Concerned-ish

OK then, I figured I should update everyone on where we are. with the site.

Dominant Miscourse

Currently, this is offline. There was a bug with something we put up, and we’re working on getting it fixed as soon as possible.

Podcasts

Due to parts of the site being broken, as well as some other issues with other hosts, podcasts are temporarily on hold until such a time when I’m not going “dontbreakdontbreakdontbreak” in my head whenever I upload something.

Evil Takeover Sponsorship Plans

I know for a fact there are some great sites out there, with great stuff on them, but using free webhosts which put people off and may not necesarily be visited. As part of our expansion plans, we intend to offer people not only hosting, but, should we deem them special and trustworthy enough, domain names, ad revenue sharing, etc. If anyone might be interested in this, e-mail ben@concerned-ish.com and we’ll discuss it.

And now, our new stuff that is already here, or is very close:

Uberchan

Because everyone loves funny pictures. Uberchan

URDSR

*Information Classified*

Game Servers

Now this is something that nay or may not go ahead. I’ve been exploring the possibility of hosting game servers, notbly Bad Company 2 and Team Fortress 2. However, at the moment, I don’t eel the site would benefit, because there isnt enough readers and most likely people have other servers they play on anyway. If there is enough demand for it, I’ll be more than happy to shell out for a VPS to host these servers on, as long as I know they’ll be used. Leave a comment if you want to vote support or request a game.

Writers

Not entirely sure how many people are interested, but public writing for the blog is still open. To write for us, all you have to do is register an account. Then, when you login, you’ll see a “posts” menu with “New Post” under it. Click this, write your post, tag it, and then Submit. Within a few days, I’ll read over it and approve it and it’ll be on the site for all to read!

That’s basically it for the site. Actual content coming later. Have fun.

In other words, ladies and gents – Enigmatic Beavers is back. On our brand spanking, shiny new podcast site!

For the record, EB isn’t the only podcast that will be up there – favorites such as Alpha Version, among others, will be up there too. In the meantime, go go go!

Just a heads up – I’ve upgraded the blog to the latest version of WordPress. As often happens when you upgrade from version 2 to 3 of something, SOMEWHERE something has broken.

So if anyone finds any bugs, I’d appreciate if you could leave a comment here so I can fix the problem.

Thanks guys!

This is Aaron, the community manager, again to tell you about Concerned-ish’s footprint on the web.

First of all, we have Twitter. Whenever a new blog post is put up on here, within the hour it will be Tweeted and linked. Also, if we run maintenance on the site or we want to get you people involved with something, we will post about it on Twitter. Follow the Twitter feed over at @concernedish.

Next we have the forums. Yes. The forums are going to be more centred around the articles than general gaming discussion that we have tried to have in the past. This means that discussion is centred and people actually visit the forums without feeling overwhelmed. Also, by visiting often and doing certain things, you can earn achievements and forum gamer score which can be exchanged at a later date for certain benefits (such as money off items if we ever open a store). Go and sign up at the forums.

Dominant Miscourse is our video site and we are going to be running pilots for new shows soon. We are also looking into content providers posting their series to the site. Digimon Abridged is confirmed as running there plus a new show called “This Is Not A Music Show”. These will be posted to the site in bulk and (like I said) we are looking for content providers who want to get involved. The site is open to new content providers and your video series (whether it be “Lets Play”, reviews, sketches etc) will be up on the site for all to see. Dominant Miscourse; opening soon. And follow on Twitter for when videos are posted over at @dommiscourse.

Both Concerned-ish and Dominant Miscourse have Facebook pages too. We are trying to interact more with social media, so you can Like and Digg and Tweet about EVERY video on Dominant Miscourse, so go over to Facebook and become fans!

Thanks everyone, and expect a new review from me soon!

Aaron Fowkes is a freelance writer that writes for Disgruntled, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, Concerned-ish, This is Not A Music Show, Fortressbusters and Digimon: Abridged. He also does some voice acting and general acting, but that isn’t really relevant here. His Twitter account is@aaronfowkes

Remember that podcast myself, Cloud, and a certasin swashbuckler called Hackett, who’s a slag, used to do? Well, I finally decided to get up off my arse and fix it. The search bar on the top-left of this page now produces WORKING Alpha Version podcast links when you search for “alpha version” – so if you miss the sound of Cloud’s sexy (apparantly) voice, you get to hear it again.

