News

Okay, so, we admit it; the re-emergence of Moogle30 was utter shenanigans in honor of one of the best days of the year. Not so bad, right? Besides, you all are (we think) quite lucky; while M30 and all his antics were a gag, the blistering-hot new Chrono Trigger section absolutely is not. If you want to talk about a labor of love, well, this is a prime example—this section of the site really began even before Caves of Narshe 5, when Neal wrote his first Chrono Trigger walkthrough (the child of which we use on CoN today), while Tiddles temporarily worked on a CT site of his own while simultaneously helping develop the fifth full revision of CoN. When we heard a Nintendo DS remake was in the works, we decided right away to put all that experience to use and spent the next several months compiling all the information into a usable package for you guys, the gamers.

While we didn't get the section out as soon as we wanted to, I think you'll agree when you go to visit it that the section is among the best that CoN has ever put out, and our reputation for quality game coverage continues with every revision we make. The extra time was worth it to us, and we hope it is for you too, especially as you dust off your old carts/discs or pick up the (pretty great!) remake for NDS. Not only did we pour a ton of effort into the section, doing so sparked us to update and upgrade other parts of the site as well to give everything a bit of a facelift and to give you guys all the more reason to keep coming to CoN. Here are some highlights of what to look for in this launch:

• Chrono Trigger coverage for both the original SNES (which also covers the Playstation port, which changed very little indeed) and also the Nintendo DS remake that launched in the United States in December 2008;


• Updates to our fanart section to display CT fanart along with all the other Square-Enix games for which you might want to submit;
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• Revisions to all the splashy images on the landing page for each game to match our pretty new style instigated by the revisions to site skins for our tenth anniversary in 2007;


• The Caves of Narshe YouTube channel, which started about six months ago to host, specifically, Chrono Trigger ending videos and Final Fantasy VI desperation attacks but has quickly expanded to more video than we can currently organize on the site itself (but we'll work on it!);

This new section would have been impossible years ago, and the main reason why is because of the people. We had a great group of people pull together to work on this section; as I mentioned in passing above, Tiddles' love of this game (and Neal's excellent walkthrough) were of course the catalysts to making this section a reality; even though I wrote the vast majority of the display logic to get the data to your browser, I was only the instrument of their inspiration from years back. Additionally, I can't give thanks enough to everyone else who helped this section become reality. The list is extensive, so please feel free to visit the section landing page to get the whole list, but I do want to thank all the regular chatters who were always willing to lend a hand in helping me understand a game that I haven't played tons, as well as all the more standard acts of data collection and testing. I have to especially thank footbigmike and Olly, the former for being willing to do any task I threw at him pretty much any time, and the latter for always keeping a smile and a snarky comment on hand throughout the drudgery of user testing.

That leads me to a final critical point for this message, and that involves updates to the staff page. As we all get older, our lives become more and more complex and it becomes harder and harder to ensure time for a hobbyist pursuit like CoN. As you should no doubt understand, CoN is a volunteer organization, and as such it can be really hard to keep with in the face of so many other things that we all deal with day in, day out. So, we're losing some staff members today, unfortunately, and adjusting the roles of others; I want to thank each and every one of my staff, those leaving and those staying, for their hours of work and for helping me to enjoy my hours of work just a bit more. I also want to make sure that everyone out there is ready to give props to our newest addition, though, coming on officially today with the CT section and YouTube channel already under his belt, footbigmike. This guy is a fantastic example of just what I like in my CoN members and my friends; he's reliable, smart, and just showed up in chat one day and very quickly became part of the very fabric of the site's community.

Oh, and speaking of chat, if you've ever talked in there you've contributed to chat's latest milestone. While all of the Moogle30/Stockbreak madness was underway, chat very quietly hit the threshold of four million lines chatted. That's a four with six zeroes after it, you see.

For the curious, by the way, the four millionth line in chat happened at 13:56 American Eastern time on 1 April 2009, and it was this absolute gem: [13:56] Gabe: I'll do you fast, Peppy. Of course, if that doesn't prove it to you, check the stat yourself at the bottom of the chatstats, page one. Further, to commemorate the occasion, I even managed to root around on Climmy and dig up stats for the entire history of chat (less a few days that are missing due to system crashes, cross-country moves, etc.). We'll update the big stats about once a month or so, and regular stats will be sure to stay on their schedule of updating every two hours.

Now that we have the new section up, of course, we'll be moving on to other projects that we hope you'll like. We don't necessarily know what those are yet, but we're thinking. So, that means we're willing to hear from you. New game coverage? New toys to play with on the site? Shut down and move on with our lives? We'll listen to just about anything, because, heck, we like the attention.

Hi everybody!

I'm Moogle30. You might remember me as the original creator of CoN. Yes, you heard that right: R51 likes to keep it quiet these days, but this was my site! Check the history if you don't believe me - there's almost no mention of me any more but those old URLs give it away!

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase: I'm back, and now I'm running things again, this site are going to improve!
We're going back to our nineties peak, you'll see. The years of stagnation are over. Kupo!

Check back later today for some exciting announcements about the site's future! Also if you think you can be part of this new site, let me know because I'm looking for good new people!

Source: CoN Staff Page

Well, the Fanfic contest has closed, the result are in, and it's true to say that we didn't get many entries, but it's also true to say everyone who did enter has at least won something. Thanks to those who entered and a reminder for the next time to anyone else that the fact 100% of entrants won something is a good reason to enter future fic contests. Keep your eyes peeled (or even sign up to the RSS gizmo) in the future for any we do run.

