Location: Florida. Internet. Wetpaint.
Time: Midnight ; September 10, 2008.
Level of Intelligence: Low.



Well, hello there odd looking stranger. It seems you have stumbled onto our blog post, in which we’ll be telling you crap that could* be wasting your time. Here it is, our post regarding our 2nd Anniversary, or birthday.

September 10th, 2008. A faithful day. Exactly at Midnight, USKB (talking in third-person at the moment) created “XBOXPolis” on free website creator Wetpaint, a Seattle-based company with over a million “wikis,” or websites, created.

Although it was only two years ago, I feel like I was a little kid back then. Life was different. The United States was different. I experienced two moves within those two years, one from Florida and one from one Indiana town to another. And now I look at today, and I see a gaming website, a future, and more possibilities.

There’s the coincidence of opening it up on midnight (Eastern Standard Time), which is completely true, not just coined by me, but if you look at my profile of joining the wiki, which occurs at the same time the site is processed on Wetpaint. Then the pretty logo, that old one. The two Xbox logos circled in with the “XP”.

Pictured: 1st XboxPolis Logo (Designed after domain purchase, updated motto. First logo just had the “XBOXPolis” part of the logo.)

We stayed on Wetpaint until January 2010, I believe. We abandoned the site for good; no activity. But, backtracking, I remember ordering the “xboxpolis.com” domain name from domain host GoDaddy around Christmas 2008. One of the great milestones of XboxPolis, that made sure I kept the site at least until 2011, without wasting that money, ordering the Four-Year deal. The domain name took a bit to understand, which would probably be one of my first experiences with the delightful internet creation service.

After the domain ordeal was over, thankfully, I continued to find ways to add new pages onto XBOXPolis. Most were for no reason, and were useless. I added several reviews, obviously for a reason, which included Resident Evil 5, Halo 3: ODST, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, and several more. One of the things I look back on those reviews is that half of them [the games] were never played me in any way shape or form. Never seen the box, never seen the game, never showed up on my television screen. I based it off of [other] website reviews, like GameSpot or IGN. Now, I can easily say that this does not occur now, as I’ve clearly learned from mistakes like those. And besides, you can tell, my reviews now are complex and long, not a paragraph like it was on the old XBOXPolis.


Pictured: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising review from the original XBOXPolis.

Anyway, moving on. By July 2009, we were still widely unknown. But that didn’t stop from Wetpaint “Golden Paint Can Awards” judges. Out of the [insert number here] gaming wikis to choose from, XBOXPolis was one of them that was chosen. We took 3rd Place, and gladly accepted it. Although I looked like a complete dumbass in the forums on the Golden Paint Can Awards website, and surely, I did (Link leads to forum post where I don’t get what the user is saying, it’s actually very simple, and I’m disappointed today that I didn’t get what this person was saying. I’m also quite cocky in the post.), I can easily say it was a success. Hooray1. By then, I also developed a brand new logo, probably the best one out of the several changes. It’s retired, but it will return on birthdays, such as this one, to showcase it.

Pictured: “XBOXPolis” logo used mainly in 2009, this certain one has been updated for our birthday usage reasons.

Moving forward to around August 2009. I started to issue videos and news that XBOXPolis would be moving onto the Joomla platform sometime that Summer of ‘09, considering it as a large step up for the website. That unfortunately took until January 2010. Opened up on the Joomla platform on January 7th, 2010, I believe. That was a large milestone for “XboxPolis”, using the capitalization that it should’ve been on opening now. From there, I introduce 2010:

Year in Review. 2010.

January: XboxPolis.com Opens doors once more, using the Joomla platform. Thanks to helpful tips from gamer Madusha (YourEMGN, former website which ran on Joomla), XboxPolis lived.

February: The second least fun month.

March - April: I delete a major file that made the existence of XboxPolis.com. Although recovered, since all the other files updated to note that there was no file anymore, the site was completely inaccessible. A rebuild process undergoes, I make XboxPolis.com from scratch all over again. Although I did it in half of the time it took originally, it still was a pain in the ass.

May: The Halo: Reach multiplayer beta released, and we followed that like it there was no end. The end sucked.

June: E3 starts, and we do coverage. Wasn’t exceptional, but was acceptable (wait, what?).

July - August: I start doing stuff “backstage,” which included a new template layout, (which never went live, nor will it go live) custom pages, the return of opinionated blog Valid Breakdown, and much more.

September: One of the busiest months of the year. As an American website with mostly out-of-America views, I can still remember the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Adding on top that is the release of Halo: Reach. And some other games. And our birthday, September 10.

Due to our memory loss, we don’t know every detail from this year. You probably know more than we do (for those five people who know who we are).

Future. 2010 and beyond.

I’ve been doing this for 2 years now. Seems like nothing, but it is honestly about the biggest hole-filler I can get in my schedule, and it even expands beyond that hole. Nonetheless, I still do this. I can call it for a possible future. I can call it for enjoyment and for love of Microsoft gaming. I plan to this for as long as I can. This, my friend, is the future:

Improved Video: It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Even having the videos on the site with a template we want. Well, we can’t do that now, possibly never. But, I can say that the future will hopefully hold a way to improve our “video department”, where every video, every trailer, every gameplay footage, that goes up around the internet or specifically, YouTube, will be embedded onto XboxPolis in some way shape or form.

New Features: Features have grown ever since our start on the Joomla platform. We have those pages (ex: Halo: Reach page), the Community, but we don’t have very many other features. When the site decides to grow, forums, Twitter / Facebook integrations, and more could possibly come.

Ready For Reach?
Photo: [adult swim]

Applications for Mobile: Mobile applications have been in my mind ever since the purchase of an iPod Touch about a year ago. The Apple App Store and the Android store are well known for their collection of applications, including ones (regarding gaming) from Joystiq, Machinima, GameSpot, IGN, and more. This is one of the more realistic future goals we have, but development can be difficult, especially when you have no idea what you’re doing. I’ve also done the mobile site format, which didn’t work out well- with what we used. I’ve been trying it again the past couple weeks, and this is something that will more than likely come. Again, this would just be a mobile site, not an application. But, applications are future hopes, especially on the Windows Phone 7 Series, an upcoming Windows Phone that’s currently in development. That would mean that our app could be published on several networks, like AT&T, Verizon, and possibly more, which is due to the fact that Windows Phone 7 Series is a platform that will be taken on by several phone companies, one being Samsung.

Improved Community: Although I sort of touched on this earlier, the XboxPolis Community is somewhat ‘lame’ and boring, unlike Social Networking these days. Well, social networking is boring- but people still do it. And we need that to happen at our community. We’re looking to bring better features, better customization, better ways to tell individuals who you are and what you like, and fixes to the security settings.

Moar Xbox: The site is about the Xbox. That’s a given. I myself have my hates about the Xbox, and I’m always willing to tell that. I know that what I say could possibly piss off a few ten year olds, but not every console is perfect, my friend. But, with my love of the Xbox, comes XboxPolis. And what you expect out of it, is stuff about the Xbox. Well, I’m always looking into ways I can bring the Xbox closer to you, like having you gamertag at the Community, signing in with your Windows LIVE ID and connecting your gamertag, bringing lists from Xbox.com to you. Could this be the future? I Dunno.

That’s our future. Well, more like “possibly our future”. Possibly.

This concludes our life in 2 years. Tune in next year for our life in 3 years.



Join us tomorrow in memorial of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks.