Radio Active!

Welcome to the new age, and welcome to SPIRAL RADIO 101!

There’s so much I want to tell you about this show…

I want to talk about our Beyond the Spiral segments. I want to talk about our commitment to more active blogging, and making the crew of SR101 a much more visible part of the site. I want to talk about our call-in line for asking audio questions and promoting your own unofficial fansite. I want to talk about all the streaming we plan to do – not just Pirate101 and Wizard101, but both single and multi-player games. And I want to make sure everyone knows KingsIsle is still our focus – we are still a Spiral podcast…we’re just keeping a weather eye at what goes on outside our world of Wizards and Pirates as well.

What you’re looking at is kind of a bare bones version of what we want the site to become. We want to have our blog posts and podcasts appear as part of the main feed as well as in a section dedicated to Wizard101, Pirate101, or games Beyond the Spiral. It’s functional – it’ll present our blog posts, offer some contact information, allow for viewing streaming content and the live show, and explain just how our phone line works (although I think most of y’all probably have a pretty good idea).

I guess I should take a moment to talk about why. Why did we do this? Why did we end not one, but two successful KI shows? There are a couple reasons. Some I don’t want to go into, but some I think merit discussing.

1) While Wizard and Pirate are both really cool games that we enjoy, there are weeks (if not months) that go by where there is little news to cover. When the focus of a show is so narrow it can make for some pretty thin shows. I hate going up there and pitching ‘filler’. Honestly, while sales on crowns and subscriptions are great and we plan to continue to mention them during SpiralRadio 101, that can’t be your lead story.

It’s no secret Christina, Jeff, Tracy, John and I all love a variety of games. The laundry list of games we enjoy, MMO and single-player alike, is lengthy and ever-changing. That’s not something we apologize for; even I get tired of hamburgers once in a while (anyone remember that Spiritcallings post?). We are gamers. We’re passionate about gaming, including news and opinion that spawns from that world. SpiralRadio 101 allows us to broaden our focus to a point where we will continue to report on everything going on in the KingsIsle playground, as well as taking a look outside that fence.

2) Limiting ourselves to two shows a month instead of four ensures we can get editing and promotional work done in a more timely fashion. It also frees up time to livestream more gameplay. We’d like to do more free-form, spontaneous streaming of games we enjoy. I can tell you that watching Jeff and I play some World of Tanks is a hoot, and you haven’t lived until you’ve watched Christina play Don’t Starve or Minecraft. We’ll also get together as a team to quest and run instances in Wizard101 and Pirate101 – we hope you’ll join us.

3) We wanted to do, for lack of a better term, a slightly more mature show. That doesn’t mean we’re going to start throwing around wizard swears left and right and streaming Grand Theft Auto – far from it. We wanted to do a show and a blog with a little more editorial freedom. Imagine Ravenwood Radio and P8R were rated G – SpiralRadio 101 is rated PG. I know this is going to turn some folks off, and I completely understand that, but this is the show we want to do.

4) We also wanted to provide not just other avenues to contact us with questions, but a springboard for community members to promote their own efforts. That’s why we’re offering a call-in line to promote unofficial fansites. There are details at the link labeled ‘Call Us’ at the top of the page. We hope to hear from you all.

That’s all I have for now. I imagine you have questions and comments and I’m happy to hear and respond to any of them. There are a couple ways you could get in touch with us:

• Follow us on Twitter @SpiralRadio101
• Send us an e-mail to spiralradio101@gmail.com (you could send us an audio file too – check the ‘Call Us’ link at the top for more info)
• Give us a call and leave us an audio message (again, check the ‘Call Us’ link at the top for more information)

…or just comment on this blogpost. I’ll try and respond to any reasonable (and maybe even slightly unreasonable) comment