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News Archives 141 to 150
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150. Test your Panzer Dragoon knowledge for real this time.
Date: 19th of September, 2009
Updated By: Solo
  I couldn't bring myself to post the 150th update without contributing something to The Will of the Ancients' collective archive myself. In the Trivia section you'll find the final test in the series of quizzes that I started back in 2003. Time flies when you're having fun indeed. Following on from the Easy and Normal quizzes, I've gone out of my way to make the Hard Quiz especially difficult. Even the most hardcore of Panzer Dragoon fans are likely to struggle, or at least that's my evil intention.
For this update, Tyrone Kamran has submitted a new picture of Azel for the Fan Art section. Also, Chupacabra has sent me the fourth chapter of his fanfic, A Trial of Endurance. This chapter strays from the events and locations covered in Panzer Dragoon Orta. The new culture that Chupacabra has introduced will no doubt become more relevant as the story of Flomu Narikara continues.
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149. Links section overhaul and new hosted site.
Date: 29th of August, 2009
Updated By: Solo
Many of you will be familiar with Stephan's Dolby's website The Panzer Place. It was one of the first English Panzer Dragoon websites on the Internet and served (and still serves) as a great resource for content on the Saturn Panzer trilogy. Due to upcoming death of Geocities on October 26, we've moved The Panzer Place to The Will of the Ancients' web server. The site is now hosted at place.thewilloftheancients.com, and Stephan has added a brief update to the main page.
Remember how a couple of updates ago I said that I'd keep the site's old domain for subdomains? Well, after discussing the matter with Stephan, I'm completely eating my own words. All hosted sites can now be found at subdomain.thewilloftheancients.com. The old domain, panzerdragoon.net, is now officially depreciated, and may be dropped altogether at a later date, so I recommend updating any links. It's simpler for everyone if there's just one domain.
If anyone else has a Panzer Dragoon site that they'd like hosted, I'd be more than happy to help out.
The Links section has long been due for an overhaul, so tonight I went through and made sure all the links still worked. There are a number of sites which have been taken down since the section was last touched. Some of the links have now been replaced with links to the Internet Archive, but only where this has been possible. Sadly some sites such as the Panzer Dragoon art website, Windmills, could not be recovered. If you know of any Panzer Dragoon sites that are missing from the Links section, please let me know.
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148. Art comes in various forms.
Date: 18th of August, 2009
Updated By: Solo
Unfortunately the official Panzer Dragoon Orta website has been taken offline, however forum member Hein has kindly uploaded an archive of the site to panzer-dragoon.net. The departure of the official site brings back memories of Sega of America's official Panzer Dragoon Orta website (now also offline) and the flash game that was featured on that site. Al3xand3r has sent me the swf files that make up this game, which I have added to the Accessories section. You can run the game in any web browser that includes the Flash plugin by extracting the contents of the zip file and opening index.htm. For convenience, the game is also accessible without downloading the files manually.
In this update, Hein has submitted a picture of Orta and the dragon using WebPainter. His friend Huoshen has created a piece of artwork featuring Edge, Azel, and their dragons in children forms. I've also added a piece of Panzer Dragoon fan art (which could double as a wallpaper) created by Corporal Kitty.
And now for something that I've been meaning to add to the site for a while, something a bit different. My friend who goes by the name Kayne Nemesis on the Internet, has given me a copy of a game of Snakes and Ladders that he created for a university project. The board consists of a traditional Snakes and Ladders grid, but with a Panzer Dragoon theme added to it. Kayne was the person who introduced me to the world of Panzer Dragoon back in 1997, so he deserves credit for far more than this submission. :)
That's all the new content for this update. On the forums, we're looking for volunteers to translate various texts from the Japanese Panzer Dragoon guidebooks. If you know of anyone who can read Japanese and would be willing to help out, please get in touch.
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147. Dedicated fans continue to produce new art.
Date: 4th of July, 2009
Updated By: Solo
I'm very pleased to be adding three new pictures to the site's fan art gallery. Snow Girl has sketched up a nice portrait of the character Azel. There are also two new pieces of art from B-R-E-T. The first is a cartoony sketch of Orta on the telephone, and the second features Orta with her scarf transforming into the dragon. Good effort both of you.
For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to watch the trailer of Team ICO's The Last Guardian. The upcoming Playstation 3 title features the 'boy and his dog' theme found in the Panzer Dragoon series, but instead of a dragon, the game features a giant cat/dog-like creature. Both of the previous games in the ICO series have been amazing; I have no doubt that this third game will also be something special. The Last Guardian may be the closest thing you'll find to a new Panzer game in this console generation.
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146. Going forward.
Date: 24th of March, 2009
Updated By: Solo
After a four and a half month break from work, gaming, and a static lifestyle, I'm back. To an extent, anyway, another part of me is still off exploring Veliko Tarnovo's ancient fortress. It was great to meet some of you in person during my travels, and I hope to see some of you again in the months to come. The journey isn't over yet.
The break has given me time to think over a number of things; what's important to me and what I really want to achieve with my time. Given this, I have no plans to make any radical changes to The Will of the Ancients. There is a lot that could be done to improve the site, to modernize it, to expand it. The general understanding I have is that people are (more or less) happy with the way things are. Change is good, but improvement for the sake of improvement can sometimes be more trouble than its worth. This doesn't mean that I'll be abandoning the site (far from it), but I'll be focusing my attention on other projects. The site is staying online, the forums aren't going anywhere, and if the content keeps coming in you can expect the same slow but steady stream of updates.
