DecipherCon website

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The DecipherCon website was the set of pages Decipher ran on decipher.com for its company conventions. Each convention had its own site: DecipherCon 1999 under /calendars/event/mainevents/deciphercon/, DecipherCon 2000 under /deciphercon/2000/, and DecipherCon 2002 under /deciphercon/2002/. The sites took registrations before each convention, posted schedules, results, reports, photos and audio during it, and stayed online afterward as an archive of the coverage.[1][2][3] There was no 2001 site, because Decipher cancelled that year's convention (see 2001 Decipher World Championship).

DecipherCon 2000 site, 2000.

DecipherCon 1999

The 1999 site sat inside the DECIPHER Calendar section of decipher.com. DecipherCon 1999 website lists its sections and surviving pages one by one. Its home page opened "Welcome to DecipherCon 1999!" and, after the convention, told readers "DecipherCon is over. We've kept the best of our coverage for all of you!"[1]

Before the convention

The registration page offered pre-registration until 31 October 1999. Pre-registered players got 50% off convention passes ($10) and a free foil Sebulba card for Young Jedi.[4] A prizes page listed uncut sheets from all of Decipher's card sets, original art from the art department, Japanese Star Wars CCG product and guest spots on Radio Free Decipher.[5] Other pages took pre-registration for Thursday's Wild Card tournaments and carried an event survey.[6][7]

Coverage

After the convention the home page linked these sections:[1]

  • Notes from Lalumiere: daily wrap-ups by Francis K. Lalumiere, Thursday 11 November to Sunday 14 November.
  • Vote for the champ: a contest to pick the World Championship winners. The results page counted "more than 900 votes" for Star Wars CCG.[8]
  • Decks: the World Championship decks.[9]
  • Audio feeds: RealAudio from Radio Free DecipherCon (see below).
  • Event reports: a Report Board that was "read only". Decipher's Contributing Writers could post to it; readers could not reply.[10]
  • Photos: the full photo album (see DecipherCon 1999 photographs).[11]
  • Event schedule & results: every event by day, with prize information and score pages.[12]
  • Special guests: guests including Shannon Baksa, Aron Eisenberg and Jeremy Bulloch.[13]
  • World Championship pages for Star Wars CCG, Star Trek CCG and Young Jedi, with finalists and ratings. The Star Wars page announced that Gary Carman was World Champion.[14] See 1999 Decipher World Championship.

Radio Free DecipherCon

The audio feeds page introduced Ryan Morris and Mark Tuttle as "the voice and tech behind Radio Free DecipherCon". It highlighted a "Meet the Champ" interview by Tuttle for each game and archived the rest by day. Listeners needed the RealAudio plug-in.[15] The day pages listed each clip with its time and length:

  • Thursday, including Evan Lorentz.[16]
  • Friday, including a 12-minute interview with Jeremy Bulloch.[17]
  • Saturday, with play-by-play of the finals games and interviews.[18]
  • Sunday, ending with closing comments.[19]

Each clip was a small .ram pointer file that told RealPlayer to stream a .ra file from Decipher's server.[20]

Later years

The 1999 home page was still online in December 2002.[21] By 18 January 2003 the address showed Decipher's "File not available" page.[22]

DecipherCon 2000

The 2000 site moved to its own address, /deciphercon/2000/. After the convention its home page called the event "the Whole Shebang!" and invited readers to "Compare it to DecipherCon '99!"[2] Its sections were:

  • Finals: streaming video of the complete World Championship final for each game (see below).[23]
  • Message boards: game commentary and player comments.[2]
  • Zoom In: the best writing from the message boards, by Lalumiere and the contributing writers Marcus Sheppard, John Kaufeld and Jean-Luc Simard.[24]
  • Special guests: Michonne Bourriague (Aurra Sing) and Shannon Baksa (Mara Jade).[2]
  • Players: the 38 finalists from each Day One tournament, the semifinalists and the Day Two champions.[25]
  • Schedule: more than 60 tournaments, with print-quality PDF schedules by game.[26]
  • Seminars: "Straight talk from Decipher's game designers", including a Jedi Knights Trading Card Game question-and-answer session with Tom Lischke and Chuck Kallenbach, and a Star Trek CCG design-a-card workshop with Tim Ellington and Bill Martinson.[27]
  • Sound Bytes: more than 20 RealAudio interviews, dated 5 to 8 October 2000. Speakers included Mark Tuttle, Evan Lorentz, Justin Pakes, Chuck Kallenbach, Shannon Baksa, Michonne Bourriague, Kendrick Summers, Dean Irwin, Matt Sokol, Yannick Lapointe and Bill Martinson. The home page said Tuttle called Bourriague's interview "the best."[28][2]
  • Video clips: 22 short movies dated 5, 8 and 16 October 2000, from 463 KB to 18.5 MB.[29]

Finals video

The finals page said: "For the first time ever, you can watch the Championship Final for your favorite Decipher game just as those at DecipherCon did." Each final came in a 20 kb or an 80 kb RealVideo version; the 80 kb version was meant for DSL, T1, cable or faster connections. The page posted the championship decks beside each video.[23]

  • Star Wars CCG: two games between Matt Sokol and Yannick Lapointe.
  • Star Trek CCG: one game, with Brian Sykes as runner-up.
  • Young Jedi: two games, with Philippe Parise as runner-up.

Full results are on 2000 Decipher World Championship.

