Lone Wolf fansites - dead or alive

[Thomas Wolmer]

Apparently, I have some free time but not enough discipline to use it for what I really need to do... because all of a sudden I found that I had made a thorough search for Lone Wolf fan sites. This is what I found, when it comes to sites in English:

• KaiLord's site - supposedly alive but, er, KaiLord, what has happened here? The trading forum seems to work OK.
  
• The City of Hammerdal - this is our very own Ronan's somewhat secret Durenor-oriented site. What is the status of this one?
  
• Where Eagle's Fly - the site of the Lone Wolf ERPG, hosted by Wise Eagle/Robert Ekblad. It's alive, although parts of the website is lagging behind. The ERPG is about people cooperatively writing stores about their own New Order Kai Lords, following the rules of the books.
  
• World of AD&D - Orion Pobursky's (partial) AD&D conversion of Magnamund character classes, last updated in 2003. If you are not satisfied with Mongoose's LW RPG, perhaps.
  
• Magnamund.org - Last touched in 2003, but no new content since 2002. This was meant to be a portal site for Lone Wolf related stuff on the web, and some interesting things like the Rising Sun webzine issues are stored here. Who is/was responsible for this site? Was it Julian Egelstaff?
  
• The City if Tahou - bilingual (English/Italian) site by Mike Ricotti, last updated in 2002. The Italian version has more contents.
  
• The Dark Forest of Fernmost - last updated in 2002.
  
• Kinam's Kastle - last touched in 2002, but no new contents since 1999.
  
• The City of Toran - Rick Grotzky's site, last updated in 2001.
  
• Lone Wolf Resource Centre - last updated in 2001.
  
• The Great Library of Sommerlund - last updated in 2001
  
• The Kai Monastery - Julian Egelstaff's first in the field site, last updated in 2000.
  
• Desert Lynx's Oasis - Jonathan Blake's once (and maybe still?) best-in-class site, last updated in 2000.
  
• Lake Vorndarol - Peter Cook's not so content rich site, last updated in 2000.
  
• The Claws of Helgedad - Jeffrey Li's Darklands oriented site, last updated in 1998 or 1999 it seems.
  
• E.S.Korp's Lone Wolf page - last updated in 1998. They have a PC game version of Flight From the Dark there - has anyone tried it?

Have I missed any? Do we have any of the owners of the sites here (other than the obvious ones) who'd like to comment on the future of their sites?

[Banedon]

I used to have one (The Lone Wolf Dimension), but it never got off the ground becauss I am extremely lazy...now it's gone though...

[Ghost Bear]

the ERPG (Where Eagles Fly) is still active, but rather slow at the moment.

-GB

[Kai Lord]

My apologies to those who visit my site. I started restructuring it a while back and left in the mix of things I had going on.

It will be revived this next period I'm off (Thu-Tue).

KL

[KaiLord]

Okay, I'm back up and running again--my website, that is. All links should be functional, and I've finally added the 8x10 printable checklist of covers.

KL

[WinterWolf]

Here is a new site I found today. Looks like it will be aimed mainly at the RPG and is worth a look. It could be a useful place to put new LW RPG material.

2e1x1.net/lonewolf/index.php

[Black Cat]

WinterWolf said:

Here is a new site I found today. Looks like it will be aimed mainly at the RPG and is worth a look. It could be a useful place to put new LW RPG material.

2e1x1.net/lonewolf/index.php

It seems it came to life only a few days ago. It's very dynamic. We can even dowload the picture of the Sommerswerd made by Kai Lord. I think it will be a great site.

[KaiLord]

The Tower of the Sun is (imo) going to be highly popular. It's combining in one site everything that others have always wanted (and that I tried to do and failed), so it has my whole-hearted appreciation and devotion.

And as more people know about it and participate, the site will only become better, so everyone--do yourself a favor and go check it out and register.

KL, glad to be reliving the Kai dreams of childhood

[Black Cat]

There's only one thing that bothers me in this new website: its forum. It is too similar with the one we have here, with the same sections and all. A lot of things that were said in this forum might get repeated in the Tower of the Sun's forum. So, I believe it will contribute to devide the internet community of Lone Wolf's fans into two gangs: one that hangs out at the Project Aon's forum and the other one in the forum of the Tower of the Sun. People that are participating actively in one forum might not have the energy to repeat what they have said there in the other forum. It will not be good for both sites. So, instead of making two similar forums, why not unite both? Creating one forum will make this community stronger and assure its perpetuity. It will also help both websites to get a better visibility among the community. I'm asking this because both websites are completing each other very well and it would be sad to see both of them competing to get more members on their forums. I prefer to see them getting their forums together so they can become better. I'm asking it also for the good of our fellowship. So, if any of you have a decisive power in any of the two forums (or both), please, take in consideration my plea, and give us some feed-back on it. Thanks.

[Thomas Wolmer]

I have already been thinking about that. One reason that it's very similar is that the Church guy even nicked my board descriptions.

