| About Warpstorms |
Well, what can I say? Warp Storms has become such a part of my life that it's quite hard to document it from the very beginning. When I first registered it was only three years ago, making me 14, but since then so much has changed.
I've only just realised that I first joined Warp Storms in 2004 (February 14th, to be precise), and it looked a little something like this. I don't really remember whether or not it was always called Warp Storms (or The Warp Storm), or whether this was a later addition. I certainly remember it being called the GW Fan Forums for some time.
By the time I joined I had known JJ for about three months via my forum (according to his registration date), perhaps a little longer on a previous forum of mine. I began posting immediately, writing forum rules, making icons and sorting out the Portal. From what I remember it wasn't long before I became a G-Mod, and together we formed our own little, rather childish community. At the age of fourteen I had just become a part of my first ever 40k forum.
One day JJ decided that perhaps it would be best to move over to a new host, specifically Invision Free. I was against the move, having used said forum provider and disliked it. Despite my warnings the slowly dying Warp Storms was moved over to here, though no recordings or documentations of this period survive.
Despite being against the move I did my best to support the new Warp Storms (as it was now officially named) by bringing over posts, members and generally playing with the skin. As far as I'm aware I retained my Global Moderator Position untill the end of this rather dark era. It wasn't long before the forum failed again, this time being abandoned entirely. I couldn't support the forum on my own, and when JJ decided to call it a day I accepted, and moved on to my own forums. Me and JJ stayed in fairly close contact, speaking often, and occasionally touching upon Warp Storms. However it was a long time before we even thought about giving it another go.
At some point in 2005 I decided that a new day had dawned. I spent the best part of half an hour writing JJ an email, making it clear I thought we should start up again, with us both at the helm. I outlined my plans for a new forum, what I thought we did wrong, and what we should do this time. I created a forum, and a horrific skin (which I cannot find for love nor money) and just went crazy. Coming to my senses I spent a weekend Painting up a new skin, which looked something like this. You can see here how early on Thoume joined us, hence the reason I'm glad he's back. The forum had many problems, but it was a vast improvement upon previous versions. Business bloomed, and we all had big plans. Then I began talking with the staff about a website. Here things started to fall apart.
Activity ground to a halt. Gaining perhaps a few posts a week at best, we struggled once more with the plague that comes across all forums before they die out. This time however I was determined not to let Warp Storms die. After seeing previous versions go under, and having my own forum get cut away this was my last effort. Some members stayed with us, namely JJ, Thoume, LC and a previous Mod (The Dark Lady). These formed the few posters that still tried to contribute, struggling to keep us afloat.
In an attempt to get things going, I revamped the skin a little, so it looked like this, and had a bash at hand coding one of many websites (all of which failed miserably). The most recent of which can be found with broken links (if you're persistent you can get them) here. Needless to say none of them did anything to fix our problems.
At some point towards the end of the Warp Storms ProBoards life I got really ambitious - I bought a domain name and tried to host the website there. Said host eventually became the homepage for our new website, however for the time being it hosted the new forums. Before the move to SMF, me and JJ had a chat, and decided that the best course of action would be for him, the true founder of Warp Storms, to stand down. In his place Lord Calsius would take the reins. Our first two months saw the moving of me and LC and about a hundred posts - hardly the start we had envisaged.
Through much pestering, Campbell joined us after many months of lurking at the old forums. He did what he could, and generally provided me with feedback. However he was unaware that Warp Storms would soon come to owe him so much. Via an MSN conversation I asked him to invite the others he knew, to boost activity. He promised to, on the condition I added a Fantasy board. This is something that Warp Storms had never really had, due to staffing problems. I - slightly apprehensively - did so, appointing him board Mod. He did not disappoint, gaining us most of the regulars we still have. Once more, business bloomed - in that first (well, third) month we almost his seven hundred posts! The next month slackened off a little as things settled down, but since then we have picked up, hitting half a thousand posts at the time of writing in just under a month.
The next item on the agenda was a website. For too long the .com had simply forwarded to my last failed attempt at coding one. So it was to be that I got in the pros - at a price reaching above £200 I organised to have a website built - the very website you're reading this text from. At the time of writing things aren't 100% finished, but I can say with confidence that it won't be long now before we are a completely independant website and forum community!
I've done my best above to give you a history of Warp Storms as I've known it. As time progresses I will do my best to add to it, update it and keep it filled in. Should anyone have something they wish to add, please feel free to contact me via the website or forums =)
