User:Alter/Biography



Biography
The following information about me (you can call it a bio) was written by my good friend, Anon, who was a fellow staff member at Zelda Universe quite a few years back. When Duncan Ruffle started Zelda in my Pocket in 2008, Anon was also selected to be a staff member there. He was still under his old username, but I had changed mine plenty. After he realized who I was, we once again clicked. He laughed and said that he'd write a short first-person bio on me, seeing how many pies I had my finger in. So anyway, I let him. Here it is!

(note: I have removed my actual username at that time from certain parts where it gets, well... stirring. I have also reformatted the article so it would fit well on ZW. When you see a note box like this one, that is where I have inserted comments.)

Alter- The Early Years

Alter was born in a nice home in the Pacific Northwest, USA, sometime between the years of 1985 and 1990. He has never given out his real age, just because he doesn't really think that people need to know, and it adds to his non-existent "mystic". (He also doesn't want his identity stolen.)

Alter grew up without using many electronics, for unmentioned reasons. His first games were The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, and Star Wars: Yoda Stories, which he purchased when they first came out.

After becoming addicted LA, the word "Zelda" caught his eye one day, and he found some of the old Ocarina of Time action figures. At this point, he realized that Zelda was not merely a game, but a franchise. At this point, he became a Zelda fanatic, and bought several other Zelda games

After playing through all of these games, he realized that there must be a large fan community on the Internet.

The information in this part was given to me by Alter himself. At this point, the unmentioned years begin, which I myself have tried time and time again to wipe from my memory...

(note: the following part was compiled completely by Anon, and I had no say in it. I won't tell what is or isn't true. That was part of the agreement when he wrote this.)

Zelda Community Part 1

In 2001, Alter ended up at a site that I won't mention. Basically, he joined, wrote some small guides, and was "fired" and his articles were stolen. He was quite mad about this, and he got some guys to go in there and mess up the site, spam it, replace the images with error windows, and update the site with a notice that it was shutting down. The community left, and the site then died.

In late 2001, he joined another site, which was know as "lozfans.com". He played a relatively inactive part there, other then occasionally making a news release, etc. I was a moderator at lozfans at that time, and that's how we met. I had created some large walkthroughs, which had quickly gotten me a staff position. I got to know him when he started posting on the forums a lot, and I shortly after recommended him for a "real" staff position, which he received without hesitation. We both stayed there for about a year-and-a-half, before realizing that the site was going nowhere.

Zelda Community Part 2

At that point we decided to join a pretty new site, know as Zelda Universe. The year had now moved on to 2003. We got staff positions as content writers, right about the time that Wind Waker was released. After he had written quite a few pages on it, the site took off. The ZW page states that they had about 15,000 visits day, but that is grossly inaccurate. It was a little closer to 5,000. At this point, we had been having quite a few disagreements with the forum mods, and a certain webmaster known as Jason Rappaport, so we decided to drop off of the face of the planet.

The ZeldaReborn Era

We both went our separate ways. I hung out at different Zelda and Mario communities, usually holding a mod position, without hearing from Alter for the next several years.

Alter went on to form his own Zelda fansite, which he dubbed "ZeldaReborn". Although small, apparently it was quite successful, and brought in a large amount of advertising revenue. He had been getting a little tired of the website, however, as ZU was "borrowing" most of the community.

Return of the ZU Terror

In 2005, Alter sold the site to Randy Sultis for an undisclosed amount. About this time, Jason Rappaport had purchased ZU. Alter returned to that site, hoping that Jason had matured. According to Alter, he hadn't. After a few more brief skirmishes, Alter left the site in an outrage, taking many of it's members with him. There are several sources that back up this information, although ZU has made no mention of it. Alter refuses to comment.

B.U.G.

At this point in 2006, ZeldaReborn was simply turned into an advertising/affiliate site, and for the most part, was no more. Alter, along with well known Super Smash Bros. community member, MasterWarlord, created an all-around Nintendo gaming website know as B.U.G. The site launched with power, hosting some of the best articles around. Along the way, they picked up the Zelda and Mario community member Shellshocker, who ran most of the technical stuff.

This continued until mid 2007, when the gang decided to start an actual community, rather than an informative site. Things were going well during the planning stage, until B.U.G. was shut down for a few weeks to upgrade the entire site. Shellshocker disappeared during this period. He just so happened to be the only one who had the guides/walkthroughs/reviews, etc. It is assumed by the message that appeared on his blog that he was killed in an automobile accident.

B.U.G. had lost its technician, its data, and its domain. Yet they still tried to pick themselves up. Not being tech savvy guys, they had to with a Freewebs site. The word itself meant that they lost half of their fanbase, and when the rest found out that B.U.G. had no remaining articles, they left the website in the dust. This continued for almost a year, until they finally decided to put the site in a closed status.

ZU, Part III

Alter had kept his eye on ZU during this time period, and had waited to see where the site would go. He attempted to insert himself into the website forcefully, and had been beginning to succeed. At this point though, he realized that ZU's community was full of far more jerks than previously. He realized that he wanted to have no part with the majority of the members once he realized how corrupt the staff members and moderators were.

Zelda in my Pocket/Zelda Wiki

Alter eventually found his way to Zelda Wiki in September of 2008. After a while, he created a profile, and began working hard on the site.

When Alter visited the ZeldaWiki in 2008, he saw an ad looking for content writers for a brand new site, known as Zelda in my Pocket. The site was run by Duncan "Hylie" Ruffle, who Alter had heard good things about. I myself was decent friends with Hylie, so I had been notified about the site a while back, and had agreed to help out. Alter joined the staff, and promptly started working on the site. I was very impressed with his work, and thought that he was a great guys. One day, I received a PM in my inbox from him, asking if I had ever worked for a site called lozfan.com. I was surprised to hear this question, as that was 7 years back. I said yes, and asked him how he knew. He told me his "old" username, and I sat there gaping at the computer screen. We proceeded to discuss all that had happened since 2003, and after a while, I looked into what he had been doing. He really only gave me half the story. I spent several months trying to piece together the info so I could write this biography. After I had a good idea, I offered to write this for him. We had some terms, of course, because I didn't want this story to be censored by "you-know-who".

During his stay at ZimP, Alter found out that Hylie was good friends with Mases Hagopian, the webmaster of Zelda Dungeon. Alter had only heard slander come toward that site, but it was perfectly reasonable, as most of the past sites he had worked with had been rivals with ZD.

Shortly after, Alter and I had gathered that Hylie was having health problems. After no word for a few months, we knew that something was wrong. Alter had recently been hanging out at ZD, and offered to join the staff if ZimP fell through. In March, 2009, Alter was the first person to receive word that Hylie had passed away due to cancer from one of Hylie's close friends who also worked at ZimP.

Zelda Dungeon

Alter was accepted as staff at ZD, where he continues to work today. He also continues to remain active in the Zelda Wiki.

Currently, I just chill out at all of the different sites doing "whatever". If you know something that should be mentioned here, send me a PM at any one of my sites (my username is Anon), or if you don't know any, send one to Alter. I'll just have to trust him to pass it on (part of our "agreement").

I had a good time writing this, and am glad to be able to write the bio of one of my best online friends. I know that this is an odd bio, but it was intended to be that way. Also, I may make updates every year or so, just so I can exploit that one know as "Alter" even further.

Anon

(note: that was quite the wild ride, huh. Well, take what you will from it. I'd say it's about 85% accurate. Thanks for reading. If you like it, be sure to tell him!)