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About Xenogears: God and Mind Xenogears: God and Mind was first launched online on 14th April 2000, at 20:07pm (GMT), however, the story of the site's creation actually begins a few months before then, back in November of 1999. In the beginning, the site was intended to be a home for Dark's Novelization, which he had began writing sometime in October 1999. Once he'd completed a few chapters we were both eager to make it available for fans to read (as otherwise, what would be the point in continuing to write it?). Consequently, I began emailing other Xenogears sites asking if they would be interested in posting it on their site. Unfortunately - or maybe more accurately, fortunately for XGAM - none seemed interested and many simply never bothered to reply. By November, we'd both started to give up on the idea of finding somewhere to post it, and so, rather than abandon the project, the suggestion was made to create a site and host it ourselves. And so, I began work on the site, and Dark continued his efforts to write the novelization. And so, in November 1999, I began work on the site. In the beginning, it didn't even have a name, and it took Dark and I quite a few hours to agree upon a name for the site. "God and Mind" was chosen because we felt the name had a strong connection to Xenogears, and in particular, the plot. These days, the site is known by many people as just 'XGAM'. Xenogears: God and Mind began life as a small site hosted by GeoCities. The purpose of the site has always been to promote the novelization, and provide useful, and rare information, trivia and theories to other Xenogears fans. Since then, the site has grown to cover much more, but the basic purpose has never changed. Our focus at XGAM is always to bring our visitors unique content which they cannot find anywhere else. Version 1 This is the version of Xenogears: God and Mind that never even made it online. It was however, the first incarnation of the site, and deserves a mention, as it was the start of it all. It's a shame I didn't bother to save an example of what the site was originally intended to look like, but when I scrapped the layout in favour of the new and improved version 2, I didn't expect to ever want to look back at it again. Of course, since then, the site has grown a lot, and it's nice to look back and be reminded of what we've achieved since the early days of XGAM's history. Version 1 consisted of a rather ugly, bright yellow navigation area to the left of the screen, and an area to the right for navigation. There were no graphics and there were that few pages that they could all fit comfortably within the main navigation bar. I was all set to use this layout right up until early April, when I changed my mind and progressed to version 2 instead. Version 2 Although the site first appeared online in April, due to numerous problems, which had quickly rendered version 2 practically useless, the official launch was delayed until 28th May 2000. During this time, we received a total of 39 visitors! Version 2 of the layout wasn't that different from version 1. There was a navigation area to the left, space on the right for text, and a banner-sized image to the top of the page. Again, I don't have any record of this layout. Version 3 Although graphically and technically, the site has evolved a lot, the basic framework of the design was first implemented in version 3.
Version 3 was launched on July 1st, and we received a record amount of hits - 73 visitors in one day! By July 9th, we'd had 500 visitors, feedback was good, and site statistics showed that visitors were actually returning! In mid-July Xenogears: God and Mind began looking for staff to help with the workload. First came Weltall, followed shortly after by Sundel, who was soon promoted to Co' Webmaster. Evaron, Omnisoph Etone and many others joined our team in the months that followed. Version 4 In August, I put forward the prospect of a major site design to the staff. The idea was approved, and work began on the new layout. A Christmas launch was scheduled, but due to many problems, it was cancelled, and we concentrated on working towards getting things completed for 10,000 visitors. When 10,000 visitors began to arrive very quickly, we decided the best option was to have a preview site. Though, by the time we had 10,000 visitors, work had almost completed, and we were adding the final touches. Xenogears: God and Mind finally got its own domain name in January. (www.xgam.org) and to accompany this significant change, i payed for a server to host the site, which allows us faster speeds, cgi access and loads of space. |
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