Hi all and welcome again to one of my blog posts, this time the first on our new website.
Weekend Warriors turns seven years old as a stand alone guild in early 2018 and as such this is a fitting time to look toward the next stage in its growth and development as we head towards Blizzard’s seventh expansion* for World of Warcraft.
The new website represents a new chapter in a guild that has grown from humble, social beginnings towards the guild it is today; one that seeks to combine a friendly home for all players with successful raiding at all the difficulty levels its members are suited for.
Whilst the speed of change in the guild’s subtle mix of serious and casual has moved slowly and occasionally erratically from one side of the median line to go from Seriously Casual to perhaps more correctly Casually Serious today, the online gaming world has also moved forward with its integrations and social and commercial breakouts and game changes.
At the same time, World of Warcraft itself and raiding in particular has also had it’s own struggles with where to pitch the difficulty and commitment level for aspiring cutting edge raiding guilds that has moved from a more take it or leave it ‘one-size fits all’ design to the current tiered and time and ability gated approach that allows players of all spectrums somewhere to draw their line.
So, here in our new home we seek to look forward to a break away from the supportive but ultimately outdated one-size fits all website platforms like Enjin and instead stride out with a bespoke design that reflects the guild’s maturity, self-image and its proven ability to stand on its own two feet.
This choice has also allowed us to reflect upon what we want to include from our long past at Enjin and take with us into our future and what dead wood and more-is-better type of content we want to cut out and instead better utilise some of the other social tools available or popular today (but not 7 years ago) more effectively.
So, understand that the new website does not seek to replicate what we have at Enjin in a ‘prettier’ way. No, we have made a deliberate choice to take a different path where possible and to start with a simpler, ‘less is more’ type approach whilst we decide what we actually need to integrate and create solutions to and where (site, Discord, other media?) and only incorporate what we actually need rather than what we’ve been used to having.
So, yes you will, for example see no shoutbox or chat-room here at the new website as these are functions provided for in a far better way by Discord’s multiple features. What you will see however are webhooks and bots that provide notifications of filtered updated content on the website to Discord and from other gaming platforms such as Twitch and youtube gaming.
You will also see a streamlining of the badge award system and instead the creation of a new Achievements type system on the new website which awards you with different amounts of points for website activities from the simple visit to other more proactive and important contributions.
The site is and as any good site, will remain, a work in progress for some time to come. We have not sought to get to 100% before launching and involving the wider guild membership as this would only have delayed the project and we’d have ended up with queries and suggestions in any event whilst having lost the opportunity for a broader input.
Lastly, but by no means least, I want to say that none of this would have been possible without the initiative and hard work of our resident nice guy and Spartan beard, Skrea. It was Skrea who first planted the seed of change in my mind with his offer to provide us with our own domain name and our subsequent discussion of a bespoke site and we haven’t looked back since.
Thank you Skrea!
Skrea has freely given of his limited time and thankfully abundant generosity in paying for the work done so far. Now, as we move into the new territory of this new website and the opportunities a word-press site provide us with there will be a chance for others to contribute as well.
Over the coming weeks I will expand further on the guild’s mission for this next phase as we seek to broaden our visibility and take advantage of the ageing gamer demographic’s lack of options and opportunities in a world focused on the younger gamer to make WW increasingly THE place for the mature gamer to be.
Watch this space!
*Vanilla was not an expansion.
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