Introductions

Being as most folks in this Roundtable aren't likely to know each other, this is a place for you all to introduce yourselves, and say what site you're representing. As the intros are made, I'll make a roster of everyone for quick reference (Username and websites will be hyperlinked in the Community Contact List for easy contact access).



To get things started, I'll introduce myself.

My name's Pierce, but I run by the handle "X-SOLDIER" pretty much everywhere online (sometimes lacking a "-" on boards that don't support it), and I'm known as X anywhere I've got online folks familiar with me. I'm (currently) 24, and have been involved in Staffing or moderating community sites since ~2003.

I started off at the now retired Advent Children Forums (ACF), and from there I moved out to varies communities as my interests changed. After ACF was gone without return, and much of the content and community was gone for good, I banded together to create a new central for FFVII-related information over here on The Lifestream.

I was a Site Staff and did PR for Project Revolution (a WarCraft 3-based total conversion mod for StarCraft), from there, I moved over to StarCraft Legacy for quite some time, which lead to my experience with interacting directly with a gaming company, since throughout the release and development of StarCraft II, Blizzard kept in close touch with their community. This is why when the idea to get an avenue of contact with SE for the community that I'm most closely a part of, I jumped at the opportunity.

Overall, I'm hoping that a lot of good can come from our efforts here, and I'm looking forward to getting acquainted with all of you.


X

My name's Glenn, though I'm probably better known by my old online name, Squall of SeeD. I usually go by TresDias these days.

I'm currently 24 (25 on August 9th) and started becoming involved in online FF communities in 2002, first at IcyBrian, later at Gaia, AdventChildren.net, Eyes on FF, Caves of Narshe, and others. I also branched over into the Chrono and Soulcalibur series communities for a while.

I've written a number of plot FAQs for games over the years, as well as compiled the English script for Dissidia Final Fantasy, all of which I'll shamelessly plug here:
-FFVII Plot FAQ
-FFVIII Time/Ultimecia Plot FAQ (written with Sir Bahamut and TheOnionKnight)
-FFIX Plot FAQ
-Chrono Series Plot Analysis
-Dissidia FF Plot FAQ (written with MakoEyes, a TLS admin)
-Dissidia FF English Game Script

I've also performed some Ultimania translations, most of which can be found in articles here on TLS.

I've not really done any moderation work before TLS, but I've been doing that here for over a year now, while also writing various articles for our frontpage. Rather than news articles, these are usually of the story analysis variety.

I look forward to us accomplishing something with a united effort to get SE to acknowledge its western fanbase. I do believe it's possible.

Haha, Squall of SeeD, that's awesome! Never thought I'd run into you again. I'm ZeaLitY. Ramsus told me to play Chrono Trigger in spring 2002, and then we made a site in July 2003 which became the Chrono Compendium. I started the ROM hack Crimson Echoes in 2005, which fellow Chrono fans Agent 12 and Chrono'99 championed and coded. It received a C&D in 2009 and the entire ROM hacking community for the Chrono series had to be virtually destroyed. Since then, I'm just trying to keep the Compendium complete and hoping for a new Chrono game.

Hello, my name is GlitterBerri.

As I mentioned in the other topic, I've been translating game-related material at my website, BerriBlue, for around 5 years, including many interviews with the developers at Square-Enix and media related to/extracted from their games.

I am fully capable of conducting discourse in Japanese (and French, I suppose) and would like to volunteer my assistance towards your mission of generating and facilitating a channel of communication between Square-Enix and its English fans. In addition to translating discourse between the fansite representatives here and those associated with Square-Enix, I am also happy to seek out methods of communication with individuals with whom you wish to get in contact, be it through their personal sites or other channels. Just point me towards who you'd like to talk to and I'll do my best. =)

Glad to be aboard!
GlitterBerri

I can be contacted at the following:
Email: [email protected]
MSN: [email protected]
AIM: GlitterBerri

Hello, everyone.

