Yeah, if you have him, you don't need someone like me. =(
*walks off with tail between legs*
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
Hopefully, 3 years of editing my school newspaper will mean something.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
- Pretty good layout! A few pages are conspicuously devoid of images and look a bit dry by comparison, but overall it's solid. The 'Did You Know?' pig is a nice touch, as you don't overuse him. A few times here and there make him stand out without becoming a distraction.
- Your page numbers are in total disarray. Whether or not a page is numbered seems arbitrary, and even worse, sometimes the page number is no the inside of the page, while other times it's on the outside! I know page numbers seem like a fuss detail, but they're pretty important. Make sure that every page is numbered, and also ensure that the location of your page numbers is consistent.
- Everybody and their dog mentioned this before me, but: definitely use a more standard font for the main body of your text. Article titles, section titles, lists and the like, it's great! However, the body of the articles should be in a standard, easy-to-read font.
- I spotted a lot of poor grammar. Furthermore, there are numerous instances of text that sounds really awkward, despite being okay from a technical standpoint. I know this is an amateur project, but you should still strive for professional quality. Find somebody skilled who is willing to act as a copy editor! This will help keep grammatical errors to a minimum, as well as assist in maintaining a consistent tone across all articles.
- Punch up your captions a bit! A lot of the captions were rather bland and uninteresting. Take page 13, for example:
"Biome video from Notch"
"Picture of Biomes"
"Photo of someone dying in hell"
"Notch prepping for biomes"
"Notch's blog post during website 'attacks'"
While captions of that sort are descriptive, they aren't very interesting or fun to read. Your captions need to grab the reader. Whenever possible, write your captions using active voice and/or present tense. Making some alterations to the previous captions:
"Biomes range from snow-covered tundras to lush forests"
"Abruptly shifting biomes provide new challenges in settling your world"
"Death comes quickly in Hell"
"Notch prepares to unleash biomes upon the world"
"Notch comments on recent website 'attack'"
Notice the difference in tone. If your captions are too passive, they're basically just labels. By giving your captions an active tone, they become much more interesting to read! Even if you want to keep your captions passive for stylistic reasons, try to omit redundant words like "Photo of" (ie. "Photo of dying in hell"). Simply "Dying in hell" is sufficient.
- The tutorials are a good idea! My only concern is that the directions are a bit vague. They make enough sense for an experienced minecraft player to understand, but less experienced players may find them confusing. Instead of writing multiple small tutorials, having a single tutorial with more pages might be a better option.
Okay, that's it for my critique... please don't take this as me trying to harp on you. I really like the magazine - enough to register an account on this forum just to talk about it! However, it has a few technical issues, and taking care of those would make the magazine much more professional. It's a lot of busywork, I know, but it's best to be thorough and professional, in order to produce the highest quality product possible!
Finally, an idea I had concerning content:
Have you ever read a gaming magazine where they show off fancy envelope art that readers send in? Consider doing the same thing with your magazine! Obviously you won't be showing off envelopes, but fan art, interesting houses and constructions... a page in every issue featuring some of your favorite new in-game pictures and fan art from the community would be a neat feature! On a similar note, it could be great fun to produce an article spoofing the "home design" television programs that have become popular in recent years (something like 'Interior Design with Misssssssssssssssssssss Creeper', for example).
A large part of Minecraft's charm comes from the creativity in sparks in the playerbase, and having features and articles about such creativity would be a welcome addition to the magazine.
Anyway, that's enough out of me, since all this text has probably caused your eyeballs to hemorrhage by now. It's still rough around the edges, but I enjoyed the first issue, and I'm looking forward to the next!
- Pretty good layout! A few pages are conspicuously devoid of images and look a bit dry by comparison, but overall it's solid. The 'Did You Know?' pig is a nice touch, as you don't overuse him. A few times here and there make him stand out without becoming a distraction.
- Your page numbers are in total disarray. Whether or not a page is numbered seems arbitrary, and even worse, sometimes the page number is no the inside of the page, while other times it's on the outside! I know page numbers seem like a fuss detail, but they're pretty important. Make sure that every page is numbered, and also ensure that the location of your page numbers is consistent.
- Everybody and their dog mentioned this before me, but: definitely use a more standard font for the main body of your text. Article titles, section titles, lists and the like, it's great! However, the body of the articles should be in a standard, easy-to-read font.
