Version 1.0 was founded by NeoPickaze and The Saint (known then as Saint Outlawz) on November 1st, 2001. It could be called a major ring success story as it received an overwhelming 9 sign-ups on its first day. NeoPickaze went on to redesign EchoRing and by Christmas time the ring boasted about 20 members. Though the community wasn’t to fond of the new design, it soon grew on them. The Saint had left the scene for a few months and the scene began to bore Neo so Yonatan and Lodiak were called in to handle the updates for a few months. Sure enough, Vinny the Saint returned after a few months of absence to pickup where he left off with Neo. As Yonatan abruptly left EchoRing without a word, Poorgod (former webmaster of Abandon X Ring) took over for him. Neo had to leave Echo for a month and a half due to some computer troubles and he returned to find out that the other three staff members did a good job of updating and keeping the ring fresh and alive (much to his, how you say, pleasure). Poorgod left the ring shortly afterwards and it was up to The Saint, Loadiak and NeoPickaze to run things. While Neo was away the crew had given up on the official EchoRing forum and decided to join 4Ham (which has recently been brought back to life by Bobosama and Diskboy at www.abandonware.co.uk).

The Dark Days began when most of the staff grew and became far too busy with their “real lives” to dedicate the proper time and attention the up-and-coming EchoRing needed. Even NeoPickaze ended up breaking several promises for new features because he simply didn’t have the time to implement them. It was time for Neo and The Saint to make a decision whether their once young and thriving ring would be allowed to wither away or whether reforms would take place to ensure its survival.

Version 2.0 Goes Down A decision had been made by the staff members to close the current version of EchoRing and preserve its good name before things got worse. In the 8 months that EchoRing endured, it had amassed 35 websites (including WizardWare 1.0 and Diskworld 3.0). However Neo promised to return with a bigger, meaner and leaner ring.

Version 3.0 and PHP Prior to version 3.0, all releases of EchoRing were strictly done with raw HTML and thus simple tasks such as updating were a chore and ftp access was needed to update. Inspired by the PHP revolution which took the scene by storm (ex: Diskboy gave up ASP in version 2.0 and has been using PHP ever since. Bobosama has used PHP in both WizardWares and EmuGateway 1.0.) Neo decided he too could master the secrets of PHP. In one months time, EchoRing 3.0 came to be, released in November of 2002 (technically the one year anniversary). The ring was done completely in PHP and featured an intuitive registration system along with many new features and a fantastic design. A fair sum of sites flocked to the EchoRing including EmuGateway and the Diskworld. In no time, it seemed that the EchoRing was back and better than ever. With The Saint and Neo leading the way, the ring seemed destined for success and nothing could get in its way.

Times of Darkness The “real life” effect had ceased the webmasters of the EchoRing once again as The Saint found Abandonware more and more dull and Neo had to balance his education and real life along with the full load of the ring. The ring began to deteriorate once again with updates being missed. Eventually, the ring was closed to preserve its good name and that should’ve ended the EchoRing saga.

The Sales Diskboy as always was interested in making some money. He found a fellow by the name of Defunct interested in purchasing EchoRing v3.0. 3k quickly talked it over with Neo and they agreed to the sale. The .com domain along with the design, source code and member database were given to Defunct for an undisclosed amount of money. The fellow began updating daily and it seemed that the ring would be given another chance. However, visitors soon began to notice that the ring hasn’t been updated in days, weeks and even months. It was later revealed that Defunct had sold the EchoRing v3.0 to another undisclosed party which had made no effort to keep the ring alive and wouldn’t even have the decensy to close it.

Bobo and The Saint Bobosama had always been a devoted follower of the EchoRing and openly stated that it was indeed his favorite ring. He couldn’t stand watching EchoRing 3.0 whither away and the constant posts in all the forums “when will Echo be updated, what happened to Echo?”. So, Bobo got talking with The Saint who saught to find a lively and vigorous lad who could manage taking over EchoRing. At first, Bobo and The Saint attempted to buy back the .com but they had no reply from its owners after several emails. Since the .com domain was sold with the PHP scripting, Bobo realized that he couldn’t use Neo’s code even if he had it because it now belonged to whoever had purchased it. There was however, still one more chance for EchoRing…

The Coming of 4.0 The Saint still owned the .co.uk domain and was willing to let Bobo use it if he was up for creating and managing a new EchoRing. The Saint was even willing to let Bobo use the 3.0 design and scripts but that was out of the question because of the sale. So, Vinny redirected the .co.uk domain to a temporary location and Bobo got to work. Much progress had been made within the first week. The design was completed along with the general layout. The submission form was completed along with many other components. Three basic factors influenced the new EchoRing, loading speed, ease of use and professionalism. The Saint had guided Bobo along the way and aided him in recommending features and changes during the making of the ring. Within 2 weeks time, the ring was ready for opening. T’was nicely coded in PHP and loaded in under 3 seconds on a 56kb modem. However, there was still one more problem. Bobo needed to find a staff as he knew from past experiences how grueling and time consuming running a ring can be.

JaG and Shenmoo JaG first contacted me back in the EmuNet days when I had founded the failure of a ring known as EmuWare which had a humiliatingly poor design and received a lot of negative feedback from the community. I later saught out JaG, remembering that he was loyal and dedicated and would make a perfect staff member for the new EchoRing. Just days before unleashing version 4.0, Bobo had fought several wars against Shenmoo in AOE2 whom he had met from 4Ham. He offered him a staff position on both WizardWare and EchoRing 4.0 and Shenmoo gladly accepted. With a dedicated staff of fresh, young minds Bobo was ready to unleash the EchoRing 4.0B (the B stands for Bobo and Beta). The result is what you see before you today.

The Aftermath With a few exceptions, the ring came to be accepted by the community and reguarded as one of the higher quality rings in the scene. Many improvements were added overtime such as The Good and The Bad, 2 screenshots in 4 sizes per site, the EchoSearch (powered by AbandonGames.com), in addition to the EchoAwards and the weekly poll. The ring came together nicely and was ready to take on the world. August 21st was the big one month anniversary where a special guest updater stopped by. Shenmoo had left the staff a few days before due to time constraints but Bobosama had already found a dedicated and hard working replacement. After somewhat of a slump, the ring was ready to pickup again with news joins, more visitors and a staff that was more dedicated than ever.