As the next update for the anniversary special, I'm starting a linking campaign. As such, I've added several new banners and link buttons in the Link to me section. If you have a Mega Man website, why not take two minutes and use one of these to link to this site? In exchange, you can submit your own site to the links database and I'll add it within a few days.

Affiliation
After keeping those locked down for what seems like forever, I'll now finally resume taking in affiliates. However, not every website can apply: you have to fit in all of the following conditions.

Your site:

• Must be a Mega Man-related website
• Must not have or link to illegal material
• Must not be a new site (too many of those start, then die within a few weeks)
• I must like it, of course!

If you think you have what it takes, then drop me a note and we'll see. Be sure you have a linking image button in the normal size (it's 88 x 31 pixels)! Remember, even if you are declined for affiliation, nothing stops you from exchanging links (see above)!

Contest reminder
A reminder to all the artists out there: the IOekaki drawing contest is ending in one week! That's seven days left! If you want to win some of the prizes, enter now before it's too late!

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Now that this year's E3 is over, here is a summary of the news related to the Mega Man series. There were no shocking news or game announcements, since those all happened during the last few weeks. However, we now have some more solid details about the various upcoming games.

• Mega Man X Collection: This set of older games was confirmed for both the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube in North America. A Capcom representative said that both versions will include the same material, unlike the previous Anniversary Collection. The games to be included are Mega Man X1 to X6, as well as Mega Man: Battle & Chase (the PS1 racing title). Capcom is considering using the PSX version of Mega Man X3 to include in the collection.
• Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team: This is the upcoming Nintendo DS title. We received a name for the North America release as well as details on what it IS exactly: this game will include the content of the two versions of Battle Network 5, along with some added features using the DS hardware such as area maps and touch screen-based menues.
• Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the GBA: No news came out about that game during this E3. However, Capcom recently said that because of the numerous delays that the title suffered, they decided to wait before they could give out a solid release date.
• Mega Man: The Card Game: Again unrelated to E3, but the news came out almost at the same time. Future additions to the Mega Man-based card game by Decipher have been cancelled, so no new card sets will come out. The game was originally supposed to expand to cover other Mega Man series, but it looks like it will remain centered around the Battle Network universe.

I have updated the release dates with the new information I was able to gather: most of the upcoming games are set to be released in autumn, possibly in November.

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The last few missing details about the contest have been decided on.

First of all, the full list of judges has been determined. There will be three of us: myself, of course; Tim, head admin of the Mega Man Network; and Servbot #20, long-time visitor and first contributor to the oekaki board. As it was previously said, the judging will start at the beginning of June, once the contest has ended.

Also, the missing prize has now been added: it's a model kit for X's Gaia Armor from Mega Man X5. You can find a picture of it on the prizes page.

You still have two weeks to enter the contest if you're interested!

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A new patch for the Rockboard translation has just been made available! In case you don't know, I'm heading a project to fully translate the Japanese-only Rockboard game in English. You can read the project details on this information page if you want to know more. The progress is now at about 16%, with the recent addition of many of the ending scenes. The new patch can be reached on the translation's download page. The next work to be done on the translation is already planned and will begin shortly. The next patch should come in faster than this one did!

WANTED: Japanese translator
UPDATE: The position has been filled. Thanks to those who showed some interest!
Since my previous Japanese-to-English translator apparently vanished, I need someone else to carry on the work. The wanted person doesn't need to know anything about ROM hacking or the like since I'm taking care of that part. Furthermore, all of the dialog in the game is written in Hiragana and Katakana, without any kanjis. Preferably, anyone interested is more than a first grade student who "thinks" he can fight his way through the text. If you are interested in the position, send me an e-mail or a PM on the message board and we will talk.

Extra Rockboard note
UPDATE: I've received enough replies to be able to figure out what this is about. Thanks for the help!
There's a single screen of text that I submitted to several people, yet no one has been able to translate it. I'm now displaying it here in case that anyone can give me a definite answer on it's meaning. It's the last option to be set before a level starts. If you think you know the answer, please drop me a note!

