Allakhazam
Encyclopedia
Allakhazam's Magical Realm, part of the Zam Network, is a website providing forums, a wikibase and lookup services for several online RPGs
, including Aion
, Dark Age of Camelot
, EVE Online
, EverQuest
, EverQuest II
, Final Fantasy XI
, Free Realms
, Lord of the Rings Online, Runes of Magic
, Star Wars Galaxies
, Warhammer Online, and World of Warcraft
.
As of December 7, 2008 it has over 1.4 million registered usernames and over 10 million posts between the forums and individual pages for each item in every game covered on the site.
The site's primary purpose is to enable registered users to search a range of databases relating to specific MMORPGs. These contain details of Quests, NPCs and in-game items, as well as interactive maps and advice on game-play. As the site developed a significant user-base, the interactive nature of the discussion allowed users to post comments on the various database items, thus ensuring the content and advice to gamers was current.
In addition to these databases, registered users can also download content to enable offline review of their current game characters, game patches and other gaming resources.
In recent years, the discussion forums have become an increasingly important feature of the site, with specific forums dedicated to each of the supported games, and more generalist areas such as Technical Support and Out of Topic discussions (for non-game related discussion).
on a free web hosting service. It quickly became known by the EverQuest player base for its extensive quest descriptions. Mr. Moyer then teamed up with programmer Andy Sharp, acquired the url allakhazam.com, and the site was expanded into a database format covering quests, items, mobs and other aspects of the game. By the year 2000, Allakhazam was the most popular site on the internet covering Everquest and was getting over 10 million page views a month. Many consider Allakhazam to be the innovator of the gaming database format that is now followed by a number of other networks.
In late 2000, the internet experienced a vast reduction of advertising revenue that has been referred to as the Dot-com bubble
. Most gaming sites, including Allakhazam, lost the majority of their revenue. Many popular gaming sites went out of business soon thereafter and have not been seen since. Allakhazam weathered this storm by establishing a premium membership service where users paid for certain advanced searches and other features designed to make their game play easier. At its peak, the Allakhazam premium service had over 45,000 subscribers, making it one of the more successful services of its kind ever.
The success of EverQuest inspired other publishers to release their own online role playing games. As new games were released, Allakhazam added sites for them. Each Allakhazam site was popular with the gaming communities of the individual games. The release of Final Fantasy XI, however, was of particular note. Because publisher Square Enix
did not launch its own official forums for the game, the Allakhazam FFXI forums became the main forums for that game. This led to a significant expansion of the entire Allakhazam forum system.
The launch of World of Warcraft in 2004 marked another significant milestone. Allakhazam launched an extensive database for the game that currently accounts for approximately 90% of their traffic. Allakhazam is regularly referred to as a reference for WoW information, and is particularly known for its quest descriptions and auction house information.
In February 2006, co-owners Moyer and Sharp sold their ownership stake in Allakhazam to Affinity Media Corporation. The amount of the sale has been said to be between 7 and 10 million dollars. Affinity Media created the Zam Network and consolidated Allakhazam with Thottbot
and MMO Interface into the Internet's largest MMO Gaming information network. Later Zam also acquired Wowhead
. Allakhazam, Thottbot and Wowhead are all ranked within the top 1,000 sites according to Alexa, and the combined traffic of these sites likely puts the Zam Network as one of the internet's top 100 sites in terms of total traffic. Indeed, the Zam Media Kit claims a total of over 700 million page views a month. Both Moyer and Sharp continued to work for the new corporation, and in 2008, Mr. Moyer was named as the president of the entire Zam network.
26 September 2009 Moyer via his Twitter Account announced he was leaving at the end of the month "Yes it is true. Illia [Sharp] got fired a month ago and I am leaving Allakhazam at the end of this month. So sorry to see it end this way."
In addition, premium users can include a user image (or 'avatar') to their posts, use graphical emoticons or 'smilies' in the Forums, and access advanced search and support features.
