Blog Look Back – A 2018 RockyMountainNavy Gamer Year in Review

It’s a new year (Happy 2019!) and I guess this is the time for some introspective thoughts. In my case, I finally decided to look at my blog stats. I have been writing my blog, Bravo Zulu, since sometime in 2007. I have never before looked at my stats in any sort of serious manner. This year I will be different! Be warned though – I use a free wordpress.com account so the available stats are not all that deep.

Stats

• Views: 14,464 (+2,387 or +16% vs 2017)
  • USA – 8,155, UK – 1,750, Canada – 845…all the way down to a single view from Vatican City?
• Visitors: 9,250 (+2185 or +23% vs 2017)
• Posts Published: 164 (+29 or +17% vs 2017)
• Likes: 497
• Comments: 112
• Month with the most views was December (1,740) although July had the most visitors (1,679)

Top Posts for the Year

1. Starship Construction in Mongoose Traveller (Originally posted March 2014!)
2. Game of the Week – Silver Bayonet…Game Mechanics (Posted in 2018 and linked to by GMT Games…thanks guys!)
3. Traveller 5 Character Generation (Another March 2014 post)
4. #TravellerRPG Ship Combat (MgT2E) (January 2016)
5. SOLO Campaigns (April 2017)
6. The Old South China Sea – 7th Fleet (March 2018..discussing a game published in 1987)
7. #FirstImpressions – Cataclysm (July 2018)
8. #WargameWednesday – Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal iOS (November 2017)
9. #TravellerRPG Character Generation (MgT2E) (January 2016)
10. The Gygax Rule for GMs (July 2018)

What I See

In 2018 I really focused my blog on the wargame and boardgame portion of my hobbies. I actually all-but-ignored my roleplaying games. Yet 60% of my top posts are RPG related, and most of those from as long as five years ago! I guess there are some older search engines or linked pages that continue to drive folks searching for Traveller RPG items my direction.

My top wargame post was picked up by GMT Games so their page is driving people to my posting. My top boardgame post would be #15 on the list if I went that far.

Way Ahead in 2019

Writing my blog is very therapeutic. I want to write more and am considering restarting my #ModelMonday, #ThreatTuesday, #WargameWednesday, and #RPGThursday structure of postings. I really enjoyed my Game of the Week series last year as it gave me the chance to really dig into a game and get more familiar with it. I also want to continue my weekend Family Game Night postings too.

Technically, I long ago named my blog “Bravo Zulu” which is Navy code for “Good Job.” Over the years I have taken more the identity of RockyMountainNavy and even folks like GMT Games reference my site that way. Maybe I need to rename my blog?