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Friday, January 6, 2017

From the Editor's Desk: The Year in (Re)View 2016


Well, it was another busy year here at the View from Valehaven!

 The beginning of 2016 found us formally saying good-bye to our beloved, long-time "boss lady" and editor-in-chief Angie "Phoenix" Gray as she stepped down from her role to pursue other interests in both Realms and the mundane world, even as we gained the pen of Diana "Kiira" LaPierre, who joined our editorial team in February. We were also pleased to have the opportunity to add three people to our core contributer staff: Ethan "Jean-Baptiste" Goldman, Ryan "Orion" Welch, and Britny "Tarja/Kamilla" Fowler. These four people have been invaluable to the View in helping us to adapt, grow, and change throughout the course of this past year.

2016 also saw the return of a few of our more popular features, including a second season of the comic "An Atypical View" by the always satirical Silent Scribbler, and new burning questions helpfully answered by our resident agony aunt Syruss through his forum "Ask Syruss."

We also saw the debut of the new series "I Can't Even...," in which Sara "Zarine" Jessop shares her vast quantities of knowledge on fashion, social rules, and other relevant topics pertaining to life in the Realms in witty weekly treatises. Other new features for this year included another comic, "Arc Sphere Distortions" by Steve "Therian" Matulewicz; more advice, dispensed this time by Tanner "Illumier-Soft" Wilson (often in tandem with Syruss); and "Choose Our Own Adventure," an ongoing serial short story written by Jason "Aeston" Rosa wherein readers get to pick from four different options the direction in which the next chapter of the story will go.

In all, we published over 300 pieces this year, including the regular features Why I Want To Go, What You Missed, and a few installments of 10 Questions, as well as editorials, opinion pieces, and a variety of other articles and posts written by members of the greater Realms community.  Average pageviews were over 5,500 per month! Not too shabby!

As things changed at the View, so too did they change in our game and our community. This year saw the loss of two of our beloved community members,  Buddy "Brighthammer/ Arg" Wolfhope and Bob Hinkle, as well as the birth of no less than four future new junior adventurers. It also saw the end of Green and Gold, a long-running cornerstone tournament of the yearly eventing calendar which pitted newer players against veteran players.

But this year brought many good things, too - numerous knightings, events thrown by new event-holder teams, and and plenty of opportunities to talk, laugh, eat, fight, and quest with our friends.  And we were privileged to witness our community come together on numerous occasions to donate time and effort and raise money both in memory of and for the benefit of members of our community and beyond.

2016 was indeed a good year, and here's to hoping for big things out of 2017!

In closing, the staff of the View would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the View this year! This publication is run as a service and a forum for the Realms community and would not exist without the support of that community, and we are grateful to all of our contributers. As always, we are looking for submissions for the coming year, so if you were thinking about writing something for us this year but didn't get around to it, make it a resolution for 2017. =)


Here's a look back at the ten most popular posts this year in terms of pageviews:

1) In Tribute and Loving Memory of Buddy Wolfhope
2) An Atypical View: Season Two #38
3) An Atypical View: Season Two #42
4) Live Action Reaction Players
5)  To Tabard or Not To Tabard
6) An Atypical View: Season Two #43
7) An Atypical View: Season Two #39
8) Introducing the Arbitration Committee
9) Queen's War: You're Doing it Wrong
10) An Atypical View: Season Two #23


 Looking back at "10 Question" interviews and "Fresh Faces":

Debut of our new series, a continuation on 10 Questions aptly titled "10 More Questions":

Shameless plug: we are looking to continue with 10 More Questions in 2017! Have you already done a 10 Questions interview? That's ok! Since it's 10 *More* Questions, they're totally different and you're free to answer these questions too! If you would like to participate in 10 More Questions this year, email me at areni.daru@gmail.com!