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Well, here we are. Five years ago today, the first updates to the Mega Man PC Website went live! Five years is a long time for a fan site to live on the Internet. If this place is still alive and open for everyone to see, it's thanks to everyone who has been coming back again and again. Thank you, all! I would like to add a special note for those who've been visiting almost since the beginning (you know who you are!), since they've always been supportive. The hit counter currently stands at about 385 000. While this isn't as impressive as other sites who reached millions, it's definitely MUCH higher than the average, especially when you consider that most of the work here is being done by myself alone. Of course, I don't want to ignore the hard work of the various moderators who help to keep the community under control since I can't be everywhere at once. They are working for all of you, too, so another thanks goes to them! Here's to the past five years and all of the upcoming ones!

Website history
As promised, here's a recap on the history of this website, with a list of the main events that happened through the years. I've separated the various events in four time periods, since each of those had me working in a different mindset.

May 2000 - March 2002: Most of the website's major and still available features are opened: the message board, oekaki board, Rockboard translation, MegaChess and others all make their debut here. While some of those were primitive compared to what is now available, their popularity made sure that they would stay around.

• May 2000: The Mega Man PC Website is opened on Crosswinds.net, originally about the Mega Man 5 for PC fan-game I was working on as well as to give information on the various Mega Man games available on computers.
• August 2000: The website moves over to Interordi.com, it's current location, joining the other websites that I happen to work on.
• July 2001: The oekaki board goes online for the first time!
• August 2001 - February 2002: The news on that time period were lost because of the next event:

March 2002 - May 2004: On March 24, 2002, the BIG CRASH occurs. Due to a major server problem on my web host's side, the data hard drives and backups are completely lost. During that event, all of the site's content and data was destroyed. While I had local backups of the content itself, the data (like message board posts and oekaki pictures) couldn't be saved, which meant restarting from scratch in those areas. Also, several sections were begging for an update so I decided to rebuild a large part of the website from the ground up. It took over 2 years to see that everything would be entirely remade, but most sections were taken care of in the following months. A side effect from the crash was that rebuilding sections took a lot of precious time away from creating new content and maintaining existing sections. Since then, the rebuilt sections haven't had any dramatic changes since they are working well and I just like their new versions.

• March 24, 2002: The BIG CRASH occurs.
• April 24, 2002: Exactly a month later, the fourth (and current) version of this site is being made available.
• June - October 2002: Constant bandwidth limitation issues plague the website at the end of each month.
• July 21, 2002: The site reaches 100 000 hits!
• March 10, 2003: The DATA CRASH happens. While it wasn't as bad as the big crash due to more recent and solid backups, a few weeks worth of oekaki pictures were lost along with some comments on the message board. Most of the restoration process was completed within a week, but it was a troublesome event nonetheless.

May 2004 - Today: Since everything previously available was restored (and some new stuff was added in the process), it's now a lot easier to look ahead by adding new sections and updating existing ones as needed. Some features that are now popular, like the list of available PC games, have been added during the last year. I'm now trying to add new and improved means on interacting with fans in different ways, like the addition of the oekaki drawing contest shows.

• April 2005: Necro takes over the website (not really, fools).
• May 2005: The first contest ever of this place starts! The oekaki drawing contest, installed as an extension of the existing oekaki board, challenges artists on drawing creative and good-looking pictures.
• May 6, 2005: The website turns five years old!

You can review all this (and more!) by browsing through the old news updates.

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While it has been around as a draft for a long time, it's now time to start this new step for the oekaki board: beginning now, a drawing contest is officially opened on the oekaki board! Co-created by Breakman and yours truly, this contest is attached directly on the oekaki board so you need to be registered there in order to enter. Once you are registered (and logged in, of course), visit the contest area to get all of the details about the rules and prizes. Wait, did I mention prizes? That's right! The competition features models kits and Battle Network import merchandise for the top three winners!

The contest will run for a month, starting now and ending at the end of May 31st. The main judging criterias are about creativity and the general quality of the art. The judges themselves are still being selected: the list will be known before the end of the contest. For more details, see the main information pages.

I would like to use the occasion to thank Breakman for her support and help during the preparations. This thing would probably still be in draft form otherwise!

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That's right: as the title of this update implies, the Mega Man PC Website: Dr. Cossack's Lab is about to enter it's fifth year on the Internet! This place sure has grown since it's first days, while being hosted on Crosswinds.net. A recap of the history of the site will be available on the anniversary day itself.

In order to celebrate this mark, I've got a series of updates planned to go online all through the month. Each of those updates should take care of some neglected areas around the website. Stay tuned to get all of the upcoming news! The first update of the set is located just above this one: a contest!

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