Welcome to the new Sarna.net blog!
While the look of Sarna.net has changed quite a bit since it was created in 1998 — checking the Wayback Machine can be a bit embarrassing — the main goal of the site has always been the same: to (modestly) be the most comprehensive BattleTech resource available on the Internet. From downloads to the forums to the wiki, Sarna.net aims to be your one-stop resource for everything BattleTech.
Sarna, which started out as Slayer’s BattleTech Page on GeoCities, was created by me (Nic Jansma) just as I was getting into BattleTech and when this whole Internet thing was in its (commercial) infancy. It started out as a few hand-edited HTML pages, CGI scripts and a bunch of downloads I organized from the Berkley FTP servers.
Over time, Sarna has hosted a large file archive, multiple styles of forums, guestbooks, trivia contests and a multitude of other custom scripts for people to share BattleTech-related things.
Recently, the most important evolution of Sarna was its conversion in 2006 to a wiki. Since then, an amazing community of thousands of BattleTech fans have created over 16,000 wiki pages and made over 300,000 edits. The wiki has some of the best, well written, thoroughly researched BattleTech content on the Internet. I am constantly amazed at the community of contributors and the quality of content they produce. It’s humbling.
While my contributions to the wiki have tapered off over the years — I spend most of my free time ensuring the server is running smoothly and helping combat SPAM — I think the best decision I ever made was turning Sarna.net over to the citizens of the Internet in 2006.
To that end, it’s time for another change. A new addition. While the popularity of our favorite board game has ebbed and flowed over the years, I think we’re starting to see a resurgence of interest from all of the amazing products Catalyst is now producing as well as (finally) several new BattleTech video games coming out including MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior Tactics. We want to keep you in-the-know with everything that’s going on, and to bring you all of the latest BattleTech and MechWarrior news.
So, welcome to the new Sarna.net Blog! I’ve assembled a team of 5 writers who aim to bring you the most comprehensive coverage of what’s new in BattleTech and MechWarrior. Over the next week I’ll have all of them introduce themselves. They will each bring a different voice and focus. Please welcome your new writers:
- Nic
- Abe
- ClanWolverine101
- Ron
- Sean
(if you’re interested in writing, feel free to contact me)
Here are some of the topics we are planning on covering:
- Classic BattleTech (the board game)
- Video games (MechWarrior Online, MechWarrior Tactics, etc)
- Catalyst Game Labs (new products and announcements, including reviews of products)
- BattleTech software and apps (MegaMek, HeavyMetal, etc)
- Important events on the sarna.net wiki (new projects getting started, community debates, etc)
- Highlights of the other amazing BattleTech community websites
- Convention coverage
We hope to have new coverage for you daily. Please excuse any rough edges the first few weeks until we smooth things out a bit. If you have any feedback, please let us know!
Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the coverage!
Looking forward to the blog, guys! I just discovered it today and have already put it in my RSS feed. Thanks for being such a valuable resource for the Battletech universe!