Bringing the Outpost back
This archive is being restored by Aaron Powell, who ran the original Gaming Outpost. It brings surviving writing and conversations back into a readable, searchable collection.
The forums are an essential part of that history. The early discussions preserved here include conversations about game design and the business of RPGs, alongside the reviews and columns that appeared on the main site.
What you can read now
- 919 articles from the database backup, originally dated 1998–2007.
- 4 additional article and blog pages recovered from the Wayback Machine, including 12 comments. Their captured date widgets do not establish a publication year.
- 927 later forum conversations, containing 36,256 retained posts from 2007–2012.
- 30 early forum recovery records, containing 82 distinct captured post versions. A record can contain a full captured discussion page or a single reply from a longer thread.
What remains missing
The final database export ended before it was complete. Some content survives without enough context to place it reliably, and many original images and linked pages have not yet been recovered. Recovery is continuing through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Counts describe what survives, not the full original site. A surviving conversation is not necessarily complete. Titles found in a reply listing are not counted as recovered posts unless their text has also been found.
Names, dates, and original wording
Original bylines and forum display names are retained where the evidence supports them. In the later forums, 35,947 posts have names supported by topic metadata; 309 have unresolved names. Member IDs can connect a post to a surviving display name, but do not establish a person’s real-world identity. When names on the same ID differ only in case, spacing, or punctuation, the more readable form is used. Different article bylines have not been silently merged.
Article publication dates, forum timestamps, and Wayback capture dates are kept distinct. Unknown dates remain unknown. Minor repairs make damaged punctuation and older HTML readable; they do not rewrite the arguments, opinions, or language of the original authors.
Deleted, disabled, spam-marked, and unpublished records are excluded from this release. Account credentials, private messages, and administrative records are not part of the public archive.
Reading and searching
Use the article index to browse by title, year, or author, or search the full text of articles and recovered forum posts. Long conversations are divided into pages, and each forum post has its own link.
Historical links point to another recovered page when it can be matched confidently. Otherwise, links to the old Gaming Outpost are sent to the Wayback Machine. That link is a recovery lead, not a promise that the destination was archived.
This is a read-only archive. Original writing remains attributed to its respective authors.