The Online Video Game Atlas

2004

Site News: November 16, 2004 – 16:23:03 MST – Maps Of The Month Archive! – posted by JonLeung

I finally got around to (re)making the Maps Of The Month archive! When the forum PIGN.net was still around, I had my forum on there, and so I created the Maps Of The Month archive on there. Unfortunately, after PIGN.net disappeared, so did it, and I had no page to showcase the previous Maps Of The Month. Today I finally got around to (re)making it, and hopefully you guys like it. It's simple, but it does the job.

Site News: October 24, 2004 – 20:59:59 MST – 90 000! – posted by JonLeung

Sometime within the last hour, we got our 90 000th hit! Another 10 000 to go until a tenth of a million! Sure, on the more popular web sites, that's not hard to get to, you know, the kind that get tens of thousands a day or even more, but I've always been easily surprised about VGMaps.com, being my first "real" web site. Thanks for everyone's support (and contributions)! And please donate, every penny helps!

Site News: October 23, 2004 – 11:59:59 MST – Ads are back... – posted by JonLeung

I removed the ads before. But now I've returned to having advertising. I've got to be able to pay for this site somehow. So if you see anything interesting on those banners, be sure to give those ads a click. And buy some Nintendo DSes from Lik-Sang.com. ;)

Site News: September 18, 2004 – 16:31:31 MST – Slight redesign! – posted by JonLeung

I've been playing around with Microsoft FrontPage today; I figured it was time to fix up some of the less appealing visuals on the site. I've added a "quick links" bar at the top, hopefully it makes things easier. The Master List is more compact now, as well. When I find the time, you may see some minor and major changes in the coming months...

Site News: September 1, 2004 – 19:29:43 MST – Busy! – posted by JonLeung

Sorry about the lack of updates. Even the "Map of the Month" update was almost a whole day late. I'm not dead, folks. I've got a backlog of maps I've been wanting to put up and you'll want to see them but I won't be able to get around to it at all for a while...

Site News: August 13, 2004 – 12:00:00 MST – A-T-K – posted by JonLeung

Earlier this morning, we had our 80 000^th hit. These multiples of ten thousand hits are steadily adding up, and soon we'll be past a hundred thousand. Now that'll be something!

Site News: July 1, 2004 – 15:20:12 MST – Apple II link – posted by JonLeung

Happy Canada Day! Not much news, really, but for the sake of keeping this site's history, I added an Apple II link for Apple II maps we may one day get.

Site News: June 29, 2004 – 9:00:47 MST – DON'T STEAL MATERIAL FROM VGMAPS.COM! – posted by JonLeung

Before work last Thursday, I got an email from Nintendo's Official Magazine, the UK's official magazine from, well, Nintendo. The deputy editor asks me for credit to use some of my Animal Crossing textures from here (scroll down a little), since Europe is finally getting Animal Crossing this September. He said I'd get credit, of course. That's really cool, especially if they mention this site. Even if not, at least I'll get my name in a Nintendo magazine, for the first time in a long while.

After work, on that very same day, I get my August 2004 issue of Nintendo Power, and what do I see on Page 106? A Metroid and a Super Mario texture, which look an awful lot like the ones from here - but no credit to me! In fact, credit is given to someone else!

How do I know it is my work? If you look carefully, you'll see that the criss-cross grid lines are purple, the center ones are black, and the chosen background colours also match up. Too coincidental to be just a mere coincidence. I did put them up for people to use, but not for anyone else to contribute to a magazine, claiming it as their own.

(Weird that two different, yet both official, magazines of Nintendo, had something to do with my Animal Crossing textures (which I thought were nothing special), on the exact same day.)

Why do I bring this up? I don't blame Nintendo Power - they couldn't have known. And the Animal Crossing textures really weren't that big of a deal to make, honestly. I wrote them a civil email explaining the situation, but while I would like a correction in a future issue, this really leads to a more important point that I want to make. And it's more than just to express my irk to the one who stole my textures.

Many people that create much larger works, such as the many maps that this site is obviously known for, create them because they like to. They usually get very little out of it other than personal fulfillment. Many maps are more than just for navigational purposes - many are pieces of art. Sure, the maps, when ripped, are assembled from graphics of a company's game - but credit is given where it is due. The mapmakers must also get some credit themselves, for the time and effort that it takes to piece such works together. It is therefore wrong for anyone who comes across this site to take anything s/he finds and claim it as their own work.

Look at the maps. Admire the maps. Refer to the maps. But if you want to do anything else with the maps, you must contact the person who put together those maps, and get their permission. Simple as that.

Site News: May 31, 2004 – 9:29:32 MST – 70 000 hits – posted by JonLeung

70 000 hits. I'll probably stop counting ten thousands when we get to 100 000 hits...now that'll be a milestone...a tenth of a million. Whoa.

