I don’t have a cogs army and would love to put up some articles about how they play, strengths weaknesses and the like. If anyone would like to do a cogs write up I’d be happy to feature it either here or simply link to it.
It looks like TGN will recieve a bailout in some form or another. It seems that some companies in the gaming community have a vested interest in seeing TGN stay afloat. They have offered to host the blog as well as possibly throw some work Zac’s way so that he can continue to work on the site on a more regular basis (This is purely speculation on my part from reading into the message on the TGN Homepage this morning).
To say that it has been a hectic few days is a bit of an understatement.
The situation in regards to the site this evening is a radically different one than existed when I got up this morning and its been a quite positive evening.
There has been a lot of response to the site being offered for sale and there has been a lot of offers of help and hosting that I have been very grateful for. I’m also quite thankful for all the kinds words people have been sending via email or through TGN Talk.
There have been several offers from members of the hobby industry to host TGN as part of own web hosting and I suspect that by the end of the week I will have that finalized and that TGN will be up and running with a more secure hosting situation. You should expect to see TGN running within a week.
My own participation in the site will be contingent on the development of a few job offers I have had in the last few days. I have been quite surprised by the industry response to the site and the rather unexpected generosity on the part of some people in the hobby. I don’t have any full details but suffice it to say that I should have enough work coming soon to help keep TGN running and the news posted for some time.
I don’t have the words to really adequately describe what an insane roller-coaster this has been but it looks as if there is actually a happy ending to this entire mess.
More news as details come in.
Zac over at Tabletop Gaming News has closed the site in an act of what one could only call nerd rage frustration. I guess he wasn’t making enough money from it to justify putting all that time into the site. Who knows in any case it was a good site for smaller lesser known games.
You can read his long winded complaint / gripe / excuse letter on the front page where he blames his ISP and then refuses to accept offers of hosting / help from the community to keep it going. Looks like the only way we’ll get to keep TGN is if someone signs Zac a big check.
The letter is copied below.
It appears that the server that TGN currently resides on is suffering from a rather heavy load. This load isn’t due to the traffic on TGN which is normal for the month and my ISP appears to be uninterested in helping to solve the problem. Sadly I don’t have the tools or access to the tools that would allow me to solve the issue and despite my efforts over the last day or so I have been unable to rectify the issue.
The only solutions to this are to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package (which I am not willing to do) or move to a new ISP. Sadly I’m not really interested in doing that either.
Over the last year I have had less and less time to devote to the site and it has begun to require more of my time not only to keep it running and up-to-date but also in terms of the news gathering and posting.
It has long been a dream of mine to make the site profitable enough to support me and over the last four years despite the strides the site has made in terms of reach and traffic this hasn’t really been the case. I am of the opinion that given enough time and resources this site could in fact generate a fairly good income but sadly I just don’t have the time to pursue any additional revenue streams for the site.
On most evenings I usually have to choose between painting and posting news and it has been about a year since I was able to dedicate anything more than a few hours a day to the site.
Sadly I have decided to put the site up for sale. Anyone interested in purchasing the site should email me zac at tabletopgamingnews.com. Information regarding the site, traffic and revenue levels can be provided to any serious bidders.
I will be winding down the site and removing pages right away. The TGN Talk message board will stay open for the time being.
Update: Thanks to everyone that have offered hosting but that is not the problem and not a solution that I am looking for.
Update 2: If you have a subscription to the site for ads or for site support please take a moment to go into your Paypal account and cancel it. If there is a way for me to do it via Paypal I have been unable to find it yet.
Update 3: If anyone is looking for, or knows someone who is looking for, a web developer or marketing/PR person with experience in the gaming industry please drop me a line.
I haven’t been posting much lately as I’ve been hard at work on the infinity army builder Infinity Pool. Its in beta now and coming along nicely. If anyone plays infinity why not check it out!
Feedback is always appreciated.
The bulk of the work is done now so you can expect more frequent AT-43 related posts in the coming days.
Belisarius on the at-43 forums posted some great pictures of rackhams booth at salon du jeu de société de Paris. Lots of great shots of the Cogs and the Dotch Yaga in action. some great terrain on display there as well.
There are some major changes coming down the pipe for AT-43. Introductory army sets are coming in June and they include an enormous number of minis for an extremely low price. for a 70 USD MSRP you can get close to 200 dollars worth of miniatures under the current pricing scheme.
Laser designation in AT43 now affects the entire unit that gets lased. This means that if you tag 1 guy from a unit you can place your indirect fire template wherever you want on top of that unit. This was changed from before where only the targets that could be seen at lasing time were able to be targeted by indirect fire weapons. See the ruling here.
Tracy over at at43comic has released a short story he did last year. If you’re looking for a AT-43 themed read, why not check it out.
The AT43 section of Cry Havoc Online #2 comes with a nice new scenario called attack (grab it in the scenario section). It is set up for 3000 points a side and plays on the operation democles tile set. It makes heavy use of the walled sides of the tiles and should make for quite a tactical game. Flamers and melee are all possible during this battle. There are 2 minor VP points near each players deployment zone and one centrally located major VP point.
Unfortunately the tiles are a bit hard to come by right now so if you don’t have them and you find them somewhere, scoop them up.
Tracy has a new comic out at at43comic. I hate when Tiamat does that (except when I’m the one doing it).