Zelda Dungeon:History
Stretching across nearly two decades, the Site History of Zelda Dungeon is filled with its share of ups and downs, as well as a wide range of characters that have played a pivotal role in the websites growth and expansion.
Overview
Mases Hagopian first played the original The Legend of Zelda back in 1990, but it wasn't the mind-blowing experience that many others had. At the age of just 4 years old, The Legend of Zelda was simply just known as the game with the shiny gold cartridge and nothing else. Flash forward to 1994 when Mases got his hands on the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and quickly fell in love with it. The expansive Overworld, fun gameplay, great difficulty, amazing music, and the dozens of memorable moments along the journey made the game a one-of-a-kind experience.
For Christmas 1998, Mases got a copy of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and his love for the series continued, where he even went back and completed all the prior Zelda titles that he previously missed out on.
Leading up to the release of Majora's Mask in 2000, Mases started to become more involved in the online Zelda community. He frequently visited large Zelda websites, including Zelda Power, Zelda Gaming Online, and Ganon's Tower. Mases was always looking for the latest Zelda related news, reading Zelda fan fiction, and checking out secrets in the games.
It was during the summer of 2001 that he thought of the idea of creating his own Legend of Zelda website where he could provide written strategy guides for all of the Zelda games. This idea finally came to fruition during the summer of 2001.
Layout 1.0
- Main article: Layout 1.0
The site launched on August 19th, 2001 and was hosted at Yahoo Geocities. The website had a very primitive looking layout with very minimal content. The first game guide at the website was started for Ocarina of Time. There was a small amount of Zelda pictures and artwork, as well as some media downloads available for midi songs, which led the site to grow to receiving 25-30 hits per day.
Layout 2.0
- Main article: Layout 2.0
On March 27th, 2002, Zelda Dungeon launched Layout version 2.0, and it was the first layout that was built with html coding. The layout created a consistent appearance across all pages and saw the continued expansion of content creation. The site moved away from Yahoo Geocities and was hosted by a larger Zelda website known as Zelda Odyssey. It was during this time the site also had its first volunteer staff member, and with two team members on the staff, content creation came at a quicker pace, allowing the site to grow to receiving close to 100 hits per day.
Layout 3.0
- Main article: Layout 3.0
On November 23rd, 2002, layout 3.0 was launched and it was a notable visual update to the site. The layout gained a better structure and consistent look, with it being the first layout theme that featured a traditional header. The site name was changed to Zelda Dungeon, dropping the word the' from the title. The site jumped around from host to host during this period, moving from Zelda Odyssey over to Zelda Universe, and then later to Acidmist.com. During this period the site was now able to be reached at www.zeldadungeon.com and jumped up to receiving close to 200 unique visitors per day.
Layout 4.0
- Main article: Layout 4.0
Zelda Dungeon released Layout version 4.0 on May 3rd, 2003. The site layout was pulled from a website that distributed Free website designs. It kept a simplistic look to the site, with a standard two-column setup. The website brought on board a volunteer by the username Cartoons, who would quickly become a Webmaster of the website and one of the most active team members in the sites early years. The consistent work of Mases and Cartoons caused the site to blossom, reaching 500 unique visitors per day, with it peaking at 1,000 visitors in a single day, just days before the sites second birthday. Zelda Dungeon began to partner with affiliate websites, linking to other websites forums, which was the first instance of pointing its users towards a forum community. Hosting troubles temporarily stunt growth until the site finally changed to a new hosting company, unfortunately leaving behind the zeldadungeon.com domain name in the process. The site was now found at zd.telefragged.net.
Layout 5.0
- Main article: Layout 5.0
Layout 5.0 was released on November 25th, 2003. Site viewership continued to grow, with a focus being being put on downloadable content for viewers, including desktop wallpapers, messenger icons, and forum avatars. During this period of time, the site moved to its now current domain name, zeldadungeon.net.
