MetPage's history dates back to when its original founder, Dave, entered the Metallica website scene on September 15, 2000 with a really small web board called the Sanatorium. He didn't know much about websites and from what we saw, Metallica was shutting down many of them, so by choosing the name Sanatorium, he felt he would be safe. Dressed in orange and blacks, the site was up and running but wasn't more than a 1/2 dozen users strong. At the time, Poolzer was involved in a 'rival' website, but not being that 'die hard' or committed to it, he jumped aboard. We decided to rename the site, which was still just a web board, to Blackened and began to overhaul it to a mainstream site with Dave at the helm. The 1st two versions looked beautiful, using skins done up in blues, silvers and black. Here is the sites header from that era:


Once established, the site grew with approximately 50 regular members that posted daily. As the web board was promoted, it attracted attention of Metallica fans from around the world and over the next 4 months it grew to 400 members.

Poolzer was also affiliated with another notable website known as InterSandman.com. The staff at InterSandman were looking to rebuild the site by adding more content and a message board forum. Since they were looking for decent forum software to use, Poolzer suggested merging with an established outside board, rather than creating a new board from scratch. Blackened looked like the best bet; so thus began the merge of a stable forum with a strong news site and the rebirth of InterSandman. But after a few months of working together, egos started to get in the way as some people wanted control of more and more things. Also, the staff began to realize that the InterSandman site didn't attract as much traffic as Dave had originally anticipated, as activity on the message boards slowed down considerably. Dave wasn't 100% impressed with the new InterSandman design anyway, so after months of work, coding, and the promise of a new site, things just fell apart. Because of all the conflict, it was decided by the Blackened staff to disband from the merge. So Dave pulled the site and Poolzer left InterSandman. The staff had built a completely new InterSandman from front to back but sadly, it never saw the light of day. Remnants of that site can be seen here.

A few months later Dave's server called it quits, so in later October 2001 he decided to take a break from the Metallica scene. He passed the site over to his other admins who tried out some new ideas to keep the site alive, but after a while Blackened closed its doors to the public community in late 2001.

On April 6, 2002, Dave rejoined the Metallica community, and was back online with the 3rd version of his dream renamed, MetPage. With V3 came a sleek new look, check out the V3 Header:

In 2004 Version 5 of MetPage was unleashed. VisiGod and XerXes were instrumental in the redesign and coding of the website and message forum. The major upgrade was an overhaul of the main website: the band section, tour database, Metallica news and other areas of the site in an effort to make MetPage a "one stop Metallica center." Version 5 of MetPage had a dozen FTP's sharing over one Terabyte of audio and videos bootlegs, and a strong member base.


Later, in the spring of 2004 the staff saw that torrents were beginning to be the latest and greatest thing. Because the FTP's began to fade away, people were itching for a way to trade over the internet. MetPage set out to provide the trading community with a Torrent Tracker. As with previous projects, they set forward to code and modify everything for MetPage themselves rather than look for outside help or use default software that would hinder performance and produce bugs while online. VisiGod stepped up as only he can and went on his way to make the MetPage Tracker a reality.

The dream to upgrade to Version 6 started in 2005 and into 2006. The MetPage staff knew that Version 6 had to be a major overhaul of everything since the FTP's went away and the community was begging for a stable tracker to share shows over the internet. MetCoverArt's Spawn of Cthulhu gave the site a new look with fresh new skins for V6. StarCrossed was enlisted to do some Flash work and help create headers. VisiGod and Poolzer worked on the site's design with the staff team to figure out what else to add.

 

In the summer of 2005 they thought we were so close to upgrading to Version 6 complete with tracker, they could taste it. Things were coming together so well, then personal lives started interfering, occupying key players' attention and time. (Damn real life!) On top of all that, the Invision Power Boards upgraded their forum software. Their major update and upgrade to IPB Version 2 rendered the new skins & add-ons useless as they were not compatible. Additionally Invision's own tracker software wasn't compatible with the upgraded version of their forums (man did that bite), thus the upgrade to MetPage V6 was delayed even further. While they waited they figured why not revamp the site entirely? Along came a creative gal, MetDream, an active member since January 2005, to help VisiGod design the main website. Because of her dedication and eagerness to help, she was added to the Admin Team.

With the overhaul of the site, V6 got a completely new look, check out the V6 header:

The quest to get Version 6 was further set back in early 2007 with Invision Power Board's promises of a new tracker by Valentine's Day. But when that didn't happen, VisiGod, the coding wizard he has become, grew tired of waiting. So in his "spare time" VisiGod created his own! At this time, Xerxes had officially retired and frantik2k3 joined the MetPage Admin Team to help with the installing the wonderful skins that Spawn of Cthulhu created, coding and other behind the scenes activities. Then, after 2+ years of hard work, MetPage was proud to present Version 6, complete with:

*A website bursting with all kinds of details, news, equipment, an extensive discography and redirect links to reputable sites providing the community with quality data such as bootleg cover art as well as links to all our members' sub domains and bootleg trading and information sites.
*A Tracker that VisiGod coded himself that makes seeding a dream due to our server integrated seeding option (i.e. faster than caffeine and amphetamines!
*A brand new tour database coded specifically for MetPage with even more features than before.
*A message board forum to tie in everything else and that is supported and run by the community as well as RSS feeds bringing news from all over the world of music.
*Spawn of Cthulhu's new sleek silver skin that is used throughout the site and forums and a series of new skins for the forums.

With the advent of Version 6 and help of some of the best and most well known traders in the community (including the staff and the always helpful Respected Members) MetPage hoped to provide it's members with a place to meet all of their trading needs.

After seeing the task of Version 6 become a reality Poolzer retired mid 2008, handing the reigns over to the dedicated Admin team consisting of VisiGod (of course), MetDream and two new admins: sjmike - a respected trader who took over running the forums and M4ST3R M1K3 - a long time member and Gmod whose main responsibilities is to keep the Tour Database updated and overseeing the Tracker. At this time frantik2k3, also retired having completed the task of helping make Version 6 come into being. Late in 2009, as the site grew, new features, thanks to MetDream's creative thinking, were added to the site such as the Trader Database and the Membership Application Process.

The Future

 

The MetPage staff continues to works diligently to keep the site fresh and up-to-date with the ever evolving technology.

 

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