vaderSW1
Dark Knight of the Red Wings
Sorry.
Regarding the potential review copy of XV (and, hopefully, the eventual VII remake), I would rather have someone, anyone, on our staff team get hold of it than miss out because we can't decide who should get it. I think it would do TLS a world of good, and I trust in the other members of our team to have similarly unselfish attitudes. Though if I worked for Square Enix, I probably wouldn't give us a copy of XV at the moment - VII is a different matter, since that's our speciality, and since we'll (hopefully) have a more professional-looking operation going here by the time that swings around.
Speaking of VII, we did decide at the beginning of the year that we'd branch out into covering the series as a whole, while keeping our VII focus. That was before the remake announcement, of course. I think everyone realises, even without it being explicitly stated, that covering the remake will be our absolute #1 priority from now until many years after its release (when I put it like that, I can see why Shademp decided to step down). That's not to say we can't cover other stuff as well, but it will have to take a back-seat whenever there's remake news.
In regards to obtaining an advance/review copy of FFXV or any other future FF game, I hope to establish a relationship with SE where they would send these copies to me. At that point, I am almost 100% certain that SE would make me sign something saying that I won't share it with anyone else. Which means, I will likely be doing the playthroughs and reviews. However, if I can swing it, I am going to seek permissions to have a core group of folks on the TLS staff that could assist with reviews in the event that I could not complete a playthrough for whatever reason.
For me though, the most important part of attempting this is not the ability to get the advance/review copies of the games. It is about building a working relationship with SE. It is about the possibility of TLS being able to have access to interviewing the creators and the voice talents behind all Final Fantasy and related games. It is about helping to build and establish the TLS brand. I think this would be a momentous step if we could get that relationship with SE. It might be a long shot but it is worth it.
I have already reached out to SE. I'm awaiting a response from the PR team to see what they have to say. I was very considerate and put the email together in a professional manner. I wanted them to see that building this relationship would be mutually beneficial. We'll see what comes of it.
To your point about having the FFVII remake take precedence over anything else in the FF franchise, clearly we are a FFVII centered community. I would not argue against giving the FFVII remake top priority. However, lets make sure we don't close the door on having other FF games covered as well. If we get the opportunity to get a review copy of FFXV from SE, we should take it and run with it. We should give it priority/top billing. Why? If we do a good job, then it creates opportunity for further advance reviews and other projects SE might work with us on.
There should be a way, when we do the site redesign, that we can do like a scrolling news box. Similar to the way that He-Man.org has their news box. It would feature the latest 5 stories and it just scrolls through them every few seconds. It would give all stories a top billing if you will. Plus we could still give viewers a chance to go through older news stories as well. Also, if you look at that He-Man.org website you can see what I have been talking about with the Wiki-style ability to let our users build a games/collectibles database. Take a look at how it's set up. Whenever a user adds something new or edits an existing entry, it has to be approved by an admin first. The database also allows users to add entries to their own personal collection. Then on the home page of He-Man.org, they run a little widget that randomly showcases a particular item/collectible or a collection from one of the users. It's pretty nifty and something I feel we could offer on TLS that no other FF fan site is doing.
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