Welcome to Colony of Gamers

[AgtFox]

col•o•ny: a group of individuals or things with common characteristics or interests situated in close association, i.e. an artist colony (Webster Dictionary, definition #4a)


The Colony Xbox 360 Ad, 14 seconds in: “You are the colony, you’ve found your way into the center and you’re in control. This experience revolves around you.” (J Allard)

Yes, the above may be a bit hokey, but it was the one visual/audio that popped into my head and started our path down a site revolving around the word “colony” in order to convey how much we believe in the Community and how much we want this to be a cooperative endeavor.

Welcome to the Colony of Gamers website, or CoG for short. CoG is a website co-founded and developed by seven former Evil Avatar users and, in many cases, former staffers. As you may have heard on Evil Avatar Radio this past Monday, September 29th, both Nick Puleo (bapenguin) and James A. Young (fitbabits) resigned after several years at their positions with Evil Avatar. At the very end of the radio program, the radio group also reverted back to In-Game Chat and disassociated from the site. Starting with their podcast on Thursday, October 2nd, In-Game Chat becomes the official radio and podcast home of Colony of Gamers. There are ideas for other podcasts on the site, but IGC will be the key twice weekly source every Monday and Thursday bringing you the same sort of coverage they were before. Many of us followed Nick and James out the door not long after. We had hoped to be at EvAv through October 1st, but plans were altered.

What is Colony of Gamers? Think of it as a website where our users and the Community as a whole are the #1 priority. This is truly a website built by us for the good of the future Community and we look forward to the Community’s thoughts on the website itself while it is still going through the construction phase. As you can see, we have a forum all ready to go and a front page news section (with news!) much like you saw at our former digs. In the future you will see the same kind of previews and reviews you saw at the other site as well. Gone is the era of one person making all the decisions, in its place is a group of people whose sole purpose is to make CoG a place for everyone to come and share in the Community atmosphere.

Different members of the managing group have at various times talked about leaving the old stomping grounds and starting up a new website. Some of you may think the whole “Magic PC” thing started this idea up, but the truth is it had been thought about long before then. Many of us decided to stay after the “Magic PC” situation and rode it out through PAX. About a month went by and something else came up that once all of us heard about it, we decided to leave EvAv en mass and hopefully come back together on another website, which ultimately led to the opening of this site. As a side note, we are also hopeful the news that was the catalyst for us leaving Evil Avatar will eventually be told to the Community over there because they deserve to have full disclosure.

Without further ado, we present to you the seven people behind CoG. You will notice something a bit different in how our names are presented on the front page. We are planning going by our given names on the front page and, in most cases, the nicknames you all know in the forums. We want to make ourselves look as professional as we can to the public and to companies that will hopefully follow us from EvAv to here. For those that don’t know or are unfamiliar with our real names, the EvAv nickname is in parenthesis.

Scott Benton (Psykoboy2): In-Game Chat Producer

Michael Chauvet (Dr. Finger): Senior News Editor

Loren Halek (AgtFox): Senior Features Editor

Mike Katsufrakis (Pheriannath): Art Director

Nicholas Puleo (bapenguin): Community Relations Manager

Andrew Soep (Siraris): Senior Site Editor

James A. Young (fitbabits): Managing Editor

We also want to introduce you to our first staffer, someone who did a lot of press coverage when none of us were available to go to them:

Andrew Hodder (TrackZero): Associate Features Editor

In many cases jobs have transferred over laterally, while some others have been juggled a bit. Also, with Nick, Andrew Soep and Scott on board we have created a little media network between CoG, Co-Optimus (Nick’s site, one more honed in on co-op gaming), Play It Review It (Andrew’s site, for users to post their reviews and thoughts), the new In-Game Chat as well as Immortal Machines and the comic podcast Johnny Gigawatt and the Tiger Men from Mars. James is now the overall ship rudder for the site with Nick commanding the important Community side of the equation. The major difference at CoG versus EvAv is that instead of one person at the head of the whole operation making decisions, we are a group of people with equal stakes in the process as well as CoG’s future.

As a showing of good faith to our incoming users and Community, we have paid for the first six months of site hosting and the software CoG is built upon. We decided on using vBulletin as the software base once again since we are all very familiar with it, but this time around we have another extra goodie for our future users and Community: your very own blog sections on the site like our friends at Cheap-Ass Gamer have. So, after you have 25 posts in the forum (to keep out riff-raff) you can blog about whatever you want and people in the CoG Community and all around the world can read about it on your own little corner of the CoG site. This is just one example of you, the user, becoming more a part of the overall site and Community than you did at the other place.

Eventually there will come a time where we will ask for donations from our users so that they feel even more a part of the website as a whole. We hope by that point you will find we bring a better Community atmosphere, better coverage, podcasts, news and reviews/previews here at CoG and our affiliate sites of Co-Optimus, Play It Review It, In-Game Chat, Immortal Machines and Johnny Gigawatt and the Tiger Men from Mars than before. We also hope that you think we took the best people from the old website and created a great team over here.

