One year Ravalation

One year ago, I was really excited for posting my first message on this blog. I remember being afraid that people would laugh at what I was writing and what my blog looked like. Ravalation was (and is) my first blog, and everything I did was scary. Luckily I got positive feedback from a few bloggers, and that made me confident enough to keep going.

And now all of a sudden it's my anniversary and I don't really know what to do about it. I thought it would be weird not to mention it at all, so I'll take the opportunity to look back at what has happened over here at Ravalation. Beware my navel-staring!

Here, eat some graphs

Everyone loves graphs, so I'm sure you're okay with me feeding you some.

It's cool to see how your little corner of the internet gets visited a bit more, coming from 74 pageviews a month, going to over 5000.

Total pageviews at March 30 2013, 2 pm: 39,743

For all those who ever referred to this site, thank you! It's much appreciated.

And it's even more fun to spy on you guys... mwouhaha. Not that I get to know much more than the origin of anonymous visitors. Still, it's fun to see where your readers come from. 

*note to self: be nice to Americans*

*note to self (2): stop sounding like a creepy stalker*

I love how there are people from all over the world reading my nonsense.

 

So what do you guys like to read about?

Top 5 posts of all time:
1) LOTRO: Should you play a lore-master?
2) LOTRO: Lore-master legendary items
3) LOTRO: Riders of Rohan legendary edition
4) LOTRO: My hideous appearance
5) LOTRO: A tourist guide to Rohan: the Wold

Okay, so you like LotRO I guess, and lore-masters in particular. 

Most people seem to want to read LotRO advice posts. While I do enjoy writing those and I'm happy that the relatively large amount of time that they cost to make pays off, I prefer to write about my adventures, including other games (at the moment especially SWTOR). This means Ravalation will probably never get super popular, but that's not really the point anyway.

Okay, I've played enough with graphs for today. Many thanks to Create a graph, a website meant to teach kids how to make graphs, but which kept me busy a whole afternoon (guess what that says about me).

Here, have another lore-master. Because you guys like them so much.

A short history

When I started blogging I only knew of two gaming blogs, but everything changed with the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI) in May. The NBI made me discover that there were loads of people writing about the games I loved, and from there on things started rolling.

What happened in-game?

• The big happening in LotRO of this year was finishing the Tower of Orthanc on T2 Challenge mode with my kinship. I mainly played my lore-master.
• In SWTOR, I leveled my healing sage to 50 and got her into hardmode TfB and nightmare mode EC. I also spent time create new characters to wear specific outfits and got into lowbie PvP.
• I played several other games, including Mass Effect, Skyrim, Botanicula and KOTOR 2.

I've always considered LotRO to be my main game. It's the first time since 2007 that I now don't. For some reason I don't get absorbed as much by the new raid as I've been before, and SWTOR proves to be much fun. We'll see where the road takes us.

I've changed Ravalation's layout a bit through the time (oldest to the left, current to the right).

Hall of fame

Blogging is fun, but it's not half as much fun without a readership. That's why here's a small hall of fame for my commenters, who wrote a total of 631 comments! I hope the individual numbers won't push you down into a "omg, what have I done with my life" sort of crater. I have gotten to know each of you a bit and I consider you my blogger friends. It's amazing to have you here!

Top 5 commenters:

1) Rakuno (51)

2) Lothirieth (44)

3) Danania (38)

4) Vaneeesa (28)

5) Rowan / Daniel (each 27)

I would like to thank all of you, both commenters as well as silent readers, for taking the time to read my ramblings this past year. On to another year of Ravalation!

Ravanel goes off to discover more adventures!