FF One Winged Angel
From FFOWA Wiki
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- FFOWA (shortened for Final Fantasy: One Winged Angel) is a Final Fantasy/Square-Enix-based website. It's creation can be credited back to March 22nd, 2004 (The current date is September 9, 2010 (UTC)., where ieatmako (now top-cat) decided he would try his hand at an "ffshrine spin-off" (a popular term used for any Final-Fantasy related site created by a member of ffshrine.org). Originally named FF: Stuff (apparently the only name he could think of at the time) and sporting a horrid black-and-orange coloured Advent Children wallpaper as the background, it got off to a rocky start. Although it is a fansite for the Final Fantasy series and Square-Enix games alike, the lack of new products in past years coupled with years of previous discussion have left the members with little desire to discuss such games.
Contents |
History
The Beginning
FFOWA began as an InvisionFree board named FF Stuff on March 22nd, 2004. The site was created by ieatmako (now known as top-cat) through boredom. It was first advertised through his sig; this tactic eventually got results: members Savior_Sephiroth, Zephikast and a few others joined. Savior_Sephiroth was a major driving force, skinning the forums, instigating the name change and creating the first FFOWA site on Freewebs, as well as the first Java chatroom. At first, it was a relatively dead forum with not a lot going on. The main and most popular way of getting new members to join the boards was to close, what were at the time, popular club threads at FFShrine and proclaim that the clubs would continue in effect at FFOWA. In doing this, FFOWA recieved it's first batch of regular members, many of which are still here today. Kuro (also known as Owen, previously known as The Immortal, Anubis, and Kurohana), Boogybro (also known as Chris), The Sage (also known as Brad, previously known as Tactical Error (#5)), and Fanny (previously known as FFFanatic and Fanaticalism) were just a few of many that made the switch. During early April 2004, FFOWA again got a burst in membership, this time from advertising on the Yahoo! chatrooms (again instigated by Savior_Sepiroth). Members joining during this period include Ophidian Pyrania, Davyinatoga and Aeris (later going by a huge amount of names) being the most prominent to join during this period. Posting at FFOWA during this period exceeded any period until very recently, with over 100 posts a day being common. Although posting died off somewhat after this point, FFOWA remained a healthy and vibrant community with new members often becoming regulars in short amounts of time. FFOWA spent from March 22nd, 2004 to January 15th, 2005 calling the IF board home, during which time it recieved a pretty healthy share of members and posts. The original FFOWA board can be found here, although it is closed - unless you have an existing account, you will be unable to view the forums.
The Revolution
The Forums
The Revolution, Part 1
Halfway through January of 2005 FFOWA recieved an enormous gift in the help of an often "preoccupied" member (shortly after Gerad got sent to juvenile detention for sending a link to tubgirl.com to his teachers and setting it as the desktop for every computer in his school), Gerad (also known as vgx32). In the course of one night, one of FFOWA's regulars since the beginning, Landlord (also known as James, Jim, and previously known as Landlord of Sector 7), met Gerad in FFShrine's IRC chatroom. During which time, he told Gerad all about FFOWA and their struggles towards achieving a wider recognition and popularity. Gerad, in a very kind and thoughtful manner, informed Landlord of his various connections and resources at his disposal on the internet and offered them to Landlord for nothing in return. Landlord, being the easily excited fellow he is, jumped at this opportunity without discussing it with the rest of the admins and in the course of one night (by a U.S. clock) FFOWA had a new home on Takai's (a friend of Gerad) server, and a brand new forum software in the form of phpbb2. FFOWA experienced a sort of renaissance during this period, with posting picking up again, the IRC chatroom being revived and many new members joining.
After becoming comfortable at their new home, the members of FFOWA were the victim to a rather harsh hacking attack in May 2005. It was later confirmed that the hacker found a way into the server through a hole in FFOWA's forums, which were an outdated version that Takai hadn't yet had the chance to update. They deleted both FFOWA's and Openpost's (Takai's site) databases and so due to not backing it up frequently, FFOWA was forced to start from scratch for the second time (the first being the move from InvisionFree to Takai's server). During the time period in between the first phpbb2 board and the second one the members were forced to retreat to the IF board to communicate for a short while.
