Community:Zelda Dungeon Site Mergers

Zelda Chronicles - November 2005
On November 14th of 2005, Avenged, who was known as A7X420 at the time, joined Zelda Dungeon as a new Webmaster. Avenged was a webmaster of his own Legend of Zelda Website, Zelda Chronicles, but because of some difficulties he was forced to shut his own website down. Avenged was no stranger to Zelda Dungeon as he was good friends with Mases and even created layout 5.0 for Zelda Dungeon in the past. With Avenged coming over to the website, he brought over a ton of material that was formally exclusive to Zelda Chronicles. This included various Fan Theories, an Encyclopedia, Hylian creations, and The Beta Files. These new sections helped expand interactiveness between Zelda Dungeon and the community as it offered a few ways that fans can get their material on the website. Additionally, the Beta Files included some rare material that Zelda Dungeon had never had before.

Zelda Compendium - October 2006
The first website that Mases had approached was at the time, a small, little known website, known as Zelda Compendium. Zelda Compendium was a brand new website, only online for a couple of months, but was beginning to develop recognition for having very in-depth game content for some of the older Zelda games. Game content quality that had not been seen anywhere on the internet. Mases contacted the Webmaster of Zelda Compendium with an initial offer to merge websites. Given the youth of Zelda Compendium at the time, the offer Mases made, would be to have Zelda Compendium merge into Zelda Dungeon. All of Zelda Compendium's content would now be available at the website, but more importantly, the Webmaster of Zelda Compendium would become a Webmaster of Zelda Dungeon on an equal par with Mases. The Webmaster of Zelda Compendium was ecstatic about the idea and accepted the offer by Mases, just days before Mases made his update on October 31st. However, days had gone by where Mases attempted to contact the Webmaster of Zelda Compendium, but to no avail. Weeks passed, and Mases had not seen him online and received no e-mail response from him. The website Zelda Compendium, after being updated on a frequent basis for its several month history, had not been updated, and would never be updated again. The site soon disappeared from the internet and the Webmaster was never to be heard of again. To this day, it is unclear exactly what happened to Zelda Compendium and what happened to the webmaster of Zelda Compendium, but needless to say, no merger between the sites ever took place.

Zelda Legacy - December 2006
Several weeks later, the long awaited Twilight Princess was released. A seemingly dejected Mases, after the failure with Zelda Compendium, was unsure of what to do with the website. After realizing Zelda Compendium was gone, Mases looked for other Zelda websites on the internet for a potential merger. Mases contacted Killswitch of Zelda Legacy, and laid out an offer for a merger between the two sites. Mases was interested in merging Zelda Dungeon into the then fast growing website, Zelda Legacy. Mases at the time, was willing to give up the Zelda Dungeon site name, and just wanted the forums to be known as the Zelda Dungeon. In addition, the mark of this potential merger, would be released with a brand new layout, merged content, and a merged history of Zelda Dungeon and Zelda Legacy. Additionally, Mases wanted the ability to bring over a few of the Zelda Dungeon Forum moderators to the forum team at Zelda Legacy. Killswitch was initially interested in the idea at the time, but shortly after, interest seemed to gradually fade away. After several more weeks of slow movement at Zelda Dungeon, little communication, merger talks with Zelda Legacy were dead.

Legend of Zelda.com - February 2007
In February of 2007, Mases released what he dubbed as the 'State of the Dungeon address'. It was the first video based update where Mases spoke about the failed mergers with Zelda Compendium, Zelda Legacy, and a broad overview of what had happened in the previous few months. Mases also gave a brief idea of plans that he had for the future with the website, including a much bigger emphasis on the inclusion of more video content.

