ShadowEra.net re-re-relaunch!

**Gondorian** · 08-23-2014, 03:45 PM

Hey, folks!

Until recently, I had a day-job independent of Shadow Era, but now I am part self-employed contractor (to Wulven) and part entrepreneur (i.e. unemployed layabout).

The entrepreneur side does not have to make money in the short-term - I just want to work on some projects with the intention of making useful/valuable things, and gaining knowledge and experience from them. (It's how I started on SE actually!)

ShadowEra.net is one such project. I'm going to improve the deckbuilder, to include better sharing and feedback, and get some exclusive SE related content on there - articles, decks, tournament reports.

As you can imagine, I can't do all this alone and I can't afford to pay anyone. I'm hoping there are others out there with the same motivation as me - deliver value and learn something along the way. If you feel you could contribute by writing articles, sharing decks, being an editor, doing tournament reports, or in any other way, please send me a PM.

Unlike previous attempts On ShadowEra.net, I'm going to do the site as a legit aspect of my own self-employed business, meaning that if you wanted a reference to help with employment seeking then I could do that for you. You'd essentially be a volunteer working on a currently not-for-profit project.

I do think there is money to be made in a decent fan site for the game, but I don't think starting out with that intention is going to lead to a win-win situation for all concerned. My belief is to start with the value and go from there. Worst case, you made something decent that people got value from and you gained some experience.

I promise to share all financial aspects of the site with my team so that you can see it's not making profit and you are not being exploited. At the same time, if ideas come about for the transition to profitability then we'd come up with some agreement on how those profits are shared or how you are paid for your work.

ShadowEra.net is just one of many project ideas I have, which I intend to run in a similar fashion. If a fan site for SE is not your thing, but you still want to work on something of value and gain valuable experience from doing so, also please get in touch. Similarly, if you have a project that you are looking for volunteers for then maybe I'd be interested in helping with that so send me a PM if what you know about me suggests I could be useful to you.

Thanks for reading!

**oggtheman** · 08-23-2014, 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by Gondorian

articles, decks, tournament reports.

I was actually going to make a digital magazine with this stuff in it (but with other TCGs as well) when I got back from holiday... You beat me too it

yeah id be interested.

Anyone in eTC whatsapp group can back me up on magazine point

**Misanthropic** · 08-23-2014, 07:50 PM

The community is already splintered because of guilds Im not sure its worth it.

Sounds like the plan is to absorb all the good things from here and tack on a gift shop.

Cant you just volunteer for wulven, highlight the articles already here, put the deckbuilder here, and if profits rise ask K for a raise instead of adding another splinter? Also nobody at Wulven sees a conflict of interest letting an employee start a project which profits from the companies product? Fansite or not as a wulven employee shouldnt you be putting this effort into building the company?

Provide blessing from wulven and a decent proposal for how you plan to make the site profitable and Id be willing to volunteer as an artist and expert nitpicker (editing, qa (no my editing skills on my own posts do not reflect this skill))

**oggtheman** · 08-23-2014, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Misanthropic

The community is already splintered because of guilds Im not sure its worth it.

Sounds like the plan is to absorb all the good things from here and tack on a gift shop.

Cant you just volunteer for wulven, highlight the articles already here, put the deckbuilder here, and if profits rise ask K for a raise instead of adding another splinter? Also nobody at Wulven sees a conflict of interest letting an employee start a project which profits from the companies product? Fansite or not as a wulven employee shouldnt you be putting this effect into building the company?

Fair points

**Gondorian** · 08-23-2014, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by Misanthropic

The community is already splintered because of guilds Im not sure its worth it.

Sounds like the plan is to absorb all the good things from here and tack on a gift shop.

Cant you just volunteer for wulven, highlight the articles already here, put the deckbuilder here, and if profits rise ask K for a raise instead of adding another splinter? Also nobody at Wulven sees a conflict of interest letting an employee start a project which profits from the companies product? Fansite or not as a wulven employee shouldnt you be putting this effort into building the company?

Provide blessing from wulven and a decent proposal for how you plan to make the site profitable and Id be willing to volunteer as an artist and expert nitpicker (editing, qa (no my editing skills on my own posts do not reflect this skill))

It is true that a lot of great content that could benefit the entire community is wasted in private guild forums, when it could be on a fan site open to all, thereby promoting the game. Maybe ShadowEra.net could just showcase the best stuff guilds are willing to share?

As for why not do it all officially ... official stuff needs seal of approval from Mr Kyle, which means that the community does not have much control over it. A fan site works best when it can operate on its own schedule to its own goals, with its own management. Hearthstone has something like 20 fan sites (at last count) and most are much better than the official site for content and useful tools. Also, a good fan site can actually promote the game and therefore increase players and could actually bring more traffic to the official site as a result. I would argue lack of a decent fan site is currently hurting the game in a big way.

There's no conflict of interest, since I am a contractor to Wulven, not an employee and Kyle likes the idea of fan sites. Ideally there would be one already, but there isn't so I am trying to help it get started. I always planned to hand it over to other people once it was going well.

**Shadows R Us** · 08-23-2014, 10:01 PM

The deck builder is something that wulven doesn't have, and can be a great feature. I'd suggest starting here and concentrating only on it. Either Co-opt an existing g open source deck builder, or create this one as open source. I'd much rather point to code on GitHub that I helped with then some app on a website for a game that only the coolest of the cool have heard of.

**Daemon Rayge** · 08-24-2014, 12:27 AM

I would be interested in this. I also may be able to collaberate with some backend stuff as well. I do have some knowledge of the Apache/MySQL/PHP stack as I took a class on it. Also can be a good further learning opportunity for me too.

**Kip thorp** · 08-24-2014, 08:50 PM

In,
I get to do the variety page, you know the one that makes reading anything fun!
Like expo's on current top players,
Making fun of thier avatars,
Throwing out unsubstantiated accusations just to bump up the readership!

It's done all the time and it works!

See you on page 6 .