Layout 6.0
- Main article: Layout 6.0
Released on March 30th, 2004, this was the first layout that featured a quick game navigation at the top of the website, with links to all of the Zelda games, a common feature at more prominent Zelda websites during this era. The first era of the Zelda Dungeon Forums were made available during this period, accumulating over 300 registered members and 7,000 total posts.
Layout 7.0
- Main article: Layout 7.0
Layout 7.0 was launched on August 23rd, 2004, just four days after the websites third anniversary. This guide caused the website to shift to more complete game walkthroughs, with the first guides being completed with text and pictures for both A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda. The second era of the Zelda Dungeon Forums launched during this time period, using the phpBB forum software.
Layout 8.0
- Main article: Layout 8.0
Layout 8.0 launched on February 25th, 2005. This layout marked the continued expansion of game walkthroughs, including the completion of The Minish Cap walkthrough, which had released not far before. Site traffic soared to over 2,000 unique visitors a day, with a single day record of 3159 unique visitors on April 2nd, 2005. This record would hold true for the next 29 months.
Layout 9.0
- Main article: Layout 9.0
The 9th layout of Zelda Dungeon was released just before the sites 4th birthday on August 18th, 2005. During this period, the website gained a 3rd webmaster, Avenged, previously the webmaster of Zelda Chronicles, and a prior contributor to Zelda Dungeon. Zelda Dungeon also began to offer download Zelda videos and music soundtracks during this period, using the larger Telefragged network media server.
Layout 10
- Main article: Layout 10.0
Layout 10.0 of Zelda Dungeon was launched on February 12th, 2006. It was a short lived layout, only lasting a couple of months. During this period, much of the content from Zelda Chronicles had been brought over to Zelda Dungeon, with much of the content being reworked to bring up to new quality standards. This included some new features at the website, including new weekly features such as the weekly character contest, to encourage more fan interaction.
Layout 11
- Main article: Layout 11.0
Released on April 19th, 2006, Layout 11.0 received mostly a negative reaction and caused traffic to dip. This designed added a third vertical navigation bar, which included the quick links for the game navigation.
Layout 12
- Main article: Layout 12.0
Layout 12.0 was released on on August 19th, 2006, the fifth birthday of the website. During this period of time, Zelda Dungeon viewership dipped to a three year low and many of the team members left the website. Unsure of the future of the website, Mases looked to merge Zelda Dungeon with other Zelda websites with the hope of forming a more thriving Zelda community. Planned mergers with the websites Zelda Compendium and Zelda Legacy fell through and the site became stagnant in late 2006, even with the release of Twilight Princess. Another attempt at a merger with the website, legendofzelda.com, was planned and very briefly implemented, before Mases quickly pulled the plug.
Layout 13
- Main article: Layout 13.0
Launched on February 25th, 2007, the new layout was a much simpler and brighter color scheme, with very limited amounts of imagery, and a wide content area. A heavy emphasis on video content occurred during this period, with all site updates being video based updates, recapping new additions to the website and talking about upcoming projects. The Zelda Dungeon YouTube channel was launched during this time period, with beginning of video based guides being introduced. This layout also saw the hiring of Caleb Simpson as a content creator, who would go on to become a significant contributor to the website in the years to come.
Layout 14
- Main article: Layout 14.0
Launched on May 14th, 2007, the new layout marked a new path for Zelda Dungeon, with a return of a quick links navigation system, and a two sidebar layout. Viewership at the website began to grow rapidly with a renewed focus on site and video walkthrough content. With the release of Phantom Hourglass in October of 2017, the website broke viewership records that had stood for over two years. This marked the first time in website history that coverage and game guides for a brand new Zelda game were being published in close proximity to a games release.
Layout 15
Layout 15 was launched on November 22nd, 2007 and was the first layout that was created by webmaster of Zelda Dungeon, Caleb. It was themed after the Temple of Droplets from The Minish Cap. The initial goal was to design a layout that made it feel like one was actually within a dungeon. The top banner of the website had a puzzle within it. A block of ice with a small key could be seen on the right side of the banner, and an area of fire could be seen on the left side of the banner. Much like many puzzles within the Temple of Droplets, the puzzles solution involved Link pushing blocks of ice to get the small key to the fire. The original idea was to make the banner interactive and playable, but this never did come to fruition.
