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Originally posted by TedTheDog
Tis a sad day.
DBs and I (and a bunch of the other BW weirdo's) have started a new home for these forums and you are all welcome.
Its purely a voluntary non-commercial enterprise, like BW was for years, and can be found at Freddys House.
We've recreated the DAOC forums, complete with DAOC skin (Trebz is with us still) and we've upgraded the forum software and will provide more toys oppver the coming weeks.
Whilst the end of BarrysWorld is a sad day, it doesnt have to tbe the end of the ethos of BarrysWorld. My thanks to GAME for trying over the last couple of years, its a damn difficult market to make money from, I know alll too well.
We hope you'll join us.
Originally posted by old.Zeikerd
Omg, you guys cant read!
Only the game servers, the emails and the hosted websites are being closed.
Originally posted by TedTheDog
Tis a sad day.
DBs and I (and a bunch of the other BW weirdo's) have started a new home for these forums and you are all welcome.
Its purely a voluntary non-commercial enterprise, like BW was for years, and can be found at Freddys House.
We've recreated the DAOC forums, complete with DAOC skin (Trebz is with us still) and we've upgraded the forum software and will provide more toys oppver the coming weeks.
Whilst the end of BarrysWorld is a sad day, it doesnt have to tbe the end of the ethos of BarrysWorld. My thanks to GAME for trying over the last couple of years, its a damn difficult market to make money from, I know alll too well.
We hope you'll join us.
Originally posted by SoulFly Amarok
Copy the current forum database over to there?
Originally posted by old.Zeikerd
Omg, you guys cant read!
Only the game servers, the emails and the hosted websites are being closed.
Good work .Originally posted by TedTheDog
Tis a sad day.
DBs and I (and a bunch of the other BW weirdo's) have started a new home for these forums and you are all welcome.
Its purely a voluntary non-commercial enterprise, like BW was for years, and can be found at Freddys House.
We've recreated the DAOC forums, complete with DAOC skin (Trebz is with us still) and we've upgraded the forum software and will provide more toys oppver the coming weeks.
Whilst the end of BarrysWorld is a sad day, it doesnt have to tbe the end of the ethos of BarrysWorld. My thanks to GAME for trying over the last couple of years, its a damn difficult market to make money from, I know alll too well.
We hope you'll join us.
Warning, this is a short version of the history of BarrysWorld and Freddys House yet its bloody long and convoluted. If you cant be arsed to read any further, "Freddys House" was BarrysWorld's original name about 8 or 9 years ago ok?
Now, for the interested amongst you let the story continue....
Years ago, in the early 90's, DBs and TedTheDog (Tony and Ben) and a few mates at work (Mikeybear & Jop take a bow) played games like Doom2, Heretic, Hexen and then Duke Nukem 3D in lans.
Of course, being professionals of the highest calibre we didnt play them at work when the bosses were'nt looking. Oh no, not us.
We tried playing them via modem peer to peer from home as, like blokes the world across, we were lazy bastards who couldnt be arsed to lift our PC's if an alternative was available. It was crap.
Then came Quake and we all rushed out and bought it and all failed completely to be any good at it.
We didnt make much progress online until the add-on Quakeworld (QW) was released which transformed the game into a real Internet worthy game. We were hooked, we were ready to take on the world, we were Clan Fluffy and were complete shit!
Back then few clans had clan servers but we had DBs and his nerdy contacts and soon Clan Fluffy had its own Clan Server. Did we call it the Clan Fluffy server? Hell no. The clan was "known" at work and we decided to throw the wolves off the scent and "Freds House" (and "Freddys" and "Freddys House") was born.
And, to make it more confusing (try to keep up, I'll be asking questions afterwards) we decided to name all the machines we had, purely for housekeeping purposes, and I suggested "Characters from Robert Rankin Books" as a naming convention, as I have no imagination and I like his books. The first server was called "Barry".
Dont jump ahead of the story, I'm not ready for BarrysWorld yet....
Anyway, after a move of hosting we changed to "Freddys 2" and then, after much arsing around in Clans like Fallen Angels and Rude Monkeys we finally helped form clan Tortured Souls with my lifelong chum RobertJ (it feels like a bloody lifetime anyway). TS stills exists and kicks arse in many leagues, and I am, in theory at least, still a member.
"The TS Servers" were popular as, to be blunt, there was bugger all alternative and, even if I say so myself, we were GOOD at it. We offered our stuff to a couple of leagues when they got dumped on when their hosts discovered their existence. SO the UKCL and the MCW were then hosted mainly by us.
DBs (aka "Stop Thief!") borrowed and bought some new servers and we expanded our world to cover more games. Ok, more QW. Our most popular server then was our QW Creeper CTF server and it had its own stats page and everything (yes, that was a big thing back then, stop smirking damn you). Old timers will probably remember that with a nostalgic sigh.
Anyway in early 1998 (I think, its a bit of a blurr to be honest) the server side of the clan was taking on a whole life of its own and Tony and I decided to break it away from the clan and treat it as its own entity, complete with cheesy website and cheesier name.
The first server was called Barry, it was just a bit of fun, so "BarrysWorld" was born.
Over the next 2 years we built BarrysWorld up, took on more and more volunteers and borrowed more and more kit until we finally became the 4th largest ISP in the UK (based on call minutes per month). We were a free ISP before Freeserve and were were 100% volunteer run and we set the standards for GSP's to come.
However, being volunteers we all had real jobs to do and BarrysWorld became harder and harder to look after and one fateful day, DBs threw his now legendary tantrum when something big broke and we found we needed an expensive bit of kit to keep going and, frankly, life was getting shorter for all of us.
As a result of his announcement that we needed about £19000 to continue, and we obviously couldnt raise that ourselves, "BarryAid" appeared out of the blue and raised £23000 in pledges in 48 hours.
At this point we put both feet on the slippery slope to commercial doom and put ourselves up for sale as we decided we'd like to do it fulltime.
I approached 16 ISP's and offered ourselves to them and 16 offered us sums of money ranging from "some shares in our shit company that will be worthless before the ink is dry" to £10 million. Cash.
Yes, really.
We accepted (well, duh).
After 3 months of careful negotiation and a vast lawyers bill to prove it, the other party (who will remain nameless bastards so DONT ask) welched on the deal and, after paying our legal bill (they has some decency), left us to our own devices again.
We then decided to "go the Venture Capital route" and after a few months further negotiation we managed to do a deal for the sale of 30% of BarrysWorld for £3 million. Yes, really.
Sadly, it didnt work out. We never received most of the cash and we put the company into Voluntary Liquidation so we could go out gracefully, without major debts. Thats life.
In stepped Electronics Boutique, now known as GAME, and bought the assets of the company and slowly renamed the brand "GAME.Net". It was a worthy try at a difficult market but it didnt work out. My hat is off to GAME for trying.
So, here we are, 3 closure scares later, 8 or 9 years on, and we are starting again. GAME have kindly offered us the use of the BarrysWorld name, but we've decided to start again. Clean sweep kind of thing.
This time it will be different. This time it will be volunteers and donations only, no suits, no commercialism, no ludicrous expectations, just a home for a community if it wants one.
You wont be marketed with stuff, we have nothing to sell, we're just a group of gamers now running this purely as a hobby, just like the good old days. We may ask for help sometimes, but it will as gamer to gamer.
Welcome to Freddys House.