[unofficial weekender] Cutting budgets, adjusting consumation of content.

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

### Start of shameless copy and paste ###

First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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Questions:

• Time: how much time do you take to read articles, news and forum posts? Do you just inhale them or do you read them properly?
• Money: adjusting hobby budget. Do you set aside a fixed amount of money each month for your hobby or do you just “buy whatever pleases you”?
• Mental state: Have ever stopped giving money to some creative person (patreon, ko-fi or similar) because you needed to adjust your spending and how did it feel?

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

My pledge this week/month/year: get my sh*t together financially. I really need to cut my spending even if it isn’t “that much” compared to some other folk I know. So with the exception of SW:L I will not go out and buy any new stuff for the foreseeable future or throw money at any crowdfunding.

Answers:

• Most of the time I just “gloss” over most articles. In that way I’m way too much a TV child. But as of today I will try to do better. To get more out of things other people put efford in. And that is not just for articles and written reviews but comments, answers and project texts. I am horrendously bad at reading up stuff. And I feel bad about it.
• Today if cancelled all running Patreon pledges. It’s about 40€ per month. And aside from some STLs from One Piece (somehow related to Westfalia I think) I ‘only’ get early access to some things. Which is nice the first time but from then on the wait time is the same as without Patreon for something new. Just offset to the rest of the world. Also I cut my hobby budged in half.
• Yeah as said before, I stopped supporting several people today. Not all of them use Patreon as a source of income, some just use it to offset some hobby costs but have a full paid job. But some do make their living of it. And for those I am really sorry. “It’s only a coffee” yeah but if you buy coffee or tea for 8 – 10 people a month it adds up and eats into your own “coffee budget”. I wish this step wasn’t necessary but I have taken all numbers from 2022 and after I deduct all expenses from what I earn there is literally nothing left. Not going into any more detail here but if I ever want to have the slightest chance of buying a home for the family and myself there needs to be more money left after then end of the year.

Sorry, this is starting to derail into a rant about myself and me being bad with money. Just needed that out of my system.

Have some soothing music!

[pagan8thParticipant 10744xp 0]

Usually skim an article to see if it’s worth reading properly.

Try not buy too often… but when I see something I like I might… if I think it’s worth the price.

Not done patreon and no idea what ko-fi is.

[blinky465 17027xp 1]

• Time: how much time do you take to read articles, news and forum posts? Do you just inhale them or do you read them properly? I normally hoover up online articles but in recent months (since I was in Sicily and decided to be a bit more aware of stuff I was “consuming” – like music and hobby) I’ve started buying a paper magazine every now and again.

I like to take time out, to say to myself “have an hour and just read this and take your time; have a coffee – maybe go mad and a piece of cake to go with it. Enjoy yourself, take some time to yourself, and have a little read about stuff you like”. I find this really helpful to “read properly” and not just cram in a couple of articles inbetween Zoom meetings for work, which I immediately forget about.

• Money: adjusting hobby budget. Do you set aside a fixed amount of money each month for your hobby or do you just “buy whatever pleases you”? I’ve always just bought as I go along – as long as I could afford it at the time. I’m not very good at making pots of money for different things, as I always end up robbing Peter to pay Paul. The idea that I’d put x aside one month and doing so means I can’t get my van MOT’d that month? That doesn’t make sense to me – money is to be spent, so I spend it freely!

Hobby spending is way down on my list of priorities – if there’s money to spare, after all the important stuff is covered, I’ll gladly spend it on what makes me happy. But I don’t budget a specific amount; if I’ve had a “heavy month” with lots of £££ on hobby one month, I’ll probably not spend so much the following month – but there’s no budget.

• Mental state: Have ever stopped giving money to some creative person (patreon, ko-fi or similar) because you needed to adjust your spending and how did it feel? Yep, quite a few times. I’ve supported *a lot* of people on Patreon. Sometimes I keep the payment going to genuinely support them, sometimes it’s just to get a specific reward or see a particular thing created, then I’ll drop out and move onto something else.

I’ve never felt particularly bad about stopping supporting someone. But that’s maybe because I support lots of people currently. I give my mum a good few hundred quid a month so she doesn’t have to worry about putting the heating on in the winter, and there’s still a bit left if she wants to go out for lunch with her friends. I give about the same to my little sister who is on a zero-hours, minimum wage contract but a full rent to pay every month. I give to a few charities and support a few of the homeless in my local area. Then there’s the patreon musicians and miniature STL creators – my monthly pay cheque gets spread between a lot of us!

