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Lilura's Blog: An Ongoing Codexian Obsession

How do you rate lilura1.blogspot.com's commentary?


  • Total voters
    368

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
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And I'm the only one with the guts to criticize the games I cover. I'm the only commentator to have already criticized Larian.
Sorry, but let me give you a proper timeline of the events.

The night of june 6 - 7.
We're all here on the Codex criticizing articles with interviews as they are coming out. We spot all the red flags: "misses aren't fun", "pure D&D doesn't work in video games", "nobody would play BG2 if it came out TODAY", then Mike Mearls chiming in saying "it's a game for people who never played D&D", etc. We spotted it, we discussed it, we condemned it. We thought the trailer was shit - "illithid paladin, wtf". We recalled beamdog's illithid paladin art. Speculation is made to reasons why Stadia is involved, lots of conclusions are drawn. We discussed it all, then there was no more to be said.

Meanwhile, also June 7.
You post a blog entry, in which you announce that you're going to blog about BG3. Crack open the champaign, woo hoo! Then, philosophically, you ask yourself questions, such as "are you motivated enough?", and then come to the conclusion that yes, you, Lilura, are motivated.
Nothing of value here.

June fucking 15-16.
First two entries come out, where you watch the trailer and say "the city is Big!". Remember how years ago I said that the only thing you spot in art and comment on are sizes? Yeah. Still true.
Also, very perceptive of you to notice that there's an armed conflict and buildings burning. Woah! Perception 3 check passed.
Then you cite ONE of the many Larian weird quotes that says D&D isn't fun.

There were many quotes to mention, but you're a lazy blogger. You didn't compile them. You didn't give them to your readership, because you know deep down that there is no readership to care about. Four (4) dudes swang by and left a comment on your blog that day. Talk about millions of views.

After failing to provide quotes and info, you immediately jumped into comfortable territory, proceeding to autistically list all known qualities of BG: it's RTWP, it's isometric, its saga is finished, yada yada. I know what BG is, I played it. This is your usual stuff, you write words for the sake of writing words.

Now on the subject of SEO.
Because google likes sites that has lots of coherent phrases, we have a profession called copywriter. In smaller companies, secretaries do their job. In bigger companies, girls are hired for 10 usd / 500 words.
How it works: if your company is selling tea leaves, the secretary is asked to write anything about tea leaves. And so she writes: tea leaves are green, they're used to produce tea, there are many flavors, let's list them..., etc. This text is then placed where no human would read it, in a very tiny font. But Google reads all text. Google sees it and goes "holy shit, that's a lot of info on tea leaves, we better give this site a higher PR rank!". Google can't understand the text and how utterly hollow it is. This is what your site is all about. It's a collection of 333 copywritten articles on Baldur's Gate that don't say anything ever. Just like a proper copywrite text, no human reads it either.

So, in conclusion:
You gave a partial summary of the situation. You failed to give proper quotes of all the hardcore bullshit that was being said. Your blog entry was so late, that it'd be illegal to abort in some countries.
I took nothing away from it. Who would find it useful? People who don't play RPGs and therefore don't read the news and the forums. Way to target casuls.

As for "I'm the only commentator who criticizes", your blog entries do not differ from forum posts. We're all commentators. You're not a journo, so it's not like you were uncooperative and gave Larian a hard time, proving your journalistic integrity, putting your Doritos contracts in jeopardy. All you did was say Larian is shit, which we've all said here many times before you. Nothing new happened.

June 17.
Listing more qualities of BG and of Fallout (for some reason). Yawn.

June 20.
Talks about that BG3 now has a forum.
Cites one mildly stupid quote from Larian (probably the most irrelevant one).

June 29.
Diligently lists and describes DND 5 core races and classes. Mind blowing conclusions: the list is virtually the same as in BG2.
You know what would've been cool. If you only listed CHANGES, instead of listing them all like you're writing for retards.

After rereading this one more time today, I have a stubborn feeling that you're a kindergarten teacher. This is how you present information: "look kids, it's a BIG CAR!" and "ok let's list all the colors in the rainbow, red... then what? yellow, good. then what?". Substitute rainbow with something like a barbarian and listing all his abilities by name, and lo and behold, it's your blog.

P.S.
Your site's usability is so horrible. One example out of thousands: when I middle-click on this area, I get the image itself opening in a new tab. Navigating it is a pain, and I'm only able to do it because I remember how internet was back in 2002. That's how your site is in 2019.
 
