News

In keeping with our standard of keeping just a few years behind when things are released, today we added a series of RSS feeds to CoN. For those of you who aren't yet familiar with the concept, Really Simple Syndication allows us to collate the newest content from CoN and publish it so that you can see it from just about anywhere, using a variety of different software (of course, we here at CoN like to use Firefox' Live Bookmarks feature).

We're offering feeds for news, newest fanart, and newest fanart comments right now; simply click the links above (or in the URL bar of most modern browsers, or from the homepage, or from any fanart page, et cetera) to start getting our content pushed right through to your RSS reader. And, if you have more content that you'd like to see from us, let us know and we'll do what we can.

I'm going to keep this pretty short this year, for a lot of reasons. For one, in some ways this has been a pretty long and trying year for CoN, and there's no reason to dwell on stuff that's not awesome. For another, I know that a lot of you out there reading this are borderline illiterate, so why should I make life any harder for you than it already is?

Half of that statement above is certainly true. If you're not sure which half, you're likely in the "illiterate" group. I know that, for me and a pretty significant number of my staff, the last twelve months have been pretty trying both personally and professionally. For me in particular, CoN is both; so when we have a bit of a quiet year, like the one ending right now, it feels like quite a blow to the gut. Now, that said, it's not all doom and gloom for the magical CoN crew. We did pretty okay—I mean, we're all still mostly here. Right?

Seriouly, though, we're still a vital and active site, lack of obvious illustrations notwithstanding. Our daily average hit statistic has been trending up for the last year, which is something that really has never not been the case. We still pull a ton of traffic, and we even have managed to pop into the Alexa Top 100k again recently, several times, in fact. We even reached as high as about 84,000. Many of you might recall from way back in 2004 how big a deal that was; well, now there are even more sites on the internet, and we're still reaching higher into those rankings than we ever have before. For the statistically-minded, and especially for me, that's kind of a big deal. As CoN's "competition" slowly continues to slide into obscurity, we continue to assert our place as the one place where you can still find good data, and not be surrounded by people who just don't care any more.

It was a pretty tough year for new Caves development, so I know those of you who ache for more game coverage are probably pretty disappointed right now. We did, of course, manage to blast out the highly-touted Final Fantasy IV upgrade last October, which frankly is a jewel among our coverage. It's technologically advanced, and covers fifteen years of FF4's life. It even gives us a toehold into the truly excellent Nintendo DS remake, launched just nine days ago in North America. If you're a fan of our visual arts offering, too, you should see our new fanart section. Launched just last week, this new section does everything faster and better than the old one, and it will allow us, as it catches on, to get more new fanart to you guys much faster than before, and from many more games. For a site that isn't necessarily "about" fanart, I think we've put together a pretty wickedly robust offering there, and with it being so easy to rate, comment and submit, we definitely want you guys to get more involved.

So here's what we're going to do for 2008-2009. I'm going to quit my job (well, actually, I might just lose it, but it sounds like it has so much more bravado to say "quit," right?), and we're going to streamline our operations to make things faster and more efficient. This will take place via changes to staff, a reorganization of how we handle our projects, and simply by taking more knowledge from what we've done in the past. Our problem has always been that there is just so much fantastic stuff we want to offer you guys, we get bogged down. It's time for us to refocus our work and really work with you all to give you what you want as close to when you want it as humanly possible. We know we're good, and we know you're good, and we all know the site's good. So let's reinforce that fact over the next twelve months, and let's make sure that for all nine of us out there who still enjoy Final Fantasy, all nine of us are thinking of CoN with regards of how to interact with the community.

You all can still help, too. While we might not be looking for full-time staffers for quite a while, those of you who can help collect data, or test things, or do lots of various stuff, can always help and I will try to give more of my time to welcoming you to do it. There's nothing we do that's truly difficult (well, at least not the parts that we'd let anyone touch anyway!), so all you need is a bit of free time and the willingness to understand how things are done, and preferably the opportunity to hang out in chat and not make an arse of yourself while doing so. And if you can't do that, there's always AmaCoN. Even if you have never shopped online in your life, I would wager that you know someone among your friends or family who does. Get them to use AmaCoN; if you're not sure how, just ask. It's not a lie when I say that CoN gets more done when more AmaCoN money comes in, because the more money brought in to pay the site's expenses, the less time I have to spend soliciting freelance work and the more time I can use on improving the site. We want your money, of course. Who doesn't? But at least we want you to get cool stuff from it. We haven't asked for handouts since like 1999. Seriously.