- I spotted a lot of poor grammar. Furthermore, there are numerous instances of text that sounds really awkward, despite being okay from a technical standpoint. I know this is an amateur project, but you should still strive for professional quality. Find somebody skilled who is willing to act as a copy editor! This will help keep grammatical errors to a minimum, as well as assist in maintaining a consistent tone across all articles.
- Punch up your captions a bit! A lot of the captions were rather bland and uninteresting. Take page 13, for example:
"Biome video from Notch"
"Picture of Biomes"
"Photo of someone dying in hell"
"Notch prepping for biomes"
"Notch's blog post during website 'attacks'"
While captions of that sort are descriptive, they aren't very interesting or fun to read. Your captions need to grab the reader. Whenever possible, write your captions using active voice and/or present tense. Making some alterations to the previous captions:
"Biomes range from snow-covered tundras to lush forests"
"Abruptly shifting biomes provide new challenges in settling your world"
"Death comes quickly in Hell"
"Notch prepares to unleash biomes upon the world"
"Notch comments on recent website 'attack'"
Notice the difference in tone. If your captions are too passive, they're basically just labels. By giving your captions an active tone, they become much more interesting to read! Even if you want to keep your captions passive for stylistic reasons, try to omit redundant words like "Photo of" (ie. "Photo of dying in hell"). Simply "Dying in hell" is sufficient.
- The tutorials are a good idea! My only concern is that the directions are a bit vague. They make enough sense for an experienced minecraft player to understand, but less experienced players may find them confusing. Instead of writing multiple small tutorials
Okay, that's it for my critique... please don't take this as me trying to harp on you. I really like the magazine - enough to register an account on this forum just to talk about it! However, it has a few technical issues, and taking care of those would make the magazine much more professional. It's a lot of busywork, I know, but it's best to be thorough and professional, in order to produce the highest quality product possible!
Finally, an idea I had concerning content:
Have you ever read a gaming magazine where they show off fancy envelope art that readers send in? Consider doing the same thing with your magazine! Obviously you won't be showing off envelopes, but fan art, interesting houses and constructions... a page in every issue featuring some of your favorite new in-game pictures and fan art from the community would be a neat feature! On a similar note, it could be great fun to produce an article spoofing the "home design" television programs that have become popular in recent years (something like 'Interior Design with Misssssssssssssssssssss Creeper', for example).
A large part of Minecraft's charm comes from the creativity in sparks in the playerbase, and having features and articles about such creativity would be a welcome addition to the magazine.
Anyway, that's enough out of me, since all this text has probably caused your eyeballs to hemorrhage by now. It's still rough around the edges, but I enjoyed the first issue, and I'm looking forward to the next!
thank you for this :tongue.gif: although alot of this is obvious to me (which makes me feel dumb that I messed up) themagazine itself was rushed so it would be out before the update. Maybe a mistake but hey it'll make the next one look godly :tongue.gif:. Really tho I am pretty bummed with how it turned out but it was put together in 3 days (graphics wise). So the mistakes were because it was rushed. There were people on the staff from different countrys so the gramar and spelling wis sometimes different. Although there are a few genuine typo's.
but I love the captions you came up with and you are the essence of a true editor :tongue.gif: I feel like you should be on the team haha. Overall it was a success because it happened, but like you have stated there are many problems which will be fixed in the next issue.
not tomention I spent 4 hrs trying to make 1gb of psd's to 100 mb's of pdf without quality loss :tongue.gif: that was fun.
thank you for your detailed anylysis and if you want to be a part of the team at all (including strictly an editor (like what you just did) i'd love to have you on the team :smile.gif:
Really tho I am pretty bummed with how it turned out but it was put together in 3 days
You have nothing to be bummed out about. Really, despite all the little details that can be pointed out, the project as a whole turned out very well, especially for your first issue! Constructive criticism is useful in that it can give you an idea of areas where improvement can be made, but don't let it get to you. It's not at all uncommon for even professional magazines to have errors and small mistakes, and those are staffed by a large group of people who do that as their job.
You managed to put out a respectable product with a small team in your spare time. A lot of projects like this never even make it past the planning stages, so that's something to be proud of in and of itself. People will offer critiques and suggestions, point out some mistakes, and while it's worth keeping them in mind and doing your best to avoid them in the future, everybody understands that this is a side project done by a group of people in their spare time. No sane person is seriously going to bust your blocks over a few errors.
