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Editorial

1,000,000 Page Views

Today is my birthday. My day went from good to great when I realized that Dungeon’s Master hit the 1 million page view milestone around lunch time. Talk about icing on the cake. This is the kind of unexpected birthday present that made this day even better.

When Wimwck and I began this blog we didn’t know how things would turn out. We had high hopes and plenty of ambition. We read the other blogs that were big at the time (most of which are now defunct) and thought we had something to add to the online gaming community. So on February 1, 2009, we launched Dungeon’s Master.

Today, 2 years, 7 months and 7 days later we’re still going strong. We’ve written 733 articles (including this one) and managed to publish something every weekday since we began (excluding holidays). We have over 1,000 subscribers and just under 6,000 comments. I can honestly say the neither of us though we’d still be around and going this strong so far into the game.

We’ve always said that maintaining Dungeon’s Master is a labour of love. We’re not in it to make money, although that would certainly be a nice bonus. Our persistence finally paid off and garnered the notice of Wizards of the Coast. Because of Dungeon’s Master, which serves as our online writing portfolio and resume, Wizards approached both Wimwick and I and asked us if we’d write for them as freelancers. We had to sign NDAs so I can’t really say much at this point other than to encourage you to keep reading Dragon and Dungeon magazine online and watch for our contributions over the next few months.

Our site’s success is due in large part to you, the readers. If you didn’t continue to visit and comment we would have crashed and burned long ago. But with your continued support we intend to keep on doing what we’ve been doing well into the foreseeable future. Our thanks to everyone who helped us reach 1 million page views.

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20 replies on “1,000,000 Page Views”

Congrats!

I just started reading about a week ago after joining up with a cleric (warpriest) at your table. I’ve been picking through your back catalog of blogs and have to say I’m quite impressed with the wealth of knowledge and informed opinion. As a guy making the transition from DND 3.5e based CRPG’s to 4e, I’m finding so far it’s the insight of articles that let me get the feel for what works and what doesn’t rather than a simple reading of the rulebook & character generator.

If you’re up for it, I’d like to make a suggestion for an article, or maybe just a pointer to an article I haven’t found yet: a discussion on the leader classes, what works, what doesn’t. As well as just how much a leader build needs to focus on healing powers vs. support/damage powers

I was playing with the character creator and was intrigued by the shaman class. It seemed to me like a very tactically rich and unique way of approaching healing, especially with some of the spirits and powers opening up attacks for the _other_ party members, allowing the shaman to attack via the damage specialists. One concern though, tying into the previous paragraph, is whether/when/what-parties a shaman build should be able to get away with taking non-protective (bear) spirit. The same question really for the Storm/Sun domain split in the Warpriest class.

So, in summary:
– Any thoughts on where the balance lies between offense/defense/healing is in leaders?
– Any thoughts on the shaman class in general?
– Any thoughts on the other leader classes and how they stack up (ardent for example)?

Thanks!

Let me add my congrats to the throng. Your site is one of the best sites I’ve had the pleasure of following over the past year. It’s amazing content like the one that you’re providing that is keeping D&D more alive than ever.

I started reading Dungeon’s Master late in 2009 after I really got into D&D and you never disappoint! Since I live and work in Korea, I have to rely on the internet for most of my resources, and this site is indispensable. Thanks for all of your hard work. You inspired me to put together my own D&D blog, and it’s been a trying experience to say the least. It’s a lot of hard work, and I really admire the effort you put into it.

Thanks for being awesome, and keep it going!

I check you guys out every day after my WoTC check. Keep up the great work. I love your blog. Best.There.Is!

Happy Birthday. Also, you get your action point back for hitting this milestone with your page views. Please keep up the good work. You’ve put together some solid ideas on gaming on this site and the discussions tend to be lively and informative. You and Wimwick seem like you’d be pretty cool to game with in-person as well so much so that I’d almost promise not to fart at your table.

Almost.

Holy cow! Congratulations on all fronts, especially with the WotC opportunity! Fantastic, I’m very excited for you guys!

Great work here at Dungeon’s Master btw, one of my favorite D&D blogs to read while I’m conjuring up ideas on my own. Thanks for being awesome, and here’s to 1 million more!

You deserve it. It’s a blog worth reading and learning from. Very good, constantly well thought-out, fresh, relevant content. Content is king. Professionally written. You -should- get paid. It’s nice to see WotC has acknowledged that. I think they should also allow you to use some of these posts as articles in Dungeon or Dragon magazine, if copyright allows.

Congrats to you both on the “Million Milestone” and Happy Belated Birthday to you Derek! Huge props to you for coming out on your Birthday to DM Encounters.

Just wanted to toss my congrats hat into the ring. I find it incredibly awesome that your labor of love has netted you a freelance opportunity with the very company that produces the product that inspired your labor of love in the first place!

Well done! This is my favorite blog related to D&D and I tell my friends about it.

When I had a travel blog I was really stoked when I got a thousand page views. I can only imagine how jazzed you must be about a freakin’ MILLION! Keep up the good work. We’re all watching.

Derek, happy belated birthday. I wanted to thank you for the website, which totally deserves a million hits. Here’s why:

Consistency. Your constant updates are all posted because you have something to say, so everytime I get an update in my RSS feed, I know it’s something you’ve put some thought into.

Creativity. I’m a little biased because I love Eberron, but even the other stuff shows how well you think outside the box (I think healers are still thanking you for the article about withholding surges). It’s easy to throw out some story hooks, it’s another thing to really examine the nuts and bolts of the game, looking for nooks and crannies of unused potential.

Seriousness. A lot of D&D blogs are either cold, hard crunch analysis (let’s optimize my half-elf rogue-runepriest hybrid who duel wields poleaxes) or flights of fancy (here’s my setting that I have spent months on; yes dragons only swim, that’s how I wrote it). Your blog treats the game seriously, looking at our motivations as gamers, while not forgetting that all this serious work is to make sure we have fun.

All in all, great work. Here’s to another 10 million hits.

@Everyone
Thank you so much for the kind words and birthday wishes.

@Stark
If you’ve got ideas of articles please let us know what they are and if we think we can provide something useful or interesting on that topic we’ll write about it. If you’ve got specific D&D questions feel free to email us directly.

I too share a love for the leader roles and think I can come up with something interesting on the subject in the near future for you. As for Shaman specifically, I’m not a big fan of the primal classes and don’t have much experience with them so I’m not sure if I can really help you there. But we’ll see where my article goes.

@iserith
If you ever find yourself in the Greater Toronto Area let us know. There are plenty of games happening around the city and I’m sure we could figure out a way to include you in one of them, be it D&D Encounters, Lair Assault or LFR. If Toronto is a little too far off the beaten path there’s also GenCon next summer.

@Al
You think that I’d turn down the chance to play D&D on my birthday? How little you actually know of me. Besides, if I skipped D&D Encounters just to celebrate my birthday you guys would be down a DM and that’s not fair for the players who show up expecting to play.

@focusgents
I’m glad someone’s reading (and enjoying) our Eberron articles. They are not nearly as popular as some of our other pieces. Our weekly game is set in Eberron so we have a lot of love for it. Since very few other websites (including Wizards) talk about it regularly we feel obligated to remind people how awesome this setting really is.

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