I’m very lucky to (currently) be employed with a well-paid job. But that could disappear overnight – so while I have the money, I share it around. There’s never anything left at the end of a month. But I support who I can, when I can – sometimes I can’t, but I’m not going to feel bad about it! (and I don’t think anyone else should too).

Here’s this week’s music. Yep, it’s another tune I’m taking to the next jam night.
But it’s an absolute belter (there’s about six of us who can usually play most stuff off-the-cuff and this is the kind of song that has lots of room for everyone to play something impressive).

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Not done patreon and no idea what ko-fi is.

@pagan8th https://ko-fi.com/ is the literal hat you put in front of you to have people chug a coin in. It does the same thing as Patreon (set a monthly amount of money that goes to the creator) but also you can make one time payments anytime. You can literally buy someone a coffee (or tea or cake) and be done with it. Heresy Miniatures’ Andy has one too.

But I support who I can, when I can – sometimes I can’t, but I’m not going to feel bad about it! (and I don’t think anyone else should too).

@blinky465  I think you’re right on that front. It’s a voluntary “social contract” of sorts. And I also listen to some podcasts who go out of their way saying: “It’s nice if you can support us but if you can’t don’t stress. Just do the ‘free’ stuff like pushing ‘like’ write some nice words in comments or just spread the word”

I find this really helpful to “read properly” and not just cram in a couple of articles inbetween Zoom meetings for work, which I immediately forget about.

It’s a bit like eating isn’t it? You can chow down some burger from the corner shop but your body will appreciate a well prepared meal much more. (Admittedly sometimes the brain needs that feel-good-burger. Finding the balance is key.)

Back to my house chores. Saturday, laundry day.

[pagan8thParticipant 10744xp 1]

@sundancer When I used to live in Bath (not the large tub like object you fill with water) there was a place called Zeppo’s that did an amazing Chilli Burger… it’s one of the few things I miss from living there… when your brains tells you that junk food is required… you listen!

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

@pagan8th  could not agree more (Also I know Bath as a location as my mother was there during her time at uni for a language exchange. 35 years ago XD )

[holly 12044xp 1]

Pledge: This bank holiday I’m going to paint up as much of the WarCry terrain from the recent box sets as I can. Expect plenty of zenithal primer, contrast paints and fudging around the bits you can’t see!

Music: Delays. Really loving going through their albums, and especially heartfelt following the death of their lead singer.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VAN_0zx7bWw

Questions:

• Time: I try to limit myself to 30 minutes a day, unless there’s a how-to video or gaming play through I really want to watch. Any longer, and I start to feel like I’m failing myself in terms of productivity.
• Money: About £100, but I always find a reason for getting myself that extra hobby treat or Boardgame I “can’t” miss out on!
• Mental state: In all honestly, I’ve fallen out of love with this site on more than one occasion, and cancelled my XLBS for a few months. It’s usually been triggered by some here who come across as very narrow-minded or unaccepting of anyone who’s different to them. In the main though, this is a real nice community and the one I have stuck with despite deleting all my other social media for stress/MH reasons.

nope! Can’t figure out how to embed YouTube!

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

but I always find a reason for getting myself that extra hobby treat or Boardgame I “can’t” miss out on!

@holly that’s where Hypetrain and FOMO gets you isn’t it? Blasted shiny toys! Oh Squirrel!

In the main though, this is a real nice community and the one I have stuck with despite deleting all my other social media for stress/MH reasons.

And the worst part with this (I find) is we tend to focus on the negative. Because even if 99 out of 100 people tell you “well done” we tend to remember that one that said “that’s bad”.

nope! Can’t figure out how to embed YouTube!

You don’t need to. Just copy the “share link” link from YT and put it into your text. WordPress does the rest. No need to fiddle around.  HtH

[blinky465 17027xp 1]

@holly – that’s sad to hear. I drift in and out of this site too, but mostly because the forum gets really quiet and some weeks the video is little more than watching a few guys go over a few websites – then when the WordPress side of things goes up the pole and posts go missing because they don’t get submitted (or the site runs *incredibly* slowly) I flick it off and it can be days before I even think to return and check in.

