April Radio Update: Now Over 3000 songs!
I'm back for another radio update. Things have calmed down a bit in April after our viral spikes from Imgur and Tumblr, but those posts have brought the radio a healthy collection of fresh regulars and our overall user base has grown nicely. We've continued to work our way through the user request list, adding another 160+ songs to the collection this month. Our selection of songs has now grown to over 3,000! We've also brought on some extra help, a new volunteer to assist with reviewing new music. Serious is the latest member of our team, and he's to thank for some of the newest additions such as Aladdin and Zelda: Majora's Mask.
We've made some minor tweaks and bug fixes, nothing major to report on the development front. There are some changes in the works to how the request system restrictions work, to try and further expand on preventing songs from being played too often and to keep the radio fresh. The script that picks the random non-requested songs has been tweaked and now ensures the less played songs are brought forward and given some much deserved air time.
Let's shake up the request list for May, consider requesting some fresh new tunes! Here are our Top 25 requested tunes from April:
1. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
2. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
3. Portal - Still Alive
4. Bastion - Build That Wall
5. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
6. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
7. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
8. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Midna's Theme (Orchestral)
9. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
10. Diablo II - The Deckard Cain Rap
11. Kingdom Hearts - Hikari (Kingdom Orchestra Instrumental Version)
12. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Hyrule Field Main Theme (Orchestral)
13. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
14. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
15. Fire Emblem: Awakening - Don't Speak Her Name!
16. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
17. Mass Effect 3 - Leaving Earth
18. Cave Story - Cave Story Theme
19. Kingdom Hearts - Dearly Beloved
20. Mass Effect 2 - Suicide Mission
21. Pokémon Red & Blue - Lavender Town
22. Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - Maze of Life
23. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - Ocean
24. Genso Suikoden III - Transcending Love
25. Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Hell March
RPGN Radio Surges to New Records in March
It's time for the monthly update! March was a great month for us, with lots of new listeners discovering our site thanks to a post on Imgur that had over 500,000 views! The flood of new visitors caused some server distress at first, with our site slowing down to a crawl. I scrambled to adjust the server settings to handle the load of new traffic, and by mid-afternoon we were running smoothly and everything was more optimized for future bursts. This also caused the radio to smash previous records! At the busiest point there were 1961 concurrent listeners, and it remained well above our normal load for quite some time. The request queue had over 700 pending requests. Things have calmed down a bit, but we are still seeing many more daily listeners then previously, hooray! Over the course of the month, we streamed almost 5 million songs!
March also had us busy working on the never-ending list of user requests, with over 200 new songs added to the database this month. If that wasn't great enough, MrPink decided to bring to life a very memorable scene for our new animated Chrono Trigger radio skin! We hope to continue the busy trend into April, adding new songs and skins for everyone to enjoy. As always, your suggestions are welcomed on our forums or chatroom.
It seems our top requests for March also had a stir, seeing one of our most popular songs falling all the way to the bottom of the chart, still lots of familiar names on the list. Here's the top 25 requested songs for March:
1. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
2. Portal - Still Alive
3. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
4. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
5. Kingdom Hearts - Hikari (Kingdom Orchestra Instrumental Version)
6. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Midna's Theme (Orchestral)
7. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
8. Bastion - Build That Wall
9. Kingdom Hearts - Dearly Beloved
10. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
11. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Hyrule Field Main Theme (Orchestral)
12. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
13. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - Dragon Roost Island
14. Persona 3 - Mass Destruction
15. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
16. Kingdom Hearts II - The Other Promise
17. Chrono Cross - The Scars of Time
18. Kingdom Hearts - Traverse Town
19. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Far Horizons
20. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Zelda's Lullaby
21. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Kokiri Forest
22. Plants vs. Zombies - Zombies On Your Lawn
23. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Ballad of the Goddess
24. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
25. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
Website Server Maintenance - Sunday March 8th
Just a heads up that the website and radio streams will be completely offline for a period of time this Sunday for server and software maintenance. There are some critical patches that need to be deployed to ensure our services are secure and this will require the system to go offline. The scheduled time for maintenance is 1:00PM Eastern (6:00PM GMT) on Sunday March 8th. We have scheduled the downtime for up to 2 hours, but hopefully it can be completed and everything back online sooner.
We thank all of our visitors and radio listeners for their patience and understanding. This is our first website and radio outage since we switched to our new server. Here's hoping that everything goes according to plan!
For updates on the progress of the maintenance, please feel free to drop by our chatroom. I will keep everyone updated on what's going on if there are any issues.
Top Radio Requests for January and February
I apologize for missing the standard news posting last month, it's been a busy month and free time has been hard to come by. I will however, make up for it with this super double mega post!? with both January and February's details.
