This month marks a decade of PlanetSide Universe and what an awesome ten years it has been. I haven’t really sat down and written out the history of PSU for all to see, so what better time than now? It was around August 2002 when I first began to think about starting up a new fan site; I had dabbled in fan sites before with Command and Conquer. Little did I realize what a ride it would be when I started thinking about it back then. I built a staff around me consisting of my Outfit members the Dragon Wolves and began the groundwork for the site and servers. I was a relative newb back then at this stuff and I was a horrible coder. I hacked up a cheesy content management system and started up the site.
We did not start as the number one fan site for PlanetSide however. Back then there was another site we were in competition with and they were not very happy about our arrival. Our first months were fraught with intersite drama and elitism. There is nothing I despise more in online communities than elitism; it is the parasite that ruins online communities and breaks them apart. That site had an inner circle at the time who had access to the PlanetSide Developers and had regular email exchanges with them. At one point they offered me an invitation to that circle. I thought long and hard about it and seeked out advice from my staff on what I should do. I ultimately turned down that offer and decided to make my own way as a fan site. This was truly the turning point and quite easily the largest one thing that made us what we are today.
Not long after that pivotal decision, I contacted Dave Georgeson who was the executive producer on the PlanetSide team at the time. I had always been a fan of Dave from the Tribes series even though the overall community was not. Shortly thereafter I was linked up with SOE Public Relations and before I knew it, I was in San Diego California previewing PlanetSide with the gaming press like PC Gamer and Gamespy. During that event I represented the PlanetSide Community well and I even killed Smed the most in the game winning the DVD box set of Band of Brothers!
That was the start of PlanetSide Universe. Since then our community has built up over the years and seen quite a few different events. We even had a meetup in Orlando Florida called PlanetSide Universe Mobilization Alpha; it was organized by our staff at the time: Triggar and Martyr. The site throughout the years has been almost totally community supported. To date we have raised almost eight thousand dollars to operate the site. This sounds like a lot but back in the early 2000’s it cost almost seven hundred dollars a month to run the site.
PlanetSide Universe as you see it today would not exist without the amazing staff we have had throughout the years. From our first coders on the site, afex and powdahound to our current staff of awesome talented people working on everything to our Wiki to forum moderation. The site as you see it today would not exist if not for Gryphon who has spent probably hundreds (maybe thousands) of man hours coding features and adding new “bells and whistles” to the site.
Through the years SOE has been a strong partner and supported us through thick and thin. I am grateful for their support of this site and this awesome community. Shoutouts go out to Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, John “Smed” Smedley, Victor “Sporkfire” Wachter, Tramell “T-Ray” Isaac, Matt “Higby?” Higby and Tony “RadarX” Jones for their continued support. Without Dave at the beginning getting us in touch with the right people, Smed supporting us in a variety of ways which nobody else sees, Sporkfire arranging our AGN “Ask the Devs”, T-Ray always supporting the community (and attending Mobilization Alpha!), Matt Higby for taking time out of his busy days to support us and sit down with us on AGN and in person, and RadarX for continuing to support me and reassure me about current events, we would not be where we are today.
And of course thank you to my wife (whom I met through the Dragon Wolves and PlanetSide Universe) for supporting my addiction to this website and PlanetSide. If it was not for her steadfast support through these years, PSU would no longer exist.
We have many more exciting times ahead of us in the near future and I look forward to bringing new players into this awesome community and hopefully keeping this community one in which everyone, either veteran or new player will feel welcome.
Most of all, thank YOU for keeping PlanetSide Universe what it is.