The Banner Archives / History Recovery Project

Laogeodritt · Last edited by Laogeodritt on Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:53 pm; edited 9 times in total

The banner contest is under way. The submissions deadline has passed, we're nearly at the end of the first round of voting. And I come to wonder: what shall happen to our current beloved banner, the one we've come to know and love?

This is, it seems, our eighth banner over these last four years. Though it is an element we're all so accustomed to seeing, that after the first week we barely notice any more, it is nonetheless a part of this forum's history, and arguably a beautiful part of it (especially the last few). Shall we not preserve it — for nostalgic value, if nothing else? ... in reality, someone or a few people in the Banner Contest topics mentioned finding the old banners and putting them up in that Banner Previewer I wrote... so I decided to see if I couldn't find the old ones.

This in mind, I began looking around. Over the last few hours, I've searched diligently over the Internet for some trace of the old banners, yet to no avail. Then I realized: the Wayback Machine stores pages, but often, layouts and pages are bare without images in this day in ages. What if it archives images too? I went, and found that ... it didn't. But oh! In a stroke of luck, I curiously clicked on a link to the FAQ explaining why it takes at least 6 months for new pages to appear in the archives, and lo and behold! On my way down, I noticed that Javascript has to be enabled to see the archived images. Okay, truthfully? I thought of the Wayback Machine before I even touched Firefox to start my search. Took me all of an hour to notice the FAQ, check the whole archives for the changing banners and upload them all.

Thus, all my hard work has paid off. I have found, at the very least, copies of the five banners. All of them? I have no way of knowing, I don't even remember two of these.

Silly narrative aside...

Here are all the banners and information we've been able to gather. If you have other information, even if you're not sure, or if you can go looking around, it would be very appreciated, as would links to topics that let us deduce exhibition dates, and, especially, the contest topics. Some more fleshed out descriptions too if you want. XD

A hearty thanks to Lunar Eclipse for his research, without which I'd have little more than six of these banners and nothing else.

Thus, I present them here, and emit a plea to you all to help fill in the missing information and descriptions, and to help find others should this not be complete.

Our beloved original banner, the first to have had the honour of being displayed on every page of the young forum.

Exhibition: June 2004 – September 2004
By: Namco?

The second banner featured Rheiards flying under Exire, from Tales of Symphonia. Thanks to PrettyKitty for being able to locate a screenshot of this one.

Exhibition: September 2004 – November 2004
By: Namco?
Topic: Banner to change soon (on 1 September 2004 7:27 PM UTC by Tara)

Our third banner, titled "The Chosen One", by an old user known as penguins eat pie (wow, that was really long ago...). Both this one and Charlie's blue Symphonia-themed one were chosen in our first banner contest, coming out as the top two of all the entries.

Exhibition: November 2004 – ???
By: penguins eat pie
Contest topic: Vote for your favorite banner! (on 24 September 2004 5:54 AM UTC by Tara)
Topic: Congrats Penguins Eat Pie! (on 4 November 2004 4:17 PM UTC by Dark Sith)

Our fourth, a blue Symphonia-themed banner. It, too, was chosen in our first contest.

Exhibition: ??? – (March 2005) — August 2005
By: Charlie
Contest topic: Vote for your favorite banner! (on 24 September 2004 5:54 AM UTC by Tara)

Symphonia and Legendia, our fifth banner, created by our former Namco-employed Administrator, Tara (a.k.a. Sheena).

Exhibition: August 2005 – between April and July 2006?
By: Tara
Topic: Oh my holy Crap. New banner. (on August 1 2005 8:19 PM UTC by Sataka)

The Abyss-themed banner by Charlie. It was used as a temporary placeholder while the banner contest was under way (see Contest topic under the next banner).

Exhibition: July 2006 – September 2006
By: Charlie
Topic: The new banner (on 6 July 2006 8:53 PM UTC by LimitedEternal - see rein3's post)

And the soon-to-be-replaced photographs banner by the relatively unknown alexpenev, which earned the honour of being displayed at the head of each page over the last few months in our last banner contest.

Exhibition: September 2006 – Present
By: alexpenev
Topic: The new banner (post on 12 September 2006 7:41 PM UTC by Shinryu)
Contest topic: Banner Contest Gallery (on 7 July 2006 3:26 PM UTC by Lord Fawkes Garde)

[Contest Under Way]

We're currently in the final phase of the banner contest, and Lunar's has pulled way ahead of its sole competitor, Kuroda!

Contest topic: NEW FORUM BANNER CONTEST (on 17 June 2008 8:42 PM UTC by Lunar Eclipse)
Voting: Elimination | Phase 1 [A] [B] [C] | Phase 2 [A] [B] | Final Phase
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Tamad · Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 12123 Location: de geso

Lao, you need to fix up the last three images, as I'm pretty sure we've never had a Photobucket square for a banner.

Anyways, good job for the most part... though this topic makes me feel REALLY old since I remember every single one of these. ='(

Laogeodritt · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:28 am Post subject:

ladynadiad · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:48 am Post subject:

Lao, found the gallery for the last contest if you want those:

http://tales.namco.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=45808

If you want to find the rest of the topics, just do a search for "banner" and select ToA fanart for the forum to search in.
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Laogeodritt · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:01 am Post subject:

Thanks, I've added it.
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FyshStyx · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 5187

I suggest that this be stickied. We need to have our history forever documented.

It's funny that the current one is the only one I've ever known =(
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squidmaster64 · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:26 am Post subject:

Oh, nice. I agree, this should be stickied for all eternity. <3 Very interesting stuff, and excellent compilation, Lao.

Huh, for some reason, I really expected better of the old ones. I guess it took some time for the good graphic artists to find their way here.
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Mishi · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject:

Wow, it's weird that I've been here for every single one of those. I feel old.

Cruxis · Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 18323 Location: The Acid Queen

Nice work, Lao.

I remember all of those.
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Shadowfox · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject:

Jazzin' · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject:

when I first joined here, the third banner was up, which means that it must have been around by March '05 at the latest, if that helps, Alex. >.>

The third one is still my favorite because of the gigantic nostalgia boost. =(
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Ryuuko · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 1:06 am Post subject:

I don't remember the first two. But Charlie's blue banner was always one of my favorites. <3
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Skythe · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:35 am Post subject:

: o I remember these banners.

I think you're missing one though.
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Laogeodritt · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:21 am Post subject:

Lunar Eclipse · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:36 am Post subject:

Yeah, I thought there was one for Legendia after Tara's placeholder, but the topics seem to indicate that the first Abyss one followed it immediately.
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