 

Elfgore

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Same shit, different day. I'll just stick along and enjoy the ride until the end.

Saelune said:
No, that was Arnoxthe1. Though they prefer to obsess about me rather than blackjack or hookers.
Yeah, I signed up over there and quickly left when I found out who exactly went there. And yeah, the amount of times you came up was... off.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Elfgore said:
Yeah, I signed up over there and quickly left when I found out who exactly went there.
Who? Actually reasonable people? On a site that actually works?

EDIT: Wait, are you talking about InfinityShock? The super racist sexist guy that got banned pretty damn quickly for spamming?
 

Marik2

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Elfgore said:
Yeah, I signed up over there and quickly left when I found out who exactly went there.
Who? Actually reasonable people? On a site that actually works?

EDIT: Wait, are you talking about InfinityShock? The super racist sexist guy that got banned pretty damn quickly for spamming?
That guy scared off a lot of people from your site.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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Kyle Gaddo said:
Hi, everyone.

I know many of you are concerned regarding Anthony's departure. We were informed internally last week, but the news was made public today. The circumstances regarding Russ Pitts' departure from the company and Anthony John Agnello's are worlds apart. The loss of Anthony is just an unfortunate side effect of doing business.

The merger between Enthusiast Gaming and Aquilini GameCo did unfortunately see a reduction in staff at Escapist Magazine proper, while we slowly integrate the crew from Gameumentary to produce more video content. That means in addition to Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation and Dev Diary, as well as Bob Chipman's Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture, we're going to see an expanded lineup of content on our video streams. We launched a new video series, actually, with a review of Sea of Solitude [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmwyGFvsc8].

There's still more to come beyond this and we'll be rolling out new features over the coming weeks, with planned updates including:
-major adjustments to the website, including functionality (yes, this will include navigation buttons)
-Version 2 forum integration
-and, of course, more content of all sorts

Please note that my word isn't gospel and things may change as we evolve our strategy.

Here's Menashe Kestenbaum, CEO of Enthusiast Gaming, talking numbers regarding the merger [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSc3fy0Ad8], if you're interested, and here's some relevant text [https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/enthusiast-and-luminosity-merg/] if you feel so inclined.
Nick Calandra said:
Hey everyone,

My name is Nick Calandra and I'm the Managing Editor of Video here on Escapist. I was hired a couple a months ago and was in charge of all the video content that came out of E3. I'm also the Content Director of Gameumentary, an outlet where we produce video game documentaries.

Part of what I've been asked to do from Enthusiast Gaming is to connect more with the community from the content side and for the past two months I've been doing just that over on the Escapist YouTube channel. We've introduced a lot of new content recently including all the E3 interviews featuring Yahtzee and Gameumentary.

Either today or tomorrow we will be publicly announcing that Gameumentary will be merging in full with Escapist Magazine, bringing over our 2 (now 3) Minute Reviews show which was linked above already, and our documentary content.

Right now we're working on a Yahtzee mini-documentary, and wrapping editing on our big Insurgency documentary series, both of which will air later this Summer.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes content wise and we'll be talking more about what our plans are soon. You may have noticed there's already a few new writers on the site posting a bit more news and some great write-ups focused on tv & movies.

We're working on a complete face-lift of the website (including the broken video player) as we know it's not easy to navigate, we're looking at how to safely update the forums software, new video series and so on. As soon as we can tell you more, we will!

We know things have been a bit of a whirlwind since the relaunch so expect more frequent communication from myself and Kyle as we continue forward.

Happy to answer questions if you have any. I may not be able to give specifics, but I'll answer what I can.
Thank you for taking the time to reach out and let us know what's going on. I think people around here tend to get a bit nervous about changes since we have been tossed about a bit and have had some rough patches. I for one am looking forward to our upgrades and am hopeful it will bring our community here closer and help us grow again. I am sure people will calm down a bit once things get updated and settled in. Thank you for being open about this, as we have pretty much been in limbo for sometime never knowing what was to come next. It is definitely refreshing and appreciated.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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Nick Calandra said:
Yeah, holy hell, this is how it should be done. It's taken so long for anyone to actually bother talking to us in this way. I really, genuinely wished this kind of response was given when the R&P forum was wiped out. Cause, no offense to Kyle Gaddo, I'm sure you did your best there... the responses we got after the fact, and the whole talk about the new "vision" for the site without us actually being clued into what that was supposed to be was a genuinely shit answer to a highly unexpected and not well detailed decision that was made without even a sniff of warning towards the userbase. It showed a lot of disrespect to us who have made this another home that we care for, so seeing it being thrashed around without telling us what's gonna happen, all while being told "Don't worry guys, it's fine, we have a plan and it'll be great!" was not very encouraging.

