200th article - A Moment's Navel Gazing

Maximum Verbosity, which was woefully misnamed Daily Elysium at the time, was first published on January 15th 2003, squeezed right between the announcement of a new Asheron's Call 2 patch and news that Firefly had been officially cancelled, and the fact that GWJ has pretty much outlived those other two franchises is not a point lost on me. From our January 15th launch (see what GWJ looked like at the time here) to today's 200th Maximum Verbosity this column has provided me a platform that I have happily (ab)used to pontificate upon topics of varying degrees of usefulness.

My freshman efforts are perhaps best characterized by desperate fishing for validation and the misdirected certainty that you'd be as interested in how a website is born as I was. At least a third of my earliest content methodically described the uncertain launch of my shiny new website, though I'm loathe to admit that The Numbers Game still perhaps describes me better than any article I've written since. Over the past nearly five years I've managed to finally concoct a few other topics and cobble together 200 of these musings, so forgive my self-indulgence as I throw my own anniversary party, but I'd like to take a very brief look back.

Daily Elysium, despite the first week of concerted and well meaning effort, was clearly not an appropriate name for what became a larger and occasionally more focused effort. However, despite clearly erroneous nomenclature, it was nearly a year before I settled on the familiar Maximum Verbosity, and by settled on I mean held a renaming contest which One_of_47 won. As I look back over the first year of the column, and the site overall, it seems a little hard to believe that it's quite the same animal. I'm not sure exactly when we finally made the decision to eek out an existence solely in the realm of commentary and community developments, but I do not miss squirreling out blurbs of information on which executive left where and which overused franchise has just announced the latest flagellation of deceased equines.

As for Maximum Verbosity, it spent the first few months acting not unlike a new parent describing every coo and excretion of its new baby. I managed to not only break down the fourth wall in bringing our few dozen readers in on the backstage action of GWJ, but apparently pulverized the shattered drywall and snorted its dusty remains. Drugs are the only explanation, though eventually I began to find some traction and the ability to describe events occurring beyond the digital wilderness of our own servers. After all, there's only so many times you can talk about a site gathering a few hundred hits a day at best, before the endless self-referential mindset just seems needlessly narcissistic.

Eventually I put together a small portfolio of articles of which I'm truly proud, most notably for me: An Invasion of Privacy Policy?. Along with nice ego-boosting mention in some traditional press outlets and the subsequent response from EA in which they agreed to alter their privacy policy for clarity, this was the first time I'd felt like I'd made a tangible difference on something that felt important. I realize that some rephrased legaleze in a game company's documentation is an infinite number of steps away from something actually meaningful like curing cancer or the invention of the Wonder Bra, but I take my victories where I can find them.

The column has been a lot of things in its five year lifespan, including a place to pick on perverts, a way to communicate the status of the site, a microscope through which to closely examine the gaming industry, a platform from which to opine upon why my MMO addictions are totally healthy, a vehicle for farce and a lens through which I offered an unsolicited glimpse of my own life. I've talked too often of Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Joss Whedon, parenting a toddler, my fascination with developing GWJ, working retail and my love of a good thesaurus, and though 80 of these 200 articles were posted within the first year of GWJ, I'm most proud of the work done in the years since. Originally frivolous and more worried about saying anything than saying something, I hope the intervening years have offered something worth reading, even if just for a moment's entertainment at a long day of work.

But, in the end, I don't write this column so much because I feel like I must be heard, but because I feel like you do. Like so much of GWJ, the responses, rebuttals, retorts and occasional recriminations of the community are, I think, the best reason to visit each day, and certainly the best reason to click on Maximum Verbosity. The best of this column comes not from which articles get the most links, or have the most polysyllabic words but the ones that inspire you to inject your two cents, two dollars or even two truckloads of bubbling rage. So, thanks for indulging me in this brief self-absorbed exercise and five years of reading and responding to articles of occasionally uncertain quality but, I hope, consistent sincerity.

Now, enough with the navel gazing. It's starting to feel like 2003 in here!

Comments

Filler article! Or if this were a Simpsons episode it'd be a clip show. j/k

My freshman efforts are perhaps best characterized by desperate fishing for validation and the misdirected certainty that you'd be as interested in how a website is born as I was.

I'll validate you any time you need it, baby

I realize that some rephrased legaleze in a game company's documentation is an infinite number of steps away from something actually meaningful like curing cancer or the invention of the Wonder Bra,

Don't put yourself down. There's no way you can top that wonder bra gig...

Elysium, if you (and the rest) didn't write what you do on your site i wouldn't be around today. Originally when i came here i didn't register for or read the forums. In my mind they were secondary to the main page content and in some respects they still are.
Don't get me wrong, I love the banter and community within the forums but i view your front page as the weekly/bi-weekly magazine that i don't buy anymore....

Be honest.... was it really your navel you were gazing down at as you wrote this? Hmm?

Congratz on the 200th article!

Other facts about 200
- It's the total potential achievements for an XBLA game
- It probably equals or is less than your monthly WoW playtime
- The article has 878 words, which is 4.39 times it
- It's how much Sony needs to drop the price of the PS3
- It's probably enough to fund my Halo 3 related purchases
- 200 Spartans are almost as dangerous as 300
- It has 2 0's in it, like 8008, which reminds me of oogaba and makes me happy.

Again, congratz on all you've built here. GWJ, it's writers and community are uniquely awesome. (my virtual membership not withstanding...) Now go update the donation list so I can see my name in lights.

Are you trying to claim you're not just another pompous, solopsistic, and overtly grandiloquent English major? That your words aren't an exercise in superfluousness?

By the way, I think the proper response to my Eric Green question was probably "I just hope you understand/ Some times the clothes do not make the man."

