RIP thelastalliance.com

[Bigred]

One of the premiere LotR SBG/WotR websites, Thelastalliance.com has shut down.

If any of the members wish to take up a new residence here, make yourself at home. If there are any particular sub-forums, or re-organizations in this area you would like to see, please ask in the Help Desk.

[icecube]

Oh man... Why exactly did they shut down the forums? I used to go there every other day before reading about LotR stuff...sad.

[Cryl]

Lets hope they do, these are both great games and desperately need support to succeed.

For those in the UK, I do know that one of the guys in Warhammer World is planning on organising a WotR / LotR event day in the near future although I'm not sure what format it'll take exactly. He did mention Helms Deep but nothing definate. Putting a call into the store might yield some more information if there are people who are interested.

[Winter12]

Well that's disappointing news.

At the least the one-ring is still active.

Anyone know why they've closed down?

[Angelic Despot]

Yeah, I'm really gutted about this. It was a great site. So inspiring. Some great articles and blogs.

I'm kicking myself for not downloading / copying some of them recently as I'm about to start work on a Minas Tirith force inspired by Spod and others. Getting rid of a lot of the plate armour, to give them more of a dark ages feel, that sort of thing.

I wish I could get in touch with some of the posters there directly.

[Gotthammer]

From Tabletop Gaming News (http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2009/09/07/29634) via Plastic Legions (http://plasticlegions.blogspot.com/2009/09/last-alliance-rip.html):


It’s official. The Last Alliance website has finally sailed into the West. Due to a series of avoidable and unnecessary difficulties, bills weren’t paid and the hosting company has taken the extreme action of deleting the website files and databases – meaning that the site is unrecoverable.

A massive amount of effort had been made by TLA’s administrator (Hithero) and lately by me (Dagorlad) to rescue the site before is went under, but was too late.


I'm not sure why they wouldn't ask for help from the community if it was that serious, but perhaps the issues were more than purely lack of cash.


There is still http://web.archive.org/web/20080209013601/http://www.thelastalliance.com/ but as with all web archives not all images/links work.

[spanton]

Not sure that money was the problem, I think it was the web master not paying the bills with the money raised and not willing to pass the site on to someone else to run.(Not 100% sure)

In a way I am sad the site is gone, it was a great place in the build up to the GT's with everyone bouncing ideas around. Some of the hightlights I remeber are the chat that they ran with Adam Troke, Matt Ward and Alessio and the first Games day meet up, At one point I was a modrator on the forum and chatroom. But when money started to get an issue with the site I quit.

I think there is a gap left by TLA, but I am not sure how to fill it.

[Bigred]

If any of the Last Alliance Mods and community leaders want to set up a new thing in here, PM me. I would love to give the community a new shiny home in the Lounge, and can change things up quite a bit in this section to accomodate you.

[xarius]

damn, they all helped me with this list i used t win conflict :(

[Dagorlad]

Not sure that money was the problem, I think it was the web master not paying the bills with the money raised and not willing to pass the site on to someone else to run.(Not 100% sure)

You're close George, very close. The problem was that the site owner was not paying the bills and ignoring the pleas of everyone who offered to help with the payments. By the time we managed to get the relevant details from him it was too late - the hosts had deleted everything. By a matter of days. 5000 members are now left without a home.

However, there are moves afoot to rebuild the website in a more modern approach (thanks in part to the inspiration provided by sites like this one), having a blogger/forum hybrid approach. The URL will (hopefully) soon point to a temporary forum where people can at least keep in touch with other ex-members and see what is happening to rebuild it, and even be a part of that process by providing ideas and encouragement.

Despite the fact I run TLA's biggest rival, I am still gutted that the site was sunk by one person's indifference - it was my first home on the web and was still a major part of my gaming hobby. And so I'm giving my time and programming expertise to help rebuild it.

I'll post the URL to the temp site once it is up and running (over the weekend most likely).

[Angelic Despot]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's very grateful for the work you're putting in!

I look forward to seeing more here. I would also love to help a bit in recreating it / making something new and better.

What is the 'biggest rival' that you run? Is it the One Ring? I have had a look at that recently, and there are some really nice articles up there. I think I should spend a bit more time getting familiar with it.