We've come a long way. I started MadnessCombat.com back in 2003 as a crappy little fan site that you can see on Archive.org (http://web.archive.org/web/20031009124003/http://www.madnesscombat.com/). Opened up the forum (http://web.archive.org/web/20031007012502/www.madnesscombat.com/forum/) and users just joined in droves. In just 6 months of opening we had almost 1500 users and about 2000 people viewing the site every day. In 2006 after many site redesigns and forums including moving the forums over to .net the site was receiving about 10,000 visitors per day.
I've just recently redesigned the site to give it a cleaner look and also to help bring everything together. Also, at the request of advertisers I had to make room for the square ad you see in the middle right. I also saw it as the perfect time to bring everything together. The forums has been lonely for awhile and look way too bright for me, they and the topsites have both been brought under the same design and we've moved from Vanilla software to bbpress (from the same people that make our blogging software Wordpress).
If you registered on the blog already your accounts will work on the forums (and vice-versa). If your registered on the old forums your login will no longer work and you will need to register again. Sorry about that, although I think I've addressed the problem with the categories not being on the main page anymore that will make a lot more people happy.