One of our key points in starting this website was the idea that we want to be transparent with you, the Community. We want to be honest about how much money we are looking for when asking for donations and maybe set up a widget so people can actually see the amount donated. We also want to tell you where any of the extra money would go if you want to continue donating. The money could go to things like future site upkeep (such as moving to a larger hosting plan) or split among the founders and future staff here at CoG as just two examples. We want you to know how the money you graciously donate is being spent on this site and the people running it. We also plan to have giveaways much like we used to at the other site and hope the Community will join in donating items for such giveaways.

Thank you for making it to the bottom of our introduction to Colony of Gamers. We are excited about this venture and hope all of you will join us in the future.

[Mot Wakorb]

Congratulations on the grand opening, may there be many years and may you all never lose sight of your colony. Glad to be here!

[LiquidRain]

Congratulations! I'll be more than happy to make this my new home away from home on the web.

[Rogue_hunter]

Great opening post. It says everything that needed to be said without flinging any accusations or mud flinging. I can't wait to see how this community grows through the years.

And there WILL be yearly meetings at PAX. Heck, we should even petition to have our own panel.

[Troggles]

Hurray! The floodgates have been opened!

[Vyzov]

Glad to be here.

[pheriannath]

"How to Save a Community"

Welcome, everyone! We hope you enjoy what we've put together and hopefully agree with the philosophy behind the founding of CoG. We can't stress enough that the community is what made EvAv great, and we want to encourage you to visit all the sites in our little network.

Also, your membership is predicated on your ability to keep the Caturday thread on the sidebar at all times. You have been warned.

[Jackel]

Congrats on the new opening. I'm glad to be apart of something special.

[MagGnome]

I've already made the decision to make this my new home. I was still somewhat hesitant to leave EvAv after the whole Magic PC thing, but the last few days have convinced me that it was time to move on.

I can't wait to spend more time here and see the community grow and evolve! Great job guys and kudos on the great site design!

[Alatheia]

Weee.

ilu all <3

[iHap]

Yay for another forum. Least it's all combined into one super website .

[AniAko]

I can't thank you guys enough. Seriously. Video games could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't give a fuck. I've ALWAYS been here for the community first and foremost. The founders of CoG has found a new home for me and my battered brethren, and I couldn't thank you more.

[Sandman]

Not only a new homepage but a new media network. Congrats on a successful grand opening.

[H.Bogard]

Yay, its out!

So... who's ass do I gotta kiss to get my site in on the colony? I'm a bit too eager to help and be a part of this.

[aileron]

I might as well add my congrats and good luck here too. You guys have been the backbone of my most obsessive f5-ing for the past... god knows how many years.

Also, I promise to not be quite so much of a lurker this time around :-/

[archon]

Good luck with the new site guys.

[Psykoboy2]

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Speaking personally, I am beyond happy to be involved with something like this from the ground up.

As for IGC...for me, it feels exactly the same as when Phil Kollar asked us if we'd like to take the mantel of EvAv Radio. Even more so, since we were wanted by these guys to bring the show over and do it, not how they wanted us to, but how we wanted to. It's an amazing amount of freedom and respect, equally shared not only with IGC and CoG...but with all the sites and well...the community as a whole involved.

And to those looking for answers - pay close attention to the last paragraph.

[fitbabits]

Thanks for the great introduction, Loren. I would like to add my own tuppence-worth:

First of all, welcome to all my friends, both old and new. As Loren indicated in his introduction, the goal of CoG is to provide everyone involved with a fun, involved, professional 'home' to call their own - be it through your own CoG-powered blog, or through other contributions. You have at your disposal the tools to say what you want to say, when you want to say it, and without interference from the Founders (within reason, of course).

Secondly, I want to thank Nick, Loren, Mike, Michael, Andrew, Scott, and Andrew for all their hard work in getting Colony of Gamers up and running in record time. I firmly believe that the good ship CoG is in very competent hands and I look forward to leading us on a very exciting journey.

Thirdly, and consider this a cheese warning... The site may say "Powered by vBulleting, vBAdvanced", but the real power here is YOU.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by AniAko

I can't thank you guys enough. Seriously. Video games could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't give a fuck. I've ALWAYS been here for the community first and foremost. The founders of CoG has found a new home for me and my battered brethren, and I couldn't thank you more.

Agreed. I spend WAY more time interacting with this community than I do actually playing games. I'm glad that the community will live on, and I look forward to doing some actual gaming with many of you in the future.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Psykoboy2

As for IGC...for me, it feels exactly the same as when Phil Kollar asked us if we'd like to take the mantel of EvAv Radio. Even more so, since we were wanted by these guys to bring the show over and do it, not how they wanted us to, but how we wanted to. It's an amazing amount of freedom and respect, equally shared not only with IGC and CoG...but with all the sites and well...the community as a whole involved.

I'm really ashamed to admit that I never listened to Evil Avatar radio. I always meant to, but as time went on I just never did. I don't have a good reason, and I regret not listening from the beginning.

I'm going to be making up for that by listening to the show from this point on. A fresh new start gives me a good kick in the butt to start downloading it!