[ Site History ]
As TiberiumWeb.org is quite new, it doesn't have much history within itself. However the following was taken our old site, which was only dedicated to Tiberian Sun. Pretty much, this is what lead up to TiberiumWeb:
In October of 1997, Westwood had started work on their sequel to Command and Conquer. While there was still little to no information about the game, fans just couldn't help but wonder at the idea. While attending an annual computer fair in Munich, Germany, Felix Haas had the idea to make a website for the game.
Felix made long hours over the next few days, hard at work on the new site, and after a couple weeks went by, he registered the domain, and TiberiumSun.com officially opened on December 1st, 1997. In a few weeks, the site was already getting 350 visitors per day, making it the most popular Tiberian Sun fansite on the net!
As their popularity and hits grew, TumSun, in March of 1998, joined GameStats News Network as an affiliate. It also obtained several talented staff members, one of which we remember well, Warmaker, and soon after him, Euan Bonner, who created many downloads for the site, and helped a lot with increasing its popularity.
The site soon reached 1000 hits per day, during the summer of 1998, and the staff continued to accumulate. Great names that would later be remembered started to appear, like Oliver and $creamer, near the end of 1998.
On March 18, 1999, TumSun made C&C website history when it was the first to reach 1,000,000 hits. Soon after, on the 30th, Westwood's Fan Site Award named its first winner, TiberiumSun.com, with this announcement:
This message is to announce the first winner in the Tiberian Sun contest. Today, we selected the site with the most activity. That site *had* to be TiberiumSun.com. Over the past year, Tiberium Sun has registered over 1,000,000 hits, and has certainly been a cornerstone in the evolution of the Tiberian Sun community. Our congratulations to Felix and his staff!
As TiberiumSun.com continued to grow, the community grew along with it. Many other sites came along, but TumSun was the founding father, and had plenty to show for it, with a whopping 4500-5000 hits per day. The site was constantly being updated, with tons of information, great staff, and loads of content. It's no wonder it remained the number one source for Westwood's soon-to-be-released, Tiberian Sun.
After Tiberian Sun was released, the community that was set around it was beginning to collapse. The answer? Run a site that deals with all games Command and Conquer, including titles like Firestorm (the new expansion for TS) and the foreshadowed Renegade.
Then, the empire of TiberiumSun.com reached its all-time high point under the new management of TheShadow and Kane41, two names that would never be forgotten. The site towered over the whole community, but then, something went terribly wrong.
Suddenly, staff began to leave one by one, blaming Felix and bad FTP access. Soon after, the site was left as an archive, a window into the past. It sat there. Though various news posters and other staffers took the job into their hands to post no one was able to successfully pull the site out of the abyss.
After a long state of decay, a young news updater came to work for the site, whom we all came to know and love, Froggy. He worked hard to keep the site updated with news, as best he could, and in a short month's time, he proved himself loyal to Felix, and was promoted as webmaster.
I tried my best to upkeep the site, but in the end it was too difficult to try to accomplish by myself, and after many unsuccessful staff hirings, slackers, etc. I soon realized that I needed help.
While the site's death was still being prolonged, sites rose up around it, and conquered it with ease. The great Tiberium MW, The Real Tiberian Sun Site, TSDEN, and so many more, all took the throne, and left TumSun in the dust. But throuh all of this, the entire time, Felix kept paying the bills for the site. He was truly loyal and kept the site going even when it seemed as if all hope was lost.
One day, however, I saw a post at PlanetCNC.com that said they had gotten an email by someone named FinalMoon. He was looking for people to help him with a whole new site idea that he entitled CNC Omega. The idea seemed big, even for just one person, but FM's always been ambitious. So I approached him for help, and though he was reluctant at first, eventually I got him working with the system. Soon after, a partnership was formed.
Froggy and I then negociated with Felix, for almost 2 months, and finally I was given the title of Webmaster. However, as hard as I fought for my ideas, I couldn't persuade Felix to change the name of the site, that had become a joke in the eyes of new RA2 fans. Still, Froggy and I set to work to revive the site.
FM was accepted into the community, after working hard enough just to get people to notice us. He already had a vast experience in the community, with his old site "Earth's Final Hour" and working on several other sites (including Westwood Underground and Command and Conquer Combat Zone), and he was a very useful asset to the site, being a good writer, modmaker, mapper, and HTML coder.
Soon, after all of our work, there was finally something to show for it. Together Froggy and I finally re-launched the Forum, with a layout made by yours truly. Meanwhile, I used my negociating skills to convince Nighthawk, a well-known Graphic artist in the community from Outburst Entertainment, to create a new layout for the site. And, I managed to persuade FireSnake to come work for us, who soon after proved to be the best news poster the community has ever seen, always keeping the front page up-to-date with the latest news, and never giving up on us.
However, when the layout and forums were completed, however, support began to peter off, and soon, FireSnake had left, even the forums died, and we were down to another rock bottom low. Another standstill.
FinalMoon: After many failed attempts to save the site, rejected plans, and rejected merger offers with just about every site in the community, the site finally reached the deadzone. Froggy and I, being caught up in our personal lives, both went our seperate ways, and no one was even left to announce that we were gone! The site was officially dead.
A few months went by, and I visited the old site (still there) and thought about what I had set out to accomplish, but utterly failed in doing so. Soon after, I had emailed the news posting crew about working. After I gave them my pep talk, I coerced FinalMoon into working as well. While he was busy with the downloads, I worked on the technical things that we felt were necessary.
And so we finally came to our senses and did what we should have done in the first place. Real, hard, work. We promised the community a re-launch date, and as of December 20th - 2002, the new site was born.
FM and I are now working harder than ever to deliver to you the latest news, downloads, content, and anything else we can come up with, and the forums are alive and kicking. We're trying our best to make sure that the site never falls back as low as it was again.
Future:
As long as C&C is alive, and the community is thriving, this site will still be here, and hopefully still active. We hope to bring back TS, TD and TW modding, and keep RA2 and Renegade alive, and of course we hope to open up an expansion to help pioneer Generals modding. We also hope to continue to provide a friendly environment for newbies, even as old as this site is, with great forums, and tons of tutorials. The last thing we hope to do is keep you entertained, with ammusing articles, lots of contests, and a good-natured, fun-loving staff!
Updated April 2005 by The DvD:
Well, Felix is still paying for the site, supported by various sponsors. The most active part of the site is now the forums. It is a great place to start modding TS; There's also active talk about CnC future, storyline, and the addition of the Fun Factory made the forum a place you'll check back to often. Just a few days ago we added forums for maps, voxels, SHPs and other imagery, and we offer modding support in the form of editing and mapping tutorials.
So, what will the future bring? My guess is that this site will keep existing as one of the cornerstones of the TS (modding) community; and I hope that when the true sequel to TS will be released, this site will once again be THE place for the latest in CnC!
Updated December 2013 by Banshee:
In October 21st, 2006, TiberiumWeb.com was launched by TheDvD, FinalMoon and few other people, replacing TiberiumSun.com and expanding its coverage for other Command & Conquer games related with the Tiberium element, such as the first Command & Conquer game and C&C3: Tiberium Wars. For a couple of years, it was an active and entertaining place for several modders. After a couple of years, the interest from the administrators were dropping until the end of 2012, which the TiberiumWeb.com domain was not renewed anymore and the files were transferred for the server from Project Perfect Mod. In order to keep the site running, a new domain (TiberiumWeb.org) has been bought by Banshee to keep the place running. After almost an year, in december 2013, the site has been fully converted to run in this domain. |
