Marriland

Alright everyone, I've got some HUGE news for you all! This has actually been in the works for several months, but I am proud to finally be able to announce this to the world.

Marriland is now a part of Curse!

This means that Marriland.com is joining the ranks of other Curse sites that you may be familiar with, such as Minecraft Wiki, Minecraft Forums, MMO Champion, Wowpedia, LoL Pro, and many more. It's very exciting to be part of such a vast network of top-notch gaming communities!

There are so many things that make this particularly exciting for me, personally, and I think they'll be just as exciting for you as well.

When I started Marriland.com over 12 years ago, it was just a tiny little Pokemon fansite. I had no idea that it would grow into one of the largest Pokemon sites on the internet and that my videos, walkthroughs, and content would be viewed by millions and millions of people from across the world. The frightening thing was that, aside from the community work on the Marriland Forums and the other community parts of the site, and aside from a stray guide here and there, I was singlehandedly responsible for doing EVERYTHING on the Marriland website! Programming, design, bug fixing, database stuff, server administration, optimization, customer service... the list goes on and on. That's a whole ton of work! A lot of this stuff is stuff that I've had to learn on the fly, too. All of the work spent programming this thing or fixing that bug or going through server logs to find out why something isn't working right is time that could have been spent on cool stuff, like walkthroughs, videos, and articles!

By joining Curse, I gain the resources of their excellent development and design teams, their knowledge and knowhow of maintaining sites far larger than mine, their communities of fellow gamers, and so much more! Not only does this free me up to work on the most important things, such as providing you those walkthroughs, videos, and articles, but it also makes for so much better of a result in the end! Plus, it's thanks to Curse that I got my whole YouTube situation figured out, I became partnered through them, and I've been able to post those videos again — you've gotta say that's pretty great!

Now, you're probably wondering what does this mean for YOU? Well, let's take a look!

• A TOTALLY NEW redesign of the Marriland website! This is definitely the most radical change out of any of them, because it is redesigning the site from the bottom up, focusing on removing the sections that just weren't being used and were just taking up space (TCG spoilers, old games with just a brief description, etc.) and converting the website into an easier-to-manage CMS-type system, where you can quickly navigate to the walkthroughs, the Pokedexes, and any of the tools from a top navigation.

  I understand that this will probably be the thing that takes the most getting used to. We've all grown used to the old look over the years. This is a drastic change, but it's one that I feel will be necessary for Marriland to grow into the best Pokemon website on the web!

• The brand-spankin' new Marriland Forums! Finally the Marriland Forums will be directly integrated into the site! You'll be able to post comments using your Curse account on the Marriland website (super easy to make for any new members as well as existing members) all over the place, including news updates, videos, the walkthrough, and more! It should provide for a more interactive experience than ever before. The look and feel of the Marriland Forums will match the site as opposed to being an entirely separate entity like it was in the past.

  The Marriland Forums should also have a much simpler, less confusing approach to things than the old phpBB system. I'm very excited for this and I hope you'll be as well, especially since it's a custom-built forum engine for Curse sites!

• Powerful Pokedex search filters! Now, on the Pokedex page, it is super easy to search for Pokemon by adding filters on the listing page! You can search for Pokemon that have certain stats, are of certain types, egg groups, learn certain moves, and so on! You can also search for Pokemon that are weak to types or resistant to types! There are so many different options now for searching that it should be very easy to find just the right Pokemon you're looking for. There are also similar filters available for moves, too.
  
  
• Revamped Team Builder! The ever-popular Team Builder now has support for every version out there, plus you can search for Pokemon that aren't weak to a type or are resistant to a type to help find additions that won't add to your team's weaknesses! You can also see your team's stats as well. Very cool!

It's been so hard keeping this under wraps for so long, but I am so glad to be able to make this announcement. I see it as moving forward with the future of Marriland! I hope that you'll join me in this excitement and realize this as an awesome expansion of the Pokemon website you've grown to love over the years.

Now, I just want to take a moment and say that I realize there will be some people that won't like this change or will miss "the old Marriland" or will complain that the site is "ruined." There will always be people that resist change and they'll oppose it no matter what! In all honesty, I wasn't even sure if I would be able to keep working on the site if it weren't for Curse. Having one guy play the role of programmer, designer, system administrator, content manager, customer service, etc. is just not sustainable, especially with how rapidly the site was growing. Even if you are totally 100% absolutely opposed to the new site, I am certain you'll be happier with it than if I simply had to close the existing site (but I think you'll really like it!). I invite you, though, to offer your constructive input rather than to just dismiss it altogether, and to see that this gives me more of an opportunity to provide you with walkthroughs, videos, articles, posts, and other cool stuff!

We're going to keep the old site up during the transition and for awhile afterwards, so if you absolutely cannot live without it and don't want to be on board for the future of the site, we won't totally leave you in the dust, at least not right away. We want input. We truly want this to be a community, a site for you, the Pokemon fan, and the place that you want to visit every day! That's why we want to listen. I want to listen. We're not going back; we're going forward. Part of that means change. Change is fine. Change is exciting! But it can tick people off, and while I realize that there'll be people against it, I also believe that there'll be a lot of people very excited about it! I know I'm excited!

So, what do you say, Marriland community? I hope you'll join me in the launch of the new site and I look forward to serving you with tons of awesome Pokemon content for the many years to come! Woohoo! Hurray for Curse! Hurray for Marriland! And hurray for you, the loyal Marriland and Pokemon fan!

Got something to say? Like the new design? Have an issue or a problem? Leave a comment on this update! As said above, we're looking for constructive feedback, so if you've got a complaint, please try to include what we can do to fix it or to make it better. Thanks!