End of an era - posted by Dr.Haggard @ 11:58

As some of you may already know, Blade Universe will be closing its doors in a few days. Our host, eUniverse, has decided to close down the entire Gamers Alliance network, which obviously includes us. However this comes at a time when both Warlock and myself were beginning to realise that we simply don't have enough time to do the site justice any longer anyway, and so we have decided not to look for a new host.

Since the game was released you may have noticed the distinct lack of the kind of guides, walkthroughs, editing info etc that you might have expected from us. The fact is that we don't have time to produce this stuff - we have responsibilities, families (in my case anyway) and demanding jobs, and it's reached a point where we don't feel like we can continue to maintain the site to the standard that everyone rightly expects.

It's clear that the Severance community is still growing though. See the previous news post for two new sites which will hopefully, along with others (check out our links page), pick up where we left off and keep the community informed. I hope they will also prove to be the kind of information resources that we failed to become.

There is still plenty of amazing stuff going on over at bladex. Josh's brilliant Gladiator mod is now on version 0.9.1, coming close to the defining version 1.0, with masses of improvements and new features since I last mentioned it here. One of those new features is the ability to play on some third party maps created with Gladiator in mind, some of which are simply wonderful and enhance the game enormously. I'm amazed at the work these mappers are doing already with what must be the most unfriendly and awkward level editor ever to be released to the public! :o)

On the subject, there's a new editing site worth keeping an eye on - The LED Center - where there are some great tutorials for the LED being developed.

So, all in all things are looking great in the Severance community. Also, for those of you who don't check out the official forums very often (you really should), Juan has announced that the patch is now in testing, and he's also posted a breakdown of RAS's future plans (also mentioning how incredibly well the game is selling).

Anyway, see you around.

Doc

# 1

Comment by: BirdMadBoy

buff, a pity, and noone wants to go on with this, have you asked at ras forum,maybe someone wants to keep the site alive,
anyone , you still stay at ras forum, no?

# 2

Comment by: Josh

That is really too bad. Thanks for the work you've put in. Sorry to see it go.

# 3

Comment by: Aurelio

Very bad news... You've done a great work here,
and you know it.

Keep writing you on off. forums ;o)

TaCtO

# 4

Comment by: DrHaggard

I will definitely still be around on the forums, my enthusiasm for the game definitely hasn't dwindled :o)

As for someone taking over, I don't think anyone would want to take on such a big job, so much needs doing to bring the site up to date and make it great again, and there are plenty of other great Blade sites out there now. If someone does want to talk to one of us about continuing the site they can contact us (but they'll have to be quick, and find a new host, and transfer the domain!), but to be honest we figured it was best to just to kill it off.

It's been brilliant doing it, and RAS thoroughly deserve a thriving community around their games - we just didn't have enough time to devote to it any more.

# 5

Comment by: Warlock

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who have been with us while it lasted and especially the guys at RAS for their support from beginning to end.

Especially thanks to Dr.Haggard for all hard work and running the site solo most of this last period, Gordo and Spyd for their cotributions and Snikko for starting Blade Universe way back (can't remember if it was '98 or '99).

I'll keep in touch!

Kjerand.......