Archive for the ‘The Word’ Category
Okay, so I’m just going to be flat out and open about this. You’ve all noticed the site has been going through some weird stuff lately. Allow me to explain what’s been going on.
Crush! Frag! Destroy! was offline from the wee hours of January 20th until late on the 22nd due to being hacked by some… let’s go with “person or persons badly in need of a hobby”; that’s a far more generous appellation than what immediately comes to mind.
With this hack came 2+ days of fighting to try and figure out why I couldn’t restore the site from the backups I had on hand. After many hassles and headaches, however, we finally got this beast back online, but not without a few hitches.
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Yes, we’re still alive (though you’d be hard pressed to tell lately).
Between holiday business and a host of personal issues going on, the site hasn’t exactly been keeping to the constant, regular update schedule we’re used to and for this we apologize greatly. We were on track to have out biggest month to date and we ended up falling short by a few hundred views, landing us at our third-biggest month overall. I suppose there are worse places to be, right?
But we’re now on the first day of a new month and hopefully most of you will have recovered from your turkey comas by this point. December isn’t really a gangbuster month for any releases, but there will be news about next year’s offerings incoming, of course. So, to that end, we’re going to try and be back on the ball about getting things done.
We thank you guys out there, loyal long-timers and new readers alike, for being patient with us through these rough couple of weeks. We’re about to close out 2009 and, in doing so, will be staring our one year anniversary in the face not long after (CFD! started up on Feb 22nd, 2009) and we want to keep things going at a level of consistency and quality. Hopefully all of our ongoing problems will be ironed out by then and we can move into our second year stronger than before.
Meanwhile, here’s the last two weeks worth of CFD! for you all in convenient Rewind form. Enjoy!
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I know I’m a wee bit late in putting this post up, but it’s because, like most of you, I was busy stuffing my face yesterday for Thanksgiving. I think we can be forgiven for that.
For those of you out there who were spending the day with friends and family, I hope you had a great time. For those of you outside the US who don’t celebrate, take some time today to let your loved ones know how much you appreciate them and count the blessings that are in your life right now, even if they seem small.
Lastly, to all of you out there in the trenches right now, braving this cold, dark Black Friday (again, for those of you outside the US, Black Friday – the Friday after Thanksgiving – is the biggest shopping day of the winter holiday season, with stores opening at ridiculously early hours and offering huge discounts), please be safe. No discounted video game or system bundle is worth getting hurt or, worse, hurting someone else over. Keep your wits about you and look out for your fellow shoppers. It’s going to be a madhouse out there.
So, from all of us at Crush! Frag! Destroy!, we hope the holiday found you all well and that you snag some good bargains out there on the sales floor today. Take care!
So I’m sure most of you may have noticed that this weekend was a little slim on the update front. There were a number of reasons for this, none of which I’m going to bore you with right now. After all, you’re here to read about video games, not our behind-the-scenes problems, right? Yeah, we thought so too.
So, what we’re going to do is call this past weekend a wash. I’m not going to spend the first part of this brand new week trying to get us all caught up on what we didn’t get done over the last three or so days. I might consider posting up the new releases list, but chances are I’ll probably just update the Amazon banner and not bother with writing up the whole thing. You have no idea how tedious that gets and right now my tolerance for tedium is pretty low.
So yeah, there you go. Sorry about this past weekend. Things happen. We move on. You may see another mass of slightly delayed videos, since those are already uploaded to the YouTube page, so it would be a bit silly to just skip posting them up. We’ll probably also just fold the last week’s handful of updates into next weekend’s CFD! Rewind, since there weren’t that many. Beyond that, though, we’re going to buckle down for the new week.
Thanks for being patient with us.
Hey there, everybody. Just a quick word on the state of what’s been going on this weekend here at CFD!
First off, I’m sorry we didn’t get any reviews up this week. We actually had a review and a preview due to be posted yesterday. However, I spent so much time running around that by the time I was finally able to sit down and get the news posts that had been waiting in queue ready, it was edging toward midnight. So, I’m going to be shifting those we had planned for Saturday to this coming Tuesday. Sorry again; things have just been super hectic. That’s why the angry gr3ml1n got used for this post. Plus, he doesn’t get to see enough screen time.