This video update sparked interest from Alex and Chance, the webmasters of LegendOfZelda.com. Alex was the original creator of the website, but at the time was not the primary Webmaster. Chance, who was the same Chance who was a previous staff member at Zelda Dungeon, had joined the website, worked his way up the ranks, and became a Webmaster of LegendOfZelda.com. Alex and Chance were also interested in finding another Zelda website on the internet to potentially merge with, and after seeing the video update by Mases, it made perfect sense. Just days after the update, both Webmasters of LoZ.com approached Mases and discussions of a potential merger were underway. Mases was ecstatic about the idea when he was originally confronted, because he knew of the popularity of LoZ.com, and the potential that could become of the merged website. The original foundation of the merger was that for a period of time, the website would be known as, Legend of Zelda.com - Zelda Dungeon, a split name that would incorporate both websites. The forums would be renamed to be known as the Zelda Dungeon, rather than their name at the time, the LoZ.com Forums. Mases would have been given Webmaster controls over the website, and would merge all of Zelda Dungeon's game content into LoZ.com. Members of the Zelda Dungeon forums would be merged into LoZ.com, and they would be allowed to keep their original join date and post count. Additionally, Onilink89, one of the moderators at the time at the Zelda Dungeon Forums, would keep his moderation status when merging into LoZ.com.

On paper, the merger made a lot of sense, and the pre-planning of it was going well. LoZ.com was a site primarily focused on media, news reporting, and a massive community forum. Zelda Dungeon was focused on content and game strategy guides. Each sites weakness was the other websites skill. At the original planning of the merger, the new merged site would be commenced with a brand new layout, signifying this big moment in history. There was a bit of impatience from the Webmasters of both sides, and there was a certain push to get this done as swiftly as possible. Just days later, Mases agreed to the terms, and a launch date was set. The original idea of releasing a brand new layout upon launch had fallen through the cracks, but rather, would just be something that would release at a later point in time.

Mases then created a video update on his site, signifying the merger and Zelda Dungeon Forum members began flowing into the LoZ.com community. Chance, Alex, and Mases all made new posts at LoZ.com, to signify the merger. The night that this happened, thoughts were going through the mind of Mases, and he was unsure whether or not he rushed into this decision or not. After spending a few hours thinking about it and reflecting on the history of Zelda Dungeon, it hit Mases that this was a mistake on his part. Mases rushed and deleted his video update at Zelda Dungeon, deleted the three news posts at LoZ.com, and even deleted his State of the Dungeon video update. It was as if the last few hours of the website had never happened, and Mases had pulled back on his offer of a merger. Mases believed that he rushed into the merger, and that rather than it appearing as a true merger of sites, it seemed more so that Mases was just joining LoZ.com as a new Webmaster. After hearing the news, the relationship between Mases and Chance took a sour turn, and talks of the merger had died out.

Weeks later after the release of Zelda Dungeon's 13th layout, talks of a potential merger began to pop up once again between LegendofZelda.com and Zelda Dungeon. Both sides acknowledged the problems that occurred the first time around and tried to give it another go. Disputes arose about what the possible new layout for this merged site would look like, tensions arose, and the second merger idea never came to fruition and was almost immediately shut down.

Zelda Chronicles - May 2007
Avenged, after leaving the website 10 months previous, returned to Zelda Dungeon at the launch of Layout 14.0. The layout that was launched was originally intended to be released for Avenged's own Zelda website, Zelda Chronicles. After various issues came up with Zelda Chronicles, and some influence from Mases, Avenged decided to come back to Zelda Dungeon and the layout was launched on May 14th, 2007. Avenged was still going by the name Chrono during this time period, but later in the layout, he officially changed his alias to Avenged, as it is presently known. The update at the time of the launch inferred that this was a site merger between Zelda Chronicles and Zelda Dungeon, but it did not exactly happen. Avenged coming to Zelda Dungeon was very similar to the first time he came to the website. He brought over another load of information that was previously only on Zelda Chronicles. Avenged's role at the website after this new site merger had to do with managing the fan content such as fan fictions, fan artwork, hylian creations, and various other projects. Additionally, at the initial launch of the layout, Zelda Dungeon had this idea of expanding the range of news updates, including broader Gaming and Nintendo news, allowing the site to make daily updates. This helped contribute to the slow and steady rebounds of visitors during the time of the layout.

Zelda Relic - January 2009
On January 14, 2009, Zelda Relic was closed and all of the content was taken offline. The webmaster left a message saying that he would become staff at Zelda Dungeon. Yumil officially joined the Zelda Dungeon staff on January on 15th, 2009. The incomplete content from Zelda Relic was never transferred over to Zelda Dungeon and Yumil started fresh as a staff member. The sites never officially merged, but rather, Yumil put Zelda Relic on an extended hiatus while focusing his attention on Zelda Dungeon.