I'm Athena, news poster and occasional (speed) translator over at Square Anthology. Our main owner, Ryu, isn't very consistently there but I feel that he'd be all for it so that's why I'm here. I'm on my 4th year of high school Japanese education, and I plan to continue with it in college along with starting to learn the Korean language. To be honest, SA is the first place I've started posting news, but I have modding experience on various successful Harry Potter fansites spanning back since 6th grade (/cough).

I've been into Square games since I was eight or so, and my first Final Fantasy was actually VII, so it'll always have a special place in my heart. Don't be afraid to contact me if you have any questions, qualms, or whatever. I'm not that scary, though the members of SA might disagree.

I'm, well, I'm that guy that's sitting in the background of Guile's stage from Street Fighter II, but everyone calls me Mog. So call me Mog!

I'm just another one of the Super Moderators here on TLS. I've been here since ACF, and when this site started, I came along for the ride. Since then I help out here and there when I can. I came up with this idea of voicing our thoughts to S-E, and even though I'm about 3 days away from shipping out to Naval Basic Training for two months, I want to plant this idea and hope it takes off! I'll help as much as I can before I leave and I'll always be here to help out when I get back.

ZeaLitY found me wandering around the Chrono Compendium forums like a lost puppy at 4AM some morning back in 2007, trying to figure out what Chrono Cross' internal brains look like. That sufficed to show dedication, and so he took me under his wing. And here I am.

This is such an awesome group of ambitious people -- hope we can keep in touch over the long term! I totally need to catch up on my Final Fantasy VII fandom news too!

Athena, GlitterBerri, and ZeaLitY: Welcome! Glad to have you aboard, and thanks for joining the cause. I'm actually feeling pretty inspired at the moment seeing all this momentum and drive to accomplish something.

Faust: Already welcomed you once, but hello again in case you missed it. =)


ZeaLitY, long time, no see! I was out of the online fan communities for quite a long time. Almost four years, actually. Great to see you again, and it does my heart good to see you never abandoned your project.

Maybe we'll get a new Chrono game out of all this? Chrono fans definitely have some reason to take an interest in this effort since Chrono Cross was apparently received better in the West than in Japan.

I'm so glad this has gotten off the ground and we're meeting like this. This is awesome.

Well I'm Makoeyes987. I change usernames like underwear here but that's the handle I go by most of all. I was one of the admins of ACF before the forums imploded in absurdity, and was one of the main coordinators of all the Ultimania translations for the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania and CC Complete Guide. When ACF disappeared X, Yop, MOG, hito, myself and others got the Lifestream going and continued trying to get some of those guidebooks.

As a result, TLS is what is now.

Not really sure what else to say, but I've been around since...I guess when Dirge of Cerberus came out? So yeah. It's a pleasure to meet all of you and I'm glad you joined here. ^^

Athena said:

Hello, everyone.

I'm Athena, news poster and occasional (speed) translator over at Square Anthology. Our main owner, Ryu, isn't very consistently there but I feel that he'd be all for it so that's why I'm here.

Click to expand...

I own Square Anthology?

News to me.

I'm Ryu. Real name Tim. I do a bit of everything, really.
Been around since 7 first came about. I was a mod at ACF before it asploded, am one here now.
At the moment, I'm doing LPs with Pixel and anyone else who'll yak it up, and audio commentaries on all the Square Enix animations with fellow members Forcestealer and Tennyo.
I guess I'll assist with this however Is necessary or I can best aid it, but you'll need to let me know when my help is needed, since I can get pretty busy.

Ryu said:

I own Square Anthology?

News to me.

Click to expand...

So that's why you don't show up anymore. You've forgotten us!

Hello, I'm Paw, a moderator from Square Anthology.
I have very little 'big leagues' experience on websites and forums, having, until I came to SA, merely lurked on a couple of sites, like KH vids back around when Kingdom Hearts II was in development.

