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Site History

And now a little excursion into this site's history, from the raw beginnings to the present day! By the way, whoever would like to follow the site history news-wise once, can gladly take a look into the News Archive here.

The Beginnings

I've always loved Golden Sun and the numereous fan sites about it, but why aren't there any great German sites? This was more or less my thought in early 2005, and I wanted to change this circumstance! Because if no one wants to do it, you'll have to take charge of it yourself... and so I started to, by the way simultaneously with the GS Zone's webmaster (whose site is a partner of the GS Archive since day one, I bow to you!), acquire some skills in HTML in web design. All for this one site! And without hesitating any further I soon began to realise my ideas... The result was a frame-based site called "Golden Sun Universum". Sadly I don't have pictures of it anymore, but I kept it rather dark and developed it further to...

Version 1: May 2005 – June 2005

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The first version of this site began on May 8th 2005. The most obvious changes of that one may have been firstly the name change to "Golden Sun Archiv", secondly the abolition of the fames and thirdly the colour scheme: the site completely black and white. My inspiration for this were Ipsissimus Morrowindseiten, a (German) fan site about the game TES III: Morrowind, which showed me that great sites can be simple ones, too. , after all I'd still been a bloody beginner in web design. And so I initially settled for this and besides created the first pages at all (I'm sure those have been rewritten multiple times since then, though). On May 28th the new GSA Forums eventually went online, they weren't hosted in-house, though, but were from a well-known German free forums hoster.

Despite imagining a rather simple design in the concept of an archive, this failed to satisfy me anymore after a short time. I mean, sites like the "Golden Sun Realm" do indeed have their iconic status from "eye candy", too, but why shouldn't do it yourself? Hence I colourised my sites a little on June 6th 2005, which happened to be very simple and plain, but still had a very different effect already. That one's also seen on the picture, by the way.

Version 2: June 2005 – November 2005

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And in the course of the GS Archive's beautification and decoration there was already the next new design on June 20th 2005. This time it became a dark one, though, in my opinion the black tone was quite nice to look at. Well, slowly the GS Archive began to shape! Of course some more sites were addedduring this period, but this happened only all too slowly. I've viewed the site as more like a trivial hobby back then which one could fill with content every now and then. So not the most motivated attitude anymore, but how can one be expected to have it when the GS community had been so small already at that time? This problem went on to plague me for the next two years...

Version 3: November 2005 – September 2006

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On November 19th 2005 everything was ready, and once again I let loose my creative outpourings to the world. And what an experience that one was! There wasn't changed much on the basic structure, but now there was a far more decent design, which by now had also used soft transitions. I mean, I've never been a professional designer, but I could already live with it. – similar to the Golden Sun Realm, as a least common denominator of web surfers, so to say. Well, I found the design itself pretty cool for my skills back then. But somehow I'd ridden myself into a dilemma with the low resolution, the monotonous colour scheme and the similarity to many other GS sites of which I wanted to get out one day. Something truly unique...

Version 4: September 2006 – November 2007

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I have a hard time trying to express how important this version was for the GS Archive. It went online on September 16th 2006 and was indeed something completely different that set it apart from from any GS site I've seen so far: firstly the main colour's completely white, but what really made it special was that it didn't use any left navigation bar at all! Instead of this there was one in the upper area, which led to the categories' tables of contents. Furthermore it now had variable widths again. I'd used all my new knowdledge of wed design to create a simple, yet still precious and neatly-looking site, and that has been the result then. And still there was the problem that content-wise there still wasn't really any noteworthy progress...

That is, until June 34th 2007. Two days before it was as if the scales fell from my eys: "Man, you're having this site since two years now, how will you ever complete it, if you don't do something now?". And thus something began that I'd call the true "birth" of the modern GS Archive. In a tremendous marathon it now wasn't the task anymore to convert existing sites into new designs again and again, even more so to frequently find excuses for the apparent halt, but finally to get off my lazy buttocks and finally add the still missing sites! And so I multiplied the GS Archive's content within a few months, even including a general overhaul of some of the already existing sites. It's hard to describe, bit suddenly the fire burned again in me. No more blocking and ignoring of the site, I had fully accepted her in my heart and really wanted to finish it. Before all this I had even more than once the thought of closing it due to inactivity. I thank myself that I haven't done that. My pride has to be blamed! =D

On July 30th 2007 the new GSA forums then went online. but this time hosted by the GS Archive itself. Even though this meant that the content of the old forums sadly had to disappear into oblivion... The forum software of choice was the well-known phpBB2. But after some time spam bots started to plague the forums until it wasn't tolerable anymore. The forum software was thence changed to Simple Machines on September 16th 2007. Another important date by the way was October 13th 2007, when the "Golden Sun Realm" became a new partner site.

Version 5: November 2007 – March 2009

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The next milestone in the GSA's history went online on November 25th 2007. This version is what actually the predecessor should've become, before requirements and the thought concept changed. But considering what has made the different GS sites so great there now was a kind of "retro look": The navigation on the left side returned, the design on the whole was taken to the next level, fixed widths were there again and in passing even my favourite colour, blue, was much represented, too! Many things for which I'd been too lazy to make them already for the previous version were now added as well. Examples for these include the sites about Weyard, the Shipping List and also both Beginner's Guides. Simultaneously with the start "Golden Sun Syndicate" was added as a new partner site. By the way, the subtitle of the old version ("Deutsche Seite über Golden Sun" / "German site about Golden Sun") had grown so much on me that I continued to use it. Didn't look to bad as well!

In this version the GS Archive was completed, so to say. But still I decided, after the site work was eventually finished, to beautify it for another time, which it had truly deserved, in my opinion. And to realise an old dream...

Version 6: March 2009 – ?

The current design, published on March 25th 2009. Actually more like an evolution of the previous version, but still different enough to have its very own status. The most obvious change may have been turning away from the darkness and return to the brightness. Include a few new layout images and formattings to that and you basically have it! And still, the actual highpoint is something very different: a full translation into English! Thus the new-found "GS Archive" can now without doubt be considered a part of the glorious line of English Golden Sun sites. In any case it was all worth the effort!

Who knows to where it will lead the GS Archive now...?

Suum cuique! I own nothing, except for the self-made contents and images here. Golden Sun™ is a registered trademark of Camelot Software Planning®.
No original content should be used for non-private purposes without my knowing and approval.