But before I get to that, some of you may have noticed recently we have gained a surge of new listeners. This is thanks to a post wandering around Tumblr which has had over 80,000 likes and shares as of the time of this post! The radio has hit new records, reaching 633 concurrent listeners and over 1.5 million songs streamed in February. We welcome all of our new visitors, and hope they will bookmark the page and visit often! I have made some minor changes to adapt to the new traffic, but things seem to be running smoothly.
Oh, the new song voting system has been in full swing for two months now, and we love seeing everyone's feedback on which songs they enjoy. So far two songs have reached level 5 already! I hope to have a statistics page available soon with all the details on top XP and song levels, etc.
Our top song requests for January 2015:
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Bastion - Build That Wall
3. Alundra - The Village of Inoa
4. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
5. Final Fantasy X - Suteki Da Ne (Isn't It Wonderful?)
6. Portal - Still Alive
7. Final Fantasy VIII - The Stage is Set
8. Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily's Castle
9. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
10. Legend of Dragoon - If You Still Believe
11. Xenoblade Chronicles - Colony 9 (Night)
12. Chrono Trigger - Wind Scene
13. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
14. Final Fantasy VIII - Balamb Garden
15. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
16. Terraria - Frost Moon
17. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
18. Final Fantasy VIII - The Man With The Machine Gun
19. Super Mario 64 - Dire, Dire Docks
20. Final Fantasy X - At Zanarkand
21. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Ballad of the Goddess
22. Final Fantasy X - Seymour Battle
23. Final Fantasy VIII - Force Your Way
24. Final Fantasy X - Besaid Island
25. Chrono Trigger '99 - Frog's Theme (Arranged)
...and for February 2015:
1. Final Fantasy VI - Ending Theme
2. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
3. Chrono Cross - The Scars of Time
4. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
5. Portal - Still Alive
6. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
7. Bastion - Build That Wall
8. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
9. Cave Story - Cave Story Theme
10. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
11. Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily's Castle
12. Final Fantasy VIII - The Man With The Machine Gun
13. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
14. Chrono Trigger '99 - Frog's Theme (Arranged)
15. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears
16. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
17. Pokémon Red & Blue - Lavender Town
18. Katamari Damacy - Lonely Rolling Star
19. Diablo II - The Deckard Cain Rap
20. The Black Mages - Those Who Fight Further (Final Fantasy VII)
21. Sonic Adventure 2 - Live & Learn
22. Metal Gear Solid - Metal Gear Solid Main Theme
23. Banjo-Kazooie - Click Clock Wood
24. 007 Tomorrow Never Dies - James Bond Theme
25. Plants vs. Zombies - Zombies On Your Lawn
The Poet and the Muse falls from number one after 6 months holding the position! Of all the songs to take its place, our longest song Final Fantasy VI - Ending Theme takes the top position. I always enjoying seeing the charts change, who will reign supreme in March?!
Happy New Year! New Radio Voting Panel and Modes
Happy New Year to all of our visitors! It's hard to believe that 2014 is already over. It was a good year for site activity and we made some steady progress in developing our radio system, adding new music, features and skins for everyone to enjoy! I'm sure 2015 will be no different. In fact, we have been quite busy the past few weeks testing and tweaking some new surprises to celebrate the new year with a bang!
First off, our radio page has a fancy new panel below the main radio window. This new panel allows you to change your radio skins, it also allows you to vote on your favourite songs (which help them level up!) We hope this will be a fun new feature, which we are still actively developing and tweaking. I look forward to seeing which songs are most liked and disliked!
The other big new addition is the mode selection box, which allows you to listen to the radio with the default Flash player mode, but also adds two new modes: HTML5 and Icecast. The HTML5 player allows devices that can't run Flash such as iPads and cell phones the ability to listen to the radio without any additional apps or downloads. The HTML5 mode should work on any newer web browsers that support HTML5 audio with mp3 playback. The Icecast mode does not play any music on the page, but rather is intended for using the radio page functions while listening with your favourite music player via our Icecast streaming server. This way you can still view recent songs, cast votes and request upcoming tracks without having to mute or block the inline players. Both of these new modes have been tested for the past few weeks, but if you spot any problems please drop by the chatroom and give us a heads up so we can fix any issues!
We hope you will enjoy these new surprises, and we welcome your feedback! Please feel free to drop by the chatroom, forums or leave a comment and let us know what you think!
