Howdy folks - Spanka here. Although, I could be Huusyer, Spankz, Amareck or Spankles (*sigh*), depending on what game I was in at the time. I've been around MMO's for quite some time (although not quite as long as many veterans out there) and one day, I noticed something. A lot of us are MMO freaks (yeah, real perceptive Spanka...). Our entire gaming life is based on having mates, knowing people and networking...all of which translates into having a strong community around us to enjoy our gaming. Up until now, those communities are 'in guild' or 'in game' - you leave the guild or game, and you leave that network of friends.
Short version: www.ausmmo.com.au is a site dedicated to getting & keeping the Aussie & NZ MMO community together, regardless of guild, game, server or anything else. Catching up with old mates, finding new ones, getting a guild together, current game news feeds, links & resources, guild listings & guild recruitment. The site has heaps of stuff for several MMO titles, as well as several guilds who host their site & forums there. Come along and get your game on!
Long version: Every time someone leaves a guild/game, there's a chance they get 'lost' to that community they were a part of. Every time a player joins a new game, they are looking for a strong guild, usually with old mates from previous games. Sometimes, that player joins the wrong server, or is unaware of a large collection of their previous guild mates on a different server. Its happened to most of us at some point and 'that's just crap Ray'. For a gaming lifestyle that is almost totally dependant upon the mates, networks and guilds that MMO'ers rely on, this seemed to be absolute bollox. Yes, bollox! So I've done something about it - http://www.ausmmo.com.au. Its for all Aussie & NZ MMORPG'ers. Its free. I reckon its time we got our game on as a community as a whole. I reckon its time we got our crap together and started sticking together.
There's public forums (Forum Link) to shoot the breeze and game specific forums for game specific chat (wow, what a concept!). There is a growing links database, categorised by game (Resources Link), which also contains guild listings for every game currently supported. There's a front end news site (News Site link), which contains a bootload of feeds from all the major sites (TTH, official players sites, official forum feeds, grab bags and anything else I could find, including about 20 web comics!). Lastly, the forum memberlist has the ability to list up to 5 characters (yeah, I'm working on expanding beyond this limit), so that people can find MMO players they already know on the site. I'd be very surprised if ANY Aussie gamer could sign up and not find someone they know.
My aim is to make ausMMO *the* gaming site for Australian/NZ MMO players. All the links, news feeds, updates, forums, networking and guild listings that any MMO'er could want to get their game on and stay up to date in any game - in one place. A place where players can find old mates (and new ones), guilds can recruit, people can hook up, servers can be chosen for upcoming games - all of it. Networking for our community its rawest form.
The games currently supported are Everquest, Everquest II, Vanguard, Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft: the major MMO titles. As time goes by, I'll be expanding the site to specifically support other games - AoC, Darkfall, LoTRO and others like it.
Additionally, ausMMO offers guild hosting to Australian & New Zealand guilds. As an example, Reverence (Vanguard) has their front end site (Reverence's Vanguard site) as well as their forums, sitting nicely inside our Vanguard boards. In the last month, they've picked up a couple of new players, simply by being at ausMMO - just because people floating around on the boards were interested in Vanguard and had a quick and easy way to find info, old mates and a guild.
I know of several people who have found old mates that they lost contact with years ago. Personally, I've caught up with a couple of people I hadn't chatted to in ages. Its cool. Its working. But most importantly, its growing.
So drop by ausMMO and have a gander. There's plenty there to check out, the feeds (naturally) auto update with all the latest news. And the site is whatever the COMMUNITY wants to make it. If you have a guild you want hosted in a game that I haven't listed yet, go for it - ask away. Got links? Awesome - submit them. Reckon there's a more informative news feed that I haven't listed? Tell me about it. I'm very serious about running this site for the community, not myself. If you want stuff, ask for it. I want ausMMO to be everything that the Aussie MMORPG community wants.
If you've got an queries, drop me a PM or catch me at ausMMO. Hope to see you there.
Cheers,
Spanka
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