Remembering Myth : by Ben Nerdery

[juliocpaes]

this nerd of blog has a word about the Myth.

Ben Nerdery




Julio

[juliocpaes]

You do a zooming in on the of Ben map, there are many cool details.
He added something like two hundred towns, settlements, rivers, lakes, highways and other fine details to the setting.

Julio

[bigbro]

Thanks for the link. I love myth world maps. This one is very good!
By the way, did you find a version of it in higher resolution ? Because when I zoom in, as you said, all names of the new places are too small and blurry.

I still prefer Briarius' map :
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost9097320

[juliocpaes]

Thanks for the link. I love myth world maps. This one is very good!
By the way, did you find a version of it in higher resolution ? Because when I zoom in, as you said, all names of the new places are too small and blurry.

I still prefer Briarius' map :
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthre ... ost9097320

Bigbro,

I not find a version of it in higher resolution, maybe only Ben have all details. but I never talked to Ben-Nerdey, just saw him the website.

Julio

[BensNerdery]

EDIT: I removed the direct link to my blog. The general impression seems to be that I'm trying to coerce false readers to my site, and that is the furthest from my intent. Blogging growth is about networking one's interests, and over the past month I've been looking at different ways to do that. I'd noticed that a large number of my Myth-oriented hits came from this site in the past, and so I wanted to capitalize on that to try reaching out to this community. The following post is worded for humor and tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, and its been taken quite badly. I'd like to remove its content altogether, but in the interest of transparency I'm leaving it up.

Hey guys,

Ben here. Yes, that Ben. I just thought that I would give you guys an update as to what the status is of the high-resolution Myth map.

I'm holding it hostage.

I've been working on getting my blog back up on its feet over the past two months, and a big part of that process has been pimping the site. Most of my regular readers aren't officially following my blog, and that bugs me, so I've posted a challenge elsewhere. The long and short of it is that once I hit 50 followers on my blog I will not only release the full resolution version of my Myth map, but I will also do a series of several articles about specific regions of Myth. If that interests you at all, please log on to the blog and help share it with anyone else you think might enjoy it. I'd really appreciate it.

I realize holding something special like this captive probably seems cheesy or exploitative, and it is. But not maliciously so. Writing the blog takes a good deal of work, and the map itself is a huge investment of time and effort, so I'd like to get a little something back for all that labor.

I hope you understand, and thank you guys for being stand-up fans for such a great game series. It makes me really happy that there are still active Myth fans around.

[vinylrake]

So you want us to all be 'stand up' fans and lie and pretend we read your blogsite so you can get your ego stroked a little? If we are all going to be playing make-believe, how about you just pretend we read your blog and publish the map?

Seriously, keep it or share it, it's your choice - you don't owe anyone anything, if you are proud of your work and you want admiration from people who might appreciate your talent and work then release it, or if for ANY reason you don't want to that's perfectly fine, it's yours to do whatever you want with it - you won't get any judgement from me if you never release it, but don't do this bullshit.

[BensNerdery]

So you want us to all be 'stand up' fans and lie and pretend we read your blogsite so you can get your ego stroked a little? If we are all going to be playing make-believe, how about you just pretend we read your blog and publish the map?

Seriously, keep it or share it, it's your choice - you don't owe anyone anything, if you are proud of your work and you want admiration from people who might appreciate your talent and work then release it, or if for ANY reason you don't want to that's perfectly fine, it's yours to do whatever you want with it - you won't get any judgement from me if you never release it, but don't do this bullshit.

Wow, I'm terribly sorry I offended, and I never wanted anyone to feel coerced into reading something they don't enjoy. The assumption was much more that people who enjoy one aspect of my blog might be interested in others. I'm sorry for chiming in, and I'd be happy to remove everything. Clearly I misunderstood quite a bit when I decided to post this here.

The followers metric is a clear goal of mine for boosting site traffic, so I thought it'd be a good way to share my goals with my readers. I didn't think that'd be interpreted as dishonest or unethical.

[Pyro]

I think it was the wording of your original post that made VR reply the way he did. It did not offend me, but it did seem like an odd way of stating your intentions. When you think about it, others do similar things where they "unlock" certain content once they reach a number of followers. However, in these cases they don't word it the way you did. They make it sound like a bonus to reach for rather than a hostage to rescue.

Your reply to VR did not include any anger or snarky comebacks. That is a good sign that perhaps you didn't really mean to sound the way you did in your original post. Though not everyone will see it the same of course.

Keep in mind though, while there are still fans of the game around, most of them might not visit this site regularly (or at all). So even if you don't notice an increase of followers it might simply be due inactivity around here.

[vinylrake]

You shouldn't take any one person's opinions as indicative of the readership of a site. I am not speaking for projectmagma or anyone else other than myself.