Almost forgot! Here are the Top 25 requested songs for December, 2014:
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily's Castle
3. Portal - Still Alive
4. Diablo II - The Deckard Cain Rap
5. Chrono Cross - The Scars of Time
6. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
7. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
8. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
9. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears
10. Alundra - The Village of Inoa
11. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
12. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
13. Sonic Adventure 2 - Live & Learn
14. Pokémon Black & White - Battle! Gym Leader
15. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
16. Bastion - Build That Wall
17. Final Fantasy IX - You're Not Alone
18. Mass Effect 2 - Suicide Mission
19. Xenogears - Stars of Tears
20. Donkey Kong Country - Fear Factory
21. Pokémon Black & White - Battle! Team Plasma
22. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
23. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Midna's Theme (Orchestral)
24. Halo 2 - Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix
25. Final Fantasy V - Battle With Gilgamesh
Happy Holidays from RPGN - November Radio Updates
We've almost reached the end of 2014, but still one last month of goodness left. Our site look has been updated to celebrate the holidays. If you watch closely you may even spot a few surprises!
Radio updates and progress continue, although you may not have noticed many changes as we've been focusing on some back-end updates and optimization, such as improvements to our flash radio player, removing some old unused elements and improving the error handling.
Our newest animated skin has appeared, themed after a Final Fantasy IV battle. Pygmyowl went all-out this time, it's my favourite one yet! Song additions have been slow, but we are continuing to progress through the request list as time allows. Keep the suggestions coming, your feedback is always welcomed!
Happy holidays to all of our listeners. Please consider spreading the word about RPGN Radio to your friends, we would love to see that listener counter grow!
Finally, here are the top 25 requests for November:
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
3. Bastion - Build That Wall
4. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
5. Xenosaga Episode I - Kokoro
6. Final Fantasy IX - You're Not Alone
7. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears
8. The Curse of Monkey Island - A Pirate I Was Meant To Be
9. Portal - Still Alive
10. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
11. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
12. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
13. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
14. Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Hell March
15. Diablo II - The Deckard Cain Rap
16. Katamari Damacy - Katamari on the Rock (Main Theme)
17. Chrono Cross - The Scars of Time
18. Sonic Adventure 2 - Live & Learn
19. Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep - Flamerock Refuge
20. Final Fantasy VIII - Liberi Fatali
21. Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
22. Genso Suikoden III - Transcending Love
23. Chrono Trigger '99 - Frog's Theme (Arranged)
24. Top Gear - Las Vegas
25. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
Top Radio Songs for October, New Skins and Songs
With winter fast approaching, we continue to work on improving the radio functionality and features. We've been busy adding some new tunes from our pile of user suggestions, with new entries from Gunpoint, Castlevania, Persona 4, Evil Genius, Crysis 2, Blaster Master, Terraria, and Jets'n'Guns in October. Our music database has now surpassed 2,500 songs available with a huge selection of music still to come!
Also seeing some solid improvements this month is the selection and functionality of the radio skins. Thanks to Pygmyowl we now have some very unique skins available, with more on the way! Be sure to check out some of the newer animated skins like World 1-1, Metal Gear?! and Super Metroid. There's also a nice RPGN based Terraria skin too.
Finally, here is our list of the Top 25 requested songs for October.
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
4. Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
5. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
6. Final Fantasy XIII - Saber's Edge
7. Portal - Still Alive
8. Bastion - Build That Wall
9. Persona 3 - The Battle for the Souls of Everyone
10. Silent Hill 3 - I Want Love (Studio Mix)
11. Final Fantasy XIII - Desperate Struggle
12. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue - Lucia's Theme
13. Sonic Adventure 2 - Escape From The City
14. Kingdom Hearts - Hikari (Kingdom Orchestra Instrumental Version)
15. Final Fantasy VIII - Waltz for the Moon
16. Katamari Damacy - Lonely Rolling Star
17. Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Hell March
18. Final Fantasy X - Normal Battle
19. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
20. Top Gear - Las Vegas
21. Final Fantasy IX - Melodies of Life (Layers of Harmony)
22. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue - Eternal Blue (Rondo - Light and Shadows)
23. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears
24. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
25. Sonic Adventure 2 - Live & Learn
Lots more to come, so be sure to bookmark us and thanks for tuning in. See you next update!
Top Radio Requests for September 2014
First, thanks to Pygmyowl for contributing our new Metal Gear skin for the radio. Have an idea for a skin design for your favourite game? Drop by the chatroom and we'll try to make it a reality.
Now on to the usual posting of the top 25 most requested radio songs for September. A very familiar list, seems our listeners like hearing the same tunes again and again! We have been working on adding some new songs to the database, hopefully some of the new tracks will be loved enough to compete for top positions too!
