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History
Realm667, a private and personal webpage will soon celebrate its tenth birthday. Considering the fact that most personal web pages out there only exist for a few years or get abandoned even earlier, I can take this as a definite milestone for this page as it is still up to date with numerous content being added every once in a while. Though, it hasn't been that easy when I started my first version back in 1999 and I would have never believed that almost ten years later my web page is still online and gets still visited over 200 times every day. So, what has it looked like in earlier times? What has been changed on the page and how did things happen to turn out as they are right now?

"In the beginning, there was void..."

Everything begun back in 1999 when I did my first few steps in the world wide web and I really have to tell you, these few steps have been very expensive, about $0.05 per minute but that didn't put me off. I was already working on Doom maps and I really wanted to release these efforts to the newly discovered huge communities like Doomworld.com and Doomnation.com to get some feedback and response. Unfortunately my knowledge in this term wasn't the best at all so when I started with my first homepage in May 2000, I only used Microsoft Word and the Geocities.com Pagebuilder for the Code and Corel Photopaint 4.0 for the few graphics I kicked in. The first version of "Tormentor's Realm 667" was white/red btw, but this kind of bright outfit didn't make it very long and white was replaced by black (1)

Months later I discovered the benefit of frames and made a little redesign with the help of Microsoft Word 98 (yes, yes, shame on me!) and added a few nice Javascripts and Javaapplets like Counters, Rolloverbuttons, Expanding Menues and other goodies to spice things up. And - believe it or not - I even won a few awards with this homepage ("Site of the Month" by DoomWadStation, "Site of the Month" by All4Gaming, "Top Site Award" by DooMiNatioN).

In the beginning of 2001 I got my hands on Microsoft Frontpage 98 and adjusted some of the crappy code in my old "Word HTML" to make everything look a bit more organized. In 2001 my doom addiction grew and together with my good old friend Boris "Acidflash31" Butschkau I created a 2-man mapping team called Orbit Interactive. We had thousands of ideas, we were fully motivated and the only thing that was left to do was to create a new home for our creations. I still can remember the cold and snowy evening when we both created the homepage for Orbit Interactive (2)

Sure, it was still far away from my todays standards, but it was a well organized site and a good base for our upcoming projects. The only bad thing about it was the fact, that our upcoming projects never saw the light of day due to the lack of motivation and interest and when I feared the worst, it actually happend and Acidflash31 quit the doom community, so there was no more need to keep Orbit Interactive alive.

Though a lot of work has already been done to our first project called "Perforated Entrails" which was exclusively designed for Skulltag and I didn't want to waste that all so I created a single homepage (3) for Perforated Entrails itself which got hosted by NewDoom.com

The page itself was created in about 10 minutes and without my companion I had no more interest in completing this project so the left shards were put together and released as a small Lite version to the community, the page removed and everything doom-related was gone.

Though this never meant an absolute end to me. After these disappointments with doom homepages and projects, I joined two classmates (Daniel "DTNo1" Thajer, Daniel "TheUdo" Richter)  of mine who created a page for all kind of games, filled with files, cheats, tools, screenshots and many other things. So the first thing I have done here was a new site design with frames and nice nifty things which replaced the old simple green one. (4)

After two months and a large interest in our new project All4Gaming I felt like once more redesigning the page and making it even better, with many new small details and changes and so did I. The new design was darker, more user friendly and beyond had more space for content which was the most important thing for me. (5)

Unfortunately after some infighting and disagreements the team broke up and the complete project was trashed. Yet again lots of free time and yet again, my old friend Acidflash31 ended the boredom with the discovery of the RPGMaker2000, a tool to create your own RPG game like Final Fantasy, Zelda or Secret of Mana and yet again I needed a new homepage (or in this case a second pendant for my red Doom Realm 667) and there it was. (6)

About 7 months later I got my hands on Adobe Photoshop 5.0 and everyone who has already worked with that program knows about its capabilities. For me it was clear: "I need a new page design" and so I started with something totally different, new colors, new design, new style, new content and beyond a new system because this was the first page in PHP working with HTML templates, much easier and much more comfortable although very simple, Realm667 v3 was born. (7)

About another 7-8 months later I was annoyed by the boring and simple design and for the page's 3rd birthday I had something more impressive in mind, something with more detail, with more extra stuff and with more contrast, Realm667 v4 was finished within one month, thx goes to my neverending motivation when I start something new :) Just take a look at your own. (8)

The great thing about this one was really the look, the detail and the eyecandy but this goes also hand in hand with the bad things about the design: Too overcrowded and by far too frisky and when time passed and I clearly developed my own style of webdesign, I more and more felt like I had to do something about this and so I started with the developement of Realm667 v5. (9)

The next step for me was changing to a more professional CMS that features some more usability and a user-friendly system and that's why I chose Joomla as the base for my new Realm667 v6 and as we all know: Someone needs to create a new template/design for such a system, and there it was. (10)

But as we all know, changes are continueous and certain, so maybe also the latest Realm667 v6.5 that looks so perfect now might change in the near future... but I do not wish that this will ever happen again, thanks to the shitload of work involved with. (11)

But as it is with all kind of designs, after some time you just stop liking them. Also considering that I added countless new and additional content to the Realm667 v7.0 (12), I was in the definite need of a new template. By accident, I got my hands on a very cool Joomla template, that I used now for quite a while - altered to fit my site's conditions, but that goes without saying. It seemed to be perfect in the beginning.

