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Ah, internet circa 1997. What a magical time that was! Rebelscum.com was still Philip's Star Wars Toy Photo Archive. Mr. T was eating everyone's balls. All your favorite lines from Space Ghost Coast to Coast and the entire NES library were a Yahoo! search away. And let's not forget that ugly dancing baby you just wanted to kick. Kick it far, far away! Good times… It was also the beginning of a little web site that's grown into something I never would've expected. That site is the ol DQ Shrine here. The first American Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior site, and one of the first worldwide.
Dragon Warrior was introduced to me Christmas 1989. Being a video game fan since Pac-Man was new, I'd played my share of side scrollers and top down adventure games, but DW was totally new to me. It had all the exploration of The Legend of Zelda, but deeper and laid back. There were so many people to talk to and items to find. I'd also head over to see what my friends discovered in the depths of Alefgard.
DW had me hooked. I studied the artwork from Nintendo Power. I even did a report on the popularity in Japan. Once Dragon Warrior II was released, I snatched it up as soon as I saw it for rent at the grocery store. When my dad got it for me as an early Christmas present, I played it over and over again. It's still one of my favorite titles. When Enix held their Dragon Warrior II Essay Contest I managed to get second place and won the Jailer and Watergate Keys keychain. Unfortunately, a year later when Rob at Enix sent me their previous Warrior World newsletter with the winners, my name wasn't among them. But I did win it. Really! Since then I've seen posts and e-mails from the fourth and fifth place winners, but never the first and grand prize. Always wondered if they were still fans.
The wait for Dragon Warrior III was an eternity. Every time I entered Babbages, Software Etc., or The Electronics Boutique I asked about it. I'd call Enix customer service and Rob would say the cause for the delay was because Enix was improving the graphics for the US release. An entire walkthrough for the game appeared in the August '91 issue of Nintendo Power, but it didn't show up until spring break, March '92. My mother was having surgery and on the way to the hospital my grandparents and I stopped by Greens(guns)point Mall. I walked into dark gray and neon blue Electronics Boutique and there it was waiting for me. It was their only copy. I'd never had a display copy before and thought that was pretty neat. Sadly, I wasn't able to play the game I'd been drooling over like a Red Rider BB gun for a little while. We all had to sit in my mother's hospital room and watch atrocious local daytime TV on the few channels the hospital's TV could receive. Couldn't turn on the radio either, because that's when Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" was on nonstop play. So I read the stat charts and instruction manual so much I nearly had it memorized! Thanks to that and Nintendo Power's article I never got stuck!
Dragon Warrior IV's release wasn't quite as eventful. One day in December, I walked into Deerbrook Mall's Software Etc. and spotted it on the shelf. Got it for Christmas that year and spent my break playing the heck out of it. Warrior World was mentioning Dragon Warrior V every issue until it suddenly vanished. Warrior World also ceased and no reason for DW V's cancellation was ever given. Even though there was only one screen shot to go by for months, I was looking forward to it and was pretty disappointed.
Even though Enix had ceased publishing Dragon Warrior titles my memories of the series didn't fade. I kept up with every little news blurb I could find. Dragon Quest VI was released to quite a bit of overseas buzz. Nintendo Power's Alan Averill devoted space to it in his Epic Center feature for several months. He even organized a letter campaign to bring it over, but alas, it wasn't enough to persuade Enix.
As the 'ol internet started to grow, I discovered you could find a fan created web page on just about anything. Local music, old tv shows, and even the video games you loved when you were young. One day in the spring of '97 I thought, "Hm, wonder if there's anything on Dragon Warrior?" Typed it into Yahoo! and up popped the Shrine.
After that, the Shrine became a fairly regular visit. It moved from AOL to the popular RPG server Dragonfire.net. I'd always drop by to see pictures of the Japanese titles or any other new information. Months later other DW sites started to pop up, but none had the coverage the Shrine had. Months before I created the manga & anime page, I actually sent Dustin an updated summary on Abel Yuusha. During the past couple years I'd bought a few DQ books I hadn't seen elsewhere. Outside of the Shrine, I couldn't find much information on the DQ comics or animation. Nobody had Toriyama's original Abel Yuusha designs. One day I decided to make a trip to Houston's Planet Anime and found the second Emblem of Roto art book. After flipping through all the pages I thought, "You know, I've got some unique stuff. What the heck? I'll make my own page."