So really, don't be to hard on yourself just because the first issue had some rough edges. Be proud of your accomplishment, do your best to improve as much as you can, and work on making the next issue even better!
As for the editing thing, sadly I don't really have the time to do such a thing right now. I have a few article ideas, and I'll certainly submit an article or two when I get the chance, but a full staff position is something that I just can't do at the moment, unfortunately.
Is this going to be something users can submit to? I think that'd be really neat. Like maybe we could submit our best creations and get featured or something?
Is this going to be something users can submit to? I think that'd be really neat. Like maybe we could submit our best creations and get featured or something?
yeah. But we need to become more well known ya know? Which is why sending this issue around will increase the number of constant viewers so we can do things like that more effeciently. Chances are if we did something like that we would end up publishing the.. (exaggeration) 4 photos that we receive. ya know?
Aw man, I was about to do this today, except it was going to be called "The chest Block" Mind if I call it Minecrafts #2 magazine? We can work together :biggrin.gif:
Aw man, I was about to do this today, except it was going to be called "The chest Block" Mind if I call it Minecrafts #2 magazine? We can work together :biggrin.gif:
You can do what ever you like, but at the moment we are going to stay a single alias. Thank you for the offer tho. Maybe we can work on relations later :tongue.gif: (not hitting on you) lol
It would be cool if you would remind us every week or month (how do you plan to release it? weekly? monthly?) about the new issue. I enjoyed reading.
Keep up the good work!
Hmmm we're still throwing around ideas. It will either be every 3-4 weeks. 2 is just to much right now... but 4 seems to long. but three is random. so yeah lol
we start production on issue 2 in 3 days.
Yeah, if you have him, you don't need someone like me. =(
*walks off with tail between legs*
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
This is false. Everyone has something to give. seriously.
Hopefully, 3 years of editing my school newspaper will mean something.
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
Im pretty sure it will :tongue.gif:
I am a Dragon, writing the tale of the world that has been, will be, and is. Due to the forum having a URL restriction, if you wish to see my full list of work, please refer to my signature in the now-dead TGO forums Here: http://thegoldenorder.forumotion.com/t261-server-downtime
- Pretty good layout! A few pages are conspicuously devoid of images and look a bit dry by comparison, but overall it's solid. The 'Did You Know?' pig is a nice touch, as you don't overuse him. A few times here and there make him stand out without becoming a distraction.
- Your page numbers are in total disarray. Whether or not a page is numbered seems arbitrary, and even worse, sometimes the page number is no the inside of the page, while other times it's on the outside! I know page numbers seem like a fuss detail, but they're pretty important. Make sure that every page is numbered, and also ensure that the location of your page numbers is consistent.
- Everybody and their dog mentioned this before me, but: definitely use a more standard font for the main body of your text. Article titles, section titles, lists and the like, it's great! However, the body of the articles should be in a standard, easy-to-read font.
- I spotted a lot of poor grammar. Furthermore, there are numerous instances of text that sounds really awkward, despite being okay from a technical standpoint. I know this is an amateur project, but you should still strive for professional quality. Find somebody skilled who is willing to act as a copy editor! This will help keep grammatical errors to a minimum, as well as assist in maintaining a consistent tone across all articles.
- Punch up your captions a bit! A lot of the captions were rather bland and uninteresting. Take page 13, for example:
"Biome video from Notch"
"Picture of Biomes"
"Photo of someone dying in hell"
"Notch prepping for biomes"
"Notch's blog post during website 'attacks'"
While captions of that sort are descriptive, they aren't very interesting or fun to read. Your captions need to grab the reader. Whenever possible, write your captions using active voice and/or present tense. Making some alterations to the previous captions:
"Biomes range from snow-covered tundras to lush forests"
"Abruptly shifting biomes provide new challenges in settling your world"
"Death comes quickly in Hell"
"Notch prepares to unleash biomes upon the world"
"Notch comments on recent website 'attack'"
Notice the difference in tone. If your captions are too passive, they're basically just labels. By giving your captions an active tone, they become much more interesting to read! Even if you want to keep your captions passive for stylistic reasons, try to omit redundant words like "Photo of" (ie. "Photo of dying in hell"). Simply "Dying in hell" is sufficient.