's is granted to a portion of the users by way of the karma system. In essence, posts can be rated up (increasing the poster's karma) or down (decreasing it) to manipulate whether or not the post meets the current filter criteria. Resulting posts that are "pushed under the filter (sub-default)" are invisible under the default settings on the forums. Unlike Slashdot's karma system, however, only a flat number is assigned to the posts and comments, rather than both a number and a type of rating.
in an attempt to block users from accessing the site. This recurred on March 3, 2008 as the site became inaccessible to users, forcing the site's owners to change their service provider. Normal service was restored on March 5, 2008, but another denial-of-service attack took down the site again on March 11, 2008. New hardware was added to compensate for this continual attack, and the site has not experienced any major downtimes since then.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
, including Aion
Aion
Aion may refer to:In music:*Aion , a Japanese metal band**Aion , their 1992 album*Aion , a Polish gothic metal band*Aion , a 2003 album...
, Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Age of Camelot is a 3D medieval fantasy MMORPG, released on October 10 2001 in North America and in Europe shortly after through it's partner GOA. It is still running today recently celebrating its 10th anniversary....
, EVE Online
EVE Online
Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
, EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
, EverQuest II
EverQuest II
EverQuest II is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Sony Online Entertainment , based on EverQuest, and shipped on 8 November 2004...
, Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XI
, also known as Final Fantasy XI Online, is a MMORPG developed and published by Square as part of the Final Fantasy series. It was released in Japan on Sony's PlayStation 2 on May 16, 2002, and was released for Microsoft's Windows-based personal computers in November 2002...
, Free Realms
Free Realms
Free Realms is a massively multiplayer online role playing video game developed by Sony Online Entertainment set in a fantasy-themed world, named Sacred Grove for the PC, Mac and PlayStation 3. The game was released on April 29, 2009, for the Windows PC...
, Lord of the Rings Online, Runes of Magic
Runes of Magic
Not to be confused with RuneScape.Runes of Magic is a free massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the Taiwanese developer Runewaker Entertainment and adapted for the English and German-speaking market by German company Frogster Interactive...
, Star Wars Galaxies
Star Wars Galaxies
Star Wars Galaxies is a Star Wars themed MMORPG for Microsoft Windows developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.-History:...
, Warhammer Online, and World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
.
As of December 7, 2008 it has over 1.4 million registered usernames and over 10 million posts between the forums and individual pages for each item in every game covered on the site.
The site's primary purpose is to enable registered users to search a range of databases relating to specific MMORPGs. These contain details of Quests, NPCs and in-game items, as well as interactive maps and advice on game-play. As the site developed a significant user-base, the interactive nature of the discussion allowed users to post comments on the various database items, thus ensuring the content and advice to gamers was current.
In addition to these databases, registered users can also download content to enable offline review of their current game characters, game patches and other gaming resources.
In recent years, the discussion forums have become an increasingly important feature of the site, with specific forums dedicated to each of the supported games, and more generalist areas such as Technical Support and Out of Topic discussions (for non-game related discussion).
History
Allakhazam.com was started in 1999 by Jeffrey Moyer as a simple guide to the game EverQuestEverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
on a free web hosting service. It quickly became known by the EverQuest player base for its extensive quest descriptions. Mr. Moyer then teamed up with programmer Andy Sharp, acquired the url allakhazam.com, and the site was expanded into a database format covering quests, items, mobs and other aspects of the game. By the year 2000, Allakhazam was the most popular site on the internet covering Everquest and was getting over 10 million page views a month. Many consider Allakhazam to be the innovator of the gaming database format that is now followed by a number of other networks.
In late 2000, the internet experienced a vast reduction of advertising revenue that has been referred to as the Dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. Most gaming sites, including Allakhazam, lost the majority of their revenue. Many popular gaming sites went out of business soon thereafter and have not been seen since. Allakhazam weathered this storm by establishing a premium membership service where users paid for certain advanced searches and other features designed to make their game play easier. At its peak, the Allakhazam premium service had over 45,000 subscribers, making it one of the more successful services of its kind ever.
