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End of Summer Update
Posted on August 26th, 2021
I have finished complete walkthroughs for Slime Rancher and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (aka Kotor 1). Right now I am busy playing Rimworld which I do plan to do guides for since the game has a shocking lack of information online about it. I've also completed many guides for Elder Scrolls: Morrowind but they still need to be edited and finalized before I am comfortable for a real release.
Aside from that, I would like to spend some time making this main page of my website prettier and maybe tweaking the navigation bar a bit. It's hard for me to come up with good designs for my website because I am very picky and most of the current designs you see for websites like vg247, Gamespot, Gamepressure, IGN, Eurogamer, Gamesradar, Trueachievements, thegamer and the list goes on and on.... I do not like any of these designs.
The front page of each is far too cluttered for my liking and it's overwhelming and mostly all clickbaity. The second and more important reason I do not like their websites is their navigation isn't good.... and I think that is an understatement. My website is very easy to navigate, you know what console the game you're playing is for so you click on your console, look for the name of your game and all the guides you want are on that page. It may not be pretty but it is effective, I believe this is an area I do good.
On most of these other websites there is no index file to where you can search for all games on a console and if there is -- the pages usually are not separated by game but by guide. So you scroll through hundreds of guides for games you're not interested in. If they have a search box, it usually sucks (typing final fantasy 15 doesn't work but final fantasy XV does). When it does work -- it never quite works does it? Sometimes they mix in news, reviews and feature changes with the guides which means more mindless scrolling... Sometimes they have hundreds of guides for a game and they aren't organized in any meaningful order and you have to constantly click "Load More" as you go through them.
All of these things makes finding the guides a chore and you can say they're either poor design choices or they're done purposefully to keep your time on site high and the amount of revenue you generate. Forcing you to scroll through hundreds of articles to find the guide you want means you see quadruple the ads, maybe even more.
I have a personal goal with my website where I promised myself I would never design a guide (or website) I personally would not use my myself. To be honest with you, I believe I run too many ads right now and I plan to decrease the total amount I run by 20-30% within a few years. I've compared my websites to other ones and I run as much as most other websites and I have told my ad company there's a few types I will not run. Video top-bar or bottom-bar ads that are difficult to close are a no-no, for example like most wikipedias do on mobile. I actually have them all disabled but sometimes one or two gets through; I think some companies consider them GIFs and not videos so maybe they don't count? Who knows.
Anyway, my point is I want to spend the extra money I am making now on making this website better in a few ways, then I don't mind a pay cut. I'm investing it back into myself, basically. I think I need to condense a few of the retro consoles, maybe into a retro section and then make a "social" section for my patreon and youtube and other things because I want to shrink the nav bar. This main page I would like to make look more sophisticated instead of - - - - - dashes and such separating journal entries. I'd like to make a submit your comment to me page too and an email setup to accept it etc. Right now I have no contact page on my website and I should. That's something I may have to pay someone to design if I can't figure it out. Changes like this are what I would like to do with my website over the next year.
Aside from that there is a promise I will make you now as I continue to grow that you can hold me to forever...
1) My website will never display game news
If I find something interesting I will write about it on the front page - maybe. But I'm never turning this website into something with game news and guides. My focus moving forward is always going to be either Retro games or a newer game that really catches my interest like Slime Rancher or Rimworld.
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Aion Classic
Posted on June 26th, 2021
Well if it isn't a game I completely forgot about until June 22nd. I've added a link to the Aion Classic Guides in my Computer Section since it doesn't have its own button at the top. All of these guides were written when the game first game out within a year or two of its release. I never got around to updating them because I quit the game... Which means they are frozen in time and completely relevant for the Classic servers if you're playing on them today.
Enjoy the guides and I am glad to see they are helping all these years later.
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Summer 2021 Update
Posted on June 16th, 2021
Been awhile since an update. Over the last few months I have finished a few guides here and there, I will link to all of them below. I'm on the cusp of finishing Dungeon Siege 2 guides as well, the entire walkthrough for the game is finished as are all the Side Quests. I haven't completed the index page though or the class guides - which I am almost done.
I'm currently 1/4th of the way through Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic guides as well but I may not finish them this year. The way KOTOR is organized is a nightmare and it will take multiple play throughs to make a complete guide for that game. Currently I am averaging a play through of KOTOR once every 3 or 4 months and I work on guides during that time.
As for my plans over the next few months... hopefully this time I will be able to add guides for Everquest. I started playing it again recently after a month or two break and I definitely can write some guides for it, I just need to motivate myself.
I need to add leveling guides for ToV and CoV along with Tradeskill guides for both expansions.
