It certainly was 2011 yesterday only a few hours ago. Now its just a fast receding memory in the minds of an entire planet and certainly as well in the mind of all those who play MMO’s. It certainly was an odd year for me blogging and playing MMO’s including EVE Online. At this point I’m not really sure how I choose to remember the year that was. I certainly did blog allot less this year as compared to any other year since 2007 when I started blogging for fun about playing MMO games.
The year that was 2010 here on the blog certainly didn’t end with me making any great post at all of reflection about that year, blog statistics as well as predictions for the year that was 2011. At that moment I was on break from EVE Online from feeling a little burned out doing everyday activities. And the biggest thing was at the time was that I was recently unemployed being laid off from the job of the last 6 years. It was definitely a tough time and transition.
2011 didn’t start with any great prediction of what was to be or expect in the year ahead. It started already as a year with lots of uncertainty for the most part being unemployed and at that point all things was up in the year for the future. But life still went on and in the break from EVE at the very beginning of the year I chilled out and played some WoW Cataclysm for several weeks while trying to get over the realities of life at hand at the time.
After a brief uninteresting stint playing WoW Cataclysm, It was back to more interesting life as usual in EVE Online with all its complications. In the interest of playing other MMO’s besides EVE Online I played Rift Beta and eventually subscribed and played for at least 2 months. It was certainly fun for a while escaping realities of life playing Rift for a while as well. But in the end it was a more interesting life having a love for Space that I returned to EVE Online and all its complexity of gameplay. It was more an interesting life and place to be living in Space and New Eden than anywhere else I could think of at the time. For me it was the most interesting MMO to play and keep playing at the time interest wise as well.
In the battle for my mind, interest and escape from the realities of life playing a MMO for fun and entertainment in 2011, EVE Online certainly won that battle.
I certainly don’t strictly consider myself a EVE Online blogger. I’m certainly not a highly opinionated blogger about all things MMO and gaming, a bitter blogger or one that rants often either to generate a lot of comments in the interest of pumping up blog traffic. But blogging for me reflects the reality of the games I play whatever that game happen to be I’m most interested in. I consider myself a focused MMO player who happen to play EVE Online and find Interest to keep playing EVE Online more than any other game that interest me. And so as I keep playing EVE Online it’s what the realities of my blogging about the MMO games I play will reflect blogging as well. For the rest of the entire year with many MMO games going Free to Play, lack of any other real MMO games that peak my general interest to really play I just kept playing EVE Online all the way till the end of the year. And I certainly didn’t feel the force either.
It also wasn’t till mid summer 2011 that I left life as one of the many unemployed and returned to life of the working and disgruntled. Life it happens. It wasn’t the ideal job but it was at least good to be back to work as well paying the bills. Playing MMO’s and EVE Online certainly got me thru the tough year and though times when I spend much the year unemployed thru no fault of my own.
Whats to expect in 2012? Lots of other MMO bloggers have done their MMO predictions for the coming year. I’m no prediction guru or about MMO games. So for me, I make no such prediction at all and no one out there really cares that much about what I care to predict about MMO’s in 2012. I take the position that I’m not full of opinions about talking about games and expectations, I just play them if I’m interested in the game and go from there. I can only say it will be an Interesting year for sure. And I can also certainly say I’ll probably blog less in 2012 than I did in any other year that I’ve been blogging.
And so we get to Blog Stats for 2011
This remain also my 2nd blog and Incarnation of Ardent Defender having completely transferred all of the old Blogspot files completely to WordPress and just sticking to one blog. I also much say I continue to enjoy blogging on a WordPress platform without much fuss as well.
For the most part I hardly usually ever look at Blog Statistics. The number one person I usually blog for is myself to document my adventures, time and perspective playing MMO’s and whatever my thoughts are. On some days I can look back in time to reflect where I was at different moments in time in MMO’s escaping the realities of life. It also certainly helps to make it more enjoyable that others choose in their time to stop by and make the blog more lively with their comments and various helpful insights. It can be interesting existing as one voice in a community of blogs about other games or EVE Online. To all those who do visit and continue to do so, they have certainly made things quite lively and more a joy to continue to blog. As well this blog remain 100% commercial free of Ads, I just like it that way with a clean blog.
For 2011 there were 68 Blog Posts published. Compared to the previous year in 2010 when 95 Blog Posts were published. Blogging frequency certainly reflect my mood up or down. It was a tough year for me in 2011 with the economic realities of life to deal with.
Total Lifetime Blog Posts Published on Ardent Defender since year 2007 at the close of year 2011: 817
Total Comments on the Blog: 1887
In the life time of this blog Ardent Defender (2nd) now fully on WordPress, there were 51768 visitors. If this was fully combined with my old AD blog on Blogspot (524470) that would be a grand total of 576238 visitors.
