Community:LegendOfZelda.com

Overview

Legendofzelda.com is one of the oldest and most prominent sites in the Zelda community. The site is led officially by Link of Hyrule, while »-LasT-ChaNcE-« (Chance) and Xizor run most of the day-to-day affairs of the site.

Early History

LegendOfZelda.com was founded on November 23rd, 1999 by Alex Jones (Link of Hyrule). Little is known about this period in LoZ.com's history, as there only two members remaining from the pre-2002 shut-down: Link of Hyrule, and the Super Moderator and Site Updater, Triforce Guardian.

Nemesis and Decline

The user Nemesis ("Nemi"), was the first person to be left in charge of LoZ.com during an extended absence by Link of Hyrule. It was during this time that Nemi assumed full autonomous control of the site, and acted much like a tyrant. The corruption was so deep that the site was abandoned and virtually empty, left to rot until Link of Hyrule reappeared in early 2003, and announced a relaunch that did not occur until November 2004, almost two years after the initial crash.

Xero Gaming

After the crash of 2002 and the relaunch promise of 2003, temporary forums were set up on Lycos webhosting. These forums lasted for a little under a year before it became apparent that Link of Hyrule had failed to live up to his promise of recreating LoZ.com. In December 2003/January 2004, the administrators Megaman X, Remus, and Droshi left, taking several prominent members with them and created Xero Gaming. However, this site became obsolete in November 2004 when the promise of LoZ's return was finally fulfilled.

Hacking Era (2004)

After the relaunch of 2004, LoZ.com saw a tremendous spike in user activity. This activity dwindled down over the course of 2005, however, and leveled out at a respectable amount. There were no spikes in activity until the first hack in the Summer of 2005. The site was hacked and many parts of it destroyed, primarily the forums. The administrator Cartoons rebuilt the site within hours, but was promptly blamed by LoZ.com's membership for the hacking. Due to this ungratefulness, Cartoons abandoned the site in the face of yet another hack and left the reconstruction to the new administrator, Chance. Over the course of three days in July 2005, Chance rebuilt the forums, struggling through code and administrative procedures.

The relaunch after the second hack was a success, but it would not be long before disaster struck LoZ.com again.

Chance's Resignation (2005)

On August 17th, 2005, Chance removed the forums of LoZ.com and replaced them with a letter of resignation. According to the letter, he had done these things in lieu of a plot by KKL and Link of Hyrule to remove him as an administrator, barely a month after his service to LoZ.com in rebuilding the site. Along with the administrator Darth X (Megaman X), Chance recreated the website Xero Gaming. Over 20 of LoZ.com's best and brightest followed the two and Xero Gaming was an initial success, with most of its activity focused on badmouthing LoZ.com. This schism was not reconciled until almost a year later, on August 4th, 2006 when Xero Gaming and LoZ.com merged to become one site once again.

It would soon come to pass that Link of Hyrule had been on vacation during said plotting, and Chance apologized to Link of Hyrule and LoZ.com as a whole. Although KKL restored the forums, they were excessively modified, and the code at one point became so garbled that Link of Hyrule asked Chance to be back on the team as an administrator in order to restore them. This marked the beginning of the slow march towards the removal of KKL as an administrator.

Pre-vBulletin (Early 2006)

After Chance's restoration of the forums, KKL was removed as an administrator in early 2006 due to inactivity as he pursued his own site, Zelda Gaming. It was after KKL's removal that the long-time member Gohma was appointed as a Forum Administrator. In April 2006, Chance officially assumed the post of co-ownership of LoZ.com alongside Link of Hyrule. This came along with a server switch that increased LoZ's ability to function and provide for a more active userbase. The rest of 2006 was uneventful for LoZ until October.

vBulletin (2006-2007)

In October 2006, LoZ.com underwent a massive layout change. The forums were changed from phpBB to vBulletin, and the main site content was reorganized. The two were integrated, creating one fluid "site" as opposed to two "separate" sites, along with a new addition, the Media Gallery. After the switch to vBulletin, LoZ.com's activity skyrocketed and hasn't slowed down much since. Shortly thereafter, Xizor was promoted from a Super Moderator position to a Forum Administrator position. In May 2007, Xizor was promoted again to be one of the webmasters of LoZ.com. Chance labored over a new LoZ layout, and in June, with the help of many staff members, launched the layout. The layout was met with an overall positive reaction, with only 28% of polled members stating that they preferred the old layout more. The creation of the layout took over a month, with the actual set-up requiring many hours of effort. In April 2007, a merge was attempted between LoZ and Zelda Dungeon, but it ended in failure due to the inability to compromise on both sides.