The Fortress Year in Review

Like anyone cares about this blog’s stats beside me…

2010 in Review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.

 

In 2010, there were 64 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 284 posts. There were 33 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 9th with 388 views. The most popular post that day was RudyCan’tFail had the Best Time….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were forums3.armagetronad.net, r.jumpingness.com, google.com, teamunknown.info, and crazy-tronners.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for play fortress, playfortress, twisted rats, fortress play, and noob_saibot armagetron.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

RudyCan’tFail had the Best Time… March 2010
17 comments

2

Ladle 30 Power Rankings February 2010
34 comments

3

Ladle 31 Power Rankings March 2010
17 comments

4

May Power Rankings May 2010
20 comments

5

November Power Rankings November 2010
17 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com

Top Teams of 2010

What a year it has been. A lot of fortress was played. Here’s the 3 top teams of 2010.

1.) Speeders Clan (11 Ladles, 8 Finals, 4 wins)

2.) Crazy Tronners (12 Ladles, 6 Finals, 4 Wins)

 

 

3.) Team Unknown (12 Ladles, 1 Final, 5 Semi-Finals)

 

Note: Freelancers, Jalapeños, Vowel Appreciation and Inglorious Basterds I could bring myself to lump together, despite some similar personnel.

December Notes

November has come and gone. Ladle 39 went off without the great revelations of Ladle 29, and fortress remains good old fortress. The formula for success is just as we thought; teamwork, discipline, balance, focus. Despite this, we seem restless. We want new strategies, new settings, a new league, a new hierarchy, a Brawl, and, though preferably not in Qatar, we want a World Cup!

Feedback Poll Results

Custom Camera List

Cameras are perhaps the least discussed part of fortress relative to the impact they have on performance. Camera’s must balance many aspects of the game. Detail vs. overview, too much information vs. too little, gauging of speed vs forecast of obstacles. There are many things to consider, especially in fortress where one must balance detail of one’s immediate surroundings with a view of the grid. Speeds also tend to vary to greater degree than in sumo. A camera may depend on what position one plays or even playing style.

In an effort to expand the discussion of cameras, I ask you to comment with your custom camera and to help evaluate other listed cameras based on the following rubric. Basically, we’re collecting cameras and evaluating them. (I’m aware of this wiki page, to preempt that comment) I’d prefer that you comment here. I’ve listed a rubric for judging below.

• 1<>4 Ease of use (how long it takes to get accustomed)
• 1<>4 Judgment of speed (how fast things look)
• 1<>4 Detail (performance in small areas)
• 1<>4 Awareness (performance in large areas)
• 1<>4 Feel (gut feeling, how it colors the game)

Play Fortress Reader Feedback

Hello,

I’m asking for a bit of feedback so that I can better aim Play Fortress at what people are interested in reading and discussing. I’ve been pleased that longer and in depth conversations have begun in comments here. That’s a relatively new development, and I hope it continues. The amount of senselessness that is present on the forums seems mostly absent (I also like having the knowledge I can moderate if need be 🙂

So below is a poll asking for you to select the two genres you most enjoy reading on this site. I’ve linked to the referenced posts below the poll. Please add some more constructive criticism/instruction/wants/desires in the comments on this post. Thanks.

 

Relative Links

• November Power Rankings
• Filling The Grid
• Reformatting
• In Praise of Real Attacking
• Fabrics

Reformatting

I think it may be time to reformat the Ladle, drastically perhaps. First, I’ll outline some of the shortcomings of the current format and some of the entities that have become a requirement of any format. I was planning to suggest a solution, but I need to think some more on that, any suggestions are welcome. This post is mostly brainstorming

Grid Game (2)

Grid Game is my attempt at a serialized fiction using Armagetron Fortress as my material. In Part 1, Halfwall Holding, a retired player, started challenging the legend of Leo, the game’s premier player and personality. In Part 2, Halfwall fills us in on his own story.

Grid Game (1)

Grid Game is my attempt at a serialized fiction using Armagetron Fortress as my material. Feedback is welcome, I wouldn’t want to put time into something people don’t enjoy.

Jim’s Café was a not a great server, but it was home to a lot of players. The settings were standard fortress, the quality of play was not particularly high either. Were one to spend just five minutes at Jim’s, one would discover why people went there again and again. Stories of triumph and folly were traded freely, the place was just pulsing.