DieHard Wolfenstein Bunker: About Us

Many years back, there were many great sites on the web for the avid collector/player of wolfensetin to get their fix. Then a few people created a forum (group on Yahoo) dedicated to the fans of Wolfenstein. This was an interesting place to be for a while, where people could talk about the game, share views on different releases, but then it got a little ugly. It became factionized and people started splitting off in groups. Someone actually deleted the first group and one faction created a new group called "Wolfenstein Fan Club" (which is still going today). This group was ok for a while, but there were others who wanted to create their own little clique. Thus was born the 'Real Wolfers', 'David Gelbers Coding Club' and a few others.

Next came the kiddies and the fighting. So this person went this way, and others went their way. The community was breaking apart. So, BrotherTank, MCS, and Areyep decided that it would be in the best interest of the community to start a club called 'DieHard Wolfers' where everyone was welcome. Where people would share information, help one another, and generally try and get along.

With the popularity of this 'DieHard' group, many of the younger ones tried to turn it all into a popularity contest. They started groups because they believed that in order to fit in or be popular, you had to have your own group. The wanted to see who could draw the most people, get the most posts, and so on. We at 'DieHard' didn't want to play this game, and decided that it was in our best interests to just keep doing the things we were.... Do them the best we could.

Some of these ancient groups can still be found in the Yahoo groups. Most are dead and forgotten, but that old Fanclub still keeps going. There were 3 versions of the Dome forums, one for the Mansion, two versions of the 'Real Wolfers', many, many coding clubs, and others that would create quite the list (if I could remember them all). Anyhow, we still kept being a club, and growing month by month, until the change from Clubs to Groups on Yahoo. With that change came advertising. The killer to most. People were put off by the ads that would jump up from time to time, or that were nested within posts. But that is what you get for free hosting these days. Find one way to block it, and they go and do something else on you. By now, Tristan had his third variation of the Dome going, and was trying to build it up. People were migrating there as it didn't have the ads.

About that same time, MCS and Areyep were working on a new project. They had teamed up to write SoD2... (Spear Resurrection for those who don't know). MCS while not only working on the code, started putting together a place where he and Steve could call home. It wasn't too long before MCS (Martin) was offering part of that site to the 'DieHard Group'. It came with one string.... BrotherTank was to moderate and maintain it (and try to use as little space on the server as possible). The rest of the deal was that he would continue to pay for the site, and we could host our Group there for free. Free of advertising. Now who could pass that up???

I went to work making changes to the templates, setting up the forums after MCS installed the original phpBB software. We were hoping to go live on March 01, 2003. At that time, for reasons still not completely known to myself , Martin or most of you, the Dome was suddenly un-available. It was down.... (probably due to in-fighting amongst the people who ran it - Who knows? Honestly, while I missed the place, it didn't really matter why it went down... it just was). It just so happened that it was the same day that we launched the new Forums on Areyep.com. None of that was planned. It was not a conspiracy. It just happened that way. Call it Karma!

People started accusing us of copying the Dome. Of trying to create competition. They even accused us of trying to split the community further apart. That is so far from the truth it isn't even funny. The DieHard group on Yahoo was started long before the Dome or any of the other groups dedicating themselves to Wolfenstein. The only one before us, was the Fanclub (which still exists - although it looks like it's slowly dying and it's founder only visits with varied intervals). So in fact we Diehards were considered 'competition' to only the fanclub. The rest of those clubs that came later were in fact trying to compete with us.

On the competition side, MCS, Areyep, and BrotherTank didn't want to play the game. We didn't speak up about who was first, who was where, who was anything. We decided to just keep going with our forums. People were trying to turn all of this into some type of popularity contest. You had to have a group or a forum to be popular! So lets set that idea straight.....

DieHard Wolfers is not about competition. We are not a popularity contest. We are not the protector of 1 or a few and screw the rest. We are a place where everyone is welcome. We agree that people have the right to disagree. We agree that some people just can't get along with, or they just plain dislike others. We agree that there are rules to our forums, and that they are to be followed by everyone, so everyone may participate regardless of who likes or doesn't like who. We still hold the same principles in our rules as they day the DieHards were formed. So everyone is protected by the rules. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate and to try and get along with one another!

Where will the forums be in the future? We can't say for sure. But with your help, and commitment, and willingness to contribute, We hope the DieHard Wolfers Forums will continue to grow and flourish. It's all about bringing people together.

So if you share our hobby called Wolfenstein... And you want to be a part of the community... Just head on over to the forums by Clicking Here