The success of EverQuest inspired other publishers to release their own online role playing games. As new games were released, Allakhazam added sites for them. Each Allakhazam site was popular with the gaming communities of the individual games. The release of Final Fantasy XI, however, was of particular note. Because publisher Square Enix
Square Enix
is a Japanese video game and publishing company best known for its console role-playing game franchises, which include the Final Fantasy series, the Dragon Quest series, and the action-RPG Kingdom Hearts series...
did not launch its own official forums for the game, the Allakhazam FFXI forums became the main forums for that game. This led to a significant expansion of the entire Allakhazam forum system.
The launch of World of Warcraft in 2004 marked another significant milestone. Allakhazam launched an extensive database for the game that currently accounts for approximately 90% of their traffic. Allakhazam is regularly referred to as a reference for WoW information, and is particularly known for its quest descriptions and auction house information.
In February 2006, co-owners Moyer and Sharp sold their ownership stake in Allakhazam to Affinity Media Corporation. The amount of the sale has been said to be between 7 and 10 million dollars. Affinity Media created the Zam Network and consolidated Allakhazam with Thottbot
Thottbot
Thottbot is an unofficial World of Warcraft plug-in and database website. The plug-in, which is programmed in Lua, collects information while a person is playing the game— it records statistics such as the drop rates of items, locations of specific mobs, and quest information — users...
and MMO Interface into the Internet's largest MMO Gaming information network. Later Zam also acquired Wowhead
Wowhead
Wowhead is a search database for the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft . The site first started out as a talent calculator. It was in beta from April 4 to June 25, 2006, and the database was released on June 26, 2006...
. Allakhazam, Thottbot and Wowhead are all ranked within the top 1,000 sites according to Alexa, and the combined traffic of these sites likely puts the Zam Network as one of the internet's top 100 sites in terms of total traffic. Indeed, the Zam Media Kit claims a total of over 700 million page views a month. Both Moyer and Sharp continued to work for the new corporation, and in 2008, Mr. Moyer was named as the president of the entire Zam network.
26 September 2009 Moyer via his Twitter Account announced he was leaving at the end of the month "Yes it is true. Illia [Sharp] got fired a month ago and I am leaving Allakhazam at the end of this month. So sorry to see it end this way."
Premium vs regular registration
In order to access content and participate in the community, users must register an account. This is at no cost, all content is free to access. However some search features are restricted to Premium Users, who pay a subscription fee (currently ranging from $2.50 to $3.33 per month depending on the duration of subscription).In addition, premium users can include a user image (or 'avatar') to their posts, use graphical emoticons or 'smilies' in the Forums, and access advanced search and support features.
Custom titles
On attaining 10,000 individual posts, a custom title is awarded by the Administrators; usually sarcastically based upon that user's posting style. This is in contrast to most other forums, where either a custom title can be set initially, or doesn't exist in the first place. As of September 22, 2008, fifty-six users have custom titles.Karma system
While the site's forums and comments are watched by the site's administrators, a degree of control similar to, but more extensive than, SlashdotSlashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
's is granted to a portion of the users by way of the karma system. In essence, posts can be rated up (increasing the poster's karma) or down (decreasing it) to manipulate whether or not the post meets the current filter criteria. Resulting posts that are "pushed under the filter (sub-default)" are invisible under the default settings on the forums. Unlike Slashdot's karma system, however, only a flat number is assigned to the posts and comments, rather than both a number and a type of rating.
Denial-of-service attacks
According to a statement on the site's home page, on February 21, 2008 the Allakhazam site became a victim of a denial-of-service attackDenial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
in an attempt to block users from accessing the site. This recurred on March 3, 2008 as the site became inaccessible to users, forcing the site's owners to change their service provider. Normal service was restored on March 5, 2008, but another denial-of-service attack took down the site again on March 11, 2008. New hardware was added to compensate for this continual attack, and the site has not experienced any major downtimes since then.