In the upcoming year, I worked a lot on Joomla homepages for my new job and the good thing about it was, that I learned a lot about CSS and how the system works. It seemed for me as it was time to completely style my own page without having a base at all. Another problem was the sheer amount of content, I put into the Realm667 and after some while, the logical conclusion was to split the Realm667 up into 3 different pages. And that's what I did. The only problem now was that I felt like it was time to give the page a new design that fits to the new content... and well... here it is. Let's see how long Realm667 v8.0 will survive...
  t667.jpg
 
oi1.jpg

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a4g1.jpg

a4g2.jpg

rpg.jpg

t667adobe.jpg

realm667new.jpg

realm667v5.jpg

realm667joomla.jpg

realm66765.jpg

t667dimensions.jpg



The full changelog delivers you with up-to-date information about all the little or larger changes I did to my homepage. For an even more detailed information - partially filled with heavy overuse of bad english - read the news archive.


Changes from December 2009
  • dot_plus Added a phpBB3 messageboard to the page
  • dot_plus Added several resource sections to the Realm667 repository
  • dot_plus Added numerous mods to the phpBB3
  • dot_plus Added a shoutbox to the forum

Changes from January 2009
  • dot_plus Removed/Moved about 70% of content from the page, "Doomified" the Realm667
  • dot_plus Stopped Joomfish component (no future german news items)
  • dot_misc Moved from "Saecksmachine.biz" host to a own host at All-Inkl.de
  • dot_misc Upgraded Joomstats to latest version
  • dot_plus Added complete new site design built from scratch

Changes from May to August 2008
  • dot_plusAdded new gallery system (flash based w/ mp3 player)
  • dot_plusAdded tab/slides mambotAdded tab/slides mambot
  • dot_plusAdded section "Songs & Music" and content
  • dot_plusRemoved "ArtBanners" component for "Snapshot" box
  • dot_plusAdded "Random Image Modified M13" for new "Snapshot" lightbox
  • dot_plusRemoved "JoomlaXplorer" component
  • dot_plusAdded "eXtplorer" as new filemanager backend
  • dot_miscUpgraded "JCE" admin component & plugins
  • dot_miscUpgraded Joomla to 1.0.15 from 1.0.13

Changes from January to April 2008
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev. 7, "PHP/MySQL CMS" based)
  • dot_plusAdded file database component ("DOCMan")
  • dot_plusAdded latest / hottest items module
  • dot_plusAdded password protection mambot
  • dot_plusAdded latest / hottest downloads module
  • dot_plusAdded countdown module
  • dot_miscRearranged and optimised menue hierarchy and site structure
  • dot_minusRemoved selection sub-section
  • dot_plusAdded list icons (language and changelog)
  • dot_miscImproved and expanded css typography styles
  • dot_plusAdded preview thumbnails to ecards and compressed page dimensions
  • dot_miscSplitted and renamed portfolio section into web design / print design
  • dot_miscMoved wallpapers and ecards into the design sub-secton goodies
  • dot_plusAdded alternate style choices (different text colors & header graphics)

Changes from September to December 2007
  • dot_miscReplaced comment component for better spam protection ("JComments")
  • dot_miscReplaced guestbook component for better spam protection ("Easybook")
  • dot_plusAdded latest comments module
  • dot_plusAdded selection sub-section in doom

Changes from June to August 2007
  • dot_plusAdded guestbook component (cms integration, "AkoBook")
  • dot_plusAdded beastiary sub-section in doom

Changes from January to May 2007
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev. 6.5, "PHP/MySQL CMS" based)
  • dot_plusAdded header slideshow (flash based)
  • dot_plusAdded backend ftp component ("JoomlaXPlorer")
  • dot_plusAdded top level domain "Realm667.com"
  • dot_plusAdded top news box

Changes from August to December 2006
  • dot_plusAdded picture gallery (flash based, "FIS")
  • dot_plusAdded interviews sub-section in articles
  • dot_plusMoving from DRDTeam.org to Allinkl.de (paid space, less restrictions)
  • dot_plusAdded site polls
  • dot_plusAdded comment component ("AkoComment")
  • dot_plusAdded multilanguage component ("Joomfish")
  • dot_plusImproved counter, added stat istics module and component ("JoomlaStats")
  • dot_plusAdded emoticons to new content items
  • dot_plusAdded partnership module
  • dot_plusReplaced pic of the day box with random picture (php script)

Changes from January to July 2006
  • dot_plusAdded page content to cms (Joomla)
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev. 6, "PHP/MySQL CMS" based)
  • dot_minusRemoved project status tracker
  • dot_plusAdded top release box
  • dot_minusRemoved rpgm2k section
  • dot_plusImproving page content items to fit the new cms
  • dot_plusAdded blog

