|
I want to start a Famicom site for years now. Here’s
the story of how Famicom World came to be.
My interest in and love of the
Famicom began in December 2004. As a gag gift, a
friend of mine bought me a Famicom cartridge…Super
Mario Bros. 3. I had read up on the differences
between the NES and Famicom online sometime back and
had really wanted to play. But, even with a game, I
didn’t have any way of playing it. I just put the
SMB3 cartridge in a box somewhere, never to play
it.
As I was putting all of my
Christmas decorations and gifts away in boxes some
weeks later, I noticed the cartridge still sitting
there. I decided I’d try it out. I went on eBay and
bought a pirated Famicom console, a Famiclone, if
you will, and a handful of games. When I received
the system and began playing, I fell in love. It was
fantastic, just like the NES but with more games and
bunches of little gameplay extras. I poked around
the web for sites about the Famicom. I found none.
I then bought a real Famicom and
Disk System in June 2005. That was when I delved
deeper into my search for Famicom websites. What I
hadn't realized until now was how general and
run-of-the-mill Famicom info was. This time I found
only two good sites: Shthree of our forum is still
the webmaster of Famiclone, but it always has
focused only on pirates. The other focused on the
Disk System, FamiClan, and seems to have gone to the
website graveyard since I first came upon it. I had
e-mailed the founder of FamiClan at the time asking
him if I could become a staff member. I never
received a response.
So then, I decided that I was
going to start my own Famicom website, to fill the
void. There were a few problems, though. One problem
was layout and design, which I decided needed to be
out of the way first. I am, without a doubt, one of
the worst website designers on the planet. I can't
use HTML for my life. I even took a course at the
local library here called "HTML For Adults," and I'm
still horrible at it. So, I contacted a good friend
of mine, a guy who you never see around here. His
name is Roy Nemer; he designs banners and websites
in his spare time. I asked him to make a simple
layout on Geocities, just black background with
white text, and red headers and footers. I didn't
want this huge HTML flash-filled slow mess. I wanted
a site only for those who needed to find information
on the Famicom and couldn’t. So without further ado,
here is something that you'll be seeing for the
first time. Only three people have seen this layout.
Feel special, eh?
The original layout
never had any Famicom content.
So, anyway, I had my site, however paltry it may
look, but it had no content. My next goal was to
make myself (and the site) more visible, to get some
help. I needed to stop lurking around gaming forums
and become a regular. It’s never good to come out of
the blue with one post plugging a website that might
not even make it. The only place where I became a
true regular was NES World, where I still post in
the Famicom section. Though my Famicom knowledge was
limited, I was usually more knowledgeable than NES
webmasters. And I was learning new things everyday,
asking questions and contributing wherever I could.
My original choice was Geocities,
but right after choosing it, taking into account
Geocities limitations, I decided, "Uhh...no. I don’t
think so." I needed to look elsewhere for hosting.
The first site I looked to for hosting was
classicgaming.com. They're known as a host of many
websites, including the original host of The Warp
Zone. I e-mailed them about it, and the e-mail I got
back was a rejection, with no explanation. I looked
around more, and even entertained to the idea of
creating my own “.com” domain and pay for hosting.
It was on that fateful day -- Sept. 11, 2005 -- that
I e-mailed Joey Anderson, webmaster of Nintendo
City. I was a little nervous at first, because I
wasn't sure Joey was accepting new sites to host. I
knew he hosted Jason Hogan's website, NES Fanz, and
thought it was worth a try. So there I went…I e-mail
him. This is what my original e-mail said:
Hello,
I'm interested in making a Famicom site, and I'm
hoping you'd like to host it.
What I want to do is make a website to be the one
stop source for
information about the
Famicom, Disk System, games, games released in
Japan only, accessories, amongst other things. I
find it strange that there
are no English websites
available with just Famicom and Disk System info,
always just a small
un-detailed blurb. I want to make the ultimate
English
Famicom source. I have
a preview of the layout (without images or content)
on my friend’s
Geocities site. I want you to check it out. I hope
that you're
interested in hosting
it. Please reply on whether you're interested or
not.
It took only two days for Joey to reply. He said
that he'd love to host my site and by the end of
September he would be ready for it. I was excited as
hell. FINALLY! It would happen! So I waited
patiently, and worked on rough drafts of various
sections of the site. And then, the day came, the
site was hosted! Only, it had no layout, just a grey
screen reading, "GOT HOSTED!
http://famicomworld.nintendocity.com". I
wasn’t going to be able to launch Famicom World
right away, and decided to slowly work on it since
it was just me working on it. I knew I needed to
create a message board for Famicom fans to start
attracting interest gamers. I wanted to create the
ultimate Famicom discussion forum, to be able to
chat with others like myself. I used Proboards, and
on Oct. 7, 2005, the forums were created. Right away
I advertised on NES World, saying that the site was
coming soon and asking others to join the forum in
the meantime. I wanted to let it be known that the
site was in the works. And who was the first person
to reply to the thread join the board?
