Stebloke's: May 2008-Nov 2009

May 2008 saw the end of Steveo's Website, with the very first Stebloke's Website rising from the ashes. As you may guess, this was a very important name change indeed. After all, there are many Steveos in this world, but only one Stebloke.

For the first time, I made sure the site was using valid HTML, which was version 4 at this stage. In the redesign, I finally managed to get rid of tables and frames, and the entire site was layed out using CSS, which was a big step forward for my tiny brain.

Where things went backwards was in its structure, as each page once again became its own HTML file, which each loaded in the menu using PHP. The previous Steveo site had used a single index file which loaded in information depending on which menu item was clicked. I think that was the better way, which is why I'm currently back to using it.

I had clearly not yet learned the CSS push technique, as the content area did not stretch to the bottom of the page, and looks weird.

During this time, the wargaming articles became a thing, which were a precursor to the blog entries that arrived later. And on the main page, probably to fill up some space, I added random links and random quotes, which lasted all the way to Stebloke's V6.

Stebloke's V2: Nov 2009-Dec 2010

Immediately visible is the regression in this site's design, in that it is fixed width for some reason. I'd honestly like to go back and ask myself what I was thinking.

The behind the scenes structure was much the same, with lots of independent pages loading in a main menu, though the menu would now be formatted differently depending on where on the site you were.

Forward momentum came when I added filters to the wargame articles, so you could search by game.

Stebloke's V3: Dec 2010-Apr 2011

This site was pretty much a V2.5 rather than a V3, as it was just a streamlined version of V2. Lots of worthless info was stripped out of the site, and many pages consolidated, making it easier to navigate.

Stebloke's V4: Apr 2011-Jul 2012

I wanted to use this new site to force myself into learning MySQL. It all went quite well at first, and the site was designed so that people could register, login, and choose preferences in the form of different appearances.

One appearance was made in the style of Steveo's V2 for its 10th anniversary.

For the first time, I also made available one of my games, which was a redesign of an old text adventure game I'd made in the 1990s using DOS batch files. Once you were logged in, the database would act as a save game state, remembering location and inventory and so on.

However, very soon, in July 2011, my web host disabled the mail() PHP function so I could no longer send emails so that people could register or reset their password.
This meant that the preferences and the game had to be remade so they used cookies instead, and I pretty much abandoned MySQL from then on.

That game actually doesn't work at all any more due to more PHP changes, and would need another massive redesign if I were to ever bring it back.

Both the computer game and wargame blogs started near the end of this site's run.

The biggest negative was that the site was still fixed width, though for the first time I made a little floating button so it was always possible to scroll back to the top, something that was very missing before.

Stebloke's V5: Jul 2012-Jan 2017

I'd not upgraded my web server for some years until I started to develop this version of the site. Now I'd got a more up to date version of PHP, it finally became evident to me how many things were wrong with my current code, and how many errors were getting kicked out. So while I was mucking around fixing the PHP, I also decided to upgrade to HTML 5.

Originally, this had a very similar look to the previous Stebloke's sites, except I finally got rid of fixed width. But then in April 2013 the site got a new default look, with a completely different blue to before. At first, I had to take a step back and use a table to get the look I wanted, but this was later removed when I got my shit together in April 2014.

Like the previous site, there were other appearances you could select, including the Star Trek layout, which I think is the best CSS style I've ever made.

In Dec 2015, I finally let the llap-goch.co.uk domain expire, and laid the memory of the LLAP-Goch Master and his Productioneers to rest.

This site lasted 4 and a half years, which was the longest yet. By far the biggest step forward, I think you'll agree, is that I finally figured out that website is supposed to be all one word.

Stebloke's V6: Jan 2017-Sep 2019

This site was designed as the first one to be even slightly mobile friendly, using media queries for the first time. On smaller screens, a different menu bar would load which was far more digestible. And on larger screens, a sidebar would load to take up some of the space.

After the last site's colour experiment, I went back to a more typical dark blue, but kept the light grey as the secondary colour instead of the black. All of the alternate appearances were removed, as I found they really gummed things up behind the scenes.

So much editing of pages and blog posts was needed to fit this new style that I wrote a script to analyse all of the pages and make the changes. All of this mucking about convinced me something needed to change for the future...

Stebloke's V7: Sep 2019-?

You are here, right now.

The site looks much the same, in terms of the blue and grey. But there's been the biggest change ever in terms of structure. The site has changed from static pages to one big blog with multiple filter options.

It's also more naturally mobile friendly in the terms that it doesn't need different CSS for smaller screens. The only thing that changes is the default image size, which shrinks slightly if the screen is a smaller one.

In its development, content and style were completely separated from one another (finally!), with all of the info in simple text files, and the image information stored in a PHP array. This means further changes to the look of the site will be much easier.

Not that I'm planning any changes any time soon. Far from it. And as this is already well over 4 years old, it's certainly going to beat the record set by Stebloke's V5...

Steveo's

This is where it all began, long before I became the entity known as Stebloke, after my mate showed me the very basics of a program called Dreamweaver 3.

It was originally hosted on my old freeuk web space, but to be fair, the only thing that was on there was the Blood Bowl information. The site then linked to the llap-goch.co.uk site, which was originally owned by Dave until I picked it up a couple of years later, and my old band site which was on another freeuk space.

I don't know dates for this site, but it was online by Apr 2000, as that was when the first entry into my old guestbook happened.

And what's with all the Comic Sans?

Steveo's V2: May 2002-Feb 2003

I guess you could call this one my first proper site, with all of the information stored on it and all in the same place.