Sometime later, I joined finalfantasy-xiii and got a little more well known there.
But I consider Square Anthology, probably due to its small size, the only place I have been really active.

I'm here because I really like this idea and I want to be involved. Amidst all the complaining and moping about Square-Enix, I really respect the idea of actually making an effort to do something about it.
Our whole community respects it at SA, and if a bit of brilliance shows up there about this, Athena or I will be sure to share it immediately.

Honestly right now I feel like an exotically dressed man from the middle of nowhere coming to Rome to represent my tiny village. xD
(I'm very happy Rome cares)

Ohai,

I'm He that Lieth Dead that Ever Dreameth, which explains my lack of a lot of activity on here . Formerly known as YopY, which is a dumb username and a leftover from high school, I sorta set the site up in technical terms a while after AC.net keeled over and some of its members went over to http://ffof.nl, one of the many AC.net spinoffs (somehow it was a fad to start new FF forums based off of AC.net's formula which it got off of... EoFF? Can't remember). From there, some people went 'Hey guy, did translations, AC.net is dead, go and make a new website pl0x'.

A domain registration and Wordpress installation later and TLS was born, . Great props to whoever thought up the name - it's the first FF site in forever I've seen that doesn't have FF in the name.

Anyways, I still sorta own and pay for this site (although what little ads we have cover all the costs, which aren't much either) and do the occasional techy work, but haven't felt motivated to do much else. Playing video games, on the other hand... .

Personal life, I'm 25 years old, some sort of computer programmer guy mainly aimed at web and Java development (and the combination thereof), was a member / mod / smod / tech admin (for like a month and did nothing, lol) at ACF but mainly a complainer and active when there was drama to be had, and err. that's about it.

I can contribute translations to Dutch and Frisian if need be, . And of course hosting of whatever needs hosting, setting up of webpages or even complete websites, development, that kinda thing. On the latter though, I haven't ever felt motivated to do much in terms of building something neat without working for a boss.

asdf.

Cthulhu said:

A domain registration and Wordpress installation later and TLS was born, . Great props to whoever thought up the name - it's the first FF site in forever I've seen that doesn't have FF in the name.

Click to expand...

Since you've forgotten, it's been forever, and SOMEONE else may be interested, we explicitly tried to avoid the "FF-noun" name when creating the site. More specifically Rayvnne suggested it on September 24th, 2008. After you & I discussed it, and decided that that was easily the best suggestion, you had it created by the 25th.


X

This is why I employ bugtrackers and the like at work - I forget things if I don't have them documented somewhere, .

Sorry for the delay between my signing up here and my... actually posting. Only about three weeks, I figure, so that's not terrible, right?

I'm Josh, "better" known as Rangers51 or R51 from the Caves of Narshe. I started that site back in 1997, and despite a gradual slowdown over the last five years, I'm still there and still running the day to day. We don't get much done these days, as we have a paucity of people willing and/or capable to do the work that needs to be done, but we're continuing to focus on the games we cover, which include the bulk of the Final Fantasy games released in the US before 1999, as well as Chrono Trigger. Our content focus tends to be on guides, providing a breadth of content more so than extremely deep stabs into individual games.

Personally, I'm a full time web developer, which is part of the reason that I'm often too burned out to get good work done on my site. My full-time job is as a senior UI developer for an American cable TV network; my second job is as a freelance designer, developer and webhost; my third job is my wife and our baby on the way; my fourth is CoN.

As to what I can provide to your effort, I'm not particularly certain. Despite having a degree in advertising with all of its requisite marketing education, it's something I've largely ignored with CoN, and my connections to the rest of the industry are a bit tenuous; I know a few folks at Turbine, Harmonix, and Blizzard, but not well enough to leverage them even if they had a better connection to our actual goals here.

Rangers, what's up. Good to see you. Thanks for joining the effort. Despite your crammed schedule, I'm really glad to see you onboard.