I really would like to use the projects thing as a personal blog for hobby progress but it’s practically unusable – the whole website side of things has just been left to slide since the boys sold up to Wayland; videos get pumped out regularly onto Youtube and there’s lots of activity on Discord, but the website here is pretty neglected. The cloudflare errors seem to have calmed down a bit, but the whole site still runs painfully slowly most days.

But without exchanges like this weekly weekender, I think the forums would be pretty much dead.
I, personally, owe @sundancer a lot, just for persevering and keeping this side of things going. Without him, I’d probably have given up on Ontabletop a long time ago. Not that I don’t appreciate the rest of you guys as well – just that he’s the one who turns up, week in, week out, and whips us all up into action (even if it does tend to peter out towards the end of each week).

As for YouTube embedding, @holly, just click share and then copy (and paste the link into the text when writing your post here):

@sundancer I think you hit the nail on the head with the whole steak/hamburger analogy.
One of the things that really struck me, on returning from Sicily, is how “industrialised” the food industry is, here in the UK. Many places now just buy in and sell on deep-fried frozen food (many of us in the UK are familiar with “Brake Brothers” frozen food suppliers to the catering industry). And after having wholesome, freshly prepared food in pretty much *every* place we went in Sicily, my wife and I made an active decision to buy less, but better quality, on our return.

I think the same thing applies to my hobby too – it’s not enough for me to “grab a bite” on-the-hoof any more (snatching the odd online article just to pass five minutes of the day). If I’m taking time out to read a magazine, I’m going to do it with at a table with a white tablecloth, using a knife and fork, a full set of condiments and a serviette tucked into my shirt front! (the food analogy thing still works, right?)

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Food analogies have one major flaw: they make me hunger.

Thank you for your kind words @blinky465 and aside from the WAYPN thread, the one about new years resolution and the occasional hot topic the forum really is hurting. For to many reasons than just the technical aspect with the BoW/OTT relaunch.

I still like forums over any other written form on the internet as they provide the biggest usability in my eyes. They are the whole food for consuming content. YouTube is the frozen ready made meals and Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and those kind of outlets are the cheap and nasty chip shop you regret going to 5 minutes later. (Though I’m not quite sure on where to put Discord on all of this. )

Dang it, now I’m really hungry again.

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 1]

* Time: I really dislike painting, so use the internet as a break after I’m done with a round of painting!

* Money: While I wouldn’t say my hobby budget is small in absolute terms, it’s still small relative to my RL expenses and whatnot. So I’m fine spending more on a good price for miniatures I want on KS. I also recently build a 3D map for a game of “Five Leagues from the Borderlands” that used entirely “sunken costs” of basing material I bought over the years. : https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=141158.0

* Mental state: Never given money away to Patreon or whatnot. Started the internet when you got all your information from forums and blogs, rather than video channels.

[redscopeParticipant 2711xp 0]

I managed to finish off my Flames of War British army last week so this week I am moving on to Adeptus Custodes to get it ready for 10th Edition. Hopefully I can get at least a squad of 5 finished before the end of the week.

Time: how much time do you take to read articles, news and forum posts? Do you just inhale them or do you read them properly?

I love reading so I tend to read the whole article or post. Often they lead down different paths to explore a website, find a new set of minis I have not come across.

Money: adjusting hobby budget. Do you set aside a fixed amount of money each month for your hobby or do you just “buy whatever pleases you”?

I set myself a weekly budget and if I dont spent it then it rolls over the the following week. I have been known to overspend as with salute the other week. However it is all in balance if I spend in one area I cut back in another. So like take away food or getting a coffee while I am out I think oh I could get a model for this. So my spending outside of the hobby is very little and it is surprizing how much you can save by making tiny adjustments in your lifestyle.

Mental state: Have ever stopped giving money to some creative person (patreon, ko-fi or similar) because you needed to adjust your spending and how did it feel?

I dont tend to follow people and consume their material on a regular basis for the whole patreon platform. During lock down I did follow a few channels I subbed to however with work so busy I dont have time to watch during the day anymore.

@blinky465 I am glad you mentioned about the state of the site. I was not sure if it was just me having issues but it is pretty useable. The whole site is so slow to load anything, and it is a 50 / 50 chance if you post anything it will actually work or post it twice. I have given up trying to use the project system at this point. Even trying to view the project is difficult on the site.

