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Location: Info/Contact » SP FAQ
What is Sorcerer's Place and/or SP? Sorcerer's Place is the website you are currently browsing. Throughout the site and our message boards, you will commonly see it abbreviated to SP. Who created Sorcerer's Place, and why? Sorcerer's Place was created by Sorcerer, a.k.a. Taluntain. See here for more information about the SP staff. As for why... The initial reason was practical necessity. Back in 1999 I was one of the operators/owners of the Baldur's Gate channel on IRC's oldest network (EFnet), and since Baldur's Gate had just been released, people needing information about the game were swarming the channel. Numbers in the range of 100-150 at a time were quite common. The channel operators were people very knowledgeable about the game, and were helping people in the channel constantly. I was particularly active in this role back then. Early on, however, I noticed that there was no single complete reference site for Baldur's Gate, which would contain everything that I and the majority of people visiting the channel expected. If someone wanted an editor, they had to go to one site, if another wanted news, there was another site for that, yet a third for cheats, etc. After I eventually tired of bombarding people with a bunch of different links so that they could get all they wanted, I decided to put together a small website with the most commonly requested items, such as walkthroughs, hacks, editors and so on. People liked it and encouraged me to continue to work on it, and this, besides the challenge of maintaining and developing a website for so long, is pretty much the reason why SP is still around today. How often is Sorcerer's Place updated? Different parts of SP are updated at different intervals.
Which resolution & browser was Sorcerer's Place designed for? The site was designed for 1024×768 or higher resolution (the layout is scalable) in any of the current browsers, barring Safari. You must have Java, JavaScript and cookies enabled in the browser's preferences to access certain parts of the site, or to automate logging in. Can I mail the staff of Sorcerer's Place about a problem/issue I'm having with a certain game covered on the site? Please don't. The whole staff of SP regularly visit our message boards and the specific game forums there. If you post there and we can help you with something, we will do so. Not only will posting your problem there ensure a faster response (since the people online can help you right away), but you will also gain feedback from more than one source, and potentially help other people with the same problem/issue looking for a solution on the boards. The files I downloaded from Sorcerer's Place have .zip or .rar extensions. How do I open them? Most of the files that can be downloaded from Sorcerer's Place are compressed to save on space and bandwidth. This means that once you download them, you need a program that can extract, or decompress them. We recommend WinRAR, as it supports creation and extraction of both .zip and .rar files. Where can I download the official patches for the games covered on SP? The official patches for every game covered on SP can be found in every game's respective Official Patches & Miscellanea subsection. How can I apply to join your staff? As far as our message boards are concerned, you can't - people on the staff there are usually people who have been very active (and exemplary in the following of our forum rules) in the forums and have been noticed by the existing staff at a time when we were looking for some help with moderation on the boards. We don't accept applications for staff members to work directly on the site unless we have a specific need for help, in which case you will see notices about it posted on the site. You can check what we're looking for at the moment here. What is the history of Sorcerer's Place? SP has been around since 1999, and its birthday officially set at June 10. It went through the first major redesign in June 2000, and the latest in 2004. Much has changed since the time the first version of Sorcerer's Place went online. The initial attempt was nothing more than a few html pages with but one major section (Baldur's Gate), a few links to other sites of interest, some more or less personal miscellanea, and that was about it. In time, the sections expanded to cover all the upcoming PC (A)D&D games and their expansions, new content was being added constantly, and the first poll followed soon after. Back then the visits Sorcerer's Place was getting daily were measured in dozens. These days Sorcerer's Place is getting several dozen thousand page views per day. With daily gaming news coverage, huge amount of content and features, plus a vibrant community, SP is a resource treasured by thousands of gamers. Something to be proud of is also the fact that since 2002, Sorcerer's Place has been completely independent. It is a fact, however, that the true independence we are enjoying now (on our own server) could not have been gained without the continued support (monetary and otherwise) of many people who appreciate what SP has to offer, and the efforts of everyone involved in its maintenance. What is the purpose of Sorcerer's Place? Our goal from day one has been to bring the PC D&D gamers as much relevant and useful information, content and downloads, all in one place, as possible. We are