Difference between revisions of "History of Total War Center"

Total War Center History
	The Sale of the Site October 2006 Staff Rebellion; November 2006 First Steps; December 2006 The Besim Episode; Of the Exile; January 2007 The Purchase; Archer's Plot;

Revision as of 08:13, 13 March 2008

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Overview

The Total War Center forums have a long and rich history, much of which can be traced back within the threads of the Curia. What follows is a summary of the major events in the site and forums history.

Note:

Some of the former Administrators or Staff members of TWC have created accounts of their times at the site:

Mi Lucha by Siblesz
The Chronicles of the Prince by the Black Prince
The History of a Society by Belisarius.

Origins

TWC was originally created by Emperor Paul Dacoste and co-founded by The Knight2100, under the name mtw.gamercastle.com, as part of the gamercastle network, that no longer exists. When GC closed down in 2003 it became the Total War Centre (note English spelling of name!) when it moved to an independent server, www.legiontotalwar.com in April 2003.

2003

Early Days

The first year of independent existence was a quiet time for the site. It remained a small cozy and largely unnoticed community. It was known for being a haven of intellectual debate, and liberal moderation, at a time when larger fansites, notably the official boards and The Org were employing increasingly harsh policies. The intellectualism of the site attracted members away from larger boards where deep and informed debates were often interrupted or hijacked by what is referred to as n00bish posting. TWC's growth was slow during this time, but saw rapid rise as new administrative staff were brought in.

The First and Second Triumvirate

As real life issues increasingly detracted from the time Paul Dacoste was able to devote to running the site, its two moderators, Juan Siblesz (aka Siblesz) and Aden Lucas (aka the Black Prince) were given admin status and tasked with reforming and rejuvenating the site. Together with Paul, they formed an administrative Triumvirate. The biggest success of their leadership was the illegal hosting of video recordings of the BBC2 and Lion TV Production "Time Commanders". This show used the engine for Rome Total War, which was unreleased at the time, to recreate historical battles that teams of ordinary people could fight in in a Total War Style. As the show was unavailable in the US, there was great demand for images and recordings of it. Several British members of TWC made these available to the admin staff, which hosted them on TWC's server, and advertised this fact around the wider community. By the end of the first season of Time Commanders, TWC was one of only 2 websites providing the content, and greatly increased its membership because of this. It brought the website to the forefront of the community, though this also resulted it attracting the wrath of Creative Assembly and threats of legal action over copyright issues.

Due to increasing conflicts in administrative style between Juan and Aden, and continuing prolonged absence of Paul, a third member was brought on board to assist in the running of the site. Boris Pavlov Grozny was another long standing member of the community and invited to take the job as the third member of the Triumvirate. This Second Trium represents the start of a golden age at TWC where the perfect balance between community size, popularity content and moderation was established. The Three admins divided the duties of running the site between them, with Juan dealing with website and technical issues, Aden running the forum itself, and having overall charge of moderation, and Boris arbitrating any issues between them, as well as overseeing a new concept on the site - The Curia (see elsewhere)

To summarise briefly, Boris wrote and created a Constitution for the site, known as the Syntagma, and a place called the Curia, which was to be the home of all Syntagma related issues. They also created an additional class of members known as Civitates who represented the most respected members of the site. The key idea behind the concept was that all members would be bound by the Syntagma, including the staff, and that the Civitates, through a form of democracy within the Curia, would have say over how the site was run. The first example of such input was the creation of a Signature and Avatar Policy by the Curia. Increasing conflict arose between Boris and Aden over the exact nature and implementation of the Syntagma, with Boris eventually resigning his post citing administrative conflicts with the "bureaucratic nature" of Aden. This proved to be the first step toward the forum Civil War.