One of my first ever jobs as a web designer was to design for the WebRPG site. Several years ago, it was a sort of first-of-its kind site. They had a forum, which I had not seen yet, although the concept was not completely foreign. I'd been posting on gaming BBSs for years. Mostly it was for distributing an online RPG system, similar to OpenRPG.
I thought, prehaps, that WebRPG had become OpenRPG but then I saw a logo for both sites on the moribund RPG Registry site. The Registry seems to have seen its last update in 2002 or so. I'm pretty sure I had visited the WebRPG site since 2002.
I got paid about $50.00 for the design work and although the original site design changed almost immediately, they kept the original logo, which was a kind of cool wooden shield thing. I'd see the logo pop up from time-to-time; one of the GMs in our current group still has a WebRPG t-shirt.
Apparently the site is no more. It seems to be selling dice and gaming supplies. Anyone know what happened?
3 comments:
Hello Chris,
Wish I could tell you what happened to WebRPG - I found your blog when searching for it just now. I was a regular in The Keep, the chat room on WebRPG from 1998 to about 2001. I was telling someone about the amazing unique experience of The Keep just this evening and so decided to see if it was still there - guess not? 8( Cool to find out you designed the site though - I remember the wooden shield logo!
It's been almost a year since your blog post so maybe you won't even see this, but thanks and best wishes if you do.
WinnaQ
Hey Chris - Erich here, long time no see :-)
WebRPG was sold off to UGO around 2001ish (probably off by a year or two) because it was unfortunately pre-AdWords era. Had we hung on another year or two, it probably would have been self-sustaining. And alas, WebRPG faded away, along with most of the RPG industry :-(
Hope you are well.
Hey Eric!
Good to hear from you. I am well, thank you.
It's sad to hear about the demise of WebRPG. World of Warcraft has sort of replaced MUDs, which is too bad. It's not nearly as much fun, IMHO.
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