OK, what happened??!!!

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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Aleckohol » February 15th, 2015, 6:15 pm

LoS wrote:
Aleckohol wrote:omit the autistic forum circle jerk community


Aleckohol wrote:bring back the terrible pokemon chat.


Pick one


Last time I was here the forums were a daily 24/7 circlejerk of people like bluntmasterX lazy shitposting. