Now Available: The Pyramid Volume 2 HTML Archives!
They said it couldn't be done . . . and, in hindsight, there were probably good reasons they said that. But no matter! The impossible is what we do around here – such as making the Pyramid Volume 2 archives available for the first time in over a decade!
As a bit of history for the unfamiliar: The first volume of Pyramid was a print publication that ran 30 issues, from 1993 through 1998. All 30 issues have been available as PDFs for years . . . including a bundle of all 30 issues.
The third volume of Pyramid was a GURPS Fourth Edition support PDF zine, with each issue devoted to a specific theme. It ran from 2008 through 2018; each issue is still available, and you can get a bundle of that era, as well. (We've also had two successful Kickstarters for Volume 4, which continues the PDF tradition of Volume 3.)
In between those two eras existed a magical, wild-and-wooly period of Pyramid. Volume 2 was an online zine, intended to be read exclusively on web browsers, updated weekly with articles and at times in between with breaking industry news. Lasting from 1998 through 2008, it was a product of the early days of widespread Internet. By its end, it had thousands of articles, features, columns, comics, news stories, and other goodness, devoted to all aspects of the gaming world, including RPGs, CCGs, boardgames, and more.
Because the website was HTML-based and intended from conception as an online publication, it has always been a difficult challenge to work into our existing catalog. In addition – and perhaps most importantly – the files simply didn't exist for easy offline functionality.
Until now.
Nearly a year in the making, the Pyramid Volume 2 HTML archives are now available to purchase!
If you have any interest in reliving this HTML era, we strongly suggest you pick up The Full Collection. It contains as much from that era as possible: articles, features, news, chats, etc. Given the expense and effort, we've tried to keep it as affordable as possible.
The Full Collection has been designed to re-create the HTML-era experience as much as possible. Crosslinks between articles should work, issues can be navigated by year or week to week, and various columns and features are brought together in easy-to-click collections. There are also features that didn't exist in the original era, such as the ability to jump to a random issue or sorting all articles by author or rating!
For those who only need one article or have interest in a specific year, we've also made each individual year available for purchase as "Spotlight" editions. Note that buying the 11 Spotlight collections will not get you everything in the Full Collection!
Folks have asked for these articles to be made available for years. One of the reasons we've never done it before is because we wanted to do it right. Speaking personally – as a bit of a digital archivist and gaming-history nerd – I tried to devise this collection to work the way I would want it to, and I admit a certain pride at having a ready-to-access collection on my own computer. We hope the love and effort from the original Internet era shines through to today.
-- Steven Marsh