it's really good to hear from you. thank you for all you've done for RJ, for the rest of his family, and for his fans.

good luck!

and i'll let the people at the apple store know who finally sold me on the ipa/od... resistance was futile.

maybe you could ask your local library to order the american version so you could read it before you get the UK book? Books can take a bit of time to get here from the UK.

i take it back. i apologize.

thank you, Spencer.

so many podcasts. mmmmmmm.... podcasts..........

maybe 4th age should be its own website. are the podcasts copyrighted, or can you just make your own page, and charge for the subscription? they don't seem to be a priority, or maybe just not a possibility, here.

but the new ones work. . . can't they all be done the same way?

and why is your help not asked for? it's needed. i ask for it. please help.

Thanks Jason, that was lovely, and honest.

I'm bitter-sweet on these novels, as well. Actually, probably more bitter than sweet.

i really thught i wanted to know the ending to the story, but it turns out i just wanted to keep reading RJ's words. i guess it was the journey that mattered.

i'd suggest. . . beg. . . that you put the podcasts on the old podcast page *http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/blog/3-4th-age-podcast/), with a write-up, and comments, and only one lead post per forum, instead of in the forums, which are all mixed up, have way more topics than podcasts, and are very hard to follow.

also - please, when you get this thing running the way you like, will you put back up the old podcasts, or at least burn a CD and sell it? i would pay more for the podcasts than i did for the TGS audibook. . .

episode 79 was excellent. i loved getting my fireside chat back (and the pronunciations, seriously, been waiting most of my adult life for that, thank you thank you thank you), but it makes me really miss the old episodes even more.

thanks for creating this delightfully addictive "show." but now i'm addicted, and i need a bigger fix. um. now-ish, please. :)

and this will happen while i yet live? G-d willing. pooh pooh pooh.

um. . . and the old pod-casts will be back, too? someone made a back-up? cause i didn't get to listen to all of them yet, and i really want to.

completely agree with misterbutt. (but don't put me in the pool, i don't collect stuff.)

thanks again for your time and your response, jenniferl. i apologize, but i fear both are wasted on me. please feel free to ignore me as the argumentative twit i am.

of course the drop in responses is due to the registration requirements. i very much did not want to register myself, but i really wanted to get the podcasts, so i registererd. and found the board i loved decimated. balefired. *poof*

i Never wanted to Socially Network. i don't want a profile. i don't want to chat in any forums except the podcast board, and maybe the news now and then. i've been here for years and years and i've seen the other forums. they are not my thing. and now they are blindingly animated. studio 54 was less flashy.

the spam was a little annoying, but in a lovely font with an easy-on-the-eyes color scheme, it was easy to ignore. now i get insultingly personal google ads. do you remember when people used to think there was a right to privacy? *shudder*

i'm sure most of the people who've given feedback have been positive. unsolicited positive feedback is a poor indicator of marketing success. most people don't say anything unless they have something nice to say. they look, they don't like, they move on.

but if nobody is critical, nothing ever gets better. (that's for life in general, i know nothing's going to change here.)

carry on. your work is appreciated, even by me. i'll try to wait for podcasts.

@john12 - yeah, i prefer a less public forum myself. the podcast forums were much more comfortable for me. i'm clearly socially inept, but i felt less ashamed of it at the podcast boards. (and i look forward to your post :))

i'm, obviously, bummed about the way the changeover was done. there's not been much acknowledgment about everything that was lost (thank you, jenniferl, for answering the question), or the value that those lost things might have had to some of us.

i do notice that these boards get a lot fewer comments than the old ones did. and i'm guessing less traffic. maybe i'm not the only one who's frustrated by the whole deal, and feeling disenfranchised?

and yeah, i get that this is a fan site, and people are working on this for free, which is incredibly nice of them. but this is also a marketing site, and the publisher etc. profit from the sales made here, and appear to be quite actively involved here. perhaps they could have chipped in a few bucks to make for a smoother transition? perhaps they still could?

sorry, again, for whining. but marketers know that for every person complaining openly, there are a hundred stewing silently. and that should be a concern.

hi,

after a few days home with some time to try to figure the new place out, i have one more comment re the new site. i know it's a comment that's been made before, because i saw it on the bug thread. but the response was extremely dismissive, so i thought it might need restating.

