Blaugust Conqueror

I'm coming out of con-coma, finally, and real life (aside from work) has calmed down. Expect some posts and videos incoming, as I've a renewed vigor now that I'm feeling less pressured in my personal life.

This post is going to be a quick recap of Blaugust to get my blogging fingers going again, especially since I ended up a Conqueror for 2015!

You can view the full list of Challengers, Survivors, and Conquerors over at Bel's blog. And thank you again, Bel, for setting up such a fun event!

Much in the vein of Murf, I'm putting a post together of all the posts I made for Blaugust this year in case I'd like to reference them at a later date, as well as provide a few stats on what Blaugust did for the blog.

The Posts

I've labeled posts with the games they're discussing, or "General" for topics that didn't revolve around a particular game.

• Playing Catch-Up [General]
• Gaming Goals Review: July [General]
• Gaming Goals: August [General]
• First X-89 [WildStar]
• Trying Marvel Heroes [Marvel Heroes]
• The Game That Changed My Life (TGTCML) [General]
• Under the Platforms [WildStar]
• More Marvel Heroes [Marvel Heroes]
• A Hogwarts Party [General]
• The King Pin [Marvel Heroes]
• WildStar Malaise [WildStar]
• Trying Terraria [Terraria]
• TGTCML, Part 2 [WoW]
• Class of 2015 [The Secret World]
• Bleeder of the Pack [FFXIV]
• Blaugust AMA [General]
• Burnout, Real Life Edition [General]
• Yeah! Game Time! [The Secret World] [WildStar]
• Kuralak Down [WildStar]
• Goodbye Living Legend [WildStar]
• Podcast Addict [General]
• I'm Zatanna! [WildStar]
• The Park [The Secret World]
• Phagemaw... So Close! [WildStar]
• TGTCML, Part 3 [WoW]
• Warrior, Here I Come! [FFXIV]
• Time For Super Snacks [WoW]
• DragonCon 2015 Hype [General]
• Marauder Feels [FFXIV]
• Neutral Good [D&D]
• I Regret Nothing [General]

The Stats

So, I won't have as detailed statistics as some other bloggers who are using WordPress. Sadly, one of Blogger's downfalls is the fact that their statistics are limited unless you've been using Google Analytics from the get-go. Which, well, I haven't because the blog is a few years old, now!

Another downfall to the statistics is that I can't choose a particular period of time, so if I want to view the last month of data, it starts on August 10th, a good week and a half into Blaugust. So my data is inaccurate (because I can only view the past year if I don't want to view the past month).

But anyway, I received approximately 4,400 page views throughout the month of August. Which, holy crap, guys. Uhh, how? I'm kind of blown away, and not sure what to think, aside from saying "Thank You" to all of you who thought that my drabble was worth reading and commenting on. While I may blog for me, it feels good to know that you guys get something out of it, too.

My top traffic source was various feed readers pulling my RSS feed, followed by Twitter links and Anook (yay Anook!).

The post with the most hits ended up being the planning for my Hogwarts birthday party, followed by my discussion on the real-life burnout I was suffering, and how it really is something you can experience that goes beyond just "Stress" or being "Overwhelmed". I had wanted to touch a bit on how we kind of throw around the term "burnout" so easily regarding games, but never really got to that point. But that's neither here nor there, and mayhaps it's a post for a later date.

I received a huge spike in hits on August 30th when I blog spammed and wrote four different posts to attempt to catch up, and I wrote the most posts on August 31st with a total of five to finish out the month.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to participating again next year!

A Question: WP or Blogger?

So, one of the things (of a few) that bums me out about using Blogger is the lack of detailed Statistics I can get. However, one of the things that bothered me most about WordPress was the lack of free themes and customization I could do without having to drop any money. I am wondering, since so many folks are using WordPress (and many have moved from Blogger to WordPress): what are the pros and cons of using it?

What do you like about WordPress? Is there a package you'd suggest for allowing customization without having to purchase premium or a yearly subscription (or whatever the payment model is now)?

And if you've used Blogger and moved to WordPress, why? What are the advantages to using WP over Blogger? When you moved, did you export/import all your previous posts? Is doing so worth it?

It was also brought to my attention that if there's a server I can put WordPress on, I'd only be out the cost of a Domain name. Call me ignorant or uneducated, but how does this work? Is it something worth pursuing? But then the question becomes, what should I get as a URL for a domain?

I've been contemplating moving the blog for a while, but I'm a person hesitant to change (especially after just rebranding myself and getting back into blogging in February), and I really want to make sure it's the correct course of action for me, so any help and feedback is much appreciated, fellow bloggers.