DecipherCon 2002

The 2002 site announced the convention for 31 October to 3 November 2002 at the Chesapeake Conference Center in Chesapeake, Virginia. It promised World Championships for The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, Star Trek CCG, Star Wars CCG, Young Jedi and the Jedi Knights Trading Card Game. It called itself "your gateway to all DecipherCon 2002 information". Early sections covered general information, travel, accommodations and the championship circuit.[3]

During the convention the site added a message board, The Daily News and a photo gallery. The Daily News covered the opening ceremonies, seminars, special-format tournaments, role-playing games, the Halloween party and the awards. It sent World Championship readers to DGMA.com and a read-only World Championships message board.[30][31]

On Radio Free Decipher

Radio Free Decipher, Decipher's weekly RealAudio show, talked about each convention before and after it. Its archive pages list these broadcasts about DecipherCon:[32][33][34][35][36]

  • 1999: Broadcasts 24 (3 September), 26 (27 September) and 27 (8 October), and a special, The Sounds of DecipherCon '99.
  • 2000: Broadcast 37 (9 June), with DecipherCon news; Broadcast 38 (16 June), with Gary Carman and a DecipherCon recap; and Broadcasts 50 to 53 (15 September to 13 October), before and after the convention.
  • 2001: Broadcast 99 (5 October), Warren Holland on the cancellation of DecipherCon.
  • 2002: Broadcast 116 (22 February), announcing the dates of DecipherCon 2002.
  • 2003: Broadcasts 156, 170 and 171, on DecipherCon's move to Gen Con and the World Championships held there.

The Wayback Machine's copies of Broadcasts 26, 27, 37 and 38 stop at 8 minutes 44 seconds.[37][38][39][40] Broadcast 171 survives whole.[41] On Broadcast 37 Heuer and Lorentz announced the DecipherCon 2000 venue in Kissimmee, near Orlando, for 5 to 8 October.[42] On Broadcast 29 the hosts told listeners to pre-register through the DecipherCon banner on Decipher's home page. It led to the main DecipherCon area, where a news box and a link under the main header both offered online registration.[43]

What survives

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine holds copies of pages from all three sites, including photo pages and photos. Its copies of the 1999 audio are the .ram pointer files only.[20] The 2000 finals videos survive. In February 2022 the YouTube channel Player's Council posted all three finals:

  • the Star Wars CCG final (1:21:09)[44]
  • the Star Trek CCG final (47:23)[45]
  • the Young Jedi final (28:02)[46]

The Star Wars video opens with the announcer's welcome: "this is the Star Wars CCG World Finals".[44]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 DecipherCon 1999, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 DecipherCon 2000, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 DecipherCon 2002, Decipher (2002). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  4. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Registration, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  5. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Prizes, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  6. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Wild Card registration, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  7. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Event survey, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  8. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Vote for the champ, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  9. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: World Championship decks, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  10. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Message boards, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  11. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Photos, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  12. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Event schedule & results, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  13. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Special guests, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  14. ↑ Star Wars CCG World Championship, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  15. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Audio feeds, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  16. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Audio feeds, Thursday, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  17. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Audio feeds, Friday, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  18. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Audio feeds, Saturday, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  19. ↑ DecipherCon 1999: Audio feeds, Sunday, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 rfd_99_11_12_1020.ram, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  21. ↑ DecipherCon 1999, Decipher (1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  22. ↑ DecipherCon 1999 (File not available), Decipher (2003). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Championship Finals Videos, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  24. ↑ Zoom In, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  25. ↑ DecipherCon 2000: Players, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  26. ↑ DecipherCon 2000 schedule, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  27. ↑ DecipherCon 2000 seminars, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  28. ↑ DecipherCon 2000: Sound Bytes, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  29. ↑ DecipherCon 2000: Video clips, Decipher (2001). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  30. ↑ The Daily News, Decipher (2002). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  31. ↑ Sights of DecipherCon: Photo gallery, Decipher (2002). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  32. ↑ RFD Archives 1998-1999 – Broadcasts 1-30, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  33. ↑ RFD Archives 2000, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  34. ↑ RFD Archives 2001, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  35. ↑ RFD Archives 2002, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  36. ↑ RFD Archives 2003, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  37. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 26 (27 September 1999), Carol Wisely with Kendrick Summers, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  38. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 27 (8 October 1999), Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  39. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 37 (9 June 2000), Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  40. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 38 (16 June 2000), Evan Lorentz and Kyle Heuer, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  41. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 171 (1 August 2003), Kyle Heuer and Evan Lorentz, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  42. ↑ Radio Free Decipher, Broadcast 37 (9 June 2000), Kyle Heuer and Evan Lorentz, Decipher, 0:38–1:00. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  43. ↑ Broadcast 29 - Radio Free Decipher (29 October, 1999): Evan Lorentz on DecipherCon and CCG News, Player's Council (YouTube), 21:33–22:22. Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 DecipherCon 2000 SWCCG World Championship Final Confrontation - Yannick Lapointe vs Matt Sokol, Player's Council (YouTube, 19 February 2022). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  45. ↑ DecipherCon 2000 STCCG 1E World Championship Final Confrontation - Brian Sykes vs Eric Johnfauno, Player's Council (YouTube, 18 February 2022). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
  46. ↑ DecipherCon 2000 Young Jedi World Championship Final Confrontation - Ian Vincent vs Philippe Parise, Player's Council (YouTube, 18 February 2022). Preserved copy: Internet Archive
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