In other news, I added more comic links... I re-added the NES sprite comic Oldskooled, as well as the well-drawn and all-around awesome VG Cats. How did I miss that before? Recommended.

Be sure to come back soon (tomorrow, hopefully, but otherwise, soon) for the June 2004 Map of the Month!

Site News: May 06, 2004 – 12:10:09 MST – VGMaps.com's 2^nd birthday! – posted by JonLeung

VGMaps.com - The Online Video Game Atlas is 2 years old today! Happy birthday to us!

Discuss this milestone and make birthday wishes here!

Site News: May 01, 2004 – 00:00:01 MST – Map(s) of the Month – posted by JonLeung

Now in the VGMaps Forum, there is a new and hopefully regular section, recognizing worthy Map(s) of the Month. The Map(s) of the Month for May 2004 are Revned's Mega Man III maps. To discuss these works of art, what it takes to see your work recognized here as such, or to comment on the new feature itself, register for Phuck-IGN, host of our VGMaps Forum.

Site News: April 22, 2004 – 00:00:01 MST – PIGN Arcade! – posted by JonLeung

Phuck-IGN, host of our own VGMaps Forum, has added arcade games to their site yesterday. So when you register to use our VGMaps Forum (or any of the other forums there), other than just conversing with a pretty cool group of gamers, you can also one-up them by showing off your "mad skillz" on some great arcade games. If you're the best at a particular game, you get a nice trophy that everyone can see every time you post. Though this is their awesome update (you can thank ScruffyDeluxe when you get there), I figured I'd mention it as further incentive for registering to join in on the VGMaps Forum, and as always, registration is free. So get over there and put your name up on the high score tables!

Site News: March 12, 2004 – 21:37:11 MST – 60 001 hits! – posted by JonLeung

Why, sure, we got over 60 000 hits, but I only noticed it when we got 60 001. Logically we would've had to have passed through 60 000 to get to 60 001, so I'll assume that we passed another landmark hit for this site. It's been less than two months since 50 000 hits, so we must be getting popular! At least at a more accelerated rate - each 10 000 hit mark seems to take less time to get to. Though 60 000 really isn't much for Internet sites; at least we're clearly not a nobody on the World Wide Web any more. Many thanks for the visitations, the contributions and the donations.

The VGMaps Forum is up and running again; why don't you post your map requests there, and contribute to discussion about maps and the games they come from?

Site News: February 23, 2004 – 19:14:51 MST – MAJOR UPDATE: Directory (Master List) – posted by JonLeung

I spent almost every minute of today making this neat, easy-to-use, Directory (Master List). I'd say it's awesome! And it better be, considering all of the time I spent on it. I thought it would help this site immensely to have a "Master List" of all of the games that we have maps and guides for on one single page, along with allowing direct links to any particular game. What it has also done is listed when games appear on more than one system. So while I haven't made pages for them yet, we now (kind of) have 3DO, Amiga, C64, Game Gear, Jaguar CD, Lynx, Mac, Master System, MSX, Neo-Geo, Neo-Geo CD, Saturn, Sega CD, and Turbo GrafX-16 maps! This almost doubles the number of systems we have from 15 to 29!

This is the most major of the many subtle changes to the site. You may or may not have noticed that I recently shortened the header on this page from "WWW.VGMAPS.COM" to "VGMAPS.COM", changed email addresses of contributors to reduce the number of spamming email-hunting bots that would actually find them, and removed the ads. There might still be an ad or two lingering that I missed, and there might be some more subtle changes on the way, in the hopes of making this an easier-and-more-comfortable-to-use site.

Remember, this site stays up on the web because of your donations. Thank you for those; even a few cents help.

Site News: February 8, 2004 – 16:23:11 MST – Affiliate: GSCentral.com – posted by JonLeung

Another great web site affiliates with us! I’m honoured to now have exchanged links with GSCentral.com – definitely the best place for your game enhancement device needs! You should be able to find some codes there that can aid you in your mapmaking! As they say, "fight the system!"

Site News: February 6, 2004 – 14:10:12 MST – WS/WSC Section! – posted by JonLeung

We now have a section for WS / WSC maps!

Contribute, and spread the word.

Site News: January 15, 2004 – 23:59:59 MST – 50k! – posted by JMTL

In less than 2 years, we have accumulated over 50,000 unique visitors!

If you haven't signed for the Punch-Out!! Sequel Petition, and you want to, visit the link or visit http://people.freenet.de/tomspunchout/links.html to learn more about Punch-Out!! and its only home version sequel.

All directly "ripped" game images are the property of their respective copyright holders. This web site is copyrighted by Jonathan Leung 2002, 2003.