I hope we can look forward to more responses like yours in the future Nick, cause that's the example that should be front and center for every person on the staff team to see. Keep it up. I also very much look forward to those monthly update posts too, that'll go a long way in keeping us informed and up to date with the team.

Yes, talking about the V2 site design. We're pretty close to having the new site ready, just need to clear some tech stuff. Should be ready within a few weeks, forums will take a bit longer per my first post about figuring out how to migrate everything without losing it all and the traffic that comes with it.

We're trying to figure out the best way to do it. I'll keep you guys updated on it before we make any final decisions. My intention is to migrate everything that's here over to more modern software of course, but it may not work out that way due to tech, ya know? Have to also note that one the tech side, having the V1 site and the V2 site is clashing in our analytics a bit and potentially hurting our search rankings. Lots of things to figure out.

Either way, I'm going to make sure it's communicated correctly.

And yes, I've spent a lot of time over the past two months cleaning up the YouTube community and communicating changes there and so far so good. Will definitely be communicating with everyone as things update, but as far as pulling the rug out from everyone, that's not going to happen.
I know you guys are focused on the forum migration and that's cool, but I'd like to make a suggestion (that I know is gonna get ignored or even possibly shouted down) just for the record. Please for the love of everything, lighten up the rules. They're so damn long and stuffy.
 

Elfgore

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Elfgore said:
Yeah, I signed up over there and quickly left when I found out who exactly went there.
Who? Actually reasonable people? On a site that actually works?

EDIT: Wait, are you talking about InfinityShock? The super racist sexist guy that got banned pretty damn quickly for spamming?
Thread that did it: https://intosanctuary.com/index.php?threads/its-sad-that-people-like-saelune-will-never-post-here.545/

Obsessing over your old forum enemies and acting superior to them is just lame. I'd rather post here or Reddit.

Thread that has guaranteed I never will post again just now: https://intosanctuary.com/index.php?threads/analysis-of-a-civil-war-in-america.757/

A video linked by you from a self-proclaimed alt-right YouTuber who hits all the marks of an anti-Semite, anti-feminist, and who seems to be openly pushing for a second Civil War in the U.S. Yeah, I'm fucking good, mate. All that shit is still there, just not as blatant.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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May 17, 2011
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Nick Calandra said:
Lil devils x said:
Kyle Gaddo said:
Hi, everyone.

I know many of you are concerned regarding Anthony's departure. We were informed internally last week, but the news was made public today. The circumstances regarding Russ Pitts' departure from the company and Anthony John Agnello's are worlds apart. The loss of Anthony is just an unfortunate side effect of doing business.

The merger between Enthusiast Gaming and Aquilini GameCo did unfortunately see a reduction in staff at Escapist Magazine proper, while we slowly integrate the crew from Gameumentary to produce more video content. That means in addition to Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation and Dev Diary, as well as Bob Chipman's Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture, we're going to see an expanded lineup of content on our video streams. We launched a new video series, actually, with a review of Sea of Solitude [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmwyGFvsc8].

There's still more to come beyond this and we'll be rolling out new features over the coming weeks, with planned updates including:
-major adjustments to the website, including functionality (yes, this will include navigation buttons)
-Version 2 forum integration
-and, of course, more content of all sorts

Please note that my word isn't gospel and things may change as we evolve our strategy.

Here's Menashe Kestenbaum, CEO of Enthusiast Gaming, talking numbers regarding the merger [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSc3fy0Ad8], if you're interested, and here's some relevant text [https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/enthusiast-and-luminosity-merg/] if you feel so inclined.
Nick Calandra said:
Hey everyone,

My name is Nick Calandra and I'm the Managing Editor of Video here on Escapist. I was hired a couple a months ago and was in charge of all the video content that came out of E3. I'm also the Content Director of Gameumentary, an outlet where we produce video game documentaries.

Part of what I've been asked to do from Enthusiast Gaming is to connect more with the community from the content side and for the past two months I've been doing just that over on the Escapist YouTube channel. We've introduced a lot of new content recently including all the E3 interviews featuring Yahtzee and Gameumentary.

Either today or tomorrow we will be publicly announcing that Gameumentary will be merging in full with Escapist Magazine, bringing over our 2 (now 3) Minute Reviews show which was linked above already, and our documentary content.

