Discussion What happened to the free articles?

[Otaku]

All these people that are offering to write a free article should just write an article and submit it to staff. See what happens. If it doesn't get approved as an official article it can end up in the forums and cause discussion there. Rogue decks, opening booster boxes, local competitions and local meta would all be great ideas for things to read about. These kinds of articles could be very beneficial to people and might give them the next good idea for a deck that could end up being T1

Some of us also write articles elsewhere. Some of us have also tried to write articles elsewhere but have had those rejected. Both are true for me.

To write something you think is worthy of being at least a free article here, something you could have submitted elsewhere, and have it just end up as a discussion here in the forums, is not so great.

Now, you are right; the fastest way to get the free articles back is for us to knuckle down and write them. S'on my To Do List, but its in the double digits after several things that renew each day. ^^'

 

[Gruffling]

There are other things that would be worthy of articles other than competitive play. Things like art analyses and type allocations could make for much more interesting reads than the premium articles that pop up but such topics are forum only, which has its advantages in terms of creating a dialogue but there's definitely very interesting studies that could be made on the topics. Much more so than repetitive deck builds imo.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

There are other things that would be worthy of articles other than competitive play. Things like art analyses and type allocations could make for much more interesting reads than the premium articles that pop up but such topics are forum only, which has its advantages in terms of creating a dialogue but there's definitely very interesting studies that could be made on the topics. Much more so than repetitive deck builds imo.

Yeah, I agree with this. I have made a lot of interesting finds with Pidgeot-EX that I would love to share with everyone. New tech is always worth talking about, no matter how meta it is or not.

 

[PineDog]

I tried writing articles for a long time, but I wasn't able to succeed until after it had been shut down. I wrote about Umbreon GX just for fun, as I liked the deck. It does suck that it got shut down as a program. But really there was like three articles every month, and two of those were written by PMJ and Serperior.

 

[Unaki]

This site, like many others feels like a pay site. Any good information, including outdated information is never given to anyone who doesn't feel like paying an absurd amount of money. Subscriber articles should be unlocked after a certain amount of time. And before someone goes on about it, no $5 for a week is not good. That's insanely expensive compared to Magic's popular sites who give subscribers access to information when its most relevant then later on offer it to free users when its not as relevant. If more articles were time-gated for subscribers it would draw in more people.

 

[LBelleBird]

I considered writing articles, but I assumed you had to be an experienced, good player who regularly travels to compete. I can't afford to do that, so I don't have a lot of experience competitively, if any. I went to my first regionals this weekend, even though I've been playing for almost two years. I would love to read the free articles on less meta decks/rogue even, or discussions of a single deck list, even if they were shorter. I'm a decent player and regularly dominated the league I used to run, but I didn't think that anyone would want to read the opinions of someone who has never made day two, or even gone to a league cup challenge.

 

[mordacazir]

Hi guys, I just started writing an article, though there aren't any free ones anymore, but could you guys give an honest opinion about this start. Should I continue writing?, or should I stop? Just be honest!

Hello Water Pokémon Master! So there are no free articles right now but I and some others wanted them back. So we just thought, if we write a lot of them, maybe they get back? Anyway, let's start the article.

Hi, I'm Mordacazir, an experienced Pokémon player who has been around for 7 years in competitive play, participated in Worlds 4 times, and I thought I could share my opinion on Vileplume/Walls in the current standard meta.

Content
The current meta
Decklist
Card choices
Matchups Volcanion and Decidueye
Other Matchups.

The current meta
So, the current meta is pretty diverse. There are a lot of viable decks, though some are definitely dominating right now. I'm looking at you Decidueye GX! Decidueye GX is definitely the most consistent play in Standard at the moment, though there is a rise in Volcanion EX decks. The rest of the decks that are doing well are Turbo Darkrai, M Gardevoir/Xerneas, M Mewtwo and Yveltal/Garbodor. Those are all the deck I will be comparing matchups with in this article.

 

[crystal_pidgeot]

Hi guys, I just started writing an article, though there aren't any free ones anymore, but could you guys give an honest opinion about this start. Should I continue writing?, or should I stop? Just be honest!

Hello Water Pokémon Master! So there are no free articles right now but I and some others wanted them back. So we just thought, if we write a lot of them, maybe they get back? Anyway, let's start the article.

Hi, I'm Mordacazir, an experienced Pokémon player who has been around for 7 years in competitive play, participated in Worlds 4 times, and I thought I could share my opinion on Vileplume/Walls in the current standard meta.

Content
The current meta
Decklist
Card choices
Matchups Volcanion and Decidueye
Other Matchups.

The current meta
So, the current meta is pretty diverse. There are a lot of viable decks, though some are definitely dominating right now. I'm looking at you Decidueye GX! Decidueye GX is definitely the most consistent play in Standard at the moment, though there is a rise in Volcanion EX decks. The rest of the decks that are doing well are Turbo Darkrai, M Gardevoir/Xerneas, M Mewtwo and Yveltal/Garbodor. Those are all the deck I will be comparing matchups with in this article.

Yeah, continue to write it but it would have to be posted as a blog since they can't post them to the front page.

 

[Asmer]

No one wanted to write them even though we offered free prizes. Decent players aren't willing to write articles without monetary compensation. That is just the reality today, unfortunately. I tried my best to offer something that should have been irresistible to writers and loved by readers, but the community spoke and did not want it.

See, now I feel absolutely awful. I've been writing articles from time to time on Wordpress and while I haven't kept up with it in recent times, I would have loved to write for free for Pokebeach (I honestly could give two pikas less about monetary compensation because knowledge should be spread, not bought). If the site ever decides to open a free section again, let me know. I'll do my best to provide what I've learned over the years.

-Asmer

 

[Fayld]

See, now I feel absolutely awful. I've been writing articles from time to time on Wordpress and while I haven't kept up with it in recent times, I would have loved to write for free for Pokebeach (I honestly could give two pikas less about monetary compensation because knowledge should be spread, not bought). If the site ever decides to open a free section again, let me know. I'll do my best to provide what I've learned over the years.

-Asmer

That reminds me. I was going to ask when your next deck / card exploration was going to go up on wordpress?

 

[Asmer]

That reminds me. I was going to ask when your next deck / card exploration was going to go up on wordpress?

Honestly, I need to get off my lazy behind and get to it again. I'm eyeing a few things from the next set, though. I want to do Golisopod/Vileplume and Mega Scizor/Dhelmise because they just look like fun things to write about and I like the concepts, personally. Besides that... I have no idea. Probably something Water-like and... maybe a deck that I currently run... :3

We'll see.

-Asmer

 

[Lanstar]

I wrote 2 articles last year... But I didn't have much time to write any more than that - or that my other ideas for articles were not worth reading about. From this, I feel like I'm as much to blame as everyone else as to why the free article program went away.

That said, I think the problem was the program was just too strict in its standards and focus. Why must it had to only be about the trading card game? And why must they had to be so long winded? I mean, you can't expect the same people keep writing like that over and over again in a solely free blog - and looking at how narrow the niche is about competitive play, you automatically limit the number of voices in the ever so broad world of pokefandom.

I'm sorry - if this website ever wants to sustain a free blog, it seriously must be much more flexible than just heavy articles on the competitive TCG. And besides, doesn't the site already have a bunch of premium writers for that purpose anyways?