Some Suggestions for the RSBandB Informer

I read the July and August editions of the RSBandB informer with great interest. After the August Edition I could not wait for the September edition to come out, and waited with anticipation.

And so two days ago, it was released. As soon as I noticed the sticky, I shot off to http://informer.rsbandb.com to read it.

Im sorry, everyone, but I really wasnt impressed.

It seems to me that you're starting to become desperate for things to write. As the phrase goes - "Scraping the bottom of the barrel." The previous months articles were very nicely done - Shane's article about Opera, and Southrend's article about smithing was really nice - smithing has always been my favourite skill, and it was nice to see that others thought the same way I do about it.

This month, though, TheMothAssassin's interview with himself seemed rather... big-headed (sorry). Alex 43's article about Prayer seemed like he was really getting desperate for things to write about, and Shane's article about customisable homepages failed to capture my interest, when it should have done, really - I'm a complete computer nerd, after all.

These are my suggestions:

1. Make the RSBandB Informer bigger. It takes me around 5-15 minutes to read all the things in there that i think will interest me. I often read the other articles that i dont think will as well, but it still never takes any more than half an hour. I want to sit back, relax and read for an hour or more, and be interested by every minute of it. 9 Articles is not enough. Yes, I know you may end up 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' more, but read the next suggestion.

2. Make it more open to RSBandB members to write for it. Sure, you can have the usual writers have their articles, but let people from the RSBandB community write some articles for it. I would love to be able to write for the Informer, and I'm sure there are many more people who would as well. The newspaper staff could decide which articles to put in the Informer.

3. Cover more techy stuff. One article is not enough for me, and if that article doesnt interest me, then I probably wont be interested in the rest of the Informer either. This month's article really didnt interest me - I have used personal homepages before, and to be honest i dont see the point. I used to use the my.msn.com, which is now the windows live page.

4. Make it weekly, or at least biweekly, please. A month is way to long to wait, and to make a good economy report about. The RuneScape economy changes hourly, not monthly.

I'd like to see something that compares Runescape to other top MMOs that people play atm. Title: Why is Runescape so successful?

Interviews with people in rsbandb would be nice.
More graphics competitions in the paper (which I can enter! I can't enter sotm!! :'()
Cartoon Strips. "Shane's Adventures Aboard The Enterprise - Ft. Garfield"

Talk about offline games, what are people playing atm?
How about sending letters to the newspaper and the team reply as npcs from runescape. Kinda like a mock version of the postbag from the hedge on the official site.

Just a few ideas

There is no way to do this. We all have lives, school, and jobs. This is not our fulltime job it is something on the side. So to make the paper weekly or bi-weekly would be just too much work.



I like this idea and we'll discuss it with the newspaper staff.



Commenting is turned off because it adds something else that has to be moderated. It's more efficient just to have discussion for the issue on the forums.

And as for the economics section we are still looking for someone to do this. Maybe some of you who commented on this would be interested. If you are just send the applications to rsbandbinformer[at]gmail[dot]com. Be sure to title it Economics Appllication. We'd want to know your Runescape name, Forum name, whether or not you have merchanting experience, and a 100 word or so summary of a skill on Runescape. Merchanting experience would be nice.

Thanks for your thoughts and comments. We *may* be opening up standard appllications again this month, although I am not sure.

Ok take into consideration what you have been saying. You say it takes 1 hour to write an article, but factor in maybe a half an hour to think of a topic (Minimum) thats 1 and a half hours per article. Now already there is 9 articles in the Informer, that is 13 and a half hours. Now what you are suggesting is a bi weekly informer, so that 13 and a half hours has to be put into someones week. Now you also suggested that there should be more articles. So bump that up to 2 articles for each writer. Now consider it, what you are asking these guys to do is invest more than 1 and a half hours per week, writing a small newspaper for a site whilst juggling, the game they are writing about and there normal lives. That is a bit much to ask.

You are the only person complaining, so basically they would be doing this only to benefit you, which is too much for 1 person to be asking for.

The whole reason we formed a "staff" of people to write was so we knew our writers and people would get to know them. I don't like the idea of random people submitting articles. We may be taking people on again soon, so if anyone really wants to write they can apply.