All in all, we still feel that we have a lot to celebrate with this site. We want you to celebrate with us. Every (decent!) post you make is a little bit of celebration. So is every line of chat. So is every rating or comment on a fanart, and so is every time you tell your Facebook friends what a cool place CoN is; heck, you can check out our brand-new Facebook page to make it even easier to share! Help us celebrate the truly one-of-a-kind thing that is the CoN for the next year, and we'll meet again in 365 days to discuss our progress. And one final note, the big news this birthday is not just here. We've got new contests that will be posted... well, posted just below!

—R51

CoN Summer CoNtests

And here's your contest information! This summer, starting of course today, we're going to be running two contests for the creative folks here at CoN. One will be for new fanfiction stemming from one or more of our currently-covered games, and the other will be for fanart of characters from any Square-Enix game, depicting them on a hypothetical vacation. Submissions are open now, and will be open for some time. If you are interested, or know someone who is, check out our main CoNtests page to get more information. Remember, the only prerequisite to enter is that you be a CoN member.

Some of you will note that it is April Fools' Day. Some of you may also note that we have dropped the ball, as usual. We throw our hands up: we simply didn't have any good ideas for this April 1st. But, we figure, our members are an imaginative bunch. And so, we have decided to hold a quick CoNtest to find next year's gag and spare us the embarrassment 365 days hence.

The rules are simple: Suggest a joke in 3000 words or less by midnight tonight. The entries will be read by CoN staff and we'll pick out the best one for use next year. The lucky winner shall receive a small prize as well as the knowledge that they will be in on the joke next year!

Entering is also simple: Just fire off your idea to [email protected], before midnight Eastern time. Note that we won't accept any jokes that might be offensive or illegal, as even a joke must have limits. But other than that, anything goes, so get the ideas coming fast!

Good luck, and hope we get some good suggestions!

Due to technical difficulties, the latest fanfic update appears to have lived up to it's name. But at long last, Del, who is now talking of himself in the third person, has updated!

First up is evidence of his developing egomania and apparent split personality disorder is one of his own fics.In Final Fantasy I's fanfic section he has cursed us all with the Zulu parody Goblin.

Next up are four offerings to Final Fantasy VI. The first is "Fantasy in the Shell", which as indicated by it's title is a Ghost in the Shell inspired AU fic from Tetsuken, putting familiar faces into a cyberpunk setting. Manoftyr gives us "The Spinning Wheel of Fate", a fiction dealing with a character's own personal demons following the death and burial of a person who has played a key role in their life. Elessar has given us "For Glory", a short but intruging look into the character of General Leo via his orders to a sentry. Next, L. Cully gives us the poetic "Century Sleep", a piece of fanfiction that I wager even those who normally do not read fanfiction will enjoy. Finally in the FF6 section, Flik gives us two stories about a certain pickpocket. "Life on the other side" and "The Further Adventures of Lone Wolf"

In the Final Fantasy VII section we have a single offering from Shotgunnova, an exploration of the human side of the Turks in "Lovemore".

And last but not least, Shotgunnova's second fic of the update completes today's delayed offerings over in Final Fantasy Tactics with the tale of a knight who has made a desperate, and mistaken, move in "Twenty-Four Hours".

That concludes our update, so please, read them. Enjoy them. Comment here or in their original threads. Send abusive PM's to Del about the slow update so he can become depressed and finish the rest of his Vodka supply. And since the idiot who is meant to do the updates is not longer being a lazy waste of oxygen and bad jokes, why not submit your own fanfiction work at the site submissions section of the forums?

One of the CoN's affiliates, SquareSound, has announced a contest for the musically-inclined. The contest, A Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu, will focus on arrangements of the many works of everybody's favorite video game composer.

Details are provided in the link, but, basically, all you need to do to enter is submit a MIDI or MP3 of your arrangement of one of Uematsu's works. Note that this isn't limited to his compositions for the Final Fantasy series!

And here's the part you've been waiting for: the prize. The creator of the winning composition will receive two tickets to the upcoming Distant Worlds concert where they can meet Uematsu in person!

The deadlines are 14 January 2008 for registration and 8 February 2008 for the completed submission. Hop over to SquareSound for more information.

Everyone knows the biggest gift-buying times of the year are all coming up. If you're not sick of the adverts yet, you will be. So, for our part, we've just released some new AmaCoN features that will make it easier for you to get your stuff, and for us to get our cash.

• All of the game index pages now have AmaCoN links associated with the game.
• All the AmaCoN stores for each country now have links to buy several different kinds of gift cards.
• AmaCoN search has been upgraded.

Finally, the most fun new feature, the ability to take Amazon links you already have and make them AmaCoN links! If you have a public wishlist at Amazon, or want a specific item from any of our Amazon countries, you can plug in your information and have a URL given right back to you, which you can put into an email or post on your own site or blog - anyone who shops for you can use that link and CoN gets the credit.

Easy, fast, and always free; that's AmaCoN. If you haven't been, go now and make these holidays happier for both you and Climhazzard alike.