Unfortunately, the long response that I wrote to your comments was eaten — twice! by two different series of improbably events (also known as me being an idiot). And after thinking about it I realized that I really hadn’t added anything anyway, so I think I’ll just leave it alone and not tempt fate a third time.

Times have certainly changed. Developers now stickie player posts that are lessons in everything from where to hunt at level “X” to the best way to reach max level in the shortest and cheapest amount of time. The forum has become a haven of rants, raves, and ongoing guides written by the community itself. Trolling the forums has risen to an art form, with information passed on via posts as often as (or more often than) in actual play.

With websites being dirt-cheap these days, anyone with an avid interest in a game can put together a terrific fansite and no one – not even the game’s owner – can stop them from disseminating insider information to the rest of the world. Aside from the obvious commercial sites like Allakhazam or MMORPG, there are player and guild sites galore, UI writers who have learned to embrace .lua to offer third-party programs (for free) to enhance game play, critique sites, and better systems documentation for things like crafting than was ever given out by the company who made the game.

As in all businesses, timing is everything. The aforementioned commercial sites have been around for a while and are considered beacons of the game info industry. They use both ad revenues and premium memberships to take care of themselves, but look at the amount of effort and real estate they require to cover every single software release. They’re making enough money for =someone= to survive but I’m not so sure they would if it weren’t for the plethora of volunteers who act as correspondents.

How many more of these sites, their eye fixed on making a buck or two, can the industry sustain if they are all (and at this point they ARE all) spreading the same word to the same internet? Would a printed (bound or electronic) compilation make any sense given that “search” is a pretty awesome tool to find what you need at the precise moment you need it? What would it take to make a printed compendium successful? Exclusive art? Articles? Interviews?

I think Explorers are a fickle and cyclical kind of being. They’ve set a precedent for their kind that is cash-negative, and eventually there is no more for them to explore. Folks like Zepath, who created all the player maps for Gemstone III and was our hero for nearly half a decade, who’s moved on to other things but whose maps are still used as the basis for every subsequent fan map of the game…and lovingly referenced by Simutronics, who didn’t have to create maps themselves because Zepath was their fan. I think he got, all told, one letter of thanks for his legacy.

A game compendium is, in theory, a very nice idea and could possibly make enough to sustain itself, but is only of value to an audience that is already aware of what it says. Until someone creates a game without boundaries of max levels or max ingredients or max shelf life, I don’t know that there’s money to be made writing about it in this fashion.

But who knows. I’ve been wrong about things before =P

I admit, though, that I am a little confused as to what you mean when you say that game info sites are one reason that you don’t see many Explorers in games — that true Explorers aren’t valued anymore. Was being highly valued ever a big part of being an Explorer? Sure, they like to show off, but with YouTube that’s easier than ever.

And while Thotbott and Wowhead are undoubtedly useful, they aren’t very good for learning to understand the game. For in-depth, targeted information I go to sites like El’s Extreme Anglin’ and Crafter’s Tome — sites run by individuals who are consummate Explorers and highly valued by the game community.

So far as I can tell, Explorers haven’t left — they’re the ones writing the strategy guides!

(Interesting side note: The player who runs El’s Extreme Anglin’ is also the author of the article that triggered this post.)

One reason why developers hate RMT is because it short-circuits the game. People aren’t playing the game, they’re merely paying someone else to do it. Simply put, this is also what the strategy guides do. (There’s also the secondary effect that gold farmers will monopolize high-profit locations to the detriment of other players, but this is less of an issue in games like WoW that have instancing that can be taken advantage of.) I’m sure Scott Jennings will be along shortly to complain that if your game needs a strategy guide it’s fundamentally broken, just like RMT. ;)

But, this is one reason why you don’t see many Explorers in games, because people will go compile the information into sites that spell out the secrets of the game to you. Thottbot or Wowhead both fill the niche that Explorers used to fill in games, so the true explorers aren’t as valued anymore. And, since the games tend to be rather static, the information remains good for a long time. What’s more, Thottbot didn’t even need humans to enter information, it gathered everything mechanically from it’s very popular UI mod.

Why don’t people get upset by strategy guides/information websites like they do RMT? Because most games are heavily slanted toward the Achiever archetype. Things that violate the achiever mentality are reviled, while streamlining the exploration process helps the Achievers. This isn’t something I can really lament, though, because there are more Achievers than Explorers, and they tend to be more steady customers, anyway.

My thoughts.