Changes from January to May 2006
  • dot_plusMoving from Framecom.net to DRDTeam.org
  • dot_plusAdded project status tracker (newsticker)
  • dot_plusAdded photographie section

Changes from September to December 2005
  • dot_plusAdded project status tracker (newsticker)

Changes from January to August 2005
  • dot_plusAdded various content

Changes from August to December 2004
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev. 5, "PHP/HTML" based)
  • dot_plusAdded pic of the moment
  • dot_minusRemoved review section
  • dot_minusRemoved messageboard
  • dot_plusAdded guestbook popup link
  • dot_plusAdded article section
  • dot_plusAdded lyrics section
  • dot_plusAdded gaming section and moved doom / rpkm2k section
  • dot_plusAdded webdesign section and moved wbb styles / references section
  • dot_plusAdded portfolio section

Changes from January to July 2004
  • dot_plusAdded various content

Changes from May to December 2003
  • dot_plusAdded various content
  • dot_plusImproved the preview layout for wallpapers
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev. 4, "PHP/HTML" based)
  • dot_plusAdded sketchworks section
  • dot_plusAdded review section and sub-sections
  • dot_plusImproved several htmls for compatibility reasons
  • dot_plusImproved guestbook system by switching to BurningBook ("PHP/MySQL" based)
  • dot_plusLaunched "Sunset Lounge v2"

Changes from January to April 2003
  • dot_plusFixed broken bilingual php system
  • dot_plusAdded unreleasables doom sub-section
  • dot_plusAdded artworks section
  • dot_plusImproved messageboard system by switching to WBB ("PHP/MySQL" based)
  • dot_plusAdded topinfo box
  • dot_plusAdded news archive and moved old items
  • dot_plusAdded wbb styles section
  • dot_plusIntegrated messageboard seemingless into the site system
  • dot_plusUpdated messageboard to WBB2
  • dot_minusDropped guestbook system (service stopping soon)

Changes from June to December 2002
  • dot_plusAdded various content
  • dot_plusLaunched "Sunset-Lounge"
  • dot_plusMoving from Exit.de to Covers.de (now known as Framecom.net)

Changes in May 2002
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev 3, "PHP/HTML" based)
  • dot_plusAdded news item category icons (doom, rpgm2k, misc, design, ...)
  • dot_plusRenamed "Tormentor's Realm 667" to "Realm667"
  • dot_plusAdded design section
  • dot_plusAdded design sub-sections and content
  • dot_plusAdded reviews to doom content

Changes from August, 2001 to February 2002
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard / guestbook systems into PHP/MySQL bases
  • dot_plusAdded RPKMaker2K sections

Changes in September, 2001
  • dot_plusMoving from Newdoom.com to Exit.de
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard system to "ezboard"
  • dot_plusChanged guestbook system to an ad-free provider
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard
  • dot_minusDropped "Perofrated Entrails"

Changes from January to August, 2001
  • dot_plusAdded doom music section
  • dot_plusAdded flash intro
  • dot_minusDropped "Orbit Interactive"
  • dot_plusLaunched "Perforated Entrails" site
  • dot_plusMoving from Newdoom.com to Exit.de
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard system to "ezboard"
  • dot_plusChanged guestbook system to an ad-free provider
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard

Changes in December, 2000
  • dot_plusAdded new sections
  • dot_plusImproved existing sections
  • dot_minusRemoved background music (temporary)
  • dot_plusAdded bilingual site system
  • dot_plusAdded resolution compatibility for 800x600 and 1024x768
  • dot_plusAdded background music
  • dot_plusAdded temporary christmas design
  • dot_plusImproved various design aspects
  • dot_plusImproved tools section
  • dot_plusRenamed "Text World" into "FAQ Section"
  • dot_plusImproved brightness of standard text
  • dot_plusAdded various content
  • dot_plusMoving from Geocities.com to Newdoom.com

Changes from August to November, 2000
  • dot_plusAdd "Perforated Entrails" section
  • dot_plusAdded flash counter
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev 2, "Word" based)

Changes from June to July, 2000
  • dot_plusChanged / Improved frameset
  • dot_plusAdded german messageboard
  • dot_plusChanged messageboard language into english
  • dot_plusAdded new page design (rev 1, "Word" based)
  • dot_plusLaunched "Orbit Interactive" site
  • dot_plusAdded article section (formerly "Text World")
  • dot_plusAdded top level domain "Tormentor667.de" (FreeCity)

Changes in May, 2000 
  • dot_miscLaunched "Tormentor's Realm 667" ("Geocities Site Builder" based)
  • dot_plusAdded wad section
  • dot_plusAdded links section
  • dot_plusAdded various content
  • dot_plusAdded animated gifs
  • dot_plusAdded background music
  • dot_plusAdded tools section
  • dot_plusAdded guestbook
  • dot_plusAdded various content
  • dot_plusAdded frame based navigation