11-18-00: I know you guys are all wanting me to put this new site up. Some of you are getting aggravated that it's taking so long. So I'm going to give you the complete update on this situation:

Status of scripts: My scripting guy e-mailed me a few minutes ago and said that he hasn't even been able to get started on the major project that takes priority over mine. He says he's really f-ing busy right now. He couldn't give me an ETA but from the sounds of it he's not going to be available for a while.

Status of site (not including scripts): I had a completely new layout all done. Recently I "bought" Adobe GoLive 5. I've been messing with it and I'm figuring out how to do some really awesome stuff. So I'm redoing my original layout and adding some nifty image rollovers and such. I've been doing some new stuff in Photoshop too. I'm trying to get this looking top notch. I'm gonna have extra time the next couple days to work on this. After I'm done I'll probably upload this new site with simple "coming soon" notices for sections like the "event calendar" and such. At that time I'll be revising the forum layout a bit.

Once I'm done with my part the site will look a lot better but it won't be any more functional than the existing site. Please understand that I don't know the first thing about perl coding and stuff. The scripting of the site will have to be done by some one else, not me. I'm going to e-mail my scripting guy right now and ask if he knows of anyone else who is available to help me out. As usual, I'll keep you guys updated.

09-16-00: I wanted to give a quick update on the current status of the clan. We will be switching over to a "general Mac gaming clan" soon. Right now the only thing holding up the change are some scripts that are in the works that would add many features to the site and automate many things. I have no specific ETA for you as to when the new site will be up. Hopefully it will be soon. For those that have signed up for the clan within the last couple weeks, I have your names listed on the new site which isn't uploaded yet. When the new site is up you will be listed. :-)

08-23-00: I just sorted through the member list and removed inactive members. I determined inactivity through several methods. If for some reason your name was deleted from the list when it shouldn't have please let me know. d2@mac-gamer.com

I will be updating the member list to reflect the different realms soon. I am attempting to implement a script that would allow members to update their info themselves. I'll keep you updated. -Jakeman

08-06-00: I want to update everyone on an important issue. Before Diablo 2 came out we voted on open characters. Since we are open characters many clan members are just playing single player since battle.net is so jacked right now. Not many clan games are being organized. We are discussing this issue in the private forum on the message board. Now most people are leaning towards closed characters because it would greatly increase clan activity and interaction between members. We are in agreement that we should wait until the realms stabilize before switching. However, it appears that we will be going with closed characters eventually. Currently, as a clan we are not very active where battle.net is concerned. I've had some prospective members assume this clan is dead because of lack of battle.net and clan channel activity. This lack of activity is due to realm issues. With open characters the single player mode is much more appealing than an unstable battle.net. Thanks for understanding this issue. I have no doubt that once battle.net stabilizes and we go with closed characters our clan will be very active, in the online sense of the word.

I want to make one thing clear. Closed characters will be our official clan characters, but many people still want open characters as well. Just because the clan uses closed characters doesn't mean you can't use an open character as well. There will still be members with which you can organize open games.

07-17-00: Mac Diablo 2 has just shipped out to retail channels. Hopefully we will all be playing Diablo 2 together by the end of the week. I have just updated the Q and A section to reflect decisions made on the message board regarding important issues. Please read over the Q and A section before you get your copy of Mac Diablo 2. There are some items covered that you need to read before you throw away your life to Diablo 2. -Jakeman

Q and A section

07-06-00: Mac Diablo 2 has gone Golden Master! This means that the full version will be shipping within 1 - 2 weeks! I can't wait! Check out the official press release from Blizzard. Press Release

07-03-00: Blizzard's naming rules: "When creating Characters, it is important to note that the 'Character Name' must be between 2 and 15 Characters. Character Names may only have upper and lower case letters (A-Z). In addition, names may have one dash ( - ) or one underscore ( _ ) as long as it is not the first or last Character of the name. Finally, there are no spaces and no numbers allowed in Diablo II Character Names." If your character name for this clan doesn't abide by these rules then please use the "Contact" link and tell me what you want to change it to. It should be noted that the "one dash OR one underscore" is already taken by our clan tag which will probably be "mac_" or "_mac" (depending on if we decide to put it before or after the name). Thank you. -Jakeman

07-01-00: I want to apologize to anyone who has received multiple or corrupted member e-mails. I am trying to get my mass e-mail to work and I have been encountering errors. Please be patient while I try to get this working. Once I do I will be able to keep all of you updated on clan matters via e-mail. Thanks! -Jakeman

06-30-00: Well, Diablo 2 is now shipping for PC. Along with their announcement that Diablo 2 is shipping, Blizzard has updated their Diablo 2 site with a new FAQ section. I've read through the whole thing myself. I recommend that all of you read through this section as it answers many questions about the game and all of its inner workings. I've read that Diablo 2 for Mac will probably ship at MacWorld in late July. So hopefully it won't be that much longer!

Also, I've been reading a lot about open vs closed characters:

Closed: Pros: no cheating. Cons: you can't backup your character file yourself. You can't play with characters on other realms. You may have lots of lag since our clan members would all need to create their character on the same server and that server may be around the world from you. No offline single player mode.