This is where I switched to my traditional dark blue, black and white scheme. However, looking down the news items, this style change didn't happen until August 2002. What this site looked like before then I can't remember, and there are no prior backups.

Having the menu on the left pushed me towards using frames for the first time, a feature that would be massively over-used in the next version of the site.

My short-lived movie review section began here, with Blade 2 being the first. Another strange bit of content I created was a weird little league thing in the computer game Jedi Outcast, which I only did once and has never been seen since, for good reason.

Steveo's V3: Feb-July 2003

This is where I went a little bit silly with all of the frames, with 5 on screen in order to create that border effect.

The menu system I came up with was also trash, and there was actually less content than what used to be on V2. It was no surprise at all that this didn't last long.

Strange fact: even though this version of the site was removed from the web in July 2003, it seems I continued to do little updates on it until January 2004. This was when I wrote my last film review which was for The Return Of The King. However, the last film review that would have actually been uploaded would have been for X-Men 2 back in May of 2003. Not that it matters, as the reviews have never returned, and likely never will.

I can only imagine that I kept updating this site offline in case it needed to come back, as development of Steveo's V4 was not going to plan...

Steveo's V4

All of our old silly home movie information had split off to its own website called the LLAP-Goch Archive. In addition, me and my mate Craig were trying to get our own band up and running, so all of my music stuff also split off to become its own site as well.

This meant that there was very little content left for the 4th Steveos attempt. Instead, the idea was to make the site a bit more personal, almost like an everyday blog sort of thing.

However, as my life was pretty boring with very little going on (and still is), this still meant there was no real content.

There were several attempts to get this version up and running, but I could just never get it sorted. The only things I liked were some of the animated gifs I made to form the menu, including one that looks suspiciously like I'm humping the world, when I'm just supposed to be looking over it.

This was the first site I was developing that was going to be fixed-width, and this means it looks really silly when viewing the site now.

With a crap layout and no content, it's no shock that this was never finished, let alone uploaded. The only good thing was that I'm sure I stopped using Dreamweaver in this period.

Steveo's V5: Jan-Aug 2005

My site returned after 18 months, and also re-integrated the LLAP-Goch archive and music stuff. The site went back to having the 2 simple frames, with one for the menu, but everything was now laid out in ridiculous looking tables.

I clearly learned the wrong lessons from the failed V4 project, and this site was also fixed width.

The only positive step forward was using CSS for the first time, though this was only to style all of the text on the site.

Steveo's V6: Aug 2005-Jul 2007

V6 saw the first colour change in a while, as I very much desaturated the look of the site, making it easier on the eyes.

At long last, frames were gone. Well, kind-of. Instead, the site was layed out in nested tables, with an iframe being used to load the menu on each page. While this still sucked, it did at least get rid of the fixed width shenanigans.

There was a minor redesign of the site in Sep 2006, with the orange being removed for something a little more subtle. In addition, the re-design saw my old band stuff removed.

Steveo's V7: Jul 2007-May 2008

The site barely changed visually, but behind the scenes things actually started to push forward with this version, as it was the first time I used PHP.

Not that it was used all that much, as it was only used to load different information into the main page depending on which menu item was selected.

This meant it was the first time I was having to use web server software, which in my case was and still is XAMPP.

I also styled more things using CSS, though the layout itself was still in a table.

Viewing this old site now can lead to some PHP errors, due to PHP changing over the years, and getting a little bit more strict.

Kazgor's Legion Vs. The Imperial Renegades Warhammer Battle Report

Stebloke (Kazgor) and Pencil (Renegades) battle it out using their own homebrew ruleset, using only the contents of the Warhammer Fantasy Regiments boxset. Battle fought in the early 1990s.

Deployment

The Battle Begins

The battle began as The Renegades made their move for the bridge. In response, Kazgor urged his middle group forwards to face the firing line of dark elves and goblins that were forming on the other side of the pool.
The elves and goblin on Kazgor's left flank jumped up on to the log to try and get a better view of the battlefield. Mirroring them, The Renegades elves to the east sprang up on to the log there to open fire on Kazgor's flanking minions. However, a hail of bolts and arrows greeted them and cut them all down, and more Renegades desperately tried to move up in support.
The Renegades in the middle held their ground as Kazgor's warriors charged over the bridge. Looking to encircle them, Renegades dwarves flanked the pool on one side, while a dark elf and skaven moved around the other. The two sides exchanged arrows as they closed in for the kill.

The Battle Continues

As the battle lines drew close, the Renegades dark elves and goblins in the middle brought down four approaching enemies with accurate fire, before the two sides charged in to each other. In response, Kazgor's followers could only bring down a single skaven in close combat.
Meanwhile to the east, Kazgor suffered more set backs as the tougher dwarves and orcs charged into his flanking warriors and set about the lightly armoured elves.
In the middle, the Renegades dwarves emerged from the bushes, lining up a charge on their opposing kinsmen. Kazgor's elves failed in their efforts to bring down the flanking skaven and dark elf, and the battle looked like it was turning against the cowardly dwarf.

The Battle Is Won

The surviving ranged Renegades in the middle turned their attention to Kazgor's elves, leaving just one standing for the flanking skaven and dark elf to charge and kill. The skaven and orc counter attack over the bridge forced Kazgor's troops back, and the Renegades dwarves charged in to help mop up. With his plans in tatters, Kazgor himself finally decided to join the battle. Swinging his warhammer wildly, he charged from the bushes where he'd been shouting commands, but was too late to reach combat.
To the east, Kazgor's troops finally broke through the stubborn Renegades line, hacking down all their foes. But they had lost too many fighters and their victory had taken too long. Observing the battlefield, it was obvious that the Renegades had claimed victory.