Sorcerer's Place Happenings #198 - 15 Years Online!

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Like I mentioned in this forum thread a while ago, Sorcerer's Place is officially 15 years old today! Anyone still remember 1999?

In these 15 years we've seen a number of big changes in the gaming world – we've gone from the ubiquity of fansites and their communities to relative obscurity as the focus has shifted over to wikis and user-generated and maintained content (along with the official forums), from a small number of very influential gaming websites to endless scores of somewhat less influential ones (but each with a faithful audience), from a regular influx of new D&D cRPGs to a virtual draught as Wizards of the Coast now seem to be interested only in MMO and Facebook D&D games... the only constant in all these years seems to be change and in truth, there's very little today that is the same as it was 15 years ago. Most fansites of our kind have died off long ago, leaving a more or less noticeable void behind that the new forms of media did not always manage to fully fill, but that's the price of progress.

Even though the level of activity on the site and the message boards has lessened over the years, I'm glad that many of our staff members have stuck with me in maintaining and adding to Sorcerer's Place to this day, so here's to Blackthorne TA, Beren, dmc and somewhat MIA Montresor and Marceror! I'm sure that you'll all join me in thanking them for helping me keep SP in good shape for everyone to enjoy.

Sorcerer's Place today is a relic of a by-gone era in more ways than one. Back when I started it it was certainly much more necessary for the support and enjoyment of the games that we covered than it is today – perhaps with the exception of the now classic (A)D&D titles that SP remains the largest source of (downloadable) content for. Life and work commitments have left me with far less time to work on the site over the last 5+ years than I would have liked, but I try to do the best that I can in the time available to me – even if that means only making sure that Sorcerer's Place remains online and gets the most critical updates necessary.

I'm proud of everything that we've achieved as a community over the years and that despite all the changes, many people still visit Sorcerer's Place on a more or less regular basis. I've learned my lesson about promising to deliver things that in reality I may not be able to in a timely fashion, so in the future I intend to make some of the things that I've been promising for a long time happen first – and announce afterwards. So stick around – we aren't done here yet.

P. S.

Some of the things that I'm working on will require purchasable software, so any donations to help cover those costs will be heartily appreciated. In celebration of our 15-year anniversary, all SPS account donations made over the next 30 days will bring you double the usual subscription time, e.g. a 3-month subscription will last you 6 months, a 6-month subscription a full year, a 1-year subscription 2 full years... you get the picture. Read about the benefits on this page and sign up here!