Now let me explain the process of this design. Work on the design began in late April 2005. I had some sketches for what I wanted to do. I had some really old ones and some newer ones. I made the final sketch and began designing pieces. This design started off like most others, where I created graphics and had no idea where I was going with this. Like before the graphics looked good, but then I started thinking a lot on how to improve. I would take lots of time thinking "Which shade of colour would look the best?", "Does this look good here or would it be better somewhere else?", "Is this feature really a good one?", and many other questions. In my opinion this design turned out the best because of all this planning. When I look back to the early samples I posted, the site was going to look a lot different. It turned out a lot better than I ever expected. The funny thing is, when I released those screenshots I thought that was definitely how the site would look. Over the summer I built the hype and kept telling people it would be only a few more weeks. First I told people it would be out before summer. When that did not happen, I kept saying a few more weeks. After a while I would tell people I would make sure the new design would launch before the end of 2005. When that did not happen I went back to saying a few more weeks, but a month passed. I bet some people thought this would never actually happen. The basic design and colours for all the themes were done by the end of summer, but a lot of the clay models were not added in yet. Also a the old site still needed to be converted to the new design and reorganized. With school, things slowed down, however they still progress when possible. I made sure to spend some time on the design each weekend. Over Christmas break I planned on finishing everything, however I did not have a lot of time near the computer and failed at that. Then I needed to balance school and the design to finish everything off and we finally made it.

My goals for this design also grew. In the beginning my only goals were to make the site more organized and nicer to look at. Later I started realizing many more goals such as making updating easier for people running fan section, getting newcomers to EarthBound interested in the game, and keeping the IPM community interested in the site with more interaction in the form of contests and such. I feel that I have been able to meet all the goals I set. I am very excited to see the IPM community back in full force. Hopefully that is beginning to happen as I post this.

This is such a good time for the launch too. The Japanese release of Mother 3 is near and the community all over the net is growing once again. Here at EarthBound IPM, we are all very excited for this. However, we are not jumping on the bandwagon with all the people returning to the community and reviving their websites; we have been here the whole time and we are not going anywhere in the future. We love EarthBound and we did this for Mother 2, the game that brought us here. It is a very odd coincidence this launch is happening so soon to the news everyone has been waiting to hear for years. We will try to cover news about the game as we hear it.

I am also amazed by all the support we still maintain although we have been inactive for quite sometime. While the site lacked updating for a while, new people were still joining the forums. When the old site was finally taken down and the server switched people were talking to me on AIM and MSN quite a lot asking about when the new site was coming. We lost some people along the way, but I think the community we have right now is really great and cannot wait to talk with you guys more now.

I want to apologize to the staff for removing everyone's job. Leeman and I thought it would be for the best, if staff earn their jobs back. This is a new era for EarthBound IPM. This era is a more professional, organized, and fun than ever before and we want the people who can do the best job with their sections. Hang out with us. Have fun. Show you love for EarthBound. If you are still dedicated to EarthBound IPM you will get your job back.

Today is 18 Febuary, 2006. It was around this time 5 years ago when I started EarthBound IPM. It has been a long 9 months and I am excited to see everything finally come together. I love this community; you guys are awesome. Stick around because there is a lot on the way.

To get people active we are having a special quote contest. Each week will be a quote from the design going in order of the towns. This week is Onett. Head over to the quote contest and start participating!
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