Sad to see it go, love it or hate it, it truly was an iconic image
of the fanbase over the years.

Resposted here is Pete Closs' sendoff (long load times to access,
and a great slam against GCM), without further ado:

Kent

---------------------------------------------------------------


We almost made it to seven years. From a small Games Workshop
rumours website on free webspace to a dual Xeon 2.4 GHz monster
dedicated server with 100,000+ visitors a month, Portent has grown
from a fun idea in my head to something far greater than I could
ever have anticipated. Sadly, all good things must come to an end.

The end result of the recent server troubles is that we no longer
have the Portent data, aside from a year old backup. Unfortunate as
this is it's almost as if fate has forced our hand. I can no longer
provide the time or finances that Portent requires, not by a long
shot. For Nick and myself Portent has practically been a second job.
You can only take so many abortive glimmers of hope before you
realise it's time to move on.

There are far too many people to thank before the curtain closes
here. Most important of all, Nick has been a complete legend – there
are very few people who would do so much for nothing but the odd
beer. Portent would have vanished many moons ago without his
technical expertise and I'm sure the rest of Portent has just as
much to thank him for as I do.

A mere step below Nick in the grand scheme of things are the
Inquisitors. I have, and I can say this having administered forums
professionally, the best mod team I could ever ask for. Despite
countless challenges they've been instrumental in tirelessly turning
the Portent Forums into a great place to discuss wargaming and more
besides. Every single one of you regular members who've posted (and
not been banned, at least) deserves my thanks too, in particular
those who helped support Portent by becoming Guilders. Seeing the
end to such an amazing community is unquestionably the worst thing
about this. Without you guys I probably would have closed the site
long ago, having such a great community made it that much harder.

The chaps at the studio have all proved themselves to be total gents
whenever we've spoken. Andy, it was always a pleasure to catch up
with you at Games Days, I hope things are going well at Mongoose.
Gav, many thanks for attending the tourney and posting on the
forums. Paul, cheers for putting aside a foolish rumour from long
ago and posting on the forums, I appreciate it. Robin, that studio
tour was extremely cool and a much appreciated gesture, I hope to
catch up again some time. And finally, I'll never forget Rick
Priestly, immortal grand chief games designer supreme, catching me
at the last minute before I left that studio tour to essentially
say "Hi, and good work on Portent".

And last of all, the web stores who occasionally advertised with
Portent. The Warstore was our longest running advertiser, albeit on
and off. It's also one of the best places around to order miniatures
and Neal is just a damn nice guy to do business with. Also check out
Chelgames (UK), Whites of their Eyes (Warmachine), Battle Pack and
Wargames Dungeon, they've all supported Portent over the years.

After thanking so many people it almost feels wrong to turn
critical, but some people really do deserve it. Great Canadian
Miniatures were invariably rude whenever we talked via email – if
none of you guys ever did business with them again I wouldn't be too
upset. And whoever it was at GW US that ultimately decided online GW
retailers in the US were "riding on the coat tails of brick and
mortar stores" was laughably short sighted indeed, particularly
given the real reason for the decision.

Well, the letter I never wanted to write has already got far longer
than I expected. We'll be turning the server off for good on March
20th and then selling it to recoup costs which, sadly, run well
beyond what the server sale will recoup, but c'est la vie. We had
hoped to keep Portent running for the last week of its existence but
sadly the database loss means we can't do that. Instead, please join
#portent on Efnet IRC, I'll be hanging around there and I'm sure
many others will once they read this.

If any Guilders would like a refund on the remainder of your fee
past site closure, drop me an email and I promise to sort that,
we're not here to rip anyone off. Please email me at
portent.webmaster@... with any such requests.

Lavfluris is looking to continue his tournaments and I'll be helping
him with that however I can. Some of the mods are also looking into
starting a new community, though it will be a separate effort from
myself and Nick beyond what initial help we can offer – email
portent.oracle@... if you'd like to help. Keep an eye on this
page for news of both things.

It has been an incredible journey, but it really is over. Thank you
one and all for helping make Portent something special, I hope
you'll all remember it for as long as I will.

Best of luck to you all, and not just with the dice rolls.

Pete Closs
Portent Webmaster
April 1998 – March 2005