Vast Lands of Grandia, Grandia II, Grandia III, Grandia Xtreme, Grandia: Parallel Trippers, Grandia Online, Grandia Digital Museum -> Site History

The History of VLoG

As of this writing, "Vast Lands of Grandia" is a little more than three years old, yet it already has a rich history, some of it positive, some of it not. It's very hard for me to summarize all the history of VLoG into something short and sweet, so, fasten your seatbelts, and enjoy the ride. The reward for reading all of this is, well, an introspective look of the makings of VLoG.

(Note: The history, for now, will be a little shorter towards the end, because I want to say as much as I can in the little time that I have to write this).

The original idea for my own website was not actually to have a Grandia website, but to have a "Ragnarok Online" website. I wanted to create an online community different from the one I was used to. Back when I first had this idea, RO was a beta MMORPG, and when I asked Gamespy if they would be willing to host a website, they said I would have to wait until the game was fully released. Myself (Jonathan S. Katz, alias Lord Galcian II) and a fellow named Rainier Zachary, who has since left the team, sought the council of Orphen, who suggested that we create a "Grandia" website since there weren't too many comprehensive Grandia websites on the web. So, after another email to Gamespy, they said that they could use a Grandia website, but I would first have to submit a website that already existed, since that was their policy. And this was the first roadblock I faced: I knew just about nothing about HTML, or how to program for the Internet at all. At this point, I knew basics of programming, but nothing compared to what I know now.

Before VLoG could start being built, a team had to be formed. At this point in early May of 2002, it was myself, Rainier (who wanted to develop a board role-playing game), and Orphen (who would provide all the content for the original website). However, one key element was missing: getting this information on the Internet. That solution came in the form of Ian Bennett (alias B'man). Though he was initially reluctant, Ian saw the opportunity that this new website could have for him, and eventually threw himself into the project whole-heartedly, making sure that of all his projects, this one would be the best. The final addition to the original team was Wing Commander Chen, a friend of Jonathan's who was willing to lend his guidance to the young project. After all the members were assembled, things began to move. Jonathan, taking charge, signed up for free hosting at "Spaceports" and entitled this new project "Grandia World." In May of 2002, Ian whipped up a quick template and taught Jonathan some basic HTML, and the first glimpses of what would be a new Grandia website were first created on May 5th, 2002, which is the official anniversary of VLoG. Below is an image of the first news post ever on VLoG. And from the looks of what I wrote, I was definitely a bit younger when this project started.

The News Announcement

Initially, development was initially slow, with most of us not having any idea of where to start. Ian created a temporary design, all in HTML with some Javascript thrown in to make a clock. The original sidebar is displayed below.

The Sidebar!

Most of June was spent trying to figure out what the layout for the new site would look like. Eventually, thanks to a screenshot from Grandia II that Orphen happened to send me, Ian was suddenly inspired and created the design for the first version of our website. This layout would be the layout of VLoG until August of 2005, when a new layout would be instituted. More on that later. Below is a snapshot of the original layout of VLoG.

The original layout

One of the main ideas behind VLoG is that all five members on the team, which I had dubbed the "Grandia Team" back then, was a forum. Our original host was "Spaceports," and fortunately, their free hosting package allowed us to have enough space for a very small forum. Though the community was small and the forum didn't last long, one very important issue was raised: our site needed a different name. After a few days of brainstorming, the team finally selected Rainier's idea of "Vast Lands of Grandia," and shortly afterwards, Ian designed the original logo.

It was about this time a major turning point happened in the history of VLoG: the implementation of "hypertext preprocessing," also known as the scripting language "PHP." Ian first introduced PHP into VLoG in a very primitive way, but it was enough to illustrate a point of how much more efficient PHP was than pure HTML. Though a lot of the early PHP scripts were very crude, and very large (The music script was over 220KB! The current music script is 1.82KB), using PHP to make a website set both Jonathan and Ian down very interesting paths in their web experiences.

The one early twist with using PHP for VLoG came in late July of 2002, when Ian's PC died and he was unable to access the Internet. I didn't know anything about PHP at that time, and I wanted to meet my deadline for getting VLoG accepted by Gamespy before I went on vacation in August. There, I began to learn PHP by reading up on what Ian had already done, and using PHP.net as a major resource to figure out what on Earth I was doing. In early August, I submitted VLoG to Gamespy, only to have it rejected. The rejection made sense though; the website was far from looking stellar. So, for two weeks in August, I basically isolated myself from the world and put up as much Grandia-related content into VLoG, thanks to all of Orphen's hard research. When Ian was finally able to return, he was definitely surprised to see a very complete website. Thanks to all of Orphen's work in compiling the content, the website was ready to be submitted to Gamespy, the copy of my second letter to Gamespy appearing below.