- The tutorials are a good idea! My only concern is that the directions are a bit vague. They make enough sense for an experienced minecraft player to understand, but less experienced players may find them confusing. Instead of writing multiple small tutorials, having a single tutorial with more pages might be a better option.
Okay, that's it for my critique... please don't take this as me trying to harp on you. I really like the magazine - enough to register an account on this forum just to talk about it! However, it has a few technical issues, and taking care of those would make the magazine much more professional. It's a lot of busywork, I know, but it's best to be thorough and professional, in order to produce the highest quality product possible!
Finally, an idea I had concerning content:
Have you ever read a gaming magazine where they show off fancy envelope art that readers send in? Consider doing the same thing with your magazine! Obviously you won't be showing off envelopes, but fan art, interesting houses and constructions... a page in every issue featuring some of your favorite new in-game pictures and fan art from the community would be a neat feature! On a similar note, it could be great fun to produce an article spoofing the "home design" television programs that have become popular in recent years (something like 'Interior Design with Misssssssssssssssssssss Creeper', for example).
A large part of Minecraft's charm comes from the creativity in sparks in the playerbase, and having features and articles about such creativity would be a welcome addition to the magazine.
Anyway, that's enough out of me, since all this text has probably caused your eyeballs to hemorrhage by now. It's still rough around the edges, but I enjoyed the first issue, and I'm looking forward to the next!
thank you for this :tongue.gif: although alot of this is obvious to me (which makes me feel dumb that I messed up) themagazine itself was rushed so it would be out before the update. Maybe a mistake but hey it'll make the next one look godly :tongue.gif:. Really tho I am pretty bummed with how it turned out but it was put together in 3 days (graphics wise). So the mistakes were because it was rushed. There were people on the staff from different countrys so the gramar and spelling wis sometimes different. Although there are a few genuine typo's.
but I love the captions you came up with and you are the essence of a true editor :tongue.gif: I feel like you should be on the team haha. Overall it was a success because it happened, but like you have stated there are many problems which will be fixed in the next issue.
not tomention I spent 4 hrs trying to make 1gb of psd's to 100 mb's of pdf without quality loss :tongue.gif: that was fun.
thank you for your detailed anylysis and if you want to be a part of the team at all (including strictly an editor (like what you just did) i'd love to have you on the team :smile.gif:
You have nothing to be bummed out about. Really, despite all the little details that can be pointed out, the project as a whole turned out very well, especially for your first issue! Constructive criticism is useful in that it can give you an idea of areas where improvement can be made, but don't let it get to you. It's not at all uncommon for even professional magazines to have errors and small mistakes, and those are staffed by a large group of people who do that as their job.
You managed to put out a respectable product with a small team in your spare time. A lot of projects like this never even make it past the planning stages, so that's something to be proud of in and of itself. People will offer critiques and suggestions, point out some mistakes, and while it's worth keeping them in mind and doing your best to avoid them in the future, everybody understands that this is a side project done by a group of people in their spare time. No sane person is seriously going to bust your blocks over a few errors.
So really, don't be to hard on yourself just because the first issue had some rough edges. Be proud of your accomplishment, do your best to improve as much as you can, and work on making the next issue even better!
As for the editing thing, sadly I don't really have the time to do such a thing right now. I have a few article ideas, and I'll certainly submit an article or two when I get the chance, but a full staff position is something that I just can't do at the moment, unfortunately.
cant wait for another issue!
yeah. But we need to become more well known ya know? Which is why sending this issue around will increase the number of constant viewers so we can do things like that more effeciently. Chances are if we did something like that we would end up publishing the.. (exaggeration) 4 photos that we receive. ya know?
You can do what ever you like, but at the moment we are going to stay a single alias. Thank you for the offer tho. Maybe we can work on relations later :tongue.gif: (not hitting on you) lol
Hmmm we're still throwing around ideas. It will either be every 3-4 weeks. 2 is just to much right now... but 4 seems to long. but three is random. so yeah lol
I can't announce anything official, since that's Wookies job, but we love feedback ;D
Because we all know chests are awsome :tongue.gif:
I would actually pay money to buy this at the newsagency
Well done, really, well done :biggrin.gif:
EDIT: There should be a banner for people to put in their signatures to show their support and raise awareness