The Project Aon forum was not initially intended to be a general a discussion forum. I'd have nothing against closing the Tavern section (or, technically, lock it for new postings) and directing users to TTotS (we like abbreviations don't we? if there is support for it. My only problem with the TTotS forum is that it feels slower than ours.

Maybe it's time for a poll...

[North Star]

You could always have the same forum on both pages?

NS.

[Black Cat]

The TTofS forum has not a lot of things in it right now, so it would be better for the moderators to close it and put a link to this forum instead, but maybe they wouldn't want to do it because they'd want to keep their status of moderator. But I agree with the solution of North Star, which was the one that I had in mind when I wrote my precedent post, by putting the same forum on both pages (and maybe accept the moderators of TTofS as new moderators in PA?). Closing the Tavern section here wouldn't do much good to the users because they will have to constantly navigate between both forums to keep track of what was said in it when they'll do references to it. Anyway, I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one here who saw that problem coming.

[Thomas Wolmer]

Here at ProBoards we don't have either control over, or access to, the forum backend. So this interface is fixed (except for customizations like colours, header/footer, poster category names, etc,), we cannot integrate these boards in another site. Or move the user & postings database somewhere else.

For those reasons a self-hosted forum is preferrable; we (Project Aon) had to go by something like this since we had idenitied the need for a forum but just couldn't find any (reliable & well-bandwidthed enough) machine to set up our own on.

For the same reasons I can see why the TTotS crew want to keep at least the boards relating to their "community activities" at their site.

[Darklord Vashna]

Although the board descriptions are the same as for PA I think people will discuss different things on TToTS.

I can see what you mean Black Cat about many topics being duplicated and the worry that you might miss something, but in my mind the websites have different goals and for the simple reason that people will not have the energy to duplicate posts will result in the 2 forums being different.

TToTS is a fun page that allows you to download stuff, like Ronan's books and Kai Lord's excellent artwork and builds on the information already collated by older Lone Wolf sites, like Dessert Lynx's and the Monastery. Just like Thomas said I see the TToTS forum basing itself around its own "community activities" and fan-based work, just as Ronan's forum does for his works.

The source of discussion for the PA forum is completely different - I've noticed that even if a thread isn't discussing a topic about a book being published, or currently edited, etc, the thread in question still started because someone was interested in or queried a topic arising from the books on the PA site.

Besides, becasue you guys are legends in your own right due to what you all do for PA, meaning this is the difinitive LW forum and no-one can take that away from you.

[Winterhawk]

Well I don't post on the Project Aon boards for a few reasons but I felt TotS needed to weigh its voice in on this thread.

Tower of the Sun was not developed to help augment Project Aon. It was developed becase of the original intent of this thread, the growing number of defunct Lone Wolf Fan sites out there. TotS offers its members something unique, the ability to directly contribute to the site and community, not just be a Forum member and sit back while others manage everything. While Project AOn's focus is on the gamebooks, TotS' focus is on the evolving D20 RPG and to the development of community content like Kekataag's Book of the Magnakai.

So now I will address some of the specific questions raised here:

Black said:

There's only one thing that bothers me in this new website: its forum. It is too similar with the one we have here, with the same sections and all. A lot of things that were said in this forum might get repeated in the Tower of the Sun's forum. So, I believe it will contribute to devide the internet community of Lone Wolf's fans into two gangs: one that hangs out at the Project Aon's forum and the other one in the forum of the Tower of the Sun. People that are participating actively in one forum might not have the energy to repeat what they have said there in the other forum. It will not be good for both sites. So, instead of making two similar forums, why not unite both?

The Forums are similar to a point, especially on our launch, this was to provide a familiarity for new users, so that they would know where certain things were suposed to go so that the staff of TotS would not be moving every post for it being in the incorrect forum. However as I stated the differences that have grown between the two forums are now very apparent. TotS will not "share" or "redirect" their forums to Project Aon's for a few reasons. One, the Forums are an integrated part of the site's design and they have been designed to have unique content that sets them apart from any other Lone Wolf Board (see the medals system and user stats on the site.) Second it is important for there to be a distinct line drawn between the important work Project Aon does for the preservation of the old world and the new work that is being done for the d20 RPG at TotS.

Thomas said:

My only problem with the TTotS forum is that it feels slower than ours.

You may be correct, but that is also because as a test, before too much of an investment was put forth, the site was hosted as a subdirectory of an existing site. As of today TotS has registered it's own domain name and will be moving to a dedicated server within the next week.

North said:

You could always have the same forum on both pages?.

No, TotS does not wish to fall under the scope or governance of any of the Licence or Copyright restrictions that are by nature a part of PA. We wil retain our separation and legal independence and continue to develop oursleves as a community based nexus for LoneWolf, the d20 RPG, and the recently announced LWO.

Thanks for taking the time to read all of this, I hope you can possibly see things from our perspective at TotS a little more clearly. We do not seek to usurp or supplant PA, we seek to act independently and develop a true community where everyone can contribute.