Moving Servers
Nintendud had been hosting FFOWA's main site for some time before the hacking attempt at Openpost; shortly after the forums were reinstated, Nintendud bought the domain name ffowa.org and it was decided to move the forums there. FFOWA left Openpost, thanking Takai for the service and looking forward to total control of its own affairs. From then on, things were much the same on the forums front until December of 2005.
On December 31st, 2005, FFOWA was on the receiving end of yet another large gift. Gin (also known as Niki and Bubbles) contributed an estimated $181 USD to FFOWA in order for the site to purchase a vBulletin 3.5 (expensive and professional forum software). This was another big step towards the hopes and dreams of FFOWA, and has proved to be a suitable and welcomed change to the community. It has been viewed in part as a sort of defining factor in where the status and progress of FFOWA can be measured. This time, however, the upgrade did not require the loss of the database and FFOWA continued with all its posts and topics OK.
The Site
FFOWA's main site had technically had two attempts before May 2005. The first was a geocities site that never amounted to anything whatsoever (created by Zephikast (also known as Elliot) and didn't really serve any purpose, so it was soon abandoned. The second attempt was a little more fruitful, but still never really got going due to coding problems. The second site design made by Azwethinkweiz (also known as Alex or Az) (most often considered the first, because people either don't remember the geocities site or remember that it was a default template) can be found here.
Once recieving a new server (though still not ours) for the server, we also recieved a healthy portion of another server for our new to be made site. The owner of this server was/is Nintendud (also known as John and Dud). With this sudden, large step toward getting the ball rolling, a new site design was created again by Azwethinkweiz (also known as Alex or Az) and soon put to work. Again this site was full of vibrant colors and radical images and flourished in a way that no previous incarnation had, but once again the attempt failed. A few pages were developed and uploaded such as the staff, chat and contact us pages, along with the FFVII characters' and limit break pages, but the lack of php includes and a more knowledgable coder made it extremely difficult and strenuous to keep updating and adding pages. An image of the 3rd/(2nd) design can be found here.
At this current juncture FFOWA is hard at work on a new site and is determined to make it work in a way that none of the previous ones have. After trial and trial along with multiple errors things are finally starting to come around, with the biggest hindrance towards getting it up being the general laziness of staff members, as well as the ambition of the FFOWA plan. The prototype template can be seen here.
(Note: A thanks is due to Niall (also known as Gast) for his continued help with FFOWA and the site coding)
Notable Members
Py
Py bought FFOWA its first chatroom, a java-based SigmaChat client with emoticons, sounds and other features. A nice person, Py (known as Ophidian Pyrania and Alucardia Constantia most regularly) was liked throughout the forums. Although there was enough drama with regards to her both through her stay and after she stopped being a regular, culminating in her apparent e-disappearance, Py's contribution to FFOWA will be remembered long after most people have forgotten, or were not here for, Py the person.
DoorsXP
A troll whose continued attacks on FFOWA (lately occasional and generally laughed off by members) are done, in his words, not out of particular malice towards FFOWA members (most of whom he appears to like) but a general dislike of Japanophilia and anime in particular (unaware, apparently, that there are very few people of that ilk on FFOWA; presumably, the attacks are lately owing to familiarity with FFOWA rather than effective protest). Also known as Telliskivi, Doors is also quick to extol the virtues of SomethingAwful.com and its forums.
Gerad
Gerad is, essentially, the reason FFOWA is where it is today. Gerad gave FFOWA, through connections with Takai, its hosting space on Openpost, and also introduced FFOWA to Nintendud. Although Gerad had went to a "lockup" for sending tubgirl to a teacher, he is now out. He had plans to get back into the scene, but we haven't seen him in a while. Still, he is a well-respected member of FFOWA.
Nintendud
Nintendud still provides FFOWA with its hosting and bandwidth, despite having to upgrade his hosting plan owing to the excess traffic the site generates. Dud is an expert coder and gamer, and therefore is turned to whenever even the tiniest problem is encountered. Dud is patient enough to continue to talk to any of us despite this.
OWA Related Links
Forums
Java Chat
FFOWA Wiki Users (mostly joke pages)
Staff Page
Affiliates