The layout added a few buttons along the right navigation signifying the current site projects that the staff was working on. One of which, was Phantom Hourglass, where the staff was still finalizing some of the content and walkthrough pages. Walkthrough chapters were released on a near weekly basis since the release of the game and on January 2nd, the walkthrough had been completed. In the coming weeks, just about all the subsequent side pages for Phantom Hourglass were also completed. The walkthrough for Phantom Hourglass earned Zelda Dungeon nice rankings in various search engines, which surged visitors during the winter months. In the days just following Christmas of 2007, Zelda Dungeon recorded over 6000 unique visitors, a new record at the time.
On January 23rd of 2008, the Zelda Dungeon Forums received a big upgrade as the site switched over to the vbulletin forum software. This switchover saw a large initial push in registered members and total posts. Over the coming months, significant changes were made to the hierarchy of the forums with the introduction of several new forum rankings. New shoutbox software was installed on the forums, and with that, several new usergroups were established.
On March 1st of 2008, Zelda Dungeon was the recipient of the Golden Mirror Shield award, given out by the Exploding Deku Nut. Each year during the month of February, Darth Citrus of EDN hosted the Golden Item Awards, where sites were nominated and awards were given out to sites that were unique, aspiring, had a lively forum, had a great layout, and an award for the lifetime achievement. Zelda Dungeon was awarded the lifetime achievement award and it followed with an acceptance post by Mases at Zelda Dungeon in the days following.
April 4th marked the first time a staff member at Zelda Dungeon got married when Caleb tied the knot with his wife Michelle. Michelle would later become a frequent member in the Zelda Dungeon community and a staff member at the site. At the end of this layouts period, Zelda Dungeon added another new staff member in Dabombster. He was formally a webmaster at Zelda Legacy, but after he stepped down from his position, he was seen often at the Zelda Dungeon Forums. Mases approached Dabombster, asking if he had interest in helping out Zelda Dungeon as part of the site staff. Shortly after, Dabombster was added on board to help revamp The Wind Waker section at the website.
Layout 16
Beginning in February of 2008, Mases began revealing a project at the website known as the Zelda Dungeon Alliance. Over the next several months, Mases began revealing websites that were a part of the Zelda Dungeon Alliance. The original goal that Mases had envisioned with the alliance, was to have a network of eight Zelda websites, each who were unique in their own way. At Zelda Dungeon, rather than having minuscule sections devoted to things like fan artwork, a sprite comic, or a fan games section, Mases preferred to focus strictly on game content and allow other websites in the alliance to satisfy the needs of the other areas. These sites would then be featured at Zelda Dungeon with news updates on the index page, highlighting their exclusive content. At the launch of the 16th layout of Zelda Dungeon, all non-game guide sections at Zelda Dungeon were to be deleted, with focus now shifting exclusively to game guides.
One of the first websites introduced into the alliance was North Castle, a website devoted to fan artwork, fan fictions, and an assortment of other fan submitted content. Each month, Juliet, the webmaster of North Castle, made an update revealing the newest pieces of artwork and fiction. Mases would then feature several of these fan artwork images in what would become known as the monthly artwork update. Four to Six pieces of artwork would be posted at Zelda Dungeon, and this allowed a constant flow of updates to be put on Zelda Dungeon, yet not many resources needed to be focused on news updating and more time could be spent on guides. It also gave a lot of extra exposure to these pieces of unique content and gave the fans of Zelda Dungeon something interesting and unique. Some of the other unique websites that were announced as being a part of the Zelda Dungeon Alliance were Zelda Comic, Zelda Reorchestrated, and Zelda Classic. On May 18th of 2008, Layout 16, which was created by Caleb, was launched, and the alliance websites were now being fully implemented.