Second, regarding those news posts I mentioned, you may have seen some new names in the bylines over the last couple of days. Believe it or not, we finally actually have some new writers now! They’ve been doing a great job so far and we’re glad to have them on board, so make them feel welcome and try not to spook them, okay?
Lastly, today will see the typical Sunday posts (new releases, a poll, etc.) but there will also likely be a small flood of new trailers and other videos. I’ve been uploading files sporadically for the last couple of days, but have yet to actually sit down and post any of them up. So, it looks like they’re all going to come pouring out today.
That’s really it. Just a few quick notes to let you know what’s been going on this weekend and why our usual schedule has been a bit off-kilter. With some new blood on staff we’ll try our best to plow headlong into the new week with renewed focus. Thanks for sticking with us.
Crush! Frag! Destroy! has grown a lot since we first opened up shop eight months back. What started off as a one-man operation (well, three if you count the art team) has grown with time, but as traffic at the site has steadily increased, so has the amount of work I’ve had to do behind the scenes. Working on site updates, handling most of the news posts, dealing with publishers and PR, as well as giving final editing clean-up to every story that goes live takes up an increasing amount of my time, leaving me with precious little to actually focus on writing original content.
So, we’re putting out the call again – CFD! needs writers, badly! [Insert Gauntlet Music Here]
What are we looking for specifically? Glad you asked! Take a look below.
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Most of you are likely already familiar with Crush! Frag! Destroy!’s system for reviews: the standard, lengthy, in-detail review text up top and a three-line summary with a rating at the bottom for those people who think “reading is haaard” and can’t be bothered to take two minutes out of their busy, super important routine (in between high-stakes boardroom meetings, no doubt) to actually read and digest the full review.
Well, while this format is all well and good for standard releases with enough depth to support a 1000 word review, what do you do for those times when you want to talk about something that’s not quite as meaty? Like, say, an iPhone title, DLC expansion pack or XBL Indie Game?
Enter: Fragments.
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Hey everyone.
You may be wondering why there were no updates yesterday and today. No, we didn’t just go poof and disappear. I just wound up the victim of some unfortunate circumstances is all.
You see, I wasn’t home yesterday, with CFD!’s Aubrey K. and I having driven two and a half hours across the state to watch a movie that was playing in super limited release. Rather than drive back the same night, we decided to just get a cheap room. The hotel was nice and while it did have wi-fi, the signal was very weak and it took forever for anything to load, to say nothing for trying to upload or download high-res assets for the site.
So rather than try to force out one or two updates at excruciatingly slow speeds and just spend the night frustrated, we decided to just hold off on updates. I suppose I should have just tried to write this explanation last night instead, but I was bloated on a delicious dinner of middle-eastern food and forgot. Sorry about that. It just came down to a case of fatigue and bad internet access.
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Just a quick note for everyone. If you subscribe to Crush! Frag! Destroy! via RSS, you may have noticed the site hasn’t updated in your reader for a couple of days. We thought it was a minor glitch that would work itself out, but it looks like we were wrong.
However, we figured out what was wrong and the problem now seems to be resolved and if a refresh of your reader doesn’t pop up new stories, trying re-subscribing to our feed and everything should be cool.
Sorry for any inconvenience. Send a mail our way at admin@crushfragdestroy.com if you’re still encountering any problems with our feed.
Thanks!
Well, the CFD! six month anniversary free game giveaway is over and it looks like bribery works. Rewarding interaction with extra entries got you all to stop being so quiet and non-participatory out there and we’re rather pleased with the response.
Thanks go to all of you who joined-up, spoke up and generally made this one of our better weeks, even if it was a bit news-light. Thanks to everyone who re-tweeted our contest (including 1up/EGM/Current alum, Phil Kollar, soon-to-be of Game Informer) and got involved. Just generally thanks to everyone who’s helped keep us going for the last six months.
“But enough of that,” you say. “Who won?” Good question. However, for the answer to that you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It won’t be too long to hold out, will it?
We thought not. See you then.
Zuri Grimm
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