Blood:5th Anniversary

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Introduction (By Gideon)[edit]

Caleb article (March 16, 2008)
Original logo

It is perhaps a notable shame that such a momentous occasion as the wiki's fifth anniversary had to occur within such a busy period for us on the administration staff, not that one ever really feels they have as much spare time around as they would prefer. Anyhow, as for explanation as to why this page has been launched over two and a half weeks after the date in question (January 12), all that can be said is four or so words: cold, colds, exams and the usual stuff of life. I do not wish for this delay to cloud however the great significance that this commemoration has for myself and the rest of us here at the Blood Wiki. Five years in operation is an impressive life-span for any website, particularly for one about a series of games that had not seen an official release for almost nine years at the time, and as such we stand proudly among our even older kin of Blood websites that have graced the Internet now for well over a decade. The affect of setting up this wiki also had a profound influence on myself as a person, helping as it did to make me realize just how much people can grow to love a fiction, and express it either through devout playtime, documentation and homage.

Evil Dead
Shogo and anime

For example, it was first reading through the fan fiction for Blood that first started me down my own road to learning the ways of writing (to the point that I am now in contact as a sometime contributor to a bi-monthly paper with a humble but Canada-wide circulation), a process no doubt also carried along by the gruelling task of setting up and editing over the words stored on this very site. Blood also, as has been the case for many Bloodites, opened my eyes to a whole underground of culture unknown to me beforehand, from the horror comedy of the Evil Dead series (having just watched Army of Darkness for the first time as a holiday treat) that inspired so many 1990s first-person shooters (Doom and Duke Nukem 3D besides) to the mass influence of the words of H.P. Lovecraft (an audio compendium of which is on its way towards us, alongside a disc or two of Edgar Allan Poe, as we finish listening to Something Wicked This Way Comes of E1M4: Dark Carnival fame). Equally, Blood brought me to Shogo, which made me look more seriously into anime, helping bring me into contact with Neon Genesis Evangelion, a series that I now place alongside Blood on my personal favourites list (and a driving inspiration behind my own works at animation). Of course, the most direct influence of Blood on my life is its continued fuelling of my passion for video gaming and game engine programming, with myself having spent the past month and a half getting educated in 3D programming, with the environs of New Town from Blood II: The Chosen being most inspiring (alongside the streets of Paradise from Postal 2). Clearly, Blood has proven to be a key part of my life, with this wiki being its most prominent and continuing manifestation, but then, I know for sure that I am not alone in this experience. That is after all why we are all here, still playing and enjoying these games and world after all these years.

Jace Hall
Death Wish
Blood XL
RATM

Now then, enough of reflections on back then and where it lead, since as per usual there are the events of the most recent past year to consider. The most noisy spectacle within the Blood community of course was Jason Hall's tantalizing words on the potential for an updated version of the original Blood ported to modern platforms with some new game-play options. Although the prospects for this project still seem uneasy, and fading further with time, just the fact that such an effort was considered shows that there is still yet fluid in the veins of our beloved walking corpse. Even so, if all falls apart there is still the hope of Blood XL to consider, even if development on that has for now been halted pending further word on Hall's efforts and developments elsewhere on the XL Engine base. On the wiki itself, it has been a somewhat low-key year, certainly when compared to the move to Deathmask that occurred in 2011, but still progress has been made and the current body has been still maintained, thanks to User:Tchernobog's tireless campaign against the spam-bot hoards. My own personal pet project over the past year has been the documentation of Blood mods (having documented Blood II mods in 2010), with both Death Wish and Rage Against the Machine now having full and detailed articles. I can also say that work on articles for Bloody Pulp Fiction and The Carnage Continues are in the works, with further plans for BloodLines, Alone in the Dark, Legends of the Iconoclast articles as well as many others, alongside our continuing efforts to document the works and goings of the Blood fan community in general, including hopefully more biography articles. Playing a little Blood modding action is always a good bit of stress relief, particularly when utilizing akimbo Sawed-Off Shotguns. The arrival of the fifteenth anniversary of the release of the game that started it all was sadly not commemorated through a banner as is as our usual custom, an unfortunate oversight on our part, but is still nevertheless an event of note. Here is to another fifteenth years of BloodBathing, regardless of whether or not Jace pulls through, and to another five years of the wiki!

Shogo 2 Concept Art

On another topic, as the head moderator of the Shogo Sub-Section, there are quite a few things I wish to say on the state of the Shogo community today. The launch of Shogo Tribute in 2011 has since proved to be tremendously revitalizing for the shrinking fan community, offering up a new hub to play and discuss the game, and it is on that sentiment that we are very proud to be reviving the tremendous undertaking of working on a "Shogo 2". Although still very much in the preliminary stages, to the extent that we have not yet contacted Monolith Productions on whether or not we can get a Transfusion-like license to use Shogo assets so as to ensure that we do not simply need to make a Shogo inspired game instead, the team we have assembled thus far is determined to make this one effort produce a product, as a last hurrah at very least. Stay tuned.

Shogo 2 Project Forum: http://shogo.pentacle.nl/e107/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?28

Gideon 18:19, 31 January 2013 (CST)

Introduction (By Tchernobog)[edit]

Not much to say this year other than mentioning that work on the Wiki continues. This year was mostly spent by me cleaning up things on the Wiki, either by me fixing the damage that is so often afflicted upon us by spam bots or by just going over certain articles to give them some much needed love and attention. Recent work includes cleaning up the Fiction Time Line and Installation articles, which should both now be in a much better shape, as well as some of the Shogo articles that I have gone through recently. I must confess that much of my time has been taken up by other projects, such as my reviews over at Gaming On Linux which as one can imagine take up a lot of my time, as well as my work on some of my free software projects.

I have also spent much more time concentrating on getting some new games into my collection for the past little while, having played through Deus Ex, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Psychonauts, Trine, Trine 2, and Dungeons of Dredmor, Postal, and Rochard for the first time in the past year or so, with me currently battling through Torchlight. A lot of critically acclaimed games there, although I also did bash my way through Daikatana and picked up a physical copy of Redneck Rampage this past year as well, which was an interesting experience that should help balance things out a little bit here.

Still, Blood will forever stay close to my heart and it is with great relief that I always come returning to it. Playing through both the original and the sequel have become something so familiar and relaxing to me that it has now become such an integral part of my life, and through much of it's little stresses and difficulties I always find that Blood is there for me, even if I am becoming a little too familiar with some of the levels by now. It is because of this that I will never willing let this Wiki die, and why I keep returning to it. And that is why everyday I recheck the recent edits and deal with another large load of spam, knowing that in doing so I am giving back to a game and a community which has given me so much over the years. Even if I have to stand a few annoyances sometimes because of it. Happy 5th Birthday Blood Wiki. We have all earned it. Tchernobog 00:39, 31 January 2013 (CST)

Contributions[edit]

The Blood Wiki (January 12, 2012)
The Blood Wiki (January 30, 2013)

Below is a list of contributions by user up to January 12, 2013, sorted from greatest to least. This is a rough number however, since it includes edits to talk and user pages as well as submissions to articles. Also, Gideon and Tchernobog have used each other's accounts on occasion depending on which computer they were using at the time. This also includes edits from 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, and contributors who have not made an edit in the past year.


For more statistics see the "See Also" section!

Thanks[edit]

Thanks to all that have made the wiki what it is these past five years, and to those who have made the Blood community what it is these past fifteen.

See Also[edit]