For 2011 there were 35170 visitors to this WordPress blog.
June 2011 had the most visitors (4649) to the blog during the year. It also had the most visitors daily to the blog during the month. If I remember it was during the time of the EVE Online Riots & Protests.
The busiest day on the blog to date continue and remain November 2nd 2010 with 952 visitors that day. I was totally surprised my self looking at the stats trying to figure out what happened on that day as I never even noticed it before. It was from the post: Tonight I got Laid off…….due to Corporate Restructuring. As that was the last post prior to that date and none after for 2 weeks.
The Top 10 Referrers Sites or Blogs to this site were:
#1. Search Engines – Almost all were Google Search.
#2. Crazykinux.com – I can attribute all those from being in the EVE Online Blog Pack when Crazykinux maintained the Blog Pact list.
#3. EVE Bloggers.com – From being listed as one of the many EVE Online blogs listed there on the list.
#4. Eveogander.blogspot.com – I guess from links to one of many blogs on the EVE Online Blog Pack list on Rixx Javix site. Actually I used to be on the list, apparently it seems not anymore.
#5. WordPress.com - Somewhat obvious here.
#6. Tigerears.org - Link from Penny’s blog over at Tigerears about life as a Pirate it WH space. It remain one of the best written and very best EVE Online blogs I’ve ever read ever and continue to read. Gets the award hands down from me as the “Most Consistence” daily Blogger Award in EVE Online about detailed daily life in Wormholes in quality writing and writes about it better than anyone else there is.
#7. Google Reader – Apparently some others must read the blog here on Google Reader.
#8. MMO Gamer Chick – Link from MMOGamerChick blog who loves to play various MMO Games and a blog I frequently read as well about other MMO games and comment often over there. We use to be in the same STO and Rift guild when I played both those MMO’s. Nice blog to read as well.
#9. Poeticstanziel.blogspot.com – Link from Poetic Stanziel blog Poetic Discourse. About life in EVE Online often in seemingly humorous ways, causing drama or getting into trouble. Often quite fun to read as well. Whats even more surprising why this makes the Top 10 Refer list linking to this blog is that was only not too long ago listed there on the blog.
#10. Ardent Defender – Yeah links from my old Blogspot blog and 1st blog that was mostly about WoW and other MMO’s still sends a few links this way though it’s mostly abandoned even though I still keep it around.
#11. Stabbed Up – Link from over at Stabbed Up on his blog about a lot of things in MMO’s and EVE Online.
Now what I can gather about most the Top Referrer link to this site in 2011 and looking at the numbers is that mostly were all via Google and Google Searches by a wide margin.
Top 10 Most Active visitor Blog Page of 2011.
#1. EVE Incarna Mass Protest. On Blog #3 overall.
#2. Overhauling Planetary design with the new PI Incursion patch. On Blog #5 overall.
#3. EVE Q4 2010 Quarterly Economic Report out. On Blog #8 overall.
#4. Planetary Interaction post Incursion: Changing Planets. On Blog # 12 overall.
#5. Long Road to becoming a T2 Inventor. On Blog #16 overall.
#6. Account Expired. On Blog #18 overall.
#7. Best Billion ISK I ever made. On Blog #21 overall.
#8. Sexy! On Blog #22 overall.
#9. EVE Online: My First year Space Odyssey. On Blog #25 overall.
#10. Incarna Mac Client login Issues. On Blog #26 overall.
What that says about the most active visitor posts in 2011 compared to others in 2011 I really have no real clue!
Top 10 Search Engine Searches to this Blog
#1. eve jita protest
#2. eve buy sell pi
#3. planetary interaction setup
#4. planetary interaction
#5. eve factory planet
#6. wow cataclysm
#7. eve economy report 2011
#8. amarr oracle
#9. pi factory planet eveonline
#10. eveonline planetary interaction layout
Looking at all the search engine search words you get the idea that a lot of visitors was searching about Planetary Interaction in one way or another who also ended up visiting this blog.
Number one way I read all the blogs I read is actually visiting every single blog to read new and updated posts, since I don’t read any blogs on Google Reader or via Feedburner. More than 95% of every blog I’ve read I often read via my IPhone or wherever I happen I be waiting around reading them all on my IPhone. Needless to say I burn up a lot of battery time on my IPhone.
And to round things out there were 3657 spam comments to this blog that was caught by the WordPress filter and eventually deleted that barely anyone visiting ever saw. Almost twice the amount of comments on the entire blog in spam.
So whats for 2012 in MMO’s and EVE Online? I guess I’ll just go with where the Interstellar Winds take me, no promises and no great expectations in the year ahead for 2012. Just play whatever game that interest me, have fun and blog about it if possible.
