Will there be another site like Summonstone.com?

[Last Starfighter]

oo oo maybe since he got a job with blizz they hired him to fix enh shammies? wooot goona get some luving come x pack?

Summonstone wasn't a shaman site. And the guy was skullflower. A death knight.

[Deleted]

Hopefulyl never.

But I'd support a (Elemental) Shaman forum start-up anytime with cash $$$.

[binkenstein]

Hopefulyl never.

But I'd support a (Elemental) Shaman forum start-up anytime with cash $$$.

I would happily participate on a new Shaman forum, but I'm not going to start it (side note: TotemSpot only shut down because nobody wanted to take it over).

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

This website is laughable. Honestly, its not in a state that is fit to be published yet

2) As mentioned, the vast majority of your pages have zero content on them right now.

No shit. Thanks for all the feedback, but all we need is for writers who aren't on such a high horse that they are happy to contribute for modest compensation for the betterment of the community. That seems to be an issue atm.
We don't expect anyone to check it out until then, but are keeping it in this state so we can show our potential writes the prospective article formats which we intend to employ.

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I think you just need to narrow down the stuff on the site. it's a great idea to have all of this in one place, but that's kinda what wowhead is. If you just focus on guides for pve and pvp you have a higher quality of information because your resources aren't spread so thin

We like the focus being that spread. It wont really spread any resources thin at all either because we already have all the non-class specific stuff covered in house. Just need high progression / rated players to step up and give back to the community!

[Veiled]

Take my advice: offering money to people for content probably won't work. We've seen this before with SentryTotem, SummonStone, and what was the one video site a couple of years back? L2PTV or something? People came around long enough to get paid (that's if they actually got paid *cough* SentryTotem *cough*) and didn't care much for the actual community itself. If you want quality content, find passionate people who want too create content because they enjoy it, not people who are in it for the money. Also, commit to running your site instead of running off to Blizzard and leaving the site to rot. It's a shame what happened to TotemSpot and if anyone knows anything about running these types of sites, it's Bink. It seems everyone else is in the business of creating "community sites" just so they can make their Blizzard application look better.

Another piece of advice: get your site in order before linking it anywhere. I visited it and will likely never go back because it's incomplete.

[Azortharion]

There will be.

http://onelegion.tv/

We have contacted all the contributors to summonstone and offered them similar compensation, but unfortunately none of them have replied yet.
If you know any mythic caliber players looking to write and record guides send em our way!

We intend to have guides on classes for pvp and pve, mounts, pets, gold, and Legion leveling/artifacts.

Was I not cool enough to receive a mail?

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Take my advice: offering money to people for content probably won't work. We've seen this before with SentryTotem, SummonStone, and what was the one video site a couple of years back? L2PTV or something? People came around long enough to get paid (that's if they actually got paid *cough* SentryTotem *cough*) and didn't care much for the actual community itself. If you want quality content, find passionate people who want too create content because they enjoy it, not people who are in it for the money. Also, commit to running your site instead of running off to Blizzard and leaving the site to rot. It's a shame what happened to TotemSpot and if anyone knows anything about running these types of sites, it's Bink. It seems everyone else is in the business of creating "community sites" just so they can make their Blizzard application look better.

Another piece of advice: get your site in order before linking it anywhere. I visited it and will likely never go back because it's incomplete.

Works for wowhead, BlizzardWatch, Icy-Veins??

[Veiled]

Was I not cool enough to receive a mail?

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Works for wowhead, BlizzardWatch, Icy-Veins??

There's a big difference. WoWHead has a corporate backing (ZAM), BlizzardWatch had a corporate backing under a different name (then BlizzardWatch was born and the foundation for their website was already there thanks to AOL). Icy Veins' owners primarily funded the site with their own funds, as far as I know, until it took off enough for them to make it their jobs (I could have them confused with someone else, but I'm pretty sure it was IV). These websites also have a long time audience and enough traffic to generate quite a bit of ad revenue. A brand new site does not have that, and might not have it for years, so starting up a site and paying people off the bat is a bad move in a business sense.

[Azortharion]

But it is clearly the best way to actually get writers, in the short run, which generates interest and revenue, which allows you to craft a better site and/or pay guidewriters more if the initial payment plan was small since you were starting from zero.

Writers quit because they are not invested? You have a name for yourself already, shouldn't be overly difficult finding new ones. There are a lot of players who are capable.

[binkenstein]

There were no payments involved with SummonStone, but Skullflower got such a large "buy in" from writers because of his reputation and the fact he was expanding his site from just DK stuff to all classes. Even then it took many hours to convert existing guides from what we already had to SK's format. Getting the same sort of buy in for a relatively unknown venture with vague promises isn't likely to happen.

[Murderdoll]

^^Especially since they JUST had to do all that for SummonStone.

This is not true. I personally know people that work for Blizzard that run Blizz related websites. Some are smart enough to have it written into their employment contracts that they can continue running their websites.

I guess it would largely depend on their position. Being QA, I dont think Skullflower was really able to.

Similar to Lore, the work he was doing via Gamebreaker and Tankspot in a commentary role would have greatly conflicted with his role as a community manager.

You also have the danger of having your website be a pseudo official source simply due to who is running it. Having Skullflower actually RUN summonstone would have done this.

[Gorgodeus]

^^Especially since they JUST had to do all that for SummonStone.




I guess it would largely depend on their position. Being QA, I dont think Skullflower was really able to.

Similar to Lore, the work he was doing via Gamebreaker and Tankspot in a commentary role would have greatly conflicted with his role as a community manager.

You also have the danger of having your website be a pseudo official source simply due to who is running it. Having Skullflower actually RUN summonstone would have done this.

None of which changes the fact that you can work for Blizzard and run such websites. I have confirmed such through people I know, one of which is in negotiations for a CM position offered to him, and one which is a currently a programmer for Battlenet. You simply have to have it written into your contract. There will be outliers, if your work on the website is a conflict of interest, although those would be rare.

[Veiled]

Drye told us that he got paid for writing the Shadow Guide. I just assumed everyone was paid.

[Deleted]

There were no payments involved with SummonStone, but Skullflower got such a large "buy in" from writers because of his reputation and the fact he was expanding his site from just DK stuff to all classes. Even then it took many hours to convert existing guides from what we already had to SK's format. Getting the same sort of buy in for a relatively unknown venture with vague promises isn't likely to happen.

One would assume that he'd have the brain to setup another site admin before starting to work for Blizzard, and not waste everyones time.

[Murderdoll]

None of which changes the fact that you can work for Blizzard and run such websites. I have confirmed such through people I know, one of which is in negotiations for a CM position offered to him, and one which is a currently a programmer for Battlenet. You simply have to have it written into your contract. There will be outliers, if your work on the website is a conflict of interest, although those would be rare.

...and as I said, it would largely depend on the role. Programmer for Bnet has absolutely zero interaction with then playerbase.

CM Position is very different and it would come down to what kind of work they were doing outside of Blizzard. Its not simply a case of writing it into your contract, if its a clear conflict of interests - IE Skullflower being a QA tester for the very thing he is writing a guide for, theres a conflict. Similar to Lore, he could never be a CM and talk about the game in the frankness that he did on TankSpot and Gamebreaker. He would have to toe the company line 100% and anything he did say would be treated as an interview with the devs.

So youre basing your argument on your friend who hasnt actually signed a contract yet?