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Sudoku   Table of Contents   Cover Page

Sadly, this is actually my final issue of the Occult Fan. I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to provide this for the community after all the benefits that I’ve received in my long tenure.

This article was particularly tough for me to produce. For starters, I don’t have a staff! Through my time, my regular writers Sachi, Kamikaze, and Dox all provided a lot of great articles for you all to read. One of the great touches of the newsletter was new and very well-made graphics in banners and covers every month. Seif did a great job with these and it added a little something more to the newsletter that hadn’t been seen in previous newsletters. Finally, none of this could have been done without Dalamar’s support. His dedication to the site is clearly evident that he could work with me to help release every issue in a timely fashion. While I was the editor of the newsletter, an editor is only as good as his staff and they made me look really good with the time and effort that they put in.

We had some goals going into this that we wanted to adhere to and I’d like to share some of them. We wanted to create monthly newsletters that were informative and interesting to read. I feel that we accomplished this very well. Since my last newsletter, a number of people have shown their feelings by letting me know how much the newsletter was missed. That was the key motivator in coming back to do this final issue.

The other thing I’d like to highlight is the interesting factor. When I first wrote for a newsletter, I was on Ace’s staff back when the newsletter originated. The articles back then were very interesting because they were contoured towards things that the community would care about. For example, there was a Valentine’s Day issue that talked about online relationships between players. That’s extremely interesting, especially if you were part of it. One of the stigmas that I felt the newsletter received in its first stint here at TTA was that it was a plug for TT.ca. I think that could be true to an extent. It seemed like the TT.ca article was the best written one and the others were just fillers. I really feel that the community made a great shift from being a plug to a newsletter that was written for the players, by the players. I’m not staff, and I’m not a coordinator on this website. I’m simply a person with the ability to write material that I felt pertained to the community. Which brings me to my next point, and a challenge to all of you.

Since my last issue, no newsletter has been successful in being released. I’d like to see that change. As a TT alumnus-to-be, it would be nice to see this project continue to not only keep the community informed and interested, but to keep people like me informed of what is going on in the community. I have inquired as to why the newsletter was discontinued, and received nothing but excuses. There is no reason that a person cannot find a few writers to make a newsletter once a month. I wrote this entire newsletter, with the exception of the interview and Sudoku, in only a couple of weeks. Certainly I am not irreplaceable on this site as far as the newsletter is concerned. The bottom line here is for you all to keep this going. Balz has told me that the newsletter adds a certain something to the community, and you all should find a way to keep this project going.