Raistlehoff's Farewell
Well, folks, this is it: the end of the road. It's been a great run these last six years, but the Mages of the Plains have had to file for bankruptcy and we're being evicted from the Tower.
Ok, no, not really, but it's not far from that.
I suppose this should be no surprise to anybody that actually follows the site. We haven't had an update in months, and when we were getting something accomplished, the updates were coming further and further apart. So, it was agreed that the DLU should shut down operations, most likely permanently.
But there is good news for our fans. The site will not disappear, but be archived for posterity. Which means folks can still find our wonderful site, and encourage others to do the same.
While this site has seen a revival once before, it just doesn't seem likely that it could happen again. We Raistlins have lives behind the usernames, and even for myself, who has made it a point to contribute as much as I can to every update, there just hasn't been a lot of inspiration lately.
I've been a member of the online Dragonlance community for a decade now. That's a lot of time wasted on the Internet. The great thing is that it's usually been time well wasted. Or well-wasted time. Or something like that. Yet, when the Dragonlance Underground first appeared, in January 2001, I didn't give it much thought. The main hubs of Dragonlance fandom at the time were still the Wizards of the Coast mailing list and alt.fan.dragonlance. I wasn't into visiting Dragonlance websites, even the good ones, like Kencyclopedia.com. What was to become the Dragonlance Nexus was still in its early stages.
It wasn't until after the Underground went into hiatus in mid-to-late 2002 that I finally decided to check out the site and see what all the fuss was about. After reading a few articles, I knew that I should have been visiting all along.
It was also then that I knew that the site should keep going. So, I started talking to Lady Raist about the possibility and, before you know it, the DLU was back with Raistlins new and old, and ready to take on Dragonlance fandom once again.
It's hard to believe that that was four years ago.
It is also interesting to note that, when the decision was made to close the site, Lady Raist had mentioned that the DL Nexus would like to pick up the slack and add a humor section to their site, which is great news for all Dragonlance fans. Indeed, the reason they had not done it already was out of respect for us.
I, too, have all the respect in the world for the guys that run the DL Nexus, yet I'm left thinking that I'll be jealous of the Nexus before long. I have no doubt whatsoever that with their position as the center of the Dragonlance universe on the Internet they'll get all sorts of submissions from people who never even visited the Underground.
This isn't to say I blame the Nexus, or such fans, but we've tried to get people to make submissions to the site, tried to encourage people to visit the site and participate in our forums, to spread the word that we're here. And, in the end, we've still failed, because we're closing down shop. So, I'm disappointed, I'm frustrated, but I suppose that's just how things go.
But to be have been a part of the Underground for most of its six year existence?
To have been part of the reason why the site got a second wind to begin with?
Maybe it wasn't such a failure after all.
Maybe, somehow, someday, the Underground will rise again. Perhaps some newer fans will get together and convince Nilstiar, the site's co-founder, and Lady Raist, the site's webmaster, to bring the site back out of the mothballs once again. Stranger things have happened.
Alas, should that happen, I don't know if I would rejoin the ranks of the Raistlins. Perhaps my time had already come to move on to other things, without being forced into retirement by the closing of the site. But, since this may be the final curtain call, it gives me the chance to reveal myself. I might as well take advantage of it.
So, brace yourselves for a bit of a shock,
Craig J. Ries
P.S.: I did tell you to brace yourselves.
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