Alright, that should sum up my usual kind of response types for your posts. There is, as always, about a 15% chance I'll post something vaguely insightful later... and a 45% chance I'll just post something vaguely insulting.

There is, as always, about a 15% chance I'll post something vaguely insightful later... and a 45% chance I'll just post something vaguely insulting.

I assume the other 40% is that you will post something overtly insulting and threatening to peoples north of Chi-town.

wordsmythe wrote:

There is, as always, about a 15% chance I'll post something vaguely insightful later... and a 45% chance I'll just post something vaguely insulting.

Wordsmythe, come on, don't be so humble. You are vaguely insulting at least 65 - 70% of the time.

I think you folks forget that there was a 2-3% chance I wasn't going to post again. OK, maybe that's a little high.

Elysium wrote:
There is, as always, about a 15% chance I'll post something vaguely insightful later... and a 45% chance I'll just post something vaguely insulting.

I assume the other 40% is that you will post something overtly insulting and threatening to peoples north of Chi-town.

Insulting? Certainly. Threatening? Much less likely.

For the record, I love Wisconsin. I am a lover of beer (except from St. Louis), cheese, Badgers, and brats. I even like the Packers -- my second favorite NFL team. I'm not sure I like you, Ely. I respect you, and I'm jealous of you, but I don't think I'm actually capable of liking anything Minnesotan.

I already gave you my money, but thanks all the same.

by settled on I mean held a renaming contest which One_of_47 won

May he rest in peace.

Anyway, congrats on your 200th, Elysium! Quite a feat. You deserve some navel-gazing, I think. Oh, and some beer. Lots and lots of beer.

KaterinLHC wrote:

You deserve some navel-gazing, I think. Oh, and some beer. Lots and lots of beer. :drink:

Often related pastimes. Not only does the latter often lead to the former, but it also leads to a larger belly to gaze at.

Congratulations! I'm sure there are plenty of those "someday we'll all look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject" type of moments, but it's amazing what you guys have done here.

Well done, Mr. Elysium. ur wurdz r kul

You have a purty belly button.

I had almost forgotten this used to be known as the Daily Elysium. Sounds like some kind of psychedelic drug some Orwellian and totalitarian dictatorship doles out to its subjects to keep them happy.

Well done, Elysium. As a writer I'm naturally proud of my work (you have to be in order to keep grinding away), but I'm always happier when my work opens up discussions on the topic. I believe that a writer's main goal, other than to convey his message clearly and effectively, is to get the reader to think and form their own opinion on the subject.

You all should be proud of yourselves. The website you run and the community it fosters is second to none when it comes to mature (or at least the semblance of) adults that enjoy video games as a hobby. I think the fact that so many of us are willing to donate funds in order to maintain it is very strong evidence.

I applaud all of you who work behind the scenes to keep this site running. You have my thanks, and my admiration.

Is it time to give you a tag? Did you finally make it?

How about 200 is the new 300

KaterinLHC wrote:
by settled on I mean held a renaming contest which One_of_47 won

May he rest in peace.

First thing I thought, too, Kat. Thanks for remembering.

...parenting a toddler...

The first post I ever read here (via Gametab) was about Elysium 2.0 (I tried to find it put couldn't so I rez'd a thread in its honor instead. :wicked:) so don't discount the value of those non-gaming threads (even if you're regretting it now ;)).

In his latest work, Elysium leaves the reader with the impression that he is gazing at his own navel in reflection, but the author could just as easily be referring to another person's navel. It could be an ongoing belly button fetish, a general love of oranges or an admission that he writes while relaxing in the cool atmospher of the local supermarket's fruit section. In a twist, Elysium's selective title-ing could be a moment in which the navel is gazing back at us.

We are left to wonder and look forward to his future writing.

It's also a good reminder to clean your navel once in a while.

Truly, no goodjer is so aptly tagged for this discussion as Irongut.

Luminous, positively luminous. Congratulations on "keepin' it real".

Congratulations from a longtime lurker. Even though I very rarely post, I have always enjoyed reading your articles.

It was a Maximum Verbosity article, linked from somewhere else, that first brought me to the GWJ front page a little over three years ago. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember it was very good.

The Fly wrote:

It was a Maximum Verbosity article, linked from somewhere else, that first brought me to the GWJ front page a little over three years ago. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember it was very good.

Same here. Congratulations, and celebrations!

Elysium wrote:

I've talked too often of Joss Whedon

You can not talk too often about Joss. Joss is our master now.

How funny that your very first reply was from "survivor"? Only he didn't. Coffee grinder to this day, and only posted for a couple of weeks. Thank God I came along!

I've been a vagabond of various gaming forums or back then more like newsgroups since my college years in the mid nineties and in these many years I have swept through various small communities like a backpacker through the continent of the internet. Back in 2003 I was playing Battlefield more heavily than I've ever played a FPS and joined a few communities based around the game. I've read a few of the older articles for this site and I wonder now how this specific community would have shaped my internet wanderings. It has become quite the interesting attraction of attention and absolutely hooked me to it's charm and community. I have traded in my internet backpack of traveling in for the occasional road trip into the ether but I know that I will probably always come back. Thanks for sticking it out for the close to 4 to 5 years of GWJ, building and nurturing this site, forum and community and letting me take up residence for a little while.

Cheers.

kilroy0097 wrote:

Thanks for sticking it out for the close to 8 years of GWJ, building and nurturing this site, forum and community and letting me take up residence for a little while.

Cheers.

8 Years? I thought it was like 4/5? Now i'm confused

^^^
Yea I have no idea where I got 8 years from. I am clearly wrong. 2007 - 2003 equals 4 years. Changed it in my post to say 4 to 5 years since we are on the cusp.