Last edited:

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
ITT
epa1.jpg
 

gunman

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 4, 2008
Messages
1,050
I also tried to update TOBEX code so BG2 would behave like BG1 (forced unpause on inventory screen). Unfortunatelly, compiling the TOBEX code with my Visual C++ compiler seemed to broke some other code, so I had to abandon this
https://af.gog.com/forum/baldurs_gate_series/pause_during_inventory_bg_tutu/post8?as=1649904300

Inventory auto-pause can be toggled in ToBExTweak.ini.

The way inventory auto-pause tweak in ToBEx is like that: if the game is unpaused, opening the inventory will keep the game unpaused, if the game is paused, in inventory it stays paused. What I wanted to do is to force unpause if the inventory was opened no mater the game was paused or not.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
The way inventory auto-pause tweak in ToBEx is like that: if the game is unpaused, opening the inventory will keep the game unpaused, if the game is paused, in inventory it stays paused. What I wanted to do is to force unpause if the inventory was opened no mater the game was paused or not.

Oh, that would have been good. A pity you couldn't get it working.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Nice try, nobody's going to go and check.

In point of fact, most of them won't be able to resist. See my other 'Dex post. But let's say they do resist; it wouldn't matter. Because everytime I post on my blog, 10,000 people instantly read it (even if it's a shitpost). So word would get around. And when they Google their names, I'd get high-ranking within a few hours of posting.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Now on the subject of SEO.
Because google likes sites that has lots of coherent phrases, we have a profession called copywriter. In smaller companies, secretaries do their job. In bigger companies, girls are hired for 10 usd / 500 words.
How it works: if your company is selling tea leaves, the secretary is asked to write anything about tea leaves. And so she writes: tea leaves are green, they're used to produce tea, there are many flavors, let's list them..., etc. This text is then placed where no human would read it, in a very tiny font. But Google reads all text. Google sees it and goes "holy shit, that's a lot of info on tea leaves, we better give this site a higher PR rank!". Google can't understand the text and how utterly hollow it is. This is what your site is all about. It's a collection of 333 copywritten articles on Baldur's Gate that don't say anything ever. Just like a proper copywrite text, no human reads it either.

Google is much more advanced than you give it credit for. Its algorithms ID King Content, not just "coherent phrases". It penalizes the posers and plagiarists, and it knows what's good and what's shit. Which is why some of my commentary can rise above the likes of Steam in Google rankings/authority without me having invested a single cent.

Google is getting more discerning by the day, which is why I find my commentary rising up the ranks. Several instances remain where inferior content is ranked above mine, but Google gets them in the end. Lots of people take shortcuts and get ahead for a little while, but then drop off and fade away to nothing.

Now, if you think you can beat me by simply publishing more "coherent phrases" than I have, just try it and see what happens. I can tell you right now: you won't even get crawled for a year or so. You might get indexed in a year, relegated to the 200th page.
 

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
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Messages
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Google is much more advanced than you give it credit for. Its algorithms ID King Content, not just "coherent phrases". It penalizes the posers and plagiarists, and it knows what's good and what's shit. Which is why some of my commentary can rise above the likes of Steam in Google rankings/authority without me having invested a single cent.

Google is getting more discerning by the day, which is why I find my commentary rising up the ranks. Several instances remain where inferior content is ranked above mine, but Google gets them in the end. Lots of people take shortcuts and get ahead for a little while, but then drop off and fade away to nothing.

Now, if you think you can beat me by simply publishing more "coherent phrases" than I have, just try it and see what happens. I can tell you right now: you won't even get crawled for a year or so. You might get indexed in a year, relegated to the 200th page.
I must conclude that you are trolling, because:

1- What do you MEAN you're rising in the ranks? I googled "Baldur's Gate" and your site wasn't even on the first 5 pages.

Then I tried:
- baldur's gate twisted rune
- baldur's gate 2 derelict house
- baldur's gate 2 how to defeat kangaxx
- baldur's gate 2 tips and tricks

Everything I could think of, you weren't there. Random Steam discussions, literally Reddit, Beamdog forums, gamefaqs, some html 0.5 websites, sorcerers.net, literally this blog, a myriad of others like that. And not a single mention of your blog in sight.

2- Do you know that if you clicked on your site in google in the past, google will give it higher priority just for you? Is this what's going on here, you google BG and your site comes out first, and you thought this was real?

3- What do you MEAN google "knows what's good and what's shit"? It uses a hundred metrics, none of which include any machine learning analysis of the content (aside from checking for spelling errors and not being a copy-paste from another site).

