6/28/02 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead I don't think it's been long enough since I last updated this site! Anyway, the CotM mp3s off the new Cotm/HoD OST are up. You can get them here. That's all there is. 3/10/02 Update written by: Gaimphax So, I changed the main page a bit to clean it up. Also added the options of what menu to load. Apparently people using Opera and Mozilla engine browsers had trouble with the java menu. Added a scan from EGM #150, their Top 100 Games of All Time feature. Circle of the Moon came in as number 35. Personally I think they're nuts (ranked above Chrono Cross? Castlevania 3? Metroid?) but it's definitely noteworthy. Got rid of that old, hideous green background. I tried ripping a new background from the game a few times, but they always ended up looking at least as bad as the old one. The new background has nothing to do with the game, but I think it works better. It also matches the background for the new forum. Speaking of which... Closed the Ezboard forum and finally replaced it with a much better message board. No more pop-ups, script errors, etc. It's linked on the menu. The old board will stay up for archival purposes. Last but not least, Konami has released info on the next Castlevania game coming out: White Night Concerto. It's also for Gameboy Advance. Kurt Kalata has the info up on the Dungeon's 3/4/02 update here. 10/8 Update written by: Gaimphax I've (sort of) fixed the word wrap issue with the menu. Basically I just added line breaks in the text to make each link discernable from the ones above and below. Not perfect but good enough I hope. Also added a stylized scrollbar to the menu, which better matches the background of the site. And finally, I added a right click menu to the left frame, more or less as a test. Right now it only has links to email myself or Vic Rattlehead. 10/7 Update written by: Gaimphax As you may have noticed by now, the new java menu is in working order. This java menu was a long time in coming. The version that is up now is coded completely different from the original version I tried to use, yet they work identically. The old version refused to work using more than one image (for the nav buttons). Because of the new menu, I've had to expand the width of the left frame by 20 pixels. So far, the only trouble with the new menu is that word wrap affects the submenus, especially under the Links menu. I will work with that tomorrow, so it looks a bit cleaner. I think this is a much better way of navigating than using pages that simply exist to link to other pages. If anyone notices a problem, other than the wordwrap issue in Links, let me know. I've only done a few small things besides getting this menu to work (which actually took a decent amount of time), so I won't really mention them. And now, I'm going to bed. 9/29 Update written by: Gaimphax This is a news update for the most part, but first, here is what has been updated:      The link to Dracula's Curse: The Page has been changed. Also, the link to the Bloodlines Beta page has been removed. This is explained below.      A link has been added to a site with Castlevania III and Castlevania 64 manual scans. Now for some news: PlanetCastlevania.com has been shut down, due to "file storage issues," before it even had a chance to officially launch. I'm not really sure what "file storage issues" entails, but because of this development Dracula's Curse: The Page has been relocated back to it's old home on AOL/FortuneCity, and the Bloodlines Beta page is now non-existent. My sorry ass has finally gotten a job after months of being lazy and trying to avoid bill collectors. This means that at least 8 hours of my day is eaten up doing slave labor, allowing me even less time to work on the site. Paying my bills and avoiding debt has become a larger priority than adding a few things here and there to the site. I'll still work on it if and when I can, but my time is limited so please don't e-mail me asking about updates. Vic started his Maps section a while ago and since then really no progress has been made. He's busy as well, and I really don't have the patience to do a screengrab of every little nook and cranny of the castle, so I'll probably just get rid of the Maps section sooner or later. The 1.5 maps that are done now will be linked from their respective Castle Areas page. In the last update I mentioned something going on with the GameSpy MySQL/Dynamic (Unix) server. What I was trying to do was set up a new forum for this site, and perhaps a forum to replace the defunct Castlevania Dungeon board. The Ezboard that we use now may be free, but it is lacking in so many ways. Ideally we could set up a board on the fast Dynamic GameSpy server and control whatever options we want. Originally what we had in mind was an Acmlm board for this site and Vic's Dracula X site. They are outstanding boards, but unfortunately I could not get it to work. I did, however, put up an Ikonboard just to see if I could get that working, and although it works just fine, I (and most everyone else) still like it