Right now we're working on a Yahtzee mini-documentary, and wrapping editing on our big Insurgency documentary series, both of which will air later this Summer.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes content wise and we'll be talking more about what our plans are soon. You may have noticed there's already a few new writers on the site posting a bit more news and some great write-ups focused on tv & movies.

We're working on a complete face-lift of the website (including the broken video player) as we know it's not easy to navigate, we're looking at how to safely update the forums software, new video series and so on. As soon as we can tell you more, we will!

We know things have been a bit of a whirlwind since the relaunch so expect more frequent communication from myself and Kyle as we continue forward.

Happy to answer questions if you have any. I may not be able to give specifics, but I'll answer what I can.
Thank you for taking the time to reach out and let us know what's going on. I think people around here tend to get a bit nervous about changes since we have been tossed about a bit and have had some rough patches. I for one am looking forward to our upgrades and am hopeful it will bring our community here closer and help us grow again. I am sure people will calm down a bit once things get updated and settled in. Thank you for being open about this, as we have pretty much been in limbo for sometime never knowing what was to come next. It is definitely refreshing and appreciated.
Thanks! Yea, I've done my homework on The Escapist before accepting the job. I really couldn't imagine stepping into this role and not communicating with the community about it, kinda boggles the mind that anyone would try. I'm also new to this community, so the last thing I'm gonna do, much like on YouTube, is heavy hand things and say, hey I'm here now, I don't care what you think, here's what we're doing. That's one way to lose your entire audience overnight.

Getting the community involved is one of my priorities. For now it'll be through gathering feedback, later on it'll be getting some fun community stuff going on again. But for now, just need to get all our ducks in order on the content and tech side.

We have made some updates to the content we're running already.

We've already made some changes to the front page content by cancelling some of the columns that were running and are focusing on three key areas for the moment and that's video games, movies and tv. We've expanded our coverage from just focusing mainly on AAA stuff to covering a much wider gambit of video games, and we've gotten some great analytical pieces written up on movies / tv shows. I've also already had the team de-editorialize the news that we write as well.

Our Managing Editor, Samantha Nelson, just returned from getting some hands-on time with The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan, Torchlight II on consoles and Remnant: From the Ashes as well. She wrote up a great short feature on Man of Medan along with her hands-on impressions today that you should definitely give a look.

Unfortunately with the site design you can't find it all unless you go to the latest tab lol, so I'm pushing hard to get this new thing ready so you can find the stuff we write!
* crosses fingers and hopes Lego, cosplay, action figures, tabletop gaming and comics make the cut too*. Movies and TV are everywhere, the other geek stuff is a bit harder to find at times. I miss some of the stuff they used to do here.
 

IceForce

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Nick Calandra said:
I really couldn't imagine stepping into this role and not communicating with the community about it, kinda boggles the mind that anyone would try.
Oh believe me, they tried.

An embarrassing number of Community Managers have come and gone in the past without ever interacting with the community at all.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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Elfgore said:
Thread that did it: https://intosanctuary.com/index.php?threads/its-sad-that-people-like-saelune-will-never-post-here.545/

Obsessing over your old forum enemies and acting superior to them is just lame. I'd rather post here or Reddit.
OK, so there is one thing I am gonna give you. I do think that the Sanc community do talk about the Escapist members a little too much. I do understand that some of them are hardly the easiest to approach when it comes to certain matters. I guess it's easy for us to get defensive because we never really had a place of our own to talk until now, and now that we do, we often get shit on and stereotyped by our former community.

Our site is indeed inherently "right-winged" (more right-leaning than actually right) but I honestly hate saying that in a sense, because I wish for everyone to be there and to talk about their viewpoints and ideas no matter what they are. And that is always how it's been. And so, Houseman in that thread is pretty on-point when he laments that others of different viewpoints will probably never come there simply because of the general atmosphere of Sanctuary.

Houseman said:
My intention with this thread wasn't "we're so much better than those other guys". I literally meant what I said: "It's sad that certain types of people will never come here, due to an ideological opposition to free speech on their side". That's all.
-

Elfgore said:
A video linked by you from a self-proclaimed alt-right YouTuber
He's pretty aggressively right, yeah. Thing is, you can find truth anywhere. Neither the left side nor the right have a monopoly on truth. And if you'd read that thread, I actually said that another US civil war would be bad on all sides. Also, our site isn't about politics anyway. It's about gaming and being together as a group.
 

