You may not have noticed but there's a new kid on the block (er…fansite), with the interesting name of THE LAST HONEST FANBOY. I talked to Xyrrus, one of the principles of this new site about how it came into being.
"Once it became clear that Okratas was going to be sold, there was a lot of debate about what to do," Xyrrus told me. "We tossed around all the options we could think of, some just for the sake of playing devil's advocate. The end result is that we really felt the best solution was just to keep the team together and start over."
After a moment's thought, he added, "So it was really more of a team decision than Kiranth making an executive decision. It just felt right."
The current staff of THE LAST HONEST FANBOY are five from Okratas plus a newcomer.
As related by Xyrrus, the LHF staff are:
Kiranth is our Network Administrator which makes him the point of contact for developers. He's gonna be the guy who keeps us running and on task day to day.
Kiranth had this to say: "The last fanboy team has really pulled together to get things going. It's been extremely hard for not only me, but for everyone involved, from valen and xyrrus to taleven, destral, and elrar. After we found ourselves faced with the decision between working for IGE or starting a new project to support Sigil and the Vanguard community, the choice was clear."
Valen is our Technical Administrator and honestly, he's a god at what he does. He handles all our installations, customizations, security, domains, etc, etc. He's been really responsive and it seems to be something he enjoys doing. Actually, we all really seem to enjoy our positions.
I'm Editor-In-Chief [
Xyrrus], just as I was at Okratas. I try to give us some semblance of editorial direction, give out occasional assignments, and I'm another set of eyes that goes over important articles before they get posted.
Destral is again bringing his talents as both a writer and an artist to the table
Elrar, in addition to being a staff writer, will be managing media and lore databases.
Lastly we have
Taleven (some community members may know him as Barur) who joined us just recently. His current title is Staff Writer, he's been a great help with keeping our gaming news up to date. he joined us after the new site was formed, which is why I get to refer to him as newbie and flog him with the Last Fanboy Trout when he misbehaves.
Taleven had this to say: "I am very pleased to be asked to join such a staff. I frequented the Okratas site often to read all the great commentary they had there. I look forward to jumping in to the position with both feet and can't wait to add some of my own commentary to the community. Kiranth asked me if I wanted to join the Okratas staff when Wish was still a vibrant dream in many people eyes. But before we could get things started, the game died."
Xyrrus was enthusastic. "I'm really excited about the team we have together. There's a lot of talent, and it feels like our skills overlap in just the right areas."
I asked Xyrrus how the Fanboy team felt about the sale of Okratas. He was pretty forthright about it:
"Well it goes without saying that it was a pretty difficult few set of days. I suppose if I had to sum it up on a word, we felt conflicted. On the one hand, we agreed that Shelby was making the right choice for him. On the other hand, we felt terrible that he was being put in such a difficult position. For a company like IGE to come in and just throw money around like that - well it just made a lot of us mad. Actually, mad really doesn't even cover it - more like disgusted. From there, the difficulty became 'what's next.' We all felt really attached to Okratas and didn't want to see that effort all be for nothing. [So we did] just what felt right to us…keeping the team together, taking the plunge with a new site."
The name THE LAST HONEST FANBOY intrigued me and I asked Xyrrus how that came about.
He chuckled. "Oddly enough, I'd had the domain registered for quite some time. Before I joined Okratas I was thinking about doing a bit of writing about gaming in general and I wanted a place to put those writings; lastfanboy.com was where I was going to put them. The name itself I think had its genesis in an old EQ guild that was on my server whose name I absolutely loved: 'The Last Humble House.' I'm not sure what the thought process was from there, but I was thinking a lot about what it means to be a 'fanboy' of something. Basically, a person who's dedicated to one thing and whose efforts end up contributing to that one thing first and foremost - I really liked the connotation there."
It sounded like serendipity to me. Xyrrus agreed.
"I brought up the domain as a possible idea for use when we were brainstorming about what to call the new site. We ran it by a few people and the feedback seemed to be positive. Given the events of the past few weeks we felt it really encapsulated what we were trying to do."
With their site having a great name like that, I was interested in finding out exactly what kind of a newsite Last Fanboy would be…a portal news site? Vanguard only? somewhere in between?
According to Xyrrus, somewhere in between. The main goal of the team is to stick to their "fanboy" roots, which means covering games that the Last Fanboy staff is really passionate about. At the present, that's Vanguard. However, Last Fanboy will also be launching with a portal site that's a collection of gaming news and a place for the staff to write articles and get their opinions out. Apparently, Kiranth is including a pet project that he's working on - Old Skool Fanboy - that examines past games in a current light.
"So its part nostalgia, part history," Xyrrus said. "Beyond that, we do plan to eventually cover more games."
He listed the criteria that will probably dictate the inclusion of games to the Last Fanboy portal:
1 - Is there a strong potential for community around this game?
2 - What sort of coverage is this game already getting and how much coverage is it likely to get in the future?
3 - Do we have staff (or can we bring staff onboard) who are truly passionate about this game?
He added, "We don't want to cover every game (there are other sites that do that). Nor do we want to duplicate the work of others. We want to be in a position where creating a site will give back to a community we care about. That's the bottom line."
Xyrrus discounted World of Warcraft as a possible inclusion to Last Fanboy. He cited the fact that while the staff were enjoying playing it, they were not passionate about it.
"Games I'd consider looking at towards the future might include Mythic's Imperator, Simutronic's Hero's Journey, Flying Labs' Pirates of the Burning Sea or Frontier 1859 (whose developer escapes me at the moment)," he clarified.
Currently, the only fansite on the Last Fanboy network is Vanguard. Xyrrus wanted to specifically thank Cindy Bowens, Community Relations Manager at Sigil. "She's been a tremendous help with everything," Xyrrus said.
The official launch of THE LAST HONEST FANBOY is tomorrow, March 16, 2005, timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the announcement of Vanguard. Let's hope it is a happy omen for Last Fanboy. Congratulations on your launch and good luck in your news.
Go here to see the Last Honest Fanboy's main site and here for the Vanguard site. 
wiki
Welcome to THE LAST HONEST FANBOY
