I’ve finished off some additional updates to the Resources section of the site. The dropdown menu now has a “Files” entry, which contains downloadable resources. These are unofficial content, intended as player and DM aids to help make running and playing on Athas a little smoother. As of launch, it contains the DS3 character sheet, a collection of VTT maps, and a player’s handout overview of the City-States
Some of these resources are also attached to an appropriate product; for example Dark Sun 1 now has links to several VTT maps for it’s intro adventure, A little knowledge.
I’ve added a new categorization to the site: Resources.
The idea is that these are loose tools or files not strictly related to a product release, and not of an “article” nature. I’m going to be migrating some things over to that section in the near future, but at it’s start there are three things there now:
A distance calculator, giving an idea of the travel time between stops on the trade routes.
A magazine index listing out Dark Sun articles published in Dragon, Dungeon or Polyhedron magazines.
After talking with some of the other staff at athas.org, I’ve decided to close the arena.
The code for the arena is based on a dead forum project; even when it was alive, the hacks that I made to enable single signon made things very difficult to keep up to date. Because of this, it’s become a drain on server resources, and has actually made it more difficult to keep other aspects of the site up to date.
Considering that the traffic on the arena numbers in the single digit posts-per-month range, I think it’s best put into mothballs.
While I’m going to be removing the site soon, I will be saving the database; if there’s a demand for it, I’ll see about setting up a read-only archive of the site.
Once the arena is removed, I’ll be undertaking some infrastructure modernization efforts – Some visible, some behind the scenes. I’ll talk more about that later.
So, I finally managed to get around to getting the arena back online. It’s the same codebase that was there previously, though I’m going to be doing some work on modernizing it as time allows.
The link is back, but the DNS changes may take a day or so to propogate; if you cant’t get there yet, you will soon.
After a series of unfortunate server outages due to a compromised web server, we’re finally back up online, albeit in a somewhat diminished capacity. I’ve got most sections of the site back and recovered, but there are some older feedback type areas of the site – which were generally swamped by spam – that I’ve disabled during the course of cleaning out the system.
I’ve also yet to re-enable the arena, and I am, to be honest, uncertain as to wether or not I am going to do so. As I mentioned on the wizard’s forum I’m uncertain as to wether or not I’m going to go to the extent of reviving them. That forum thread is probably the best place to give feedback, although you can also email me if you feel strongly about it.
This is old news by now, as Dark Sun 4 has been out for about three weeks now, depending on whether or not you have access to a Friendly Local Gaming Store.
I’ve been rather mum on the topic of Dark Sun 4, in part because I was under an NDA, and didn’t want to risk breaking it; I received an early review copy in December.
We’re not dead, here at athas.org, but we are working out what our place in the new ecosystem is. I’ve been working away at some of the backend of the site, bringing the framework up to date with the latest release (and making the mistake of tracking the fast-changing beta) and tinkering with some more collaborative features, trying to balance between external input and spam.
If nothing else, we want to be the place where the community can share adventures, plot hooks, monster builds, new locations and such with a permanent home that’s not a forum post; keep your eyes open.
