The Rathe Times as of this month is 3 years old. That's quite a bit of time already behind us, with over 400 published articles and a solid reader base. So as part of that birthday celebration, a new, slick Rathe Times is here!
A fresh design
Let's start with the most obvious change: the design.
I've spent the last 5 months pulling apart the old design and figuring out where it's succeeded, and where it's failed. The end result is the design you see you before you! I went back to the drawing board and thought to myself "What is the Rathe Times really about?", and the answer to that is: content.
The design has been stripped back to focus solely on the quality of our articles and the writing of our contributors. The idea here is that I wanted our readers to be focused on that content, rather than features around the extremities that may detract from that experience.
Next - I wanted the website to be modern, and very, very slick! I believe I've achieved that with the new design, with interactivity and transitions on most elements, including the very smooth appearance animations you see on almost all the pages, all while keeping the feel of the old website. The new design was very much inspired by the newspapers of old, with modern twists.
Discussions are gone
Two years ago, we implemented the discussions feature, an attempt by us to bring more readers to the publication and to drive more engagement. Unfortunately, this just didn't work, with only a handful of threads created outside of our article posts. Based on that data, Discussions have been removed and migrated back to the article pages they relate to.
A custom subscription system
Since day one, the Rathe Times has been tied to FAB DB subscriptions. When we first launched The Rathe Times, this made a lot of sense - FAB DB was the only real app out there to support our beloved game. But fast forward a few years, and there are other sites like Fabrary that have made a great impact in the community and on the game. For that reason, the Rathe Times is no longer associated with FAB DB for its subscriptions - meaning that subscriptions are now cheaper if you just want Rathe Times access! Furthermore, this gives us a lot of options in the future to tailor the subscriptions and their offering to our subscribers!
With that in mind, we are now offering two price points for the Rathe Times:
- $7 per month or
- $70 per year
The latter provides a pretty big discount (16%), and if you sign up this month, you can use the code: RTRELAUNCH to get a further 20% off an annual subscription. And that discount will apply for as long as your subscription is active! Woot!
Even outside of the discount, this makes Rathe Times cheaper than it was previously, as you had to buy both FABDB and the Rathe Times subs at the same time, for $8 per month. Now, if you purchase an annual subscription and use our relaunch code above, it's nearly half the price!
On the note of subscriptions - the Rathe Times cannot survive without community support. We've chosen to forgo advertisements as a means of generating revenue, in hopes to better to support our contributors. If you love what we do, and want access to all our content moving forward, the best way to support us is by having an active subscription. You'll Become a Legend, and have our eternal gratitude for believing in us!
Better notifications
Our old system had constant problems with the notifications, often with many of our readers not receiving notifications at all for our published content. Not only has this been fixed, but those interested should now get notifications for when articles are published, daily, or weekly, depending on how they've configured it. This means you'll now be notified when new content is published - no need to check the Rathe Times regularly for your favourite author or class posts!
Changing our business model - again.
Last year, we attempted to drive engagement and readership by making all content free (except for Pro Series) outside of our 5-day early access window for supporters. Unfortunately, this has had a markedly negative impact on revenue and our ability to support the publication.
Moving forward, all content will be free for the first month, after which it will require an active subscription to access. This is the inverse of what we had prior, and is our last attempt at finding a business model that works for the community, our authors, and of course, The Rathe Times. Content will still be free, so if you're on the site regularly, you'll be able to read all the new content for absolutely no cost; but if you'd like to read older articles, our timeless pieces, or Pro Series content, then you'll need to Become a Legend - by supporting us through an active subscription.
Another change is that you will need to have a registered account to read all articles. Full transparency: this gives us a much better indicator of the readers we have on the website, and ensures that our new readers can sign up for content notifications, if they so desire - in an attempt to drive more engagement and feedback from our growing reader base - the latter of which is extremely important to how we're performing with our content, and therefore our service and value to the Flesh & Blood community.
New features
Along with the new design comes a slew of new features:
- Light/dark mode for the entire website!
- Self-managed subscription system
- Contributors portal (our authors can now submit their content via a custom-built portal, making it much easier for them to work on, and submit their ideas!)
- A new "Timeless" tag - we've gone through all our articles and applied this tag to articles that stand the test of time. This is content that is less specific to a point of time, rather being more general in its strategy and/or ideas.
- Improved notifications
- Super slick design! :D
Wrapping up
The Rathe Times rebuild has been an epic project, taking me 6 months - about 4 months longer than I anticipated! But I am both very proud, and very excited about what it means for us as a service to the community, but also what it means for our readers, and our valued contributors.
The Rathe Times relaunch aligns with our birthday - we are now 3 years old! And so of course, we have to provide gifts to our community.
Be sure to sign up this month, and get a a whopping 36% off an annual subscription with the code: RTRELAUNCH
Thank you so much for reading - and be sure to let us know what you think of the new site in the comments below :)