Elvis Starburst

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Nick Calandra said:
Yes, talking about the V2 site design. We're pretty close to having the new site ready, just need to clear some tech stuff. Should be ready within a few weeks, forums will take a bit longer per my first post about figuring out how to migrate everything without losing it all and the traffic that comes with it.
Good, I'm glad to hear that. The new site is, as I described in another thread... like someone got over zealous with the Windows 8 tiles, and it looks like scattered mesh of stuff. A good starting point, but it needs refining. Can't wait to see the NEW-new redesign.

Either way, I'm going to make sure it's communicated correctly.

And yes, I've spent a lot of time over the past two months cleaning up the YouTube community and communicating changes there and so far so good. Will definitely be communicating with everyone as things update, but as far as pulling the rug out from everyone, that's not going to happen.
Also good news!

I'm also new to this community, so the last thing I'm gonna do, much like on YouTube, is heavy hand things and say, hey I'm here now, I don't care what you think, here's what we're doing. That's one way to lose your entire audience overnight.
That's certainly a breath of fresh air. I've made my opinions on matters from the past few months very clear on those associated threads, and on this thread as well. I did at one point consider if I was gonna stick around for very long after said events. I'm still cautious, as we've been burned a lot in the past and the recent wounds are still a bit fresh on the mind. But if everything you and the team have said so far is upheld, then it'll be a great level of transparency we've been desperately in need of for a long time. This is how a vocal community could really shine.

I have high hopes for you guys
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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Nick Calandra said:
Lil devils x said:
Nick Calandra said:
Lil devils x said:
Kyle Gaddo said:
Hi, everyone.

I know many of you are concerned regarding Anthony's departure. We were informed internally last week, but the news was made public today. The circumstances regarding Russ Pitts' departure from the company and Anthony John Agnello's are worlds apart. The loss of Anthony is just an unfortunate side effect of doing business.

The merger between Enthusiast Gaming and Aquilini GameCo did unfortunately see a reduction in staff at Escapist Magazine proper, while we slowly integrate the crew from Gameumentary to produce more video content. That means in addition to Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation and Dev Diary, as well as Bob Chipman's Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture, we're going to see an expanded lineup of content on our video streams. We launched a new video series, actually, with a review of Sea of Solitude [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmwyGFvsc8].

There's still more to come beyond this and we'll be rolling out new features over the coming weeks, with planned updates including:
-major adjustments to the website, including functionality (yes, this will include navigation buttons)
-Version 2 forum integration
-and, of course, more content of all sorts

Please note that my word isn't gospel and things may change as we evolve our strategy.

Here's Menashe Kestenbaum, CEO of Enthusiast Gaming, talking numbers regarding the merger [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSc3fy0Ad8], if you're interested, and here's some relevant text [https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/enthusiast-and-luminosity-merg/] if you feel so inclined.
Nick Calandra said:
Hey everyone,

My name is Nick Calandra and I'm the Managing Editor of Video here on Escapist. I was hired a couple a months ago and was in charge of all the video content that came out of E3. I'm also the Content Director of Gameumentary, an outlet where we produce video game documentaries.

Part of what I've been asked to do from Enthusiast Gaming is to connect more with the community from the content side and for the past two months I've been doing just that over on the Escapist YouTube channel. We've introduced a lot of new content recently including all the E3 interviews featuring Yahtzee and Gameumentary.

Either today or tomorrow we will be publicly announcing that Gameumentary will be merging in full with Escapist Magazine, bringing over our 2 (now 3) Minute Reviews show which was linked above already, and our documentary content.

Right now we're working on a Yahtzee mini-documentary, and wrapping editing on our big Insurgency documentary series, both of which will air later this Summer.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes content wise and we'll be talking more about what our plans are soon. You may have noticed there's already a few new writers on the site posting a bit more news and some great write-ups focused on tv & movies.

We're working on a complete face-lift of the website (including the broken video player) as we know it's not easy to navigate, we're looking at how to safely update the forums software, new video series and so on. As soon as we can tell you more, we will!

We know things have been a bit of a whirlwind since the relaunch so expect more frequent communication from myself and Kyle as we continue forward.

Happy to answer questions if you have any. I may not be able to give specifics, but I'll answer what I can.
Thank you for taking the time to reach out and let us know what's going on. I think people around here tend to get a bit nervous about changes since we have been tossed about a bit and have had some rough patches. I for one am looking forward to our upgrades and am hopeful it will bring our community here closer and help us grow again. I am sure people will calm down a bit once things get updated and settled in. Thank you for being open about this, as we have pretty much been in limbo for sometime never knowing what was to come next. It is definitely refreshing and appreciated.
Thanks! Yea, I've done my homework on The Escapist before accepting the job. I really couldn't imagine stepping into this role and not communicating with the community about it, kinda boggles the mind that anyone would try. I'm also new to this community, so the last thing I'm gonna do, much like on YouTube, is heavy hand things and say, hey I'm here now, I don't care what you think, here's what we're doing. That's one way to lose your entire audience overnight.