The layout had a quite a few drastic changes made to the website. With the inclusion of the alliance, all material at Zelda Dungeon was removed, other than game content, site content, and selective media content. All of the site content was stored in pop down navigation bars that could be found along the left navigation and within the header of the layout. The game menus along the left navigation now had huge pop out menus that displayed every piece of content for each game. The compacted navigation bars made it so that it was no longer needed to have two navigation bars on every page of the website. On the right navigation bar on the index page, there was a listing of site projects and affiliates. This page however, was only seen on the index page, and if a user navigated to a game content or a media page, the right navigation would be removed and it will be replaced with an expanded content area. This extra space of content allowed the staff members of Zelda Dungeon a wider area to work with and this ultimately led to higher quality guides because there was more room, allowing for larger thumbnail images to used. New sections of the Ocarina of Time walkthrough that Caleb was working on were the first pages that took these adjustments into effect.
The layout also saw the release of a new slogan for Zelda Dungeon that Caleb created, 'Let us take you through the dungeons'. This signified the extra stress the website had on game content and specifically, game walkthroughs. Content continued to pour in during this time period, with several new chapters of the Ocarina of Time walkthrough being completed, as well as the beginnings of the Twilight Princess walkthrough.
Prior to the launch of layout, Caleb had been working on another layout that had a black and red color scheme. This layout was never officially released, although it did have the same functioning mechanics as the final blue variation. The red variation of the layout was very image intensive, taking a long while to load, and it was decided that this was not practical. The blue variation also had quite a bit of imagery, but it was significantly smaller in file size.
On August 19th, 2008 Zelda Dungeon celebrated its seventh birthday and released a retro version of layout 1.0. Caleb created a mimic of layout 1.0 in a short period of time, and for several hours, it was available for viewing at the Zelda Dungeon index page. The actual birthday update was one of the largest content updates in site history, which included the complete Twilight Princess textual walkthrough.
The period of time during this layout saw a drastic increase in active members and total posts at the Zelda Dungeon Forums. Beginning in April of 2008, every consecutive month after April, had more total posts than the previous month. This trend continued every month through the entire lifespan of Layout 16 and into Layout 17. On September 19th, the Zelda Dungeon Forums reached the milestone of 10,000 total posts.
The Zelda Dungeon alliance had not worked out entirely as was originally planned. Many of the alliance websites were going through rough times or simply didn't have the type of material that warranted news posts. North Castle had been the only alliance websites that has been constantly featured at Zelda Dungeon with monthly artwork updates. When discussion of the new layout was being made, Mases and Caleb decided to reduce the alliance down to four websites, only keeping what they felt made the most sense for Zelda Dungeon.
There were a handful of other staff changes during this layouts era, including the hiring of Josh, who was the lead content specialist at a now debunked Zelda website, Zelda Oracles. After seeing his work at what was an inactive website, Mases approached Josh and offered him a chance to help out at Zelda Dungeon, at which Josh quickly jumped aboard and began working on various content projects, including the Wind Waker Walkthrough.
Layout 17
Layout 17.0 was created by Caleb and released on October 21st, 2008. The layout was structurally very similar to layout 16.0, but had a much different color scheme, and included a huge fan artwork image for the banner.
The lifespan of the layout saw the hiring of several new staff members at the website. Many of them came and went, but some made major contributions during their time period with the website. Brandikins joined the team and was responsible for the complete revamp and write-up of both the Link's Awakening and Adventure of Link Walkthroughs. Zenox also joined the staff and worked with the staff to create a high quality walkthrough for the first quest of the Legend of Zelda. Yumil also joined the team during this period of time. He was formally webmaster over a closed website known as Zelda Relic, as well as being a long time friend of Mases. Unfortunately, while there was notable contributions, many of these staff members moved on to other projects elsewhere outside of Zelda Dungeon.