The quality of the entrants made up for apparent lack of quantity, and the judges had a tough time in scoring the four quality fics entered into the contest by the three participants. We did not get any entries into the comedy section, for reasons unknown. Possibly the Large Hadron Collider providing us more than enough comedy by failing to work, or possibly just general credit crunch misery, but either way, there was no funny. We did get four entries from three people, and though sadly we can't give you a nice picture to look at like with the fanart, perhaps we can reverse the equation and have a thousand words equal a picture.

In descending order, our fourth place entry but third placed entrant, A Bards' Fallen Love earning a third place prize. The only non-FF6 entrant to the contest and the shortest, it is by no means a bad fic even if it was technically last placed, but Tesco was unfortunate to face very tough competition and only narrowly missed out on a higher placing.

The third and second places in terms of points went to The Shadow and About Being King. The latter story also won the General category, meaning that Lockpick wound up winning three prizes from the contest.

The winner overall in first place as well as the winner of the scene selection category however was Mirrors into Windows by MeaPortia, earning the overall first place prize in addition to the prize for the category win.

Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to them for entering. For those of you who are now reading the winners and maybe also browsing the rest of our fanfic library, perhaps you might feel inspired by what you read to submit your own fanfics to us or tell a friend who writes to do the same. In fact, watch this space. There might be something along to write fanfics about.

Since I wasn't able to close the contest on time, I figured at least I could spend part of my Saturday making sure the winners were on time!

Thanks to all those who entered, all those who told their friends to enter, and even those who just wanted to enter but never got around to it; the CoN Summer Fanart contest is now over as I announce these two winners. We're not sure when we'll run another contest, but as long as you keep an eye out here (perhaps subscribing to our RSS feed might help), you will be sure you'll be among the first to know next time.

Now, on to the winners. We only got enough entries, sadly, to offer up two prizes; one goes to the overall top scorer among our judges' responses, and the other goes to the entry that we judged to be the most creative in concept out of them all.

First, let's discuss our victor of the most creative prize, a ten-dollar gift card to AmaCoN. Our artist's work for this prize caught us off guard. It's deceptively simple at first glance, but as you start to take it all in, you start to appreciate the different levels at which it's clever. We really quite enjoyed the way that the photo cutouts present different characters than the actual subjects of the piece, and the little detail of Umaro ripping his cutout right off the deck instead of stooping over gave us a genuine laugh when we noticed it. So, congratulations to Galsic, taking home the prize for most creative submission! You can view his new art in our gallery right now, or view the thumbnail right here!



And, our only other prize to be given out today, the grand prize of this contest, a forty-dollar AmaCoN gift card, goes to an artist who has been around CoN forever. His entry was also very clever, so much so that he nearly overtook Galsic to capture both prizes. The format he used allowed him to tell a full story and while it doesn't necessarily have the bold color and sharp detail of some of our other entries, the story both fit our "Vacationing Heroes" theme, and showed a significant amount of effort in laying out each panel. Not only that, we found it darkly humorous to boot, with a payoff at the end that you might not see coming. Once you see the piece in our gallery, you'll know right away that it could have come from only one guy here at CoN: congratulations to Narratorway for taking home top honors this time around. Surely you now want to see his winning fanart entry, so don't let us stop you once our thumbnail below sinks in a bit!



Again, congratulations to our winners, and thank you very much to everyone who supported our new fanart system with an entry. We appreciate every one of you and if I could afford to give you all a prize I happily would. Please keep submitting and keep bringing your friends to not only submit to our galleries, but also to see the great work we already have in place. Hope to see you all again here soon!

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume both received release dates for the United States: February 17th for Dragon Quest and March 17th for Valkyrie Profile, both in 2009.

Dragon Quest V is a DS remake of a SNES game that was previously remade for the Playstation 2. It chronicles the story of a nameless hero journeying to rid the world of an evil demon's influence while searching for the truth behind his heritage and finding love in the process. Covenant of the Plume is the third game in the cult hit Valkyrie Profile series made by longtime Enix collaborator Tri-Ace. The story is of a young warrior whose father died in battle and was subsequently taken by Lenneth (the protagonist of of the first Valkyrie Profile) to be one of Odin's Einherjar. The son strikes a deal with the queen of the damned, determined to exact revenge upon Lenneth.

Both of these games will give DS-owning American fans of Square-Enix something to spend their hard-earned money on before spring begins.

Source: Kotaku

Some of you might be wondering why there hasn't been any announcements of the fanart contest as yet. If you're not wondering, with hope you are now. The reason is twofold, and neither is terribly impressive. I'll get to those later, though, and put the important info up here:

We're extending the art submission deadline for eleven full more days (plus a few hours) - you now need to have your art in on October 31, Halloween.

Now for the reasons, should you want to know:

1) I, fortunately for me but unfortunately for CoN, had to change jobs right before the contest was set to close. Up until right now, I've barely been around while I did all the things necessary for me to leave my old job and get settled in my new one, and that precluded me from doing anything for the site that required much effort besides clicking.
2) We honestly, frankly, are low on entries. This works out poorly for me, as I really did want to give out lots of prizes and see the new fanart system become a fast success thanks to all you folks submitting. However, this can work out really well for you, as if you've submitted, you have a pretty good chance of getting some prize!

So, with those two things in mind, you have my mea culpa on reason number one. However, I do expect that you artists out there will kick in some more art in the very near future to make up for reason number two. Get started, I want to give away prizes.