I get you want more readers, that's a goal most people writing just about anything either share or can understand. No problem. If you want to share your goals with your readers that's understandable too. Even how you present your goals is your business as well. Personally I'd have had less of a reaction if you'd presented it more in terms of a reward for getting new readers than as you holding something people want 'hostage' until they do what you say - but that's just me, I have an aversion to both lying (pretending to be a reader and bumping up a count just to get the map) and to being forced into doing something. Release it or not? Your decision. Market it as a reward or a hostage-taking? Your decision.

If your goal is to get more (presumably recurring) visits to your site, then getting people to register as readers just so they can get your map isn't going to accomplish that - but writing content that people find interesting will. Yes you have to advertise to get people aware of your site, but I think offering a prize/reward for getting new readers is going to garner you a lot more positive impressions and attention and be much less offensive than holding something people want hostage - but as I said, that's just me.

[Olong2]

This is like going to a hooker: You pay her, but she couldn't care less about you. Not that I'd know, but one can extrapolate thus.

False followers are just that. If they're not really interested, and are only doing it to get the map, why bother? Who wants empty love? What good is it?

Hate to harp on this, but look at a guy like Jon God, who took literally years to release his hi-res detail textures. He did it for free. In fact, take any decent mapmaker out there, or mapmaking group. What's their compensation?

People play their maps. Or, not.

Looks like you have a cool thing here, but this "hostage" paradigm is kinda silly. As was stated above, you're free to do as you wish, but it does kind of remind me of the guy who, back in the days, created something called "The Greatest Map Never Made". In his case, it was just a cobbled-together mess of different Bungie-esque environments, and never releasing it made him feel like he'd done something nobody else had ever done before.

Not saying you're that numbskull. Not at all. I'm saying don't *be* that numbskull.

Just release the map, or not, I think.

[GodzFire]

No big deal if he doesn't release it, there's two other ones very faithfully done that are super high res. One is from Briarius for his Total War mod which I will upload later.

The second is a guy by the name of Destan on this cartographer's site: http://www.cartographersguild.com/finis ... d-map.html

[Melekor]

I realize holding something special like this captive probably seems cheesy or exploitative, and it is.

So you knew that it was a bad idea, but decided to go with it anyways. oops.

Writing the blog takes a good deal of work, and the map itself is a huge investment of time and effort, so I'd like to get a little something back for all that labor.

If you didn't make that map for fun, then why did you make it? Did you really expect to get paid somehow? I hope not, because that's a terrible business plan... the average price for 3rd party myth content is zero. The myth content hosted on this site represents many man-years worth of work, and it's all free.

As for increasing your site readership, there's really no substitute for quality writing. Creating a popular blog isn't easy, so good luck with that.

[BensNerdery]

Wow, just wow.

I explained a long time ago why I made the map: it was always intended as a personal play aid for my own RPG. I made it for fun, and I get my fun out of it without going online. Then I posted it as an example of my enthusiasm for Myth on the blog and I got some positive feedback on it, including from this thread. So I decided to make its release a special incentive. Making the incentive be tied to a publicly viewable stat was a way of making myself accountable. Any reader could look at the number of followers on the site and see where I fell in regard to my promises on content. That was the intent.

The language of 'hostage' and 'pimping' was meant to be obviously tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure how that could be missed.

As I said before, I've clearly missed the mark here with this post and with this site. I'd had the impression that I'd get a more inclusive, welcoming reaction from people here who actually wanted to see more work put into a part of the blog that otherwise won't get developed. The map itself is finished, but posting it and the associated tutorials and explanations I've been asked for would require a good deal of additional effort. Effort that I wasn't prepared to put in unless I had some indication of legitimate interest.

If I had come here and gotten some polite requests to put in the work regardless of site readership, I would almost certainly have shared what I have, and possibly put in the extra work for the asking. As it is, I'll simply remove the prior link to my site and add a note to my previous post. I won't remove the offending figures of speech, though, as I don't want to be accused of trying to make myself look better after the fact.

[vinylrake]

So we don't fall all over ourselves to follow your blog so you won't release your map or write any more about Myth. Boo Hoo. Really I am so sad. Just think what could have been, the myth world will never know the greatness that could have been in our midst.

Great plan to build positive good feelings about your blog.

Sarcasm aside Ben - I have nothing against you personally - just the way you tried to 'market' your blog. You obviously have some graphic talent and it is too bad that merely because you didn't get your ego stroked the way you anticipated you aren't going to share something you made for 'fun' or write any more about a game/world you claim to love. To me, your claims don't ring true. If you are looking for more readers pick a topic other than a 14 year old computer game only a couple hundred people play regularly (debateable how many of us can even read). So don't write about Myth because it's going to get you more readers, make things and write about Myth because you love it. If you are the kind of person who likes to share, then share the things you make/write, if you want to keep things to yourself then do that. Just know why you are doing it, don't blame 'potential readers' for your decision whether to write about Myth or not. Also, I'd leave the link to your site - I am sure I am not the only one here who clicked through to take a look at your blog.

[Olong2]

Well, folks: Looks like we got us another "Greatest Map Never Made"...