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Final Fantasy XIII - Saber's Edge
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
4. Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
5. Portal - Still Alive
6. Bastion - Build That Wall
7. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
8. Kingdom Hearts - Hikari (Kingdom Orchestra Instrumental Version)
9. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
10. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
11. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
12. Silent Hill 3 - I Want Love (Studio Mix)
13. Final Fantasy XIII - Desperate Struggle
14. Persona 3 - The Battle for the Souls of Everyone
15. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - It Has To Be This Way (Platinum Mix)
16. Final Fantasy X - Normal Battle
17. Final Fantasy X - Enemy Attack
18. Final Fantasy IX - Melodies of Life (Layers of Harmony)
19. Halo - Halo
20. Assassin's Creed II - Ezio's Family
21. Final Fantasy X - Assault
22. Legend of Dragoon - If You Still Believe
23. Halo 2 - Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix
24. Katamari Damacy - Katamari on the Rock (Main Theme)
25. Metal Gear Solid - Metal Gear Solid Main Theme
Top Radio Requests in August, Fundraiser Progress
It's hard to believe summer is over already! I'm here for another monthly update with our top songs for August. The site has been slow for updates this month as I have been quite busy, but I hope to get some updates and progress done soon. We continue to see regular visitors to the radio station, love seeing the music and website being enjoyed! We streamed just under 800,000 songs in August alone, and have passed the 4 million mark overall. Hooray!
Also In August we began our fundraising campaign. I thank those generous users who sent in their donations! We've managed to raise about 25% of our yearly goal in August alone. The support is greatly appreciated and the funds will go directly to covering server fees for the radio and website. If you still wish to help, you can access the donation page by clicking the red piggy bank icon on the menu.
Now, I present the list for the top 25 songs for August:
1. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
2. Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
3. Portal - Still Alive
4. Final Fantasy XIII - Saber's Edge
5. Bastion - Build That Wall
6. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
7. Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily's Castle
8. Katamari Damacy - Lonely Rolling Star
9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
11. Final Fantasy VIII - Waltz for the Moon
12. Final Fantasy XIII - Desperate Struggle
13. Final Fantasy X - Normal Battle
14. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
15. Final Fantasy IX - Melodies of Life (Layers of Harmony)
16. Kingdom Hearts - Hikari (Kingdom Orchestra Instrumental Version)
17. Katamari Damacy - Katamari on the Rock (Main Theme)
18. Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Hell March
19. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
20. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - Stickerbrush Symphony
21. The Curse of Monkey Island - A Pirate I Was Meant To Be
22. Super Mario 64 - Dire, Dire Docks
23. Cave Story - Cave Story Theme
24. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - Dragon Roost Island
25. Silent Hill 3 - I Want Love (Studio Mix)
Website Fundraiser and July's Top Requests
Summer is half over already, where did the time go! On the upside, our new website and radio server seems very stable, now in its third month. I've spent a fair amount of time lately focusing on stability and improving the back-end of the site to ensure everything runs smoothly, and I'm confident that we're in good shape now. We also have some room to grow on this new box, with increased storage and bandwidth capacity.
New shiny servers of course mean an increase the upkeep costs of running the site, so I've decided to start a small site fundraiser to see if anyone would like to chip in a few dollars towards bandwidth and server fees. This is of course not required, and I will continue to maintain the site no matter if we get any contributions or not. So fear not, the RPGamers Network will live on forever! (mwhahaha...) Still, if you'd like to chip in, simply click the red piggy bank symbol over on the top right menu, or visit our donations page to find out more information.
Enough with that, on to the good stuff. Here are the top 25 most requested songs for July! Some familiar faces on the list, yet again...
1. Portal - Still Alive
2. Alan Wake - The Poet and the Muse
3. Bastion - Build That Wall
4. Legend of Dragoon - If You Still Believe
5. Portal 2 - Want You Gone
6. Final Fantasy XIII - Blinded By Light
7. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - Snake Eater
8. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home
9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn
10. Xenoblade Chronicles - Those Who Bear Their Name
11. Katamari Damacy - Katamari on the Rock (Main Theme)
12. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - Stickerbrush Symphony
13. Halo 2 - Halo Theme Mjolnir Mix
14. The Curse of Monkey Island - A Pirate I Was Meant To Be
15. Final Fantasy XIII - Saber's Edge
16. Final Fantasy VII - One Winged Angel
17. Final Fantasy VIII - Waltz for the Moon
18. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley
19. Cave Story - Cave Story Theme
20. Grandia - Town of Palm
21. Shenmue - Shenhua ~ Sedge Flower
22. Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily's Castle
23. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears
24. 007 Tomorrow Never Dies - James Bond Theme
25. Mario Kart 64 - Rainbow Road