Caves of Narshe: CoN Site News

Final Fantasy V is our (Butz) Valentine

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:46:49 GMT

After a painfully long process, CoN is giving to you today, only five years after its release, our coverage for Final Fantasy V Advance (to accompany, of course, improved coverage of the PlayStation release). While it is one of the less-popular games that CoN covers, it remains a quality release even as it approaches its twentieth anniversary, and long ago we realized that our coverage of the game was the weakest of any game covered on the site.

While it did take us far too long to get this content out to you all, we're very proud of the work that we've done, particularly in the massive, Djibriel-penned walkthrough. The walkthrough was fantastic to begin with, with an immense depth, and having it CoN-nified will make it all the better for you too. We've added to that some more of our great CoN features, with all the equipment and monster data you've come to expect, along with our quality miniguides that make the trickiest parts of the game easy to access and easy to understand.

Final Fantasy V is the only game we cover that I have not personally played from start to finish in any of its incarnations. This section is good enough that I now want to. (I probably still won't, but at least I want to!) While I played my usual role of slavedriver, though, this section really came to be based mostly on the hard work of others. They're all listed on the new Final Fantasy V landing page, and will all get their site awards quite soon, but I wanted to take the time to mention a few specifically: Djibriel, for offering us his fine work and being willing to work with us as we adjusted the tone a bit to best represent CoN; Death Penalty, who continued to push me and put way too much work into the section for someone who doesn't even particularly like the game; and EvilEye, who isn't even on the bloody site staff and never has been, but poured dozens of hours into testing simply because he loves CoN.

I hope that you all take a look at this section today and in the days going forward, and that it helps push you toward wanting to play this game, on PSX or GBA (or even SNES), for the first time or for another time. Thanks to you all for visiting CoN and keeping work like this going through your very presence.

Oh, and if the title of this news article confuses you, you need only look several years in the past.

New Site Awards for Fanart Rating

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:30:14 GMT

I have felt for a while that not enough people go to the fanart galleries here on CoN to show their appreciation for the artists who have contributed here, some of them for going on a decade. I understand that a lot of folks don't feel comfortable leaving comments on art, especially if the folks in question are not artists themselves - as someone who once was in that position of discomfort, I know that it can be a tough barrier to hurdle.

I want all of us to feel like we have some interaction with the artists here, though, because we want to keep our fanart section going and bringing in as many new artists as we can to supplement those who have submitted dozens of pieces. Even if you can't speak to the composition or lighting or media of fanart, the artists still love it when you're willing to at least subjectively decide how you feel about art, both as a whole and on their individual works.

So, starting today, you can now show a little bit how much you care about CoN's artists by voting on fanart and being rewarded with site awards for doing so! We'll keep track of how many ratings you make, and your account will soon be able to show off just how much time you spend looking through our galleries.

A few things you will want to know: one, we've reset the tracking of ratings on all fanart, so yes, you can re-rate fanarts you've rated once before. Also, we don't track the number that you rated, only that you rated. If you really feel that something deserves a low grade, give it - nobody will ever be able to call you out for it. We want honesty in our comments and ratings, because that's what makes them valuable. Finally, you can only receive credit towards site awards by being logged in when you make your votes (by checking the "remember me" box when you log in). If the site doesn't thank you by name after you rate a fanart, you probably didn't get credit. Edit: If your name doesn't show up but you're definitely logged in, though, you did get credit, don't worry.

So, please, use some of your time over the holidays of the next couple weeks to show your appreciation for our artists. You can bling out your own profile a bit while doing so, and then everything's a bit shinier sitewide.

And Yea, the Dead Threads Shall Rise

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:51:11 GMT

With this year's CoNniversary just a week away, we've decided that now's a great time to have a Necromancy Week - while our guidelines about reviving old threads has always revolved around the concept of adding something new and good to the old mix, we're going to use this week to try to get everyone involved. Over the next week, you'll see some CoN staffers going back into the significant forum archives and plucking out the best - and possibly the worst, at least of the threads not buried at sea - for a resurrection to the land of the living.

You don't have to wait for us to do it, though. We're looking for you guys to voice your opinions on ancient things too. Just go to the forum of your choice, filter posts to show all posts from "the beginning," and start digging. Post in as many as you like, and post in the threads that others have conjured from the abyss; all we ask is that you pick the threads that are still potentially relevant so that there's something worth saying there. laszlow has already gotten started!

For my part, I plan to focus on threads that make long-time members look like they were morons when they were younger, as well as threads that fawn all over CoN. It's the only way to fly. Hope you all find something that grabs your fancy too!

Square Enix News Tidbits: Pre-E-Three

Fri, 3 Jun 2011 16:56:17 GMT

Square Enix are preparing for E3, of course; it officially starts next Tuesday. For us, they're mainly doing it with a microsite that, as of this writing, doesn't work. If you care to find a metaphor in that for your faith in the company, well, I won't stop you. Hopefully it comes back online soon, though, as the site last year was really pretty nice, as I recall.

Square Enix are only talking about a few of the games that they'll be showing, and I haven't yet found any mention of a standalone presser that will be aired anywhere public. I don't believe they did one last year, either, so we'll have to feast on scraps that we get second-hand. For now, though, we do know of several games that will appear; of most interest to RPG fans will be Final Fantasy XIII-2 and WAKFU. However, Tomb Raider, the new Hitman, Deus Ex, Dead Island, and the new 3DS game Heroes of Ruin also headline the offering. There's no mention of Type-0 or Dream Drop Distance in the press release, but there's little doubt that they'll be in the booth in some fashion, surely, along with some other big-ticket games that escape my mind at the moment.