Open: Pros: You can back up your character file yourself. You can play over battle.net, locally, or offline in single player mode. Lag is dependant on your location, not the server's. Cons: none, assuming everyone abides by the rule of no cheating.

It is for these reasons that I have decided we should all create open characters, not closed. I will update the Q and A section to reflect this. -Jakeman

Diablo 2 FAQ

06-20-00: I've got a battle.net channel reserved for clan members. To go to it simply open up a game with access to battle.net and click on "channel". Type in "[mac]", excluding the quotes, for the channel name. Note: currently my DSL is a little bit unstable. So there may be times when the channel is down. If it is then you will get a message saying the channel is empty. If you get this message then you can just hit "ok" and you will be the temporary admin for that channel. Until Diablo 2 comes out we can all just play other games. If another clan member is in the battle.net channel then go ahead and try to organize a game. Personally, I'll be trying to organize Diablo 1 games to get into the mood. : ) -Jakeman

06-14-00: Ok, we are now around 150 members! This clan is on fire! And we're all Mac people! Yipee! Now let's get down to business. I need a valid e-mail from Jekane, Esmeralda, and Robotron. Jekane is from the list before. Esmeralda, when I sent you a new member e-mail I received an error saying that "the user name doesn't exist on our servers." This means that the first part of the e-mail addess (firstpart@domain.com) was wrong. You need to use the "Contact" link on the left and send me a valid e-mail. Robotron, your message wouldn't send at all. Please use the "Contact" link to send me a valid e-mail. Thanks.

On the message board we have been discussing what we should do about a clan tag for our names. For now we will be using [MAC] as our tag. For example, my name is Jakeman, so when I create my character on battle.net I will name it [MAC]Jakeman. We are putting the tag in front so fellow clan members are easily recognized. -Jakeman

06-13-00: Shesh! We are up to about 60 members now! On the message board we have been discussing putting a cap on the max number of members allowed in this clan. I was considering putting a 20 member cap per character. Then I started thinking about why I started this clan. The purpose of this clan is to bring Mac people together with an awesome game, and to enhance the game playing experience with teamwork, camaraderie, and community. If I am to bring Mac people together than putting a cap on membership would defeat that goal as I would be turning Mac people away. To enhance the game play experience with teamwork, camaraderie, and community is a goal that inherently becomes more realized the more members we get. The concern right now is that we are going to have more members than we know what to do with. After thinking about it I've realized that a community can be fairly self-sufficient. The main problem presented by having too many members is that it's hard to keep track of new members and who's participating versus who's not. However, as the admin of this site and mac-gamer.com this is strictly my problem; if I can handle the huge demand for membership into this clan then everything else should fall into place. Oh yes, I forgot the most important goal of this clan... to turn battle.net into a Mac infested haven where all of our members have [MAC] in front of their names and everyone knows that [MAC] means that person is on a Macintosh! Yes bitch! : ) -Jakeman

06-12-00: People who have signed up and their e-mail addresses didn't work: Norenoc(Amazon), Jekane(Barbarian), Gregor Fearn(Barbarian). If you are one of these 3 people then you need to use the "Contact" form and send me a valid e-mail. If I am not contacted by you within a reasonable amount of time then I will delete you from the clan. -Jakeman

06-10-00: Attention to "Norenoc" who registered as an Amazon. I need your e-mail address. Since I don't have it I wasn't able to send you a "New Member" e-mail. Just use the "Contact" link to send me your e-mail address; write in the message field that you already registered under "Norenoc" but that I still need your e-mail. Thanks.

Whoa! After the announcement I sent to IMG we've gotten a ton more members! I've been trying to keep up with granting new members access to the "Diablo 2 Clan" forum as they register for the message board. So if you've already joined the clan and registered for the message board then chances are you already have access privileges to the "Diablo 2 Clan" forum. Regardless, you will always have access to the other forums on the message board.

06-02-00: Here's how we are going to work the names. Since the final release of Diablo 2 will not support guilds/clans, we will need to incorporate our clan acronym into our character names when we create our characters. The acronym will be "MAC" (short for "The Myriad of Allied Clansmen"). This will go on the end of your character name. For example, my character name is Jakeman. So when I create my character on the battle.net servers I will name my character Jakeman~MAC. I think the asterisk (I think it's called an asterisk, it might be a tilda) looks cool separating the name from MAC. This way everyone on battle.net knows what clan you are from when they see your name. The second order of business is the battle.net servers. Blizzard is making different servers around the world for Diablo 2. The catch is that if you want to play against some one on battle.net then both characters have to be stored on the same server. Obviously we will want to be able to play with other clan members when the game comes out. So we will all need to create our characters on the same server. I think the best server to create our characters on is the East Coast US server. This is said to be the biggest server, and it's also in a central location, covering both Europe, North America, and South America fairly evenly. I you happen to live in Asia or Australia you may experience minimal lag when playing games, but we have to make a compromise or else we won't be able to play together. If you have any opinions on this please tell me on the message board.

06-01-00: Yet again I have redesigned the Clan site. : ) I have also added web forms on the "Join" page and "Contact" page making these two functions of this site streamlined. I have made the "Diablo 2 Clan" forum on the message board private such that only clan members may view or create topics within that forum.