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PortableMK@yahoo.com
Forrest Porter (dasubzero@yahoo.com)
ded_ E-Wax" (ded_@abv.bg)
Gustavo Queipo (gustavodq@hotmail.com)
AleXtreme
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aoldabby@yahoo.com
I.Mecking (mecki005@planet.nl)
DarkSabre2187@cs.com
Jacob Payne
Bloodspoor
overkill_78
Jason Dvorak
OTexier (otexgrotesk@free.fr)
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Justins's Experience:
Version 1
So it all began in mid 1999, when I was searching for a complete list of moves and finishers for the GameBoy game, Mortal Kombat 3. I had played MK1 and MK2 on GameBoy (I thought being able to actually play as Goro was sweet), so once MK3 came out, I hurried on over and bought it. It was a very fun game at the time and I was more enthusiastic about the manual not including a moves list. In fact, most of the moves are performed much differently then the arcade/console counterparts. So by the time I played it over and over, I had only known about half the moves and finishers. The rest was completely unknown, to me at least. I searched on the Internet for the rest of the moves and came to no avail. Then one day I stumbled upon a FAQ on gamefaqs.com that had a lot of moves and finishers I did not know of. This was great too me, hardly anyone knew how to do anything from this game, which is what intrigued me to build this actual site, to be the first to completely cover that mysterious game.
It was suppose to be a quick project, not what it has become of today. During the time I was learning the basics of building and making websites and thought, "hey, I love Mortal Kombat and there are hardly any sites that cover MK3 on Game Boy in full detail, so I think I'll do it!" So that's what I ended up doing, building a single paged site with moves and finishers from MK3/GB. At the time many of the moves and finishers were still unknown, so I tried finding them on my own and became successful in some areas. Later on they were all discovered and I was able to finish the site.
With the site finished, I felt like I could do more, much more. I decided on expanding my horizons beyond one single portable MK game, in which I added the entire GameBoy MK series. With that done, the site was simply titled "GameBoy Mortal Kombat." It was not much longer after that when I decided on adding more of the portable MK games. I added the GameGear series, the Game.com, the electronic hand helds, and so on. I simply did this because there were no websites like this. Every MK websites mostly talk about the console versions, the arcade versions, the movies, etc. I thought adding the "lower-quality" MK games could attract a lot of visitors. With that done, I changed the site to what is now called, Portable Mortal Kombat (PMK).
Version 2
I met Paul back in late 2001, where he provided me with a ton of information about the Portable MK games. He was writing FAQ's on gamefaqs.com as I was building this website. We shared information amongst each other constantly and by the end of 2002, Paul asked to join the site. At first I was not too great on the idea, as I was not sure if I could trust him or not. However, once I saw what he could do, it seemed great to have a partner. It took half the load off my back and without him; PMK would not be as great as it is today. Once he joined, we quickly changed over to Freewebs.com because of how poor geocities became with its advertisements. We opened our newly looking site up on January 6, 2003, where Paul was finally able to update the site at his free will, instead of telling me what to do. Freewebs.com was not the greatest, but it was the best free host we could find at the time.
Over the following months, we worked on covering the newly released Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition for the GameBoy Advance. Once we were finished with MKTE, we were essentially done with PMK; at least until the next Portable MK game...
Paul's Experience:
Version 3
Around fall of 2001, I first discovered PMK when I noticed a GameShark code I had found was posted on the site without credit. I emailed Justin and found it was an honest mistake. At that point in time there wasn't much to the site but it looked promising. I had already made several GameBoy MK text documents ("FAQs") for GameFAQs.com, and his site reminded me how I had once considered making a website about the GameBoy MKs as well.
When I was younger, I did not have a Super Nintendo or Genesis to play Mortal Kombat on. And even when I did finally buy a SNES, my parents would not let me get MK. So for a long time, all I could play was MK on my GameBoy. Because of this, I learned how scarce information was for those games; and being the MK fan I was, I thought it would be neat to somehow make a collection of information so the moves and secrets would not be such a rarity (since there were no strategy guides for the GameBoy MKs). But due to laziness and inexperience, I never got around to making the website I had thought about for so long.
Once I discovered Justin's PMK website, I immediately wanted to help him with it. At first I kept sending him ideas, corrections, and things to just make it look better. I made PMK graphics and mockups of possible site designs with MS Paint. Justin was just as lazy as I, and didn't update the site very often, which made me more motivated to make the site a joint effort. Basically, he agreed that if I found a new server (the original was Geocities, which had annoying ads and crashed frequently), and helped update and move the site onto it, we'd have a site together. So around the end of 2002, we began work on updating the site; and by January 6, 2003, the site was up at its new home (freewebs.com). We then worked on updating all the pages, and adding new content.
With my addition to the site, we were able to tackle more ambitious additions to the site, and help refine the site's image. One thing we were able to add that required both our efforts was scanning all the instruction manuals (a feature few or no sites offer). I am very happy to be working with Justin. He is a great person to share ideas and talk with, and has good "public sense." If I had ever made a website without him, there is no way it would have ever been as good as the site we have now.
Freewebs had a limit of 50 files per account, so we had to make several accounts to store all of the files, which was quite annoying. But hey, anything to get the site up with free hosting. Thankfully, freewebs either never noticed, or didn't care. We also could only upload 1 file at a time, which made matters even more tiresome.
By 2004, we had added just about every practical thing we could think of; so, I basically left the site back to Justin to make updates/announcements on the new MK game (Deception). While the site is basically done, I'm still interested in always improving it (such as adding better quality pics, fixing writing, and improving the formatting/layout). In fact, we are working on an updated look, but do not know when it will be ready, seeing as we would need a new server...
Then, in March of 2005, we received an email from Mortal Kombat Online (probably the biggest and most popular MK site on the net) to become a part of their network, and for them to host the site.
Version 4 (current)