The Letter

Shortly after VLoG was hosted on Gamespy, the first version of the VLoG Community Forums was unveiled to the public, using the Ikonboard engine to power the forums. Slowly, but surely, VLoG grew, and not just in website content alone. Perhaps one of the biggest additions to the community during the first year was the "Battle System" on the forum, also known as the "B-Sys." The B-Sys was an interactive Board RPG, where forum members could go to a shop, buy/sell/auction items, and of course, battle amongst themselves and NPCs that they could choose in the game! The B-Sys enjoyed a nice lifespan, until it was taken down so that the second version could be added. However, due to an event later on in the history of VLoG, the second version would never be completed.

During the second year of VLoG's life, a new Grandia game came out, none other than "Grandia Xtreme." Orphen was right on top of the game, amassing a lot of information for the website. However, the second year was a rough time for updating the website, due to both webmasters having very tight schedules, so a lot of this information was not seen until VLoG v3 came around. However, the second year of VLoG's life built the foundations that would pave the way for the future. Both Jonathan and Ian began integrating databases into their PHP scripts, and a lot of the ideas and tricks they learned were tied into their work for VLoG. This led to the start of VLoG v2, a project that would upheaval the original VLoG and give it some new life. Ultimately, the project was too complex to be maintained, and was abandoned. An image of the final days of VLoG v2 appears below.

VLoG v2

However, the idea of overhauling VLoG was still strong, so another attempt at VLoG v2 was made that stretched into year three. The result, VLoG v2.1, showed some promise, including a much better system of dealing with a large website. Unfortunately, the project was ultimately abandoned, but for a better cause that would transpire in the third year of the life of VLoG. Below is an image taken from VLoG v2.1.

VLoG v2.1

It seemed like the idea redoing VLoG was doomed, and it would be stuck in the current state it was in. Yet, all was not lost, and what would save VLoG would be one of the lesser known Grandia games: Grandia: Parallel Trippers. Grandia: PT was a game that was released only in Japan on the GameBoy Color, and because of this, most non-Japanese speaking people had never heard of this game. Richard Davies, also known as "Annoyboy" on VLoG, was different. Not only was he able to acquire the game and beat it, but he compiled as much information as he could about the game. At his urging, he pressed Jonathan to add a Parallel Trippers section to VLoG. In VLoG's state though, it could not easily support a new section. Jonathan decided to abandon the whole "v2" notion, and skip straight to "v3." What v3 entailed was a totally new engine, one designed by both Jonathan and Ian, who combined their best ideas and created a brand-new web engine for VLoG. Slowly, but surely, work on VLoG v3 began.

In the meantime, some interesting events had occurred on both the site and on the forums. In October of 2004, the Gamespy dynamic servers were compromised and taken offline. Though the downtime did not affect VLoG too significantly, it did create a giant disruption for several weeks. One side-effect was that VLoG could no longer use Ikonboard, the forum engine that it had used for over two years. The major drawback was that everything that was done with the Battle System would no longer be accessible to the community, since it required the Ikonboard engine to work. Thus, as the community moved to a new type of forum, a large chunk of VLoG's past was lost. Thanks to the help of Swammi, a forum member/graphical artist, the forums got a facelift, and looked better than ever!

In late March, 2005, Grandia III was announced by SquareEnix. With new life breathed into the series, the VLoG Team got right on top of the game, covering the information about its release as much as possible. It was the top priority to release VLoG v3 by the launch date of Grandia III in Japan, August 4th, 2005. Though some content was still missing from VLoG v3 when it was launched, it was still much more than what the original VLoG had. Thanks to the help of all the members of the VLoG Team, VLoG was looking great.

Now that Grandia III has launched in Japan, we eagerly await for its release in North America and Europe. We are very thankful SquarEnix decided to continue this series that has brought us such joy, and we at VLoG are proud to share with you as much knowledge as we can about the game. I thank you for taking the time to read this abridged version of our history, and I hope you wouldn't mind reading the full history once it is ready. Just the other day, I barely knew what HTML was, and now, well, I think I know just a little bit more :) Thank you for coming to VLoG, and I hope you enjoy it here as much as I have enjoyed putting this site together with the help of my amazing team. I could never have done it without them, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

- Jonathan S. Katz