glad that, judging by the hundreds of positive reactions from gamers, we can consider ourselves successful in our mission. Why do you need all the ads on Sorcerer's Place? Sorcerer's Place is an independent website. As such, we get no official support from anyone. No one pays our expenses, which, considering Sorcerer's Place requires a dedicated server, are substantial. The SP server hosting costs alone amount to several hundred dollars every month. Donations we receive from our grateful community supporters help pay a part of the SP monthly bills, but not all by far. Unfortunately, advertising is the only other way for us to make money that will help us stay afloat. How can I buy advertising space on Sorcerer's Place? Please see our advertising page for information. Who designed the Sorcerer's Place merchandise, and what exactly is the creature on it supposed to be? The merchandise was designed by Gopher (Jay Hills), according to the instructions of Taluntain (SP founder). What exactly the creature is is open to interpretation, though most likely he is a goblin. We call him a munchkin. He is a bit of a parody of a well-known Forgotten Realms hero. You will notice that the munchkin, too, sports scimitars he dual-wields. ;) How can I show my appreciation and help support Sorcerer's Place? There are numerous ways in which you can help support SP. Click here to find out more. How does Sorcerer's Place decide which games and fantasy books to cover? Sorcerer's Place covers all PC D&D games and their expansions, from the original Baldur's Gate onward (and certain non-D&D games on a case per case basis). As far as books are concerned, they get listed in order of our visitors' common preference - since SP is a D&D website, books set in the Wizards of the Coast's D&D settings get priority listing. However, in time, more various fantasy books sections will be added. Where does Sorcerer's Place get all its news scoops from? Anyone can send us news to post, so a lot of articles get posted after their authors (or readers) send us notifications about them. However, our news posters also scour dozens of different gaming news websites, and then post what is relevant to our readers. Do you host any other websites? Yes; simply click on the "Hosted Sites" link in the Features column on the right side of every page to see the full list. Are you accepting any hosting requests? We are always on the lookout for quality sites to host. If you have a quality website you would like to have hosted with us, please click here for details. How can I link to Sorcerer's Place? When you are linking to SP, please link either to the front page (http://www.sorcerers.net), to an individual page on SP, or to a file's download page and not the files directly. Bandwidth costs money, and when people link directly to files stored on the site, it becomes both a financial and resource drain for us. Direct linking (a.k.a. "hotlinking") is a bandwidth and administrative hassle, whereas linking to a page ensures that your links remain valid even if the download links are changed. What are those orange buttons I see on the front page of the site & boards? The
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an easy way to have information come to you. Web sites can put their news, forum postings, and other new information in RSS XML format so that your RSS reader can periodically check for it and let you know when new things become available. An RSS reader is a program that displays the information published by your favourite, RSS-enabled web sites, usually in a format that includes headline, blurb, and a link. This lets you quickly skim a list of what's new without having to check each web site or forum individually for updates. If you frequent many web sites, RSS can be a handy and time-saving tool to help you keep track of their news without having the load up every site individually to check it. Note, however, that it does require an internet connection so that it can retrieve the updates you've requested and to visit any sites you click on while reading your latest RSS updates. There is a whole slew of various RSS readers available, from commercial to free ones, and from standalone applications to the kind that integrate into your browser. You can find lists of RSS news aggregators at Wikipedia and Google Directory. All modern browsers have integrated RSS readers, so you don't need to download anything for RSS to work in your browser. The Sorcerer's Place RSS feeds will currently display news headlines and links to the news items posted on our message boards. The following RSS feeds are available at this time:
Once you have an RSS reader installed, the goal is to get the url of our feeds into it. Most modern readers will have the option to scan the page you are on for RSS feeds (scanning any of our pages where the orange buttons are will work), and will automatically add our feeds to your list. In case that you need to add the feeds manually, simply copy the url links on the orange buttons and paste them into your RSS reader, and you're good to go. Please use our contact form to notify us of any broken links. |
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buttons are there to let you know that Sorcerer's Place now provides
RSS feeds of the headlines of all the news we post, and to help
you subscribe to the feeds. But first things first.|
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