something about the visuals (i don't know if it's the brightness, the font, the contrast, and on the forums in particular, the animated signatures and bits and bobs, or maybe a combination of all) is very painful to my eyes and causes headaches.

several people reported this, and the response on the bug thread was something along the lines of, 'i've been working on the site 12 - 14 hours a day, and i don't get headaches, and there's no way we're changing the colors.'

i'm paraphrasing, and i apologize if i misread or misunderstood the post. i'd try to find it to copy and paste, but i can't go back into that forum because the animated signatures combined with everything else make me feel like i'm going to have a seizure.

it's very nice that there are people with good vision who are not prone to these types of headaches who can freely roam the board without ill effect. but it's not so nice for the people who do have these problems.

i hope the programmers will reconsider and reexamine the issue.

respectfully, i hope, and thanks for listening,

cindy

thanks, jw :)

what is i tunes and how does it work? do i need anything besides my computer for i tunes?

will the last month of disappeared posts reappear?

@ jwillis7 or anyone else who thought i was saying or thinking that jason or anyone else working on this fan website (i thought it was a bit tor-y as well, but either way) was a bad person or was doing bad things - i apologize. that's not what i meant.

what i meant was that i really liked it the way it was, i really didn't want it to change, i really don't like it the way it is, i can't understand it or find my way around, and even when all the bugs are debugged i will still not like it as much as i liked it before (though the podcasts would help, i think).

oh, and i'd be perfectly willing to pay for it to be back the way it was. though, seriously, if tor's not supporting this marketing gem, they should be. this place sells all kinds of books and merchandise and tickets, and not just WOT.

i do know that my own personal sadness on the passing of a peaceful, simple, slow and fast enough, age-friendly website has nothing to do with patience. i get that most of the rest of you like it, and that the greater good was served. but i'm not vulcan.

i do not mean to demean in any way, shape or form, in thought, word or deed, the people who built the place, or the work they do and have done. i am only expressing a sad.

maybe there are other lost souls wandering around, unable to figure out how to do anything, like i was yesterday, or unwilling to join the membership, to whom this may give hope? more likely, it's just pointless maundering.

but jason, i love your work, and i know you are doing your best for far less than you're worth.

just. . . change bad. . . always.

:(

hi jason,

thanks for your time and your response.

in general - - just. . . horrors. . . .

in specificity - - the worst for my brain is that the organization is gone - everything is mixed up and hard to find. before, i had no problem following the newest topic on top of the page, newest post generally at the bottom, clear, large, easily understood headings. navigable would be the word for it, i think.

now, i have to search among columns and frames and bits of extraneous material, and my vision, and attention span, aren't up to it. and most of what i was interested in seems to have disappeared, anyway.

and with the sign-in, everything seems tied into the social networking site, which is just. . . again. . . horrors. . . too chatty for me, too fast for me, and too young for me.

and, shamefully, i did, very occasionally, post from work, which i clearly can't do now. there's still cheezburger, praise the internet, but sometimes you need more thn funny cats to get through the day.

i'm sorry there was spam, but now there's even more ads, which i find harder to ignore.

anyway, as i said, just whining and mourning the death of something i quite liked, and i don't expect any changes. i know my demographic, moneyful as it is, is not a primary marketing target.

thanks again for listening.

:((

(also, there needs to be more than smiley faces in this world, IMO)

i was locked out until this morning. the administrator was not accepting new accounts, and for some reason unless you have an account and log in with a password, you can't post. anywhere.

i can't find anything. the very simple and intuitive organization that used to exist is gone. i see most of the last month's posts never happened. maybe that's a good thing, i really don't know. it's an annoyance among many.

i'm old. like a lot of people who got hooked on this series when it began. it is difficult and stressful for some of us old people to adapt to tech changes like this, especially when they seem to be disimprovements. i have to deal with buggy "upgrades" at work, but they pay me for it. i hate having to deal with stuff like this on my own time.

i feel like i went to sleep on one floor of the tower, and woke up in another, with my door opening to a stone wall.

anyway, general whining and sadness at this dimensional shift. hope i didn't violate any of the many rules of your sign on agreement. thanks for listening.