I dont know if it was the sale to wayland or the lockdown or both perhaps but the community elements seems to be lost. You look back 2-3 years before you had an excited warren in the store making ufo’s for flames of war. While have gerry as lone voice reviewing products it feels very different now. I am curious if physical store is open to play games in because you rarely hear anything about it.

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

I also recently build a 3D map for a game of “Five Leagues from the Borderlands” that used entirely “sunken costs” of basing material I bought over the years

@ced1106 that is a nice looking map. A suggestion if I may: I’d put the city name flags on a pole and use magnets to attach them to the town centre. Makes it much more readable for everyone around the table 🙂

Started the internet when you got all your information from forums and blogs, rather than video channels.

It’s not just video creators. It’s more like something like the CoG/Backstage membership thing.

I love reading

@redscope  I always thought I would too but it seems only to apply to books. Everything else gets glossed over. With this thread I’m really “forcing” myself to read everything properly.

I am glad you mentioned about the state of the site

I did have a “deep dive” into the inner workings of OTT last night. At least to a level that is shown publicly when using a website. The whole site is based upon WordPress but has been modified to a degree that it’s impossible to predict (at least for me) what would happen if you where to update all components to a version that is current. It’s a wasps nest.

I dont know if it was the sale to wayland or the lockdown or both perhaps but the community elements seems to be lost.

I think it was the chronological order: lockdown hit hard, especially with social distancing and to be fair I feel OTT did a great job of mitigating the effects of not being able to meet in person. But at the same time a stream of revenue dries up (the store and in store events). And what started as a blessing (aka Discord and being able to chat even with social distancing) now turned to a curse in some way. Many users only interact on discord on any meaningful level. And for the most part I can’t blame them when the project system eats all your texts and pictures and the forums are, well a bit of a glorified comment system.

That being said I will die on the hill that forums are the best way to communicate in our hobby with a broader audience and only in person discussions are better. OTT needs an overhaul. Maybe eject the project system and the forum to a sub-domain with an individual instance.

Before I get myself kicked out for talking heresy I’m just going to keep quiet right now. Coffee is ready and I think there is an XLBS waiting.

[blinky465 17027xp 1]

@sundancer – as the one guy who’s probably kept the (forum-side) of the community limping along for literally years now, I don’t think anyone could take your comments as anything but constructive!

I’m not sure what Wayland thought they were getting when they “bought the OTT community”, but this website *used to be* an important part of OnTableTop and now it just feels like a legacy thing, tolerated as long as it doesn’t require any resources, while all the focus is on making videos and snippets “for the socials”.

The guys have made it clear their preference is to just make videos of Zoom calls (I’ll be honest, in their position, I probably would too – I’ve been working from home for nearly 20 years and the idea of having to go into an office every day to work is horrible!). But the videos aren’t – for me  – as interesting (as the studio-based stuff).

But I’ve said before – I came for the videos, and stayed for the community.
And much of the community has migrated away from where I’m comfortable (I really, really dislike Discord). So I thought I’d claim my corner of OTT and use the projects system as a personal blog (I tried running my own personal wordpress based blog site for a while but with no engagement, it gets pretty lonely and boring). But projects is unusable here.

So to stay involved, I try to join in with these weekly threads – and am super-grateful to @sundancer for keeping them going. But even that can be problematic now, as the whole site is so slow and the forums are drying up. Maybe that’s because other users are finding the same issues – losing project posts means you give up on that, then you’ve nothing to show when you talk about this weeks’ progress… so you stop dropping into the forums to show off your project posts….

Splitting projects off would be a great start. And trying to get more engagement on these forums would be good – but when a discussion boils down to “I’m just repeating what most of you already know because we talked about it on Discord” then post quantity tends to dry up too!
It’s the kind of task that ten years ago, I’d have jumped at – making a new website, hosting it, building clever functionality for users to make the most of, adding functionality over time; these days I just want someone else to have built it and to be a user!
I may still yet be tempted; but, like my own recent personal blog, without engagement from other community members, it’s a bit like shouting into the void. (fwiw, I used to run a blog with around 30,000 visitors a month which was a big time sink, but also a lot of fun – so I know how rewarding it *can* be too!)

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