Episode 4 is also in production, in case you didn’t know.

Remember how we said we were migrating Box54 over to here? Well, it’s done.

Dominant Miscourse is Concerned-ish’s new video section – now, of course, you COULD watch them over at YouTube, but then you’d be missing out… see, here, the vidoes will be not only higher quality… BUT ALSO! (dramatic music) You’ll be able to watch commentaries, making of videos, and perhaps even outtakes for aything that isn’t Digimon Abridged. In the meantime what was I saying? Oh, right. Head over there!

DOMINANT MISCOURSE

OK, so, I realise I said a while back we wouldn’t be moving. Well, I MAY have lied. The hosting company I was with sent me an e-mail which basically said “Yeah, we can’t afford to host you anymore, either give us more money or GTFO” (in slightly more polite terms, I admit.

As such, we have moved to a new, slightly more expensive, but reliable webhost, who give us more space and bandwidth, as well as additional domains if I want them. This means, ladies and gents, I can have more content on here than I originally expected. This means, for those of you who frequent the Control Point chatroom, you get your old favorites back, such as Uberchan, video streams and the Captain’s Log.

All this will be set up soon. If anyone wants to use a little bit of space for anything (I have unlimited), leave a comment and we’ll discuss it.

Oh, and before I forget – the .co.cc domain doesn’t work anymore. You’ll have to use our shiny new one – www.concerned-ish.com.

Normal post schedules will resume shortly!

As you may or may not have noticed, the CI site is undergoing some changes, the first of which has already taken place – a new layout. This is the first of many changes coming to the site, and most likely, the least important. Since I don’t like keeping people out of the loop, let me fill you in on what’s coming:

-FORUMS! Every serious community needs forums. However, these are slightly above average forums, for these forums have opportunities for prizes. And not the shitty kind where special things need to be done. Final details are still being worked out, but a beta should be available very soon.

-FUTURE TENSE! A game that was originally slated to be developed for Breach54, which, unfortunately, now seems to be completely dead despite our efforts to revive it, is nearing alpha. Tying in with the forums, and a whole multiplayer network system, this can be expected.

-COMMUNITY… STUFF! Let’s just say we’re not entirely sure what this means, but it will be great. Ooooh yes.

That’s the roundup of the very, very basic stuff. Have questions, comments, suggestions, or death threats? Send an e-mail to ben@concerned-ish.co.cc and let us know what you think!

In other news, you may be wondering when we’ll get the Digimon Abridged series out – the answer is: we’ve finished the writing of the first episode. Next step is editing, then voicing.

Also, a quick note: the site will be slow for the next month or so: I have my exams. I’ll do my best to hurry up with them, but you know how these things are. In the meantime, please feel free to become a contributor, as outlined in my post, “An Hero (Writer) – Become one today!“

Just in case you didn’t already know… Valve are giving away Portal for FREE until May 24th.

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/

And now that’s out of the way, just a heads up – come Friday (or tomorrow, depending on how energised I feel), you’re going to want to check this site. Mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together, forums online, and a sexy new podcast for you to enjoy.

And now, back to work.

Some of you people who’ve been visiting right from the start may remember we had a little contest a while back to get a few new writers. We had a few rather good entries, and I’d like to open it up to everyone to try their hand at writing articles. So – here’s what I’m going to do.

1. Anyone who registers an account here (see that sexy sidebar over there? User Login / Registration is there) will automatically be given basic rights to do with articles. On your Dashboard, you’ll see the option to write a post. Feel free to write one – before, nothing would happen. Now, we’ve set up a moderation process so that anyone can post.
2. When the post is submitted, it is placed in a little pile in my Dashboard saying “waiting approval”.
3. After I’ve read the post, corrected any spelling and formatting errors (not that there will be any), and made sure it lived up to Concerned-ish’s (admittedly poor) quality, it will be published (I recommend a little footnote explaining who you are – I OCCASIONALLY forget to give credit, and one of our themes doesn;t show authors names).

“But Ben,” you ask. “Why should I?” Well, truthfully – there’s no reason to… yet. Throughout late May and June, I’m working on improving the site (that means a domain name as well – cool, huh?) to make things better. Some ideas of what’ll happen with writers is the sharing of ad revenue, or a points system of some kind for use by everyone and writing earns for it. Everything is still on the drawing board – but watch this space.