In November of 2008, Mases began experimenting with hardware that would allow for a Live Zelda Dungeon Video podcast. The first podcast took place on November 29th, 2008, but since it was not recorded, it is viewed as a beta version of the podcast. The first official podcast took place on December 9th, 2008. The podcast was streamed live onto the Zelda Dungeon Forums and appeared side by side with the forum shoutbox. Forum users could actively communicate with Mases and other guests on the shoutbox while the podcast was taking place. The podcast ran through the latest news at Zelda Dungeon, at the forums, and within the Zelda world. The podcast then had a Question and Answer section. Each subsequent podcast after the initial one included a special guest, usually a webmaster of another gaming website. Mases interviewed the guest live on the podcast, asking questions about their website or their interest in the Zelda world. The guest would remain online for discussion during the question and answer section. Future podcasts added new features such as a featured thread discussion. All podcasts were recorded live and put on Google Video unedited for viewing of people who couldn't make the live show.
After the conclusion of the podcast, Mases remained online for several hours talking with the members of Zelda Dungeon. Often times, other members of the staff or the forums were welcomed onto the live stream to take part in discussions. Mases often times acted as a DJ playing various music throughout the after party. Several activities took place in the after-hours of the podcast including Name That Zelda Tune, Zelda Hangman, as well as live gameplay of various Zelda and other gaming titles. After several weekly podcasts, the stream changed to being bi-weekly, and was eventually phased out due to time restraints by Mases and complications with uploading of the podcasts due to the closure of Google Video.
In the Fall of 2009, there was a dramatic shift in how the website was updated. With the failure that was the Zelda Dungeon Alliance, there began a gradual process moving away from the guide-exclusive mindset that dominated the previous year and a half. The website started making frequent news posts in the fall and especially in the lead up to the release of Spirit Tracks. The hype of the new DS game, along with the constant coverage in news updates, led the site to reach new heights in terms of visitors. On November 28th, 2009, a new record of 12,569 unique visitors was set. Ironically, this also marked the final day that this layout was online. At this point in time, this was the layout that was online for the longest period of time in site history, spanning over 13 months.
Layout 18
Layout 18 launched on November 29th, 2009, which was a day the site got 12,814 unique viewers, another new record. The new layout saw a return to a horizontal game navigation menu across the top of the site. Gone were the huge pop-ups and instead, users had to click the game icons at the top, first taking them to the game index pages. This made users go to an extra page, but it solved many users concerns about the bulky game navigation pop-outs from the previous two layouts. The new layout saw another drastic change in the display of content. This marked the first time an index page had just one navigation bar, allowing for wider images and videos to be displayed right on the index page. Furthermore, the single navigation bar was found on news, media, vault, and general game content pages. On walkthroughs pages, there was no navigation bar at all, allowing the content area the span the entire width of the layout. This extra room really gave even more freedom in terms of what could be done with walkthroughs, with the inclusion of official artwork, larger screenshots, and much more information.
The launching of the layout also saw a shift from Cutenews to Wordpress. This was a huge upgrade as it allowed the website to implement a number of wordpress plugins as well as in on-site comments system. Prior to the shift to Wordpress, all news posts were made at the site and forums, but users could only comment at the forums. With Wordpress and the IntenseDebate plugin, users could comment right on the news post without being forced to go to the forums or to register a username. This allowed for much better interaction between the staff and the fan base.
Just weeks after the launch of the new layout, Spirit Tracks hit stores and on day one there was tons of game content, including the first few chapters of the Spirit Tracks Walkthrough. Just days after the games release, a full textual walkthrough was available. Given the fact that the guide was online so quickly, and the high search engine rankings that it garnered, the site his record breaking numbers once again. 15,000 visitors, then 20,000 visitors, and then 30,000 visitors in a span of just a week after the games release. The site was growing at extreme rates and reached a maximum of 41,291 unique visitors on the weekend following the games release.
Even that record would be short lived as on December 28th, 2009, the site recorded 71,416 unique visitors, the highest amount in site history. Even after the holiday season and into the Spring months, visitors remained high, with the site holding constant at 20,000 unique visitors per day, a number unheard of in the history of the online Zelda community.
While Spirit Tracks content was the focal point of this time period, the site also saw great expansion in other sectors of the website that were not game guide related. Site sections such as the Zelda Commercials, Zelda Trailers, Publications, Books, and many other pages were launched, to helped bolster non-game guide related content.