(Click to Enlarge)That weekend was spent creating the Dragon Quest - Emblem of Roto page. Quite a bad title since it was for Abel Yuusha, Dai no Daibouken, Emblem of Roto, and Dragon Quest in general. The site was created in the groundbreaking Netscape Composer. I'm not kidding, back then the only way you could create a web page was by learning HTML! Did the best I could since GUI web editors are nothing like typical layout programs. Stuck it up on the Tripod account, and it was on. The next day I shot an e-mail to Dustin and became part of the Shrine.
The e-mails from around the globe were my favorite part. "Hey, I remember waking up early on Saturday to watch this!" "Wow, Emblem of Roto looks really cool!" One of my favorites was from a guy here in town that, even though it was overpriced, bought the Toriyama: The World hardcover and sent me a huge, high quality scan of the only original Abel Yuusha piece. Since then, people have taken that wonderful gesture and used it for every Abel Yuusha eBay auction and video/VCD/DVD cover!
The DQ/DW community was very different back then. They were a tiny group of people coming together and sharing information on a common interest. When emulation started to hit, a new group of fans discovered the series and begun to ask gameplay questions. One thing I've admired about the DQ fans is the initiative they take. "These games aren't in English? Ok, I'll translate it." In just a couple years, the community grew from a handful of fans to a steadily growing community.
After the DragonQuest.net fiasco, we decided to take the ideas for a mega site and apply them to the Shrine. Dustin created the framework for the content pages that I still use today. At this point, I would like to sincerely apologize to Dustin and the DQ/DW community. I'd been doing layout for years, but was new to web design and have used the Shrine to test the waters. The result was many awful layouts and truly atrocious artwork! There was a big to-do about the switch to a white background. My reasoning behind it was, with the exception of the unfortunately abandoned Don Mohame's DQ Realm, every DQ/DW site had a black background. That and when you go from white text on black to anything else, your eyes get all wonky.
My approach to the Shrine has always been the general audience. Some sites have been for stats, news, forums, or pictures. I try to give visitors a little bit of everything while not frightening them away by being excessively nerdy. An important focus is trying to keep it simple and organized. Many web sites bombard people with text. It's often due to templates and scripts created by programmers instead of designers. DQ/DW is an extensive subject and when it's all laid out, one runs the risk of making the visitor's head explode. So I wanted to put the main topics right in front of the viewer and make everything else a click away. Looking for Dragon Quest V? Boom, DQ section and there it is. Want to read an article? Smack, there they all are. From there the viewer can navigate in the section and runs a minimal risk of getting lost in just the games section closing in on 50 titles. Since I'm a less is more designer, the material needs to be clean and easy to read. The visitor is there for the content and doesn't need to be hampered by navigation, conflicting/unneeded content, or advertisements. I'm always working on ways to improve the site. As I write this I've got a new design that will add to the concept by adding some new color and typeface flavor.
In recent years, I've wanted fans to get to know the people behind the games. Sure, we all know about Horii, Toriyama, and Sugiyama, but there are also product managers, localization staff, and marketers. What are their inspirations and goals? These people work long hours to deliver the titles and they deserve more than a passing mention in the credits.
Another aspect of the site I enjoy are the e-mails I get. It's important for a gaming web site to be approachable. Back in the day people would sometimes chew folks out for asking a question. "Ugh! I answered that question eight pages back on the forum! What's wrong with you? Don't you look?!" There's no need to be ugly to someone asking for help. Over the years I've encountered many a site, personal and professional, that don't answer their e-mail. If it's someone who's stuck or someone who just wants to chat, if you write me, I'll take the time to write you back.
The turn of the century was an exciting time for everyone. No, not because of fears of Y2K and Pokémon, but because EIDOS had unveiled Dragon Warrior Monsters! Everyone was excited to be getting a new DW game after seven years. When 2000 rolled around, our current home wanted us to plaster ads and links on every page. It was time to pack up and move once again. Instead of asking others for space, I registered DQShrine.com and bought some space with a local ISP where it's called home ever since. At the time I was burnt out on web design. Even moving from Composer to Claris Home Page didn't help. I couldn't layout a site like I could a poster or newsletter. Luckily I took a web graphics course and was introduced to Fireworks. It was a web design revolution for me! The design you see today still uses the basic framework.
While all this was going on, Enix had finally returned to North America. The community was playing the heck out of Dragon Warrior Monsters. I took the Game Boy to school on a number of occasions. As soon as Enix reopened their doors, they announced Dragon Warrior I+II and Torneko: The Last Hope. Fifteen nostalgic fans had multiplied to a couple hundred. A new, younger crowd had been introduced to the series. Not only did they love the current games, but now they were being introduced to the classics!
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