BlackChampagne.com -- No longer new; improvement also in question.

BlackChampagne Home Buy Crap! I get 5%. Direct donations to cover hosting expenses are also accepted. Site Information --What is Black Champagne? --Cast of Characters & Things --Your First Time. --Design Notes --Quote of the Day Archive --Phrase of the Moment Archive --Site Feedback --Contact/Copyright Info Blog Archives --Blogger Archives: June 2005- --Old Monthly Archives: Jan 2002-May 2005 Reviews Section Movie Reviews (153) Ten Most Recent Film Reviews: --Infernal Affairs -- 5.5 --The Protector/Tom Yum Goong -- 6 --The Limey -- 8 --The Descent -- 6 --Oldboy -- 9.5 --Shaolin Deadly Kicks -- 7 --Mission Impossible III -- 7.5 --V for Vendetta -- 8.5 --Ghost in the Shell 2 -- 8 --Night Watch -- 7.5 Book Reviews (76) Five Most Recent Book Reviews: --Cat People -- 4 --Attack Poodles -- 5 --Caught Stealing -- 6 --The Dirt, by Motley Crue -- 7.5 --Harry Potter #6 -- 7 Photos Section --Flux Photos --Pet Photos (7 pages) --Home Decor Photos --Plant Photos --Vacation Photos (12 pages) Articles See all 234 articles here. Fiction Original horror and fantasy short stories. Mail Bags Index Page Features --Links --Slang: Internet --Slang: Dirty --Slang: Wankisms --Slang: Sex Acts --Slang: Fulldeckisms --Hot or Not? --Truths in Advertising Band Name Ratings (350 Rock Bands Listed) FAQ -- Feedback A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z Hellgate: London --The Unofficial HGL Site --The Hellgate Wiki Diablo II --The Unofficial Site --Flux's Decahedron --Middle Earth Mod
	BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: HellgateWiki.com Thursday, March 08, 2007 HellgateWiki.com I haven't mentioned it since I figure if you care about Hellgate: London, you're reading my HGL site already, but yesterday the wiki I've been toiling on for the past couple of weeks went online, and it's pretty shiny. The main page is here, and it'll mean nothing to you if you're not a gamer or interested in HGL, but it's far and away the best source of HGL info online. At least the best in English; there are some pretty good Korean and German sites, but while my monolinguistic self isn't in a position to judge them accurately, from the content I've seen they can't offer anything approaching the depth and breadth of the wiki I've created. And yes, I'm comparing the quality of fansites, in different languages, for a computer game that doesn't technical exist yet. This is the Internet, what did you expect, reality? There are like a dozen other large HGL sites, and most of them have wikis, but most of them are run by people who can't write content, or who are lazy, so it's no real chore to have the best content online at this point. Whether that will translate into the busiest site remains to be seen; several other sites are busier now, largely because they were online a year or more before the one I'm working on and pre-release fans tend to be loyal to their original favorite fansite, but realistically we're all just trading the same few thousand fans back and forth. When the beta begins and then the game gets released later this year; that's when it gets interesting, since there will come an enormous influx of new fans, and at that point the best site may well win by velcroing most of the new eyeballs. Things were like this pre-Diablo II as well, and then once the beta started we (diabloii.net) had more traffic in a day than we'd had in previous months, and were soon the unchallenged leader in the D2 fansite world. I was there when it happened, and a chief architect of it, but in retrospect I don't really know how or why it happened. Our site had the most content and we were as good as anyone else on news, but there were a lot of other D2 sites trying just as hard as we were, and providing pretty good coverage of the game. Why did Dii.net win so decisively in the site wars? I think we did the best overall job, but since when, outside of the fantasies of free marketeers, does that really matter? Great restaurants and movies and music fail unnoticed every day, while McDonalds, Wild Hogs, and The Pussycat Dolls are massive successes. I wish I knew, since I'd like all my hours of work on the HGL site to pay off in traffic, popularity, influence, and maybe even some ad revenue, one of these years. And it would help if I had a blueprint to follow from last time. On the other hand, I haven't looked at any site stats in months, I never look in the forums of the other busy HGL sites to count their posts or visitors, and I don't really spend any time scheming how to hook more readers. I think I'm more interested in having the best site in an abstract sense -- I want to know it's the best, and I'd like people to come and view it, but it's not a real burning passion at this point. Too many other things to worry about, which wasn't the case back in like 1999 when D2 and the D2 site were my life. At any rate, the HellgateWiki.com portion of the site is fully-stocked and has a tremendous amount of updated content about the game, so if you liked D2 and have been thinking about checking out HGL, now's not a bad time to do so. There's brand new news about Templar subclasses, and a new cinematic, and lots of new, really nice screenshots, etc. Though most of that stuff is on the main site, not in the wiki, so I'm not entirely sure why I'm mentioning it. Still no word on the beta starting, and they'd hoped to be into the alpha 3 months ago, and it's still not ready, so maybe we should get less bullish on them making their promised "Summer 2007" release window? Labels: gaming, Hellgate: London Posted by: Flux # 10:31 PM Comments: Hey Flux, the wiki looks great, but I gotta say, it does kinda look like you just ripped off the DII site. Same colors, menus, and fonts. #: 6:27 PM posted by Jeff Yeah, I was surprised at the color scheme too. I mentioned it in one of the threads on the wiki support forum, that I didn't do the layout, Rush did all the technical stuff. I just did the content, and he went through about 5 different color schemes/designs, before finally hitting upon the final dii.net-esque design. I like the site main page colors, black with the very dark red, and I'm less fond of the wiki skinning, but it's not bad. I just didn't want it to be gray and dark blue, since seemingly every other HGL site has that scheme. I wish the new forum skin wasn't so gray, but I don't dislike it, and the overall site is a collaborative effort. I'm sure there's plenty about the content and stuff I do that Elly and Rush would change, if they had the magic wand I'd wave to alter the appearance somewhat. http://hellgate.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2097 #: 6:55 PM posted by Flux Post a Comment << Home Archives May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2012

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