less than Ezboard. Don't expect it to be used at all, unless Ezboard suddenly goes out of business. If anyone has a suggestion for a message board that we could set up, no matter what it is, don't hesitate to drop me a line and help us out. And finally, I corresponded a bit recently with Strider of the Strider Otaku site about my PC troubles. I checked out his site and it's very good, so if you're a Strider fan then do yourself a favor and check it out. 9/7 Update written by: Gaimphax In my last update, I mentioned the state of my PC. I need a new OS badly; WinME is probably the most unstable OS I've ever used, and I've used everything from Apple to DOS 3.0 to Win 3.1 to Win95 to Win98 1st Edition to Win98 2nd Edition. I'd like to get Win2000, but it has its own problems, mainly compatibility. WinXp (commercial) comes out next month, but I don't like the sound of it either. Anyway, a lot of things have been holding me back from updating more often, not the least of which was the fact that my "un-1337 w4r3z" copy of CuteFTP started to experience fatal errors about every 30 seconds. Happily, I've now gotten a new (hopefully more "1337") copy, which may allow me to actually upload things without it shutting itself down after every other file. Besides my computer problems, I've been a little busy back in the real world. I won't bore you with that, but I will mention that I have been trying to iron out a few things with the MySQL GameSpy server. If I can get everything to work soon I will post about what's going on later. Also, a couple people mailed me some tips for the site which I will look in to and hopefully update on tomorrow. In the meantime, I did manage to update just a couple things (in between CuteFTP and WinME ganging up on me). Updated:      Fixed Vic's old Ceremonial Room map. Now it shows the secret area in the floor. Yay.      Added button sequence info to the Apollo and Uranus pages. Wow.      Fixed the Updates Archive text format. Yippee. 9/2 Update written by: Gaimphax Ugh. My computer gets steadily worse each time I use it. I don't know what to blame it on, but WinME is a good candidate. I've had "some" problems with CuteFTP especially. I recently defragmented my hard drive, so perhaps that will help. But enough about me. Updated:      Spruced up the Catacomb page and added quite a bit to it, including an updated version of Retro's map.      Spruced up the Cards/DSS page a bit, with added info and fixed typos.      Added more info to the DSS Quick Tables      Added Experience Point info for the Battle Arena to the Enemies page      Added to the Miscellanous page: a link to another CotM video; a pic of the trained rom; and an EGM scan of the best selling games of June      I split this Updates page into two separate pages: one for updates that occurred prior to our move to Classicgaming, and this one, which is for more recent updates. You'll notice the link to the Updates Archives above.      And finally, check out this Mail page I made out of boredom. It might be good for a laugh when you get angry wondering when in the hell I will update again. 8/22 Update written by: Gaimphax I did three things today, nothing huge. I finished and uploaded the third and final part to the Gratuitous Links. The final number of links is now around 160, give or take a few. I added another Dragon Zombies strategy to the Bosses page, which was sent in by Christopher Bijalba. Finally, I added two links to the Miscellanous page. The first one links to the Dungeon's CotM MP3s, the other links to Gamespot's CotM Movies page. 8/20 Update written by: Gaimphax A good-sized update for the first time in a while. I changed the menu buttons to smaller versions with a stronger font. Originally these were made to be for the java menu, as they allow room in the frame for expansion and retraction of the menu. Unfortunately I know very little of java, so the odds of me getting the java menu to finally work get slimmer every time I mess with it. Also, because of the smaller buttons, I set the left frame to take up less width, allowing more room for the main pages. I changed the "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon" logo seen on the main page (and a few other pages) to a better version. The old version was snowy around the edges so I made a new one directly from the US game. I also changed the logo on the Forum to the new version. I added a gif of the castle and a brief story pic from the intro of the game to the main page. I added the first part of the Gratuitous Links Page, which is 2 large pages (general CV sites/Konami sites, and CV sites by game) and one main page. The total links up so far is around 90. The last page will be up soon. I redid the Miscellaneous page and added: an IPS patcher program and file for download, which allows you to patch the CotM rom to become a trained rom; Eric Roman's three fanarts; a scan about CotM from Maxim magazine; and 2 scans from EGM about the Minibosses. I revamped the Bear Ring page and added six pictures from the game Rakuga Kids. I added a DSS Quick Table page, linked to the