It's a milestone day for us here.  5 years ago today - March 8, 1999 - I signed up for a free web service and fancifully called the page I created Allakhazam's Magical Realm. That page consisted of a single paged, rather basic guide on how to play Everquest - choosing a class and race, creating a character, and basic fighting and grouping tactics. I did it on a whim really, as much to see what it was like to do a website as anything, since I had never done anything like that before. I posted a link to the guide on various beta forums and people there seemed to like it. I got a lot of feedback on what it was missing and suggestions on how to enhance it, so I started to tinker.  I beefed up the existing information, split the guide into multiple pages and added class guides and zone descriptions and links to every decent article I could find on the game.  More people came by and suggested more improvements. Then I added quest walk throughs and equipment guides.  People started submitting information to me to include in the guides. Over time, the site got too busy for a free web service, so I moved it to the servers of an existing game site that had offered hosting.  The site just kept on growing and expanding.  I put in more and more of my free time on it and every day I added more information to the site.  Then, near the end of 1999, I hooked up with Illia, who wanted to create a bestiary database for the game.  We decided to create Allakhazam.com, LLC, buy our own server and move the site to our own domain, and see where we could take it from there.  Over time, Illia not only created the bestiary, but databased most of the other information I had collected.  Even more people began to use the site and Allakhazam started to become a well known destination for many Everquest players.  When Dark Age of Camelot came out, we decided to create a new site for that game as well. It too became very popular.  Even though it was now a full time job for us, it got to the point where two of us couldn't keep up with everything, so we added Darkflame, Railus and Danalog to our staff.  We continued to add more games and more people and to refine and expand upon the existing information to make it even more useful and accurate.  Now, 5 years to the day after throwing up that single page Everquest guide, Allakhazam's Magical Realm covers seven games, has a staff of 12 people, runs on 10 servers, has over 300,000 registered users who have posted almost a million comments, does between 2.5 and 3 million page views a day, and is one of the largest and most popular game sites on the entire internet.  All I can say is wow.  And we owe it all to you, who have stuck with us through various highs and lows, contributed information and feedback, used the site and recommended it to friends, and have made the site into what can only be described as a true community.  Thank you all.

We wanted to give something back to those who have been with us from the start.  Therefore, we've gone back through our registrations and picked out the 25 oldest, still active, registered accounts.  Each of those accounts has been given three months of free premium access. It's just a small showing of our appreciation for everything you have done for us.  Those that are current premium members got three months tacked onto their membership, and those that aren't now have premium access. Here are the names of those we activated and the number they registered at:  Banluil (12), mistrornge (21), Cisas (22), Rthila (25), natsuko (27), Raithier (46), Farmere (47), MeMooch (57), QanniCazicThule (63), Auldian (74), Ellegon (83), Balein (93), Shamusan (95), Bortas (99), Flaviusafranius (105), farkhar (110), Majik (113), Anthalas (118), Dagr (130), Bonladar (139), Payn (142), Fallon (150), ninjergranni (158), Tinx (161), Lautrec (169).

Thank you to everyone who has made us so much of a success.  We have not stopped growing and expanding and learning, and I look forward to serving the community as well or better over the next 5 years and beyond.

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