Wizards' Islands Sequels?

Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:41 pm

Long ago, I played a very good mod called "Wizards' Islands: Scourge of the Frostbringer" by the group "Wizards' Alliance". I remember hearing something about several sequels being planned to create a Wizards' Islands series. In particular, there was at least one more mod that was actually worked on -- "The Story of Burning Snow".
Now, it seems that all evidence of this series has been lost from the internet, aside from the planetelderscrolls page to download SotFB, and this:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/wizards-islands-the-story-of-burning-snow
It seems to have been written before the release of SBS, however the date is clearly after the release of SotFB, just check planetelderscrolls. I distinctly remember that, at one time, there was a screenshot on this page of a desert-city area that did not appear in SotFB, and I assumed it was from SBS. Unfortunately, this image is gone, and there now seem to be only SotFB screenshots.

The series used to have an official site, but it is gone and replaced with a generic domain-squatter page:
http://wizards-islands.com
I remember seeing their official site before it went down, and even then it hadn't been updated in years, and the last update was (to my vague memory) rather pessimistic, about the team splitting up or something.
On the ModDB article I linked, there is a comment containing text which I recognize as being copied from one of the final updates on the official site! It says the site was moved and provides a new link that doesn't work at all:
http://wizards-islands.planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/wi.htm
Interestingly, it promises bugfixes and performance tweaks that will be in a new patch for SotFB labeled version 1.1 -- this patch is MIA. The latest patch available on planetelderscrolls is 1.05.

It's probably a case of vaporware -- unlikely that the whole thing came to fruition. What I do know, though, is:
- The first mod (SotFB) was finished. I played it.
- Version 1.1 patch for SotFB was in the works at one time.
- The second mod (SBS) was in the works at one time.
- Highly unlikely that a third installment was worked on.

So, does anyone know more about the project (the series, or the team)?
Was the 1.1 patch for SotFB ever finished?
Was there any released content for SBS (finished or not)?
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Emily Graham
 
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Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:07 am

IIRC, after a whole bunch of very exciting and extremely good work, a hardware failure erased all of the progress that they had made. Instead of trying to recreate the magic, they decided to disband. So v1.1 was very close to being finished, and now it doesn't exist at all.
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Marguerite Dabrin
 
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Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:25 pm

And that's why backing stuff up is important!
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Chavala
 
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Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:14 pm

Did they ever fix all the problems with their first mod?
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Lucky Boy
 
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Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:13 pm

Ouch. Although, there were multiple people working on the project, so I'd think that more than one of them would have a copy of most of the assets? It seems odd that one hardware failure would kill everything that all of them were working on. I suppose I can't really argue the point though seeing as it's all gone now.

I uncovered the latest page from the official site that I could find in the Internet Archive. It is missing the last post about the team breaking up, but the next archived version is a domain expiry page. And some squatter has been holding on to their domain for like 5 years now? Anyway, I was a little forgetful about the names of things. The second mod in the works was actually called "Isle of Storms" whereas SBS refers to the whole series.
"enter" page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050922112636/http://www.wizards-islands.com/
news blog:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050923085542/www.wizards-islands.com/wi.htm

Knowing this, I googled it and got another ModDB page:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/wizards-islands-the-isle-of-storms
Now THIS is the page I remember, with the IoS screenshots. They even claim to be 33% completed -- that's a lot of work to lose.
And they are in fact affiliated with ModDB because their enter page on the official site has a ModDB logo on the bottom.

Googling further with "Isle of Storms" reveals nothing new.
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Kate Murrell
 
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Post » Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:41 pm

This thread might be of intrest to you: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1018466-list-wizard-island-support/ - contains links to patches, addons ect...
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xxLindsAffec
 
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