Cards/DSS section. That makes it easier to look over all the different effects and their MP usage all at once. I edited the Enemies page to further reflect the North American names of items. A few items were still listed with their translated Japanese names. I added two big collages of official art to the Artwork page. I changed a few pages to have the new heading format, just like the one above on this very page. Instead of the large CotM logo, they have a smaller gif of Nathan with the title of the page at the right. I added a couple of Rumors. Finally, sometime around this weekend we surpassed 25,000 hits. Thanks again to everyone who's visited our site. 8/17 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead This is by no means at all an update, just some news. I start school again on Monday and between that, football, and other various crap don't expect an update at all from me for a while. Any updating will have to be done by Gaimphax while I'm away, also you should probably email him questions and things because I probably won't get to check my email for a while. Now when you read this you might wonder why I didn't update this site in a while but I update a lot on my Rondo site. The answer is simple, my Rondo site is just ran by me, where as this site is also ran by Gaimphax so he can do some work here too. I will try to get to a computer on Sunday to try and update but don't count on anything big from me. 7/27 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead I added a partial map of Abyss Stairway which you can find in the map section. Also I added some alternate boss strategies in to the boss section which were sent to me by Jeremy Weissmann, thanks! On a different note I would like to add that someone has ripped off this site. Not only the information but even the message board icons and yes, even the home button! You know who you are, I suggest you stop. 7/22 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead Just letting you all know that my new site is up but not anywhere near complete. The site is about Dracula X Rondo of Blood and is http://www.rondoofblood.cjb.net. Tomorrow for this site I hope to get a new map up and possibly a new Castle Area page. 7/21 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead The maps page is up and on the frames menu. 7/20 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead Well good news for the site, I have a nice new FTP program so I can have work up. And also I will be starting work on a new site but I am not abandoning this site either. But anyway I have the intro to Circle of the Moon in .txt form I typed up right here. Tomorrow I will have some alternate boss strategies sent into me by a viewer. 7/17 Update written by: Vic Rattlehead Finally that long awaited Dracula strategy is up with pictures. I also put in a smaller Adrameleck image and gave some of the boss sections a new look. Lastly this may be my last update for a while until I can get a new FTP program so right now I have to ask Gaimphax to upload what I have to add. And one last final note, there may be a map section coming soon. 7/12 Update written by: Gaimphax Whew, some big things going on for the site these days. As you may or may not have noticed yet, we are now thankfully hosted at Classicgaming, under the GameSpy network. Very gracious thanks to GameSpy for allowing us to bring down their bandwidth, and to Kurt Kalata of the Castlevania Dungeon for helping to set us up with this deal. We will now be hosted as a part of the Castlevania Dungeon. Now then, I've spent most of today and Sunday uploading everything from our old webhost and editing it down to function at it's current location, not to mention adding scripts for the GameSpy ads that you see at the top of every page. We've decided to get rid of the no-right-click feature on the menu page and main page. I know everyone hates it, which is why it's gone from those two pages. For the rest of the pages a new right-click menu will be introduced in the future. The menu page will also be modified a bit in the future. Also, the Item Drop List will be eventually taken down from the site, since dropped items are listed as part of the Enemies and Item Guide pages. It's just redundant information. When the menu is changed we may put it back in some form, but for right now the "Item Drop List" button simply leads back to the main page. Expect a decent amount of updates from now on. There really isn't too much to add to the site though. The main things that need to be added are: FAQ More Castle Areas More Links Dracula strategy A few Miscellaneous things We've surpassed the 11,000 hits mark on our counter. Thanks to everyone who's visited the site in it's 2 month existence. And finally, I'm sure there are a few things I may have overlooked during my editing process. It's about 6:30 in the morning right now and I'm either going to pass out or punch someone in the nose, so anything that I've missed will have to wait until the afternoon. If you notice anything, please don't hesitate to e-mail one of us about it or post it in the Forum.