On March 17th, 2010 the Ocarina of Time Video Walkthrough had been completed and posted at the site. Videos were constantly being updated at the Zelda Dungeon YouTube channel, where by the time of completion, the channel reached over 5000 subscribers. Immediately following the conclusion of the Ocarina of Time Video Walkthrough, video guides were completed for Link's Awakening and the Adventure of Link, giving the YouTube audience constant videos.
Several new staff members joined the team during this time period including Joseph, who was brought on board to be the Facebook Coordinator. Daily Facebook updates began immediately, including raising questions to fans, posting fan artwork, fan videos, as well as posting all the Zelda Dungeon news, and making fun Zelda statements. This quickly allowed the Facebook page to blossom, where by May 13th, 2010, the Facebook page hit over 2,000 fans.
Another new addition to the team was Axle the Beast. After some planning with the staff, Axle launched the Curiosity Shop, the Zelda Dungeon weekly Mailbag. This was a video question and answer segment where fans could send in questions for Axle to answer. It gained quite the popularity both at the website and at the Zelda Dungeon YouTube channel where it still remains a weekly segment today.
Justin was another notable staff member who was added to the team to help with much of the behind the scenes work at the website. This included the back-end coding, Wordpress plug-ins, Forum modifications, and even layout planning.
Layout 19
Launching just before E3 2010, the site immediately received quite a boost in visitors. With Skyward Sword being revealed, more visitors flooded in and the boost remained consistent throughout the summer and into the fall and winter, where as of February 2011, the site received its highest consistent viewership in site history, reaching an audience of over 30,000 viewers each and every day.
During this time period, Zelda Dungeon reemphasized the importance of having daily updates, with at least one update occurring every single day from July 4th, 2010, all the way through February of 2011. The daily updates started taking on a more formal approach. While news updates were made whenever interesting material was released, the Curiosity Shop started having a set release every Wednesday. Additionally, in late fall of 2010, Zelda Dungeon started weekly Fan Music updates each Thursday of the week. At the start of 2011, Tuesdays began being the day of weekly Fan Artwork updates, supplanting the monthly North Castle updates that had been gone for a year. Another weekly feature was the Article Friday's days at Zelda Dungeon. While they started in the summer of 2010, they really took hold in fall, with a new article appearing almost single Friday from September through the present day. A few other, minor reoccurring updates included the bi-weekly featured forum thread occurring every other Monday and monthly community forum competitions. In early 2011, another weekly feature launched entitled Mas' Zelda Collection, in which Mases would showcase a particular item in his Zelda collection each Sunday.
The time period also marked the rapid expansion into the social media. While the Zelda Dungeon YouTube channel launched all the way back in early 2007, it took quite awhile for it to finally stand on its own. At its third year online, it reached 6,000 subscribers, but in its next calendar year it blossomed to over 13,000 subscribers. Similarly, the Facebook account, which had just over 2,000 likes at the launch of the layout, even after being online for over a year, quickly jumped up to 8,000 likes in the next 8 months.
In later 2010, site also started Z-Talk, the Zelda Dungeon Podcast. Run by new staff members Din and Rishian, the monthly podcast featured Zelda discussion by the hosts, as well as roundtables, theories, special guests, and even podcast games. The monthly podcast usually pops up during the last week of each month, as well as occasional special editions of the podcast.
Website streams returned after a bit of a hiatus in the last year. A July 4th Mini-Marathon was held, lasting 12 hours and including playthroughs of the first four Zelda titles. To celebrate the site 9th birthday, a Wand of Gamelon stream was held. Later in the year there were streams for Majora's Mask, Faces of Evil, and a New Years Day 12.5 hour stream of Zelda's Adventure.
Also in late 2010 launched the game month's special. Started in October of 2010, celebrating the 10th year anniversary of Majora's Mask, the whole month was dedicated to the game, including adding new media, articles, revamping the guide content, and a few other miscellaneous features. Future game months have already been planned, including a Link's Awakening month, which is scheduled for when the title re-releases on the Nintendo 3DS virtual console.