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The Community Spotlight - 01/10/2014

by zombiepie

State of the Site News and Housekeeping Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, as always I am honored to be your host! Anyways, as the new year finally starts to settle in, and the staff content starts to flow things are starting to get back to normal. Vinny recently published an article detailing how the New York staff have been setting up their new offi...

State of the Site News and Housekeeping

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, as always I am honored to be your host! Anyways, as the new year finally starts to settle in, and the staff content starts to flow things are starting to get back to normal. Vinny recently published an article detailing how the New York staff have been setting up their new office, and what he has been up to recently. The article is well worth reading as it provides a lot of "behind the scenes" information about what is going on at the New York offices. That and I know many of you are excited at getting Vinny and Alex back on the site and want to see what the master plan is to make that happen. For those that do not know @rorie has been known to really enjoy World of Warcraft, and he recently published a blog detailing his thoughts and impressions with Warlords of Draenor. If you must known...yes it has images of puppies. Giant Bomb have closed their Community List system down for the community's 2014 GOTY, and you can expect the results any time this week. In terms of bugs on the site @jslack is the one to contact if you are having issues with the live stream player or chat. He and the remaining engineers are working to address the issue of streams pausing and stopping this and next week. It is important to note that they are asking that you file an official bug report if you experience this issue over here. Other users have been reporting that they are unable to create and/or publish reviews on the site, and if you are having this issue please file a report here. With that we have covered all of the major bits of housekeeping, so let's get on with the Community Spotlight!

Clip(s) of the Week

THE CLIP(S) OF THE WEEK ARE BACK! Not only that but we have three clips worth checking out! The first is a guest review that @drewbert for, and I am not kidding this is a real website, "KnobFeel.co.uk." If you are wondering, the owner of the site reviews the knobs on electronic devices, usually audio equipment, and grades the quality of the knobs without actually saying anything. The second video features @alex's foray into the world of speed running, and his guest appearance on AGDQ 2015! Alex played Big Rigs! and was able to show how you can beat the game in minutes. Finally @turboman is back with a new edition of his "Best of Giant Bomb" video series and this edition includes a touching and fun tribute to Patrick.

Awesome Artwork

All of the artwork this week came from Tumblr, as did our wonderful banner this week from @humanity. The sketches came from spacedongle who provided the Patrick banner artwork from last year. The source for the "Stages of Dan" comes from GiantBombQuotes. The Motion Sports "Back of the Box Quote" artwork is sourced from giantblurb.

Community Actvities

  • PAX South 2014 Roll Call - Hook Up and Plan How to Meet With Other Giant Bomb Users Going to the Event Over Here!

Wonderful Wikis

We have two surprisingly good wiki pages this week to bide us over as we deal with the post-Christmas Winter game drought also known as "Fuck You it's January." The first page, Zombie Shooter, comes from @bdhurkett who sunk in over a thousand points in the game page making it a MUST SEE! @finaldasa on the other hand put in over three hundred points into a Yu-Gi-Oh wiki page, and I want you to join me at pointing and laughing at him as we all shout "NEEEEEERD!"

Best of Blogs

As is the case last year...wow I can actually say that...we still have plenty of belated users that are excited to share the highlights of their 2014 gaming year. These users include MooseyMcMan, who is holding his sixth annual Moosies; believer258, who mapped out the highs and lows of his entire year; supermike, who details four games that he thinks are the most important that he played last year; and the always artistic buzz_clik, who finally got around to creating his top ten of 2014. As 2015 completes its first true week various members of the community are looking forward to what the future holds for gaming this year. morecowbell24 and sparky_buzzsaw both plotted out their predictions and hope for the new year, and you should check out their blogs to get ideas for your own predictions. As you can see in the videos section TurboMan is back and he has a new, and AWESOME, edition to his "Best of Giant Bomb" video series. This edition includes a nice and touching tribute to Patrick. The other major highlight this week comes from DonChipotle who wrote a massive blog explaining why he continues to renew his Old Republic account, despite not actually liking the game. Mento has a progress report on his new "Wiki Project," and dankempster is up to his old tricks by playing an old game like Tom Raider Chronicles rather than any recent releases. CornBREDX finally played his first Wii game and confesses why it has taken him this long. Pezen has written an incredibly engaging piece on how setting in games is what sucks him into the games he most enjoys, whereas hamst3r discusses how he let anime suck his soul. thatpinguino is back, as always, with two notable blogs this week. The first is a "Deep Look" at the much forgotten Threads of Fate, and the second is about Nintendo's use of "Lenticular Design."Finally bdhurkett details an interesting project that he has committed himself to related to the Bombcast, and he wants YOUR input about the idea and how it is being implemented.

Fantastic Forums

JBG4 thinks Drew deserves to be the "Giant Bomb MVP" of 2014, but welcomes any other members of the community to nominate who they think deserves the title as well. Haz went ahead and created our first "What Are You Playing" thread for January, and if you can think of the first game you played in 2015 then name it and discuss it on the thread. Finally we have a "2015 Gaming Resolutions" thread where members of the community are encouraged to share which games or gaming feats they are hoping to complete this year.

Lovable Lists

As you can see we still have plenty of 2014 GOTY lists with MikeLemmer, lando81, superkenon, zaxex, liquidus, and isomeri joining the fray this week! As is the case with the blogging scene, with the last stragglers publishing their 2014 GOTY lists, members of the community are starting to look at 2015 and the future of gaming! patanu and dirtytea both map out their expectations and predictions for 2015 on their lists this week. agent_york on the other hand annotated his favorite games on the original GameBoy.

Useful User Reviews