A DM article I am writing

[bitza]

Hi,
I am currently doing a Writer's Bureau Course and one of my assignments is to write an article for a magazine on a subject that interests me. I would like to write it on DM, as a sort of retrospective, especially as next year is DM's 20th B'day and it influenced a thousand billion (approximately ) games.

A couple of questions:

Some of the information I have gathered has come from the DM encyclopedia. I don't want to breach copyright, so I am asking if it would be possible to use this information within the context of the article (maybe to quote in one or two places). I certainly wouldn't copy wholesale, and any information I used I would clearly mark as being sourced from the appropriate places.


Second question. I was intending to pitch this at RetroGamer Magazine, but does anyone have any suggestions of other similar magazines that might be interested? I had thought of other computer magazines, but chances are they wouldn't be interested until the actual twentieth birthday year (I'm getting in early ahead of the rush )

Final Question. One of the sections would be about the various fan-sites which keep DM alive. Would you mind if this forum was mentioned (in a good way, of course)?

I hope this is okay. If anyone has any objections orsuggestions, please let me know

Many thanks guys. hope this isn't too cheeky for a new member...

[Adamo]

Final Question. One of the sections would be about the various fan-sites which keep DM alive. Would you mind if this forum was mentioned (in a good way, of course)?

ccheck out the DM fan pages history.
Beowuuf wrote:

The history:

Back before I joined a nice person called Daniel Durgen (of Moutain of A' kir dungeon fame, well no, he's more famous for the BBS and accompanying site actually) created a BBS for everyone to chat on. REgulars like Gambiut and cows (then drake) and alandale and zyx used to go there and chat, DMJava was conceived then disappeared the suddenly came out of nowhere again there, etc. Daniel drifted away but the BBS carried on until finally the webspace was closed down when the host was wiping out all it's forums ; (

By that time there were five other forums - Ian Clark had created a DM forum on ezboard that everyone went to, DMJava was released and had it's forums (which got busy as DM JAva got a slashdpot mention), GG had moved from DMute to starting RTC so there were those forums, and Christophe had added forums to his encyclopaedia, and at that time Paul S started doing CSBwin so he added metnion to all his stuff there. Cows also had a starting DM website, so attached a simple forum there too.

Anyway, then the ezboard webspace that hosted DMweb, DMJava and RTC started including pop ups and banner ads, so cows offered to create a joint webspace beyond the tiny forum he used to have - this one!

As I'd already grabbed all the BBS posts manually I stuck them on this forum. Alos, cows ones got archived too. I forget , I think I also then moved Ian's DMWeb pots here (it could have been Gambit) becuse of the pop ups and to have a central place. And then Gambit moved all of the RTC forums here in one move, inlcuding preserving dataestamps and log ins. He also then made it possible to have the DME posts moved here too (except for upload ones and the general) along with the log in details.

DM JAva forums have always been too big to move here like Gambit did to RTC (especially given the amount of dead posts there too) and I certainly wouldn't move them by hand again, I don't have that free time anymore!

So yes, that was how it all came to get squished together. So yeah, I found DMute and stuff then the BBS quite close to when it finally came to an end and soonish after Ian's DMWeb became the new place to be, but if you look back at the history before that there's quite alot done before, and especiqally some older BBS posts now lost before we realised the webspace was getting shrunk

[bitza]

Thanks for that info Adamo, that's a big help. It's only really since browsing here, the DM encyclopedia sites, and researching this article, that I've realised DM is still so hugely popular. The Quote you referenced is great, it gives a good insight into the fan--sites and how they all developed and merged, and gives a good background to this site and the whole community, which is wonderful.

I think the only problem with thearticle is going to be to keep it within the word limit. I can see it turning into something of a tome if I'm not careful...

I know FTL had a strong reputation before Dungeon Master came along (what with Sundog, and Oids, for instance) but I doubt they could have realisedquite what a monster success it became. I wonder how many modern games will still be talked about in twenty years time, the way DM is now.

[Des]

Retro Gamer has already published a lengthy DM article, but it was a little while ago.

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=23999