Character
Annabel Ashcroft
Faerie [Aether]
You have no connection with this character.
Follower Requests
Before this character can be followed, you must first submit a follower request.
Do you wish to proceed?
Yeah, the loadstone definitely is dying.
Public
I have said it before, the Lodestone is dying a slow death and the evidence is right before you every time you open it to look at the blogs.
Look at the current top blog entries, how any are there right now? If you said four, you may or may not be right as mine will be dropping off today as it's the 19th. That will leave three up there with another one dropping off tomorrow. That will only leave only two if no others appear before then.
Two.....two blogs that have achieved the viewing of 100+ views, which is the requirement of being up there, and one of those is one of those TOTALLY foreign language posts which I STILL don't know why they choose to post in the ENGLISH blog area where most can't read it. But that is a rant for another time.
What this blog is for is to show the fact that barely anyone READS the posted blogs anymore. Barely any make it to the 100+ view count anymore, and the proof is right in front of you every time you open the Lodestone.
Back in the day, that top post area would be filled to the max with blog posts that achieved 100+ views. (the maximum that can be up there is 20) It actually was really difficult at times to even GET a post up there there were so many getting high views. If you are curious, my best showing was 11 posts at one time in the top blog posts out of the 20 that could be there. Yeah, I was REALLY popular back then. LOL
But now, it is pretty dead. I think the most I have seen up there in the last few months were 8. People just no longer look at people's blogs anymore much less post comments on them. It is soooo rare if a blog DOES get 10+ comments.
Looking at the other language blog areas it's about the same. The French and Europe areas have no top blogs, which means none of them there are getting 100+ views. Of course the Asian area has max top blogs as those guys still post like crazy. But even there it has decreased. The top viewed blog there used to have 3-400+ comments at a time, now it is only about 170.
This is kind of the reason I don't use it much myself anymore, no one looks much less comments on anything. It especially affects things like writing stories. But I guess it is what it is and not much can be done about it. Just post if you want to post and just realize there is not going to be much response to it.
I have the same feelings Anabel 🙁 the loadstone could be so incredibly alive if it was integrated more into the game or the companion app even. I havnt felt like writing in a long while and thats not all because of the loadstone feeling dead but irl stuff too but its so hard to feel engaged on here with others when things like discord serve the purpose far more effectively ❤️
Oh and if you are interested in reading the foreign language blogs , if you are using Google chrome it can auto translate any web page. Ive used it on many blogs in different languages and have somewhat befriended a couple of the creators because they have also translate my replies . 😀
Oh, this place used to be VERY alive back in the day, but other venues slowly lured people away and they went elseware to post and comment on things. It will never return due to that and I doubt SE will do anything more with this place. It's honestly kind of surprising that we even GET a free place to blog about stuff just for having a character in the game.
Yeah, I know about google translate, but it's still weird that people will post a non English post in the English blog area.
Well, looks like the other one dropped early so now there really IS only two up there.
Sigh, so sad.......
Well ... I personally don't mind as I am not really posting these for anyone in particular aside from myself. For me these blog posts are more a retrospect of where I was and what I was doing in that point in time in the game. I've had countless sites where I posted blogs no one would read, here is no different :I I was genuinely surprised when my blog post saying that I had a crush on Elril got around 150+ views... and it was just a silly blog of me gushing over my character. /shrug
Yeah, it can be REALLY odd the blogs that get a lot of views. Some of them just make NO sense! Like WHY did this blog get so many views and likes? LOL
See it time and time again.
It used to be super lively. We'd make part twos and threes when the comment sections would fill up, but we had a surge of awful people chase a lot of the regular community away.
LOL Bear, I was just thinking of you today and if you still played the game. I guess you still have a sub. ;-)
Yeah, I heard it before, the era of 2016 was the beginning of the end for the Lodestone and it never really recovered.
Now people are just too lazy and disinterested to be annoying asses or 'bad apples'. ;-)
I actually kind of miss that. Even Kupu is WAY more mellow and less biting sarcasm.
Yeah, I hope on occasionally, been busy with D&D and Elden Ring though.
I am only here for my own amusement. I don't even read other blogs.
Well, we passed 10 comments so I guess you're wrong :P I've been on and off with the game the past several years. Tried writing some fan fiction. My best post has 2700 views, but that was back in 2019. Haven't written much fiction since then. I enjoy it, but it takes SO much time and effort which I just don't have anymore. I mainly post for my own historical purposes so I can look back and remember what I did in the game. I have no expectations that anyone else will ever read it.
This comment has been deleted.
WTF Adam? 2700? I don't think ANY of my story blogs are THAT high! A few are over a 1000 but that's it. Now I am depressed. (cry) :-(
I know my non story stuff is WAY more popular, which is kind of ironic since it's the story ones which got me noticed in the first place, But still I wish more read the fiction.
Vidette, I don't think Drama will EVER be part of the Lodestone again the way it is now LOL
People just don't want to make the effort. ;-)
I'm a new player who's been waiting for years to get a good PC to play and I can tell myself how here on the Lodestone it's been slowly dying. I can only imagine how full it used to be, even now in game I feel people drift away from it :(
This comment has been deleted.
Well, Annabel, hold those tears! I'd rather consistently get 100's of views and have just about every blog featured in the Top Blogs than be a "one-hit wonder" like myself. Lol. But thanks for the kind words! My secret was putting links to that particular piece in my other blog posts, so if anyone read one post they could access the others. And it was a 3-part story, so I guess they didn't want to be left hanging? :D.
I learned *today* that the Lodestone has a blog section. And I have been playing this game for a few years. It is.. not really a highly advertised feature, is it?