As for CoN, we're going to cover E3 the way we did last year, I think, as much as possible. That means that we'll be watching the big three press conferences in chat, as well as posting live thoughts about the offerings to Twitter and Facebook. After each of the big pressers, one of us will write up a kinda-bloggy recap for CoN news as well. If you want to participate, all you have to do is follow us on Twitter (@cavesofnarshe) or on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/cavesofnarshe), come to chat to make snide comments about the games you're seeing, or watch this space for the wrap-up news.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, we'd love it if you'd reference us in your own tweets or posts about E3, or if you'd retweet or share our comments to your own network. Help us keep our following growing by making sure all seven of your friends know about us!

Source: Square Enix, Kotaku

CoN Likes Quizzes, So Should You!

Tue, 3 May 2011 02:54:52 GMT

First of all, as I'm sure you've all noticed, the CoN home page got a bit of a tweak; you'll now notice two boxes containing New Stuff and Your Stuff. Most of this information was all available in the previous format, with the exception of the new Quizzes heading. It'll work just like the others: when there are new quizzes available for you to take, you'll get a convenient link straight to the quiz page. And it's much prettier now, isn't it?

To make the new CoNQuiz system even more accessible, updates on Facebook and Twitter will be automatically posted whenever a new set of quizzes is available, just because we care!

Finally, in spirit of making the quiz questions even more exciting, I've come up with a themed set for this month: all the quizzes are composed entirely of "Who Said It" questions. You'll be given a quote and the title of the game from which it was taken and asked to select which character from that game said it. The difficulty ranges from pretty obvious to semi-obscure, so it should be fun for all.

With that said, have at them!

CoN Quiz Update

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 02:43:34 GMT

While I usually put up a new set of quizzes each month, this month we decided to take a brief break to focus on bringing in new quiztakers. We're going to be working on a minor makeover to make sure that all of you reading this want to get in on the quizzes every month to compete against your fellow CoN members!

With that said, you all can look for the next new set of quizzes at the start of May!

Caves of Narshe News Available on Social Media

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:42:02 GMT

If you have trouble keeping up with Square Enix news, your favorite Final Fantasy website is here to help by making it easier to keep up with everything CoN posts to the news section.

For a couple weeks now, we've been testing our ability to automatically post our news also to Twitter and Facebook every time a CoN staffer - or you, hint, hint - clicks that "Post News" button. After seeing good results, I wanted to make sure that all of our news readers and forum posters at the site knew the feature was there.

So, if you want to be notified in your feed every time we post the latest Square Enix news, publish news about the site, announce a contest, or anything else, it's easy and you have two options: either +Like the CoN Facebook page or follow @cavesofnarshe on Twitter.

Hope to see you there soon!

CoN Launches Final Fantasy Music CoNtest!

Sat, 6 Nov 2010 20:03:32 GMT

You may have noticed the addition of a new forum at the Caves of Narshe forums this afternoon - we have just introduced a new type of Final Fantasy Music CoNtest at the site. We're going to be taking submissions of your favorite Final Fantasy songs and sticking them in one giant bracket to determine which song is the ultimate favorite of our community.

Of course, it wouldn't be a contest without prizes, so make sure that you check out the introduction post for discussion and for full details of what's going on!

Source: Music Contest Introduction, Music Contest Forum

Minor Forum Update

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:28:52 GMT

Just wanted to let you all know that Tiddles and I performed a bit of minor surgery on the forums today. It's really no big deal, it was just something that needed to be done to work out a long-standing kink on the news submission system. In fact, you lot won't even notice it, I don't think - however, part of the fix is that links that you put in your posts will no longer open a new window. Since everyone with half a brain now use a browser that has tabs, this is really no big deal: just middle click links like most people have been doing for years already.

This will impact only posts made from now on. Thanks for understanding the changes we needed to improve the site as a whole!

Happy Belated Birthday, Death Penalty!

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:25:04 GMT

CoN member Death Penalty had a birthday last weekend, which we didn't get around to posting to the Greetings forum. We've all gotten a bit bad about that lately, haven't we? Of course, by now, you're probably wondering why that's any kind of CoN news. That's a good question, with a better answer: DP is, as of a few days ago, our newest staff member! He's part time right now, as he acclimates to his other new role, that of a college student, and we look forward to him getting started as both our new quizmaster and a copy editor for some upcoming projects we're working on.

Bottom line is this: DP's a pretty robust gamer, so you can expect some really good stuff coming up soon in our quizzes. With his help, we'll continue to beat on you and force you into poor scores for a long time to come, so be sure to congratulate DP on his new roles at CoN before you take next month's quizzes.

In other news, we gave a little bit of a bump for AmaCoN this week. If you use Firefox or Chrome, you can now add an AmaCoN search engine to your browser, and search for items any time you have your browser open. To use it, just visit AmaCoN. Once you're there, you can add the search to your browser by clicking the search engine icon near the earch box in the top right corner of Firefox, or, for either Firefox or Chrome, by clicking the link below the search box for your country. This is a bit of a clumsy process, I understand, but it should make things nice and easy for you, the shoppers, so give it a try and let me know if you have any problems!