When it starts looking at content 10 years from now, when it finally understands how to detect copywriting, your site is going to be deemed as having ZERO informative value, maybe it'll even get deleted from search results altogether. Random Codex discussions about Imoen's daddy issues in BDSM romance mods will have more weight. I didn't want it to come to this, but here goes - YOUR BLOG SUCKS.
 
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thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,676
Do you know that if you clicked on your site in google in the past, google will give it higher priority just for you? Is this what's going on here, you google BG and your site comes out first, and you thought this was real?
I think you just broke Lilura's entire world with this information.
 

Void_Pickle

Educated
Joined
Apr 2, 2019
Messages
60
lil's blog returns first if you search for: baldur's gate blog. Though I am not sure why you would search for that.

I do not see it return in bing, duckduckgo, yahoo etc even with that specific query, for whatever that's worth (a fair amount to me).
 

Void_Pickle

Educated
Joined
Apr 2, 2019
Messages
60
lil's blog returns first if you search for: baldur's gate blog.

Only if you have previously visited it....

Zep--

I checked with startpage, which I believe is based on google's results? I'm assuming here that it should work like the other ´privacy' focused searches where it doesn't take what you've visited into account.

I did visit out of curiosity though so.. You could be right.
 

Corvinus

Arcane
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
1,969
lil's blog returns first if you search for: baldur's gate blog. Though I am not sure why you would search for that.

I do not see it return in bing, duckduckgo, yahoo etc even with that specific query, for whatever that's worth (a fair amount to me).

Thankfully it is more popular than the Beamblog, which takes second place.
 

PompiPompi

Man with forever hair
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
2,798
RPG Wokedex
Corvins, I think Google sometimes return your own searchs or return top results as websites you visited before. Your search results in Google don't mean much about what other get as search results with the same term.
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,098
This thread looks like that comics crossovers where one universe is shattered by the clash of beings from the multiverse. As soon as the shit spills all over, they go back to their usual comicbook series in the next day as nothing had ever happened.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
I must conclude that you are trolling, because:

1- What do you MEAN you're rising in the ranks? I googled "Baldur's Gate" and your site wasn't even on the first 5 pages.

That is a very general keyword, which even a troll like you must admit, would be very difficult to target for an unmonetized individual. That you compare me to huge monetized communities and corporations speaks volumes, though.

Then I tried:
- baldur's gate twisted rune
- baldur's gate 2 derelict house
- baldur's gate 2 how to defeat kangaxx
- baldur's gate 2 tips and tricks

Those are keywords which have not yet been targetted by me. If I posted about the Twisted Rune, I'd shoot straight towards the top. I know this may come as a surprise to you, but there is only so much time in a day, and I'm just one person. I can't be apex-commentator on every specific keyword.

As an individual, I target "veteran" search strings and "academic" search strings. By that I mean, what a veteran of the games I cover, or people who are serious about the games I cover, would search for on Google. The latter would include devs concerned about legacies and also generalist commentators who want to get their bearings on specific aspects, mechanics and jargon (so they don't sound ill-informed). I also target powergamers because they are influential, vocal and clinically obsessive/aspie.

In those three respects, I'm ranked between 1st and 5th in the world for what I have currently chosen to cover; my only competition being "the big guns": massive monetized communities and corporations.

Basically, unless it's some big dumb AAA like Skyrim, whatever I choose to focus on like a laser-beam shoots straight towards the top. And this isn't just for Google but also for "foreign" search engines as well (think Russians).

And this without investing or requesting a single cent.
 

EldarEldrad

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2017
Messages
253
Location
Russia
Do you know that if you clicked on your site in google in the past, google will give it higher priority just for you? Is this what's going on here, you google BG and your site comes out first, and you thought this was real?
I think you just broke Lilura's entire world with this information.
Considering she clicked her blog every day for a couple of hours hoping to increase its priority. So much wasted time.
 

Corvinus

Arcane
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
1,969
Corvins, I think Google sometimes return your own searchs or return top results as websites you visited before. Your search results in Google don't mean much about what other get as search results with the same term.

Yes, but I don't normally use google, so the result would be "uncontaminated".
 

PompiPompi

Man with forever hair
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
2,798
RPG Wokedex
Corvins, I think Google sometimes return your own searchs or return top results as websites you visited before. Your search results in Google don't mean much about what other get as search results with the same term.

Yes, but I don't normally use google, so the result would be "uncontaminated".
I am not sure. It's enough that you have gmail or other "google family" or "google 3rd party" web products you use.
The web can spy on you in many ways.
 

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