GOBLIN6 - Year Five

[hobbes_182]

YEAR FIVE

So, not many people know this, but five years ago today, GOBLIN6 was launched.

It has been quite a journey, there have been many setbacks and also, many highlights.

Normally, each year I write about the accomplishments and goals for the next year. With this milestone, I thought it would be a great idea to take a step back and reflect on everything that has lead up to this point.

GOBLIN6 breaks down into many sections:

• The Main Site
• The Forum
• The Wiki
• The Gallery
• The IRC channel
• The Twitch Stream


THE MAIN SITE

GOBLIN6 originally launched as a stand alone site. The main idea was to have everything Resident Evil related in one main hub.

I was able to find a theme that fit my needs, however, as my coding skills are non existent, I quickly realized that I would have to find solutions that would allow me impliment the functionality that I wanted for GOBLIN6.

The greatest thing about the main site is that since the main screen is a news feed, it basically takes care of itself. The worst thing about the main site is that I am still behind on game profiles and their respective “files” section. Those do require a bit of legwork, as I try to write each profile vague, this way anyone that is not familiar with Resident Evil could feel intrigued to start diving into the series.


THE FORUM

I have been lurking forums professionally since 2003. Especially any Resident Evil forum. Hell, I’ve even lurked Biohazard France, constantly.

Parlez-vous français?

Not me.

I would also constantly lurk Dreamcast forums. Although back then I was too shy to jump into any conversation, I did get that urge to one day host my own Resident Evil forum.

The best thing about the forum is that after breaking the previous three versions of it, it is finally set and rock solid. Hell, I was even able to figure out how to add a chat box to it. Ranks? We got ‘em. Fuck, I even give new users a default zombie avatar.

That took a while to figure out.


THE WIKI

Once I realized that the scope of all related Resident Evil information was too big (literally) to fit on the main site I decided to look into setting up a wiki for GOBLIN6.

I decided to move forward with MediaWiki as it also had a theme that seemed tailor made for GOBLIN6. I also broke the two original iterations of the wiki. Having the wiki read a custom font was a pain in the ass (you’re gonna hear that a lot in this post). I’m not sure if many people noticed, but the main site, wiki and stream use the same font.

Just like the main site, the wiki also requires a lot of hands on experience.

That Chris Redfield profile is gonna kill me as my man is basically in every Resident Evil game released.


THE GALLERY

When I first thought about creating a Resident Evil site back in the early 2000s, I had the crazy idea of having a gallery which would have screenshots of all of my Resident Evil runs.

Again, it is a pain in the ass to go through every game and get those money shots. But at least the stream deck helps alleviate that hassle.

The bonus is that working on the gallery also helps populate the wiki so that is a win-win for me.


THE IRC CHANNEL

Although prehistoric by todays standards, it is a nice feather in my nerd cap to have gotten that up and running. It would be great to get a bot up and running that would allow users to type in a command and have the latest posts or streams pop up in chat.


THE STREAM

Streaming has been immensely fun. I was hesitant to do it. Especially now that the space is saturated. Plus, my ass is too fat to stream from a hot tub. So getting viewers that way is definitely off the table.

Once I landed on the current look, everything was anchored and set. One thing that I think is pretty funny (and hopefully entertaining) is that fact that I stream by covering up my face.

There are a few reasons for this. First, have you been following the (streaming) Resident Evil community? Everyone is handsome and gorgeous. So I’m shit out of luck there too.

Second, I have always wanted the site to be recognized for it’s name. Basically, I don’t want to be known as “hobbes from GOBLIN6”, I want people to recognize the site by it's own name. Basically, the idea is that anyone can host, but GOBLIN6 is the main entity.

Third, it would be fun to have a different mask every stream. Have you seen Sid From Slipknot? That man is a genius.

Lastly, it would be great to stream with guests. Either in-person or online. I have also realized that my best streams are the ones where I play with someone, or I play a game that I have never played before.

It would be nice to have a constant schedule. I would love to have set dates available. That way the stream could grow organically and people could anticipate the next GOBLIN6 stream. Podcasting live would be great as well.


THE CROWN JEWEL

Everything I have mentioned above has been awesome. But hands down, the thing I am most proud of is being able to host our own Outbreak Server.

No doubt this would not have been possible without the awesome team over at OBSRV.ORG, had they not decided to go open source I would still be day dreaming about hosting a server.

There are two main “issues” with our server though.

The first is, not many people know we are online.

The second is that the server is vanilla as it gets. The connectivity between the forum and outbreak server is non-existent. Users have to create their account in the game itself. It would be nice to have users log in with their forum credentials, just like OBSRV does.

That would also enable more user functionality on the forum. It would be great to have users see who’s online. Have them see who’s currently playing.

User stats, all that stuff.

One cool idea that came to me would be getting metrics on the best “survivors” that week or month. Have that posted on the forum and invite them for a stream.

This is all possible, but I need to really dive into it.


THE FUTURE OF GOBLIN6

So five years have passed. But honesty, the activity on the forum is non-existent. I invited everyone I personally know to join. Most signed up, but have yet to post. Some only posted once or twice.

At first, this bummed me out because of all the hard work that I put into setting up every section of the forum and site. It got to the point where I thought about taking everything offline as on paper, it was not worth the time or effort.

But then it came to me, I started the site because of my love for Resident Evil and gaming.

Numbers, although they exist, should not influence the future of GOBLIN6.

I have the tools and I have seen the metrics. The site gets about 320 views a day. The forum has posts that are approaching 2k views. Even on stream, there are people watching, I just can’t tell who they are because they do not engage in chat.

There are a lot of Resident Evil fans out there and I am proud to be one of them.

I have always loved seeing other fans Resident Evil Collections.

Some people have all games, from every region. Some people started collecting after the release of Resident Evil 4.

In all honesty, my Resident Evil collection is really small.

But, there is one thing in my Resident Evil collection that no one else has:


It’s called GOBLIN6.