My post about the
Famicom World forum at NES World.
None other than current staff member and mod Jedi
QuestMaster.
So Joey of Nintendo City (Slushie
on the forum), Jedi, some girl named Emily who has
since disappeared (and probably didn't even know
what the heck a Famicom was), and I had begun
contributing to the boards.
The first and second
posts on the original Famicom World forum.
Then, Joey contacted Jason Hogan and asked him to
e-mail me. Jason contacted me about how we wanted to
help out the site. I was more than happy. But first,
I had contacted Jedi QuestMaster, asking if he
wanted to be co-staff. He said yes, so I had my very
first ever staff member. To be honest, if it weren't
for Jedi's early support, I probably would've quit
bothering with all this in about a month.
Contributing as much as he did, Jedi was the main
reason why I was able to keep the dream afloat in
those early months. But anyway, Jason had also
accepted a staff position, so we were a three-man
team: Jason, Jedi, and I. Jason took a look at the
Geocities layout and worked his ass off redesigning
it and making it look 40 times better than that old
one. It was simply fantastic. I couldn't believe
that he would work so hard on a site that I said he
shouldn’t worry about; remember, he’s also the
webmaster of NES Fanz. Nontheless, he still makes
sure to contribute a lot to Famicom World. His game
reviews are fantastic.
There was more floundering in December 2005 when
Stan Stepanic replied to the NES World thread to say
that he also wanted to help out on the site. I
accepted him right away. You might not see Stan much
here, anywhere, these days, but he's the guy who
helped a whole bunch with the FDS game list and is a
mod at the forum.
In January 2006, the site was not really all that
complete. Some reviews were up and such, but it
still wasn't close to ready. Chimyfolkbutter had
made a fantastic repair article about the Twin
Famicom, which is still amazing to read. He's done
sequels; you can see them all in the Workshop
section of the site. We made a sort of handshake
deal on him becoming a staff member, but he
disappeared soon afterwards. He returned eight
months later, however, citing being busy. He comes
around periodically to post on the forum.
We were a real workhorse over the course of the
winter and spring of 2006. The forum was at its
usual, not really all that busy. The problem in the
beginning was that there was no site to connect the
forum to – we hadn’t published it online yet -- so
we weren't able to prove ourselves as worthy. Most
people stayed away. The staff members were the only
active ones on the boards. In April, a young guy
named Kefka joined the forum and posted a workload.
A week later he asked to be on the staff, with a
fantastic AV mod article as his sample piece. I, of
course, accepted him right away. Kefka's been super
busy lately, like Stan, and has had some personal
problems and school keeping him from contributing,
but he'll be back soon.
This is about when the site started to heat up. We
had some naysayers...some gamer joined up and posted
crude pictures everywhere, and pretended to be the
NESFiles veteran (and current playthenes.com
webmaster/NES Tips videoman) named Roth. I banned
him and his various IPs right away. Ah yes...our
very first banned member.
In June 2006, a huge thing happened. The current
MVP of the site, Jerah Cordova, better known as JC,
joined up. He posted numerous messages and questions
on NES World that I answered and later expressed an
interest in joining the forum and site. I accepted
him right away. JC has no doubt contributed the most
info for the site. He is the man behind the huge
Holy Grails section, and is an unbelievably good
writer. It was also in late June that a guy we all
know well, vealchop, joined the forum. Oddly enough,
he didn't post much, just a few commercials and then
left. He’d return later, contributing a bunch of
graphics for the site and was made a forum mod. Also
new to the forum at the time were some rather
well-known guys like featherpluckinfilms, jbholio
and michaelthegreat.
By July 2006, with the forum finally gaining members
and the site still unpublished, we were nearly
there. We were so close to completing the site for
launch. Various hints about what was to come were
posted on gaming forums. Big news happened in the
middle of July. Joey was so confident in my site
becoming big that he bought a .com domain for me.
This was great news. He also helped established the
current forum. So I transferred posts, post counts,
and other stuff over to the new forum.
Then, on August 1, 2006, at 12:00am, I revealed
Famicom World, officially opening it to 8-bit
gamers.
We got some complaints for it looking like a mess.
It had some broken links, missing pages and missing
images. So, right away JC changed it to what I've
always wanted the site to look like: nothing flashy
but nothing bland. It looks terrific now.
In the fall and winter of 2006, a forum member boom
began, with many gamers joining up and making the
forum and site more active than ever before. I'd
list the names of those who have contributed so much
to the forum and site, but we’ll reserve that for
August 1, 2007. It’s hard to believe that our one
year anniversary is only months away.
Only a matter of time.
|