Getting the community involved is one of my priorities. For now it'll be through gathering feedback, later on it'll be getting some fun community stuff going on again. But for now, just need to get all our ducks in order on the content and tech side.

We have made some updates to the content we're running already.

We've already made some changes to the front page content by cancelling some of the columns that were running and are focusing on three key areas for the moment and that's video games, movies and tv. We've expanded our coverage from just focusing mainly on AAA stuff to covering a much wider gambit of video games, and we've gotten some great analytical pieces written up on movies / tv shows. I've also already had the team de-editorialize the news that we write as well.

Our Managing Editor, Samantha Nelson, just returned from getting some hands-on time with The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan, Torchlight II on consoles and Remnant: From the Ashes as well. She wrote up a great short feature on Man of Medan along with her hands-on impressions today that you should definitely give a look.

Unfortunately with the site design you can't find it all unless you go to the latest tab lol, so I'm pushing hard to get this new thing ready so you can find the stuff we write!
* crosses fingers and hopes Lego, cosplay, action figures, tabletop gaming and comics make the cut too*. Movies and TV are everywhere, the other geek stuff is a bit harder to find at times. I miss some of the stuff they used to do here.
Tabletop is still here. Samantha's Escapist Unplugged column is excellent tabletop coverage. Last one: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/07/08/origins-game-of-the-year-root-leder-games/
Yea, I read that, I really liked this one a couple of weeks ago as well:
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/06/28/that-dragonborn-feel-how-i-turned-elder-scrolls-into-a-board-game/

I am personally partial to custom items whether it be board games, cosplay costumes, custom Lego minifigs and builds, custom gaming action figures, custom computers and cases and custom gaming furniture so maybe we will see some articles on those in the future as well. They do not necessarily need to have someone dedicated to just doing that full time to have an article on it here and there when someone comes across something interesting.

EDIT Adding examples:
Stuff like this is awesome too :
https://bit-tech.net/reviews/modding/Temple_of_Nod/1/
https://www.wired.com/2013/12/lego-rivendell/
https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/fallout-new-vegas-ncr-veteran-ranger-finished-pg-8.101257/
https://nerdist.com/article/cosplayer-lifelike-spider-man-costume-moving-eyes/
https://www.pcmag.com/feature/337789/7-pcs-turned-into-furniture-you-might-actually-want
https://www.mini-itx.com/projects/bender/
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

More Lego Goats Please!
May 17, 2011
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Arnoxthe1 said:
Elfgore said:
Thread that did it: https://intosanctuary.com/index.php?threads/its-sad-that-people-like-saelune-will-never-post-here.545/

Obsessing over your old forum enemies and acting superior to them is just lame. I'd rather post here or Reddit.
OK, so there is one thing I am gonna give you. I do think that the Sanc community do talk about the Escapist members a little too much. I do understand that some of them are hardly the easiest to approach when it comes to certain matters. I guess it's easy for us to get defensive because we never really had a place of our own to talk until now, and now that we do, we often get shit on and stereotyped by our former community.

Our site is indeed inherently "right-winged" (more right-leaning than actually right) but I honestly hate saying that in a sense, because I wish for everyone to be there and to talk about their viewpoints and ideas no matter what they are. And that is always how it's been. And so, Houseman in that thread is pretty on-point when he laments that others of different viewpoints will probably never come there simply because of the general atmosphere of Sanctuary.

Houseman said:
My intention with this thread wasn't "we're so much better than those other guys". I literally meant what I said: "It's sad that certain types of people will never come here, due to an ideological opposition to free speech on their side". That's all.
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Elfgore said:
A video linked by you from a self-proclaimed alt-right YouTuber
He's pretty aggressively right, yeah. Thing is, you can find truth anywhere. Neither the left side nor the right have a monopoly on truth. And if you'd read that thread, I actually said that another US civil war would be bad on all sides. Also, our site isn't about politics anyway. It's about gaming and being together as a group.
Clinton and Bush were "right wing". Bernie Sanders is left, Alt right are racist, sexist extremists and yea birds of a feather and all, that is all that needs to be said really. It is what it is and there is a reason most people want nothing to do with it and don't want to hear about it all. Life is too short to deal with that nonsense tbh.