WHO: I am a veteran of MMORPGs since the early days of MU*. Back then there were no fancy graphics and just a lot of text. SPAM was big back then, but we made do. MUDs were king at that time, basically online text versions of Dungeons and Dragons. It is upon this framework that most every MMORPG have been based. I played a few MUDs but I found a home in MUSH. MUSH played to more of a roleplayer crowd (dont blame me, I only worked there), but in the MUSH environment I first learned how to code. Crude and clunky, but it was because I became a coder back then that I learned enough to make and develope this site. Since then I, like many others went to graphical MMORPGs and became a passive player of many of the main games including Everquest (2yrs), DAOC (3yrs), and WOW(3yrs).
WHAT: This site is an online repository for characters old and new. As I played MMORPGs I saw characters come and go. I watched as guilds came and went, and entire games rise and fall. As I moved from game to game, guild to guild I noted that everything was disconnected. There was really no way to find players from one game to another, or one server to another. Only if you were lucky enough to be able to keep your original name was it easy for others to find you. This leads to a lot of fly by night associations and loss of friends. This site can serve as a link, marking those characters you have played and showing others what you did and where you have gone.
HOW: This site took a lot of effort working on several areas including Graphics, Flash, CGI, HTML, and database management. And I knew little to nothing about any. I had the above coding experience from MUSH days now 10 years past ..but the coding skills I learened back then did give me a framework to understand thecodes of today. The following programs were used to forge this site.
| Program | My Experience |
|---|---|
| Adobe Photohshop | Novice |
| Adobe Image Illistrator | Beginner |
| Micrografx picture publisher 7 | Novice |
| Bryce 6 | Novice |
| AC3D | Beginner |
| Macromedia Flash 8 | Beginner |
| Macromedia Dreamweaver | Beginner |
| Xfrog | Beginner |
| particleIllusion | Beginner |
Took a while..started this project when I quit World of Warcraft in May 2007, opened the site in early September 2007. I have little doubt that any mediocre webmaster, artist or designer can take one look at the site and attest that its crude. However, I believe I have a solid foundation and with time and work, I plan to make it respectable.
I am no web designer. however I would like to thank the designers at Free CSS Templates for giving me a great start on templates. Take a look at thier stuff if you need templates for your own website.
Whats Next: With this framework I plan on adding different themed areas for character placement (Present day graveyards, futuristic sites, underground areas) . Other sites will be dedicated specifically to prominant games like World of Warcraft (which I expect will soon have a mass exodus) as well as major games now gone (Everquest, UO). I plan to first dedicate my time to improving and expanding the objects currently available in the lands.