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Everquest & Other Guides
Posted on December 11th, 2020
I've recently finished walkthroughs for Dragon Quest 5 and 6 as well as started to add many different Cwcheats for PSP games. Hopefully I will get around to doing walkthroughs for the rest of the Dragon Quest series next year, I only have 1, 2, 3, 7 and 11 left to do guides for. That will be the first series I have finished guides for which is an oddly satisfying accomplishment for me.
Since Christmas is coming up I am also doing a collectibles giveaway on Firiona Vie in Everquest. Additionally I am playing EQ again now and I will be updating my guides since I left off on Ring of Scale... however many years ago. If you play on Firiona Vie and you'd like some free collectibles follow the link to my thread below.
Everquest Firiona Vie Collections Giveaway
Below are links to all of the projects that I have completed recently. I'll be focusing mostly on adding more PSP codes over the next few months and adding new Everquest Guides.
PSP CWCheats & Action Replay Codes
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Been awhile since an update
Posted on November 7th, 2020
I added a new advertiser to my website that many of you may have noticed. It would have probably been smart for me to post an update about it sooner since I did it a few months ago but I've been busy. I know the ads are more than there used to be but I have tried to avoid using any annoying ones.
My personal rule is I won't run any ads on this website that I wouldn't want to personally deal with myself. On mobile that includes the annoying drop down video ads that you see on wikipedia's that are almost impossible to close with hitting the X and I am kind of against the video ads that pop up on the bottom too and don't minimize or are insanely hard to close.
If you hate the ads you can yell at me a variety of ways, posting on my youtube would be one. Any video, doesn't really matter. I know that's archaic but I haven't looked into a Disqus replacement yet. It's been a busy year and I apologize for not doing an update sooner and not being able to ask for your feedback in a more professional way. Hopefully in the upcoming future I will be able to grow this website into something more as it's currently run by a single person as a part time job and it has the potential of being much more. For that to happen though, I would need to focus on guide writing and delegate other tasks to employees.
Oh yea and they're banning boxers from World of Warcraft now, so that's a thing. That gives me more time to spend working on Almar's Guides though! *shrug*
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Almar's Guides is finally Mobile friendly!
Posted on May 22nd, 2020
I have been putting off completing a mobile layout for my website for literally years since I thought it was going to be way harder than it actually was. Thankfully, it wasn't. As of right now-- Almar's Guides.com now has a mobile responsive layout that works for phones, tablets and desktop.
If you find any bugs with this layout or encounter any problems on phones, mobile or desktop please post below in the disqus section to let me know.
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Google Ranking Changes
Posted on May 8th, 2020
So I noticed that many people are landing on the front page of my website and coming to my website directly now that Google has deranked me from the top of Google. You may be curious why this happened, as was I, it appears as though Google is giving higher rankings to people they deem "authoritative" sources. This is purely my theory/speculation but I have some anecdotal evidence to back it up.
Many of you may have already heard of this happening on Youtube for the last few months, it appears as though it has now moved to their search engine as well. This is purely my speculation but I believe this is what happened because Gamespot and IGN rank over me, as does Gamefaqs, despite how out dated the content is -- even in some instances where they only have blank pages for content. Example, if you google Persona 3 Social Link Guide, I am now at the top of the second page whereas IGN has a mostly blank page and gets ranked third. More evidence for those curious; Lufia 2 Game Genie Codes (Gamefaqs at the top over me).
This will most likely spell the doom for many smaller content creators/bloggers as almost everyone in the world uses Google. If Google decides to filter the information we can and cannot see in this way it won't matter if the content you create is good or not. All that matters is whether or not Google deems you authoritative or not. That's what will get you to the first page now.
I'd strongly recommend people to start using duckduckgo.com or even bing.com as well as google from here on out. Both of these are search engines which don't willy-nilly rank content from sources they deem authoritative.
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WoW Classic
Posted on April 4th, 2020
I hope everyone is well and staying indoors during the Coronapocalypse going on out there. During the last few weeks I have been busy compiling information for WoW Class Guides, such as Macros and Consumable Lists as well as useful Addons for each class. I'll be adding more information to these pages over the next few weeks as well. They aren't really creative guides so they're easy to update - they're just lists of information.
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The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy 15 and WoW Classic
Posted on February 9th, 2020
It's been awhile since my last update! I've been quite busy these last few months and finally have something to show for it. As the title of this update says, I have completed Witcher 3 and some Final Fantasy 15 guides. I'm only ready to release the Witcher ones to the world, I still need to edit the Final Fantasy 15 ones then I will update this page.
The Witcher 3 Side Quest Guides
The Witcher 3 Story Quest Guides
Final Fantasy 15 Side Quest Guides
Along with these guides, I will hopefully be updating/adding more WoW Classic Guides soon. I plan to do some raid oriented guides and later most likely some Boxing Guides.