Fallout 2
Fallout 2 is a role playing / adventure game that was released in 1998 (see Wiki article). This was my favorite computer game of all time. It was also the year that I launched my first venture into web desgin as a hobby. As I played the game, I would sometimes look for information online due to the game's high interest level and complexity. I was disappointed with the sites I found thinking, "I could do better". Hence, my two joys combined and I decided to make a web site devoted to game tips, items, character information, pictures, story, and NPCs.
The site was my first trial at HTML frames, screen captures to a large scale, and fan based content. At its peak it contained 72 pages of information and hundreds of in-game pictures. It comprehensively covered: ammo, armor, books, characters, critters, encounters, families, food, karma, keys, medicines, miscellaneous items, NPCs, perks, quests, the story, tools, and weapons. It also had some tidbits and tips for particularly difficult sections of the game. I did not provide a walkthrough as I felt the game should be enjoyed by the individual.
Success
I had a great time designing and building the site. I began to receive many hits and about two emails a week from gamers who had questions or wanted to tell me that the site was awesome. It became one of the top 15 hits of all the major search engines I frequented (Hotbot, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo) and eventually climbed to the top ten in more than one.
I was approached by another gaming site who sought to make a definitive website for both Fallout games and the later Fallout Tactics. They wanted to use my site's extensive content as their Fallout 2 section and asked if I would join their development team. Flattered that they had asked instead of simply stealing, I agreed to let them use the content. Development on the new site was aggressive and complicated due to communication purely over the internet. When asked why I had not removed my original site from the web in light of the new one, I stated that this was a hobby of mine that I enjoyed and so I wished to have the option to continue my fiddling. The new site was never completed before it disappeared and I was unable to locate it on the web. As I had never gotten that close with the design team, I dropped it and continued mine.
The Way of All Things
Official maintenance was ended approximately two years after the site's creation. Due to new interests, lack of involvement in the game anymore, and shifting priorities, I discontinued updates. About a year later the pages became unreadable due to the background picture being no longer hosted online. Using a hard-coded path to an image not hosted in a reliable place is a mistake that I know not to make now. Instead of updating the pages I decided to back up the files and take the site down. Unfortunately, while I still have all the html files, the vast majority of the in-game pictures have been lost. As these were taken by me and several magnitudes larger in quanity than other Fallout sites I've seen, they are nearly irreplacable without a vast time investment. So it is the end perhaps for this venture.