Although I cannot promise frequent updates this year, it's good to be writing something here again. For this update, Kevin Berryman has submitted five new pieces of artwork, which have been placed in the Fan Art section. For your convenience, I've linked to them individually below. Many thanks for submitting these, Kevin.
Azel of the Ancients
Edge of the World
Azel Tragic Hero
Azel Sunset
Azel Sketch
You may have also noticed a change in the URL of both the main site and the forums. The primary domain for The Will of the Ancients is now thewilloftheancients.com and the forums can be found at forums.thewilloftheancients.com. panzerdragoon.net and forums.panzerdragoon.net will continue to work, the only difference is the site's primary and secondary domains have been swapped over. I feel that a website's domain and name should go together. Hosted sites will still use a subdomain in the x.panzerdragoon.net format since they are not directly associated with The Will of the Ancients.
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145. Art of art!
Date: 13th of November, 2008
Updated By: Geoffrey Duke
 Just here for a quick pit stop to add a new submission in the form of more artwork inspired by PD Saga brought to us by Nattherat. Thanks Nat! In the artist's own words: "an acrylic painting of Lagi's base wing form done as practice". You can find it here. Give our budding artists more encouragement folks!
Unfortunately, I am back off to obsessing over World of Warcraft for a bit. But in the immortal words of Arnie... I'll be back!
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144. Small update!
Date: 22nd of October, 2008
Updated By: Geoffrey Duke
It's been a while since I updated the site here with anything myself, but I've been meaning to return to the Sega gaming community as a whole for a long time now. So I'll be back! Eventually sooner or later anyway.
In this update Chupacabra has written the third chapter of his ongoing fan fiction Trial of Endurance. Keep it up!
We've also added two of what were thought to be missing music tracks from Panzer Dragoon Mini courtesy of Robert Mueller, which can be found here in the edited section at the bottom of its respective page in the Secrets section.
While Panzer Dragoon lies seemingly forever in limbo, do your best not to forget that there's more than enough science fiction out there to wet the appetite of almost any taste, so don't despair my fellow sci fi lovers.
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143. An Artistic Update.
Date: 22nd of September, 2008
Updated By: Solo
I had planned on adding more to the site for this update, but some of the content was so overdue I didn't want to leave it any longer. So without further delay, the following has been added:
- Sketches of Azel and the Eye Wing dragon by Tyrone Kamran.
- A drawing of Keil and the Dragon by Dreman 75.
- A Wallpapers section. Sadly, the official Panzer Dragoon website went offline recently, so I've added all of the wallpapers that were featured on that site to this section. It also features an original wallpaper by Snow Girl.
Another update will be appearing here (hopefully) some time during the next week.
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142. Panzer Dragoon Prototypes... Released!
Date: 16th of May, 2008
Updated By: Solo
Hidden Palace has been updated with a torrent of the Panzer Dragoon prototypes. The prototypes included in the torrent are listed as follows:
- Panzer Dragoon Saga - Sep 16, 1997 prototype - Disc 1 (of only 1?)
- Panzer Dragoon Saga - Nov 30, 1997 prototype - Discs 1, 2 and 3
- Panzer Dragoon Saga - Dec 22, 1997 prototype - Disc 1
- Panzer Dragoon Saga - Dec 30, 1997 prototype - Discs 3 and 4
- Panzer Dragoon Zwei - 45% prototype (preview) - Feb 02, 1996
I have added a copy of the torrent to the Accessories section.
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141. Panzer Dragoon Prototypes
Date: 11th of May, 2008
Updated By: Solo
Have you ever wondered what Panzer Dragoon Saga was like before it was completed? What changes were made prior to its release, what bugs were fixed? Well now this question has partially been answered. I recently had the opportunity to play through disc 1 of a prototype version of Panzer Dragoon Saga dated September the 16th, 1997. The prototype was bought off an unnamed contact of DRX, the owner of video game prototype website Hidden Palace, along with a number of other prototypes (of Saga and Zwei). These prototypes will all be released later in the week on DRX's website, so stay tuned for another update here when that happens.
This release would not have been possible without the generous donations of the online Panzer Dragoon community here at The Will of the Ancients, so thank you everyone who donated. As small as we are, it just goes to show how passionate people can be when it comes to this series. Sega, are you listening? :)
I've posted by impressions of the 16/9/1997 Azel prototype in the following forum topic (skip to the fourth page). Images of some of the differences are available in the Screenshots section.
For this update, Snowgirl Orta has also submitted a new piece of art, a sketch of the drone Azel which I'd added to the Fan Art section. Also, Sega have confirmed that The Zoah, mentioned in the previous update, is going to be the official name of the alien race in Sonic Chronicles.
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Destroy the mutant stealing habits; it is the village's code. The Will of the Ancients is an unofficial fansite that is in no way supported or associated with SEGA or Smilebit. Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Panzer Dragoon Orta and all other official Panzer Dragoon content is © SEGA, 1995-2003. Everything else on this website was made or written by Solo Wing Dragon unless otherwise noted. Please ask me first before using any content on this website for fan or commercial purposes.
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