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 -Lord Trawnbull Thickstripe January 22nd, 2005 Recently, I was browsing the editorial section of The Long Patrol. Being a long time member and editorial writer myself, I felt like refreshing myself on some of the previous pieces, since it had been a while. The very first editorials in the selection cover a series of arguments and responses on Terrouge. I reflected on this, and came to some realizations. I remember when Terrouge first came out, it didn't even have an official domain, but was still widely successful. I followed it in it's early days, but started to lose interest once they tried to become more "professional". While the monthly cover art is impressive, it's content is lacking. They went from a love of Redwall to just pushing their name everywhere. I'm surprised they don't sell a subscription, or some sort of Terrouge products. It would make a lot more sense if this were for financial reasons, but apparently it's not. Wait. Wait! I was wrong! I just noticed Terrouge has a "bookstore", where they sell Redwall-related gear through Amazon.com. It appears money is in fact a large interest to the writers of this magazine. That says a lot. Begging for handouts insteading of willingly giving something to the Redwall Online Community(ROC). Terrouge has stopped becoming "Redwall's e-zine", but more of an e-zine with an occasional Redwall mention. In fact it seems like the articles on Redwall feel forced, rather than relished in. Let's look at the December 2004 issue, the most recent one: We have....an editorial on Instant Messaging....ok. An article on....proper punctuation...hmmmm Something that looks like a short story...I can't really tell. All I can tell is that it has absolutely nothing to do with Redwall. Four articles blatantly advertising Terrouge's "reality game". More of a waste of space in my book. Another page advertising someone else's online roleplaying. But this is "Redwall's e-zine" right? Let's see how many Redwall articles they have for December. Oh. Here's one on a fanfiction review. Very invigorating. Here's one on "time" in the series. This could actually be intersting. Oh and a final article on what it means to be a Redwall warrior. I wonder how many countless times something like this has been published here. Three whole articles...MAYBE...on Redwall. I'd really like to say only 1. What has happened? You look at the archives, you have whole issues, dedicated directly to Redwall. Various Redwall webmaster interviews, editorials on Brian Jacques, ROC issues, Redwall recipes, how adults deal with Redwall..the list goes on! This was once a great publication, with interesting articles and features, fun times, and maybe even relevant content. And what has Terrouge has become now? A haven for cynic RPG players? It's fallen through, and it's very sad. I don't think this is where Josh Boycott intended his idea to go. I think he'd be disheartened. A look at the staff pages shows a website in disarray. Multiple reporters' profiles link to dead sites. Broken images are at the top of almost every page. Hardly any even mention Redwall, and if they do, it's very brief. One reporter even goes as far to say that he "[doesn't] read [the series] as rabidly as [he] did in the past". Wouldn't writers priding themselves on a series they love be a little more up to date? Let alone having a proper webmaster... Sounds like a fresh start would be nice. Terrouge is done, and overrated. The main page doesn't even say what they are any more, it's a blog. You just have to know what Terrouge is to read it I guess. How elitist. I'm sure tears are being shed all over the ROC. Let's get with the program, Terrouge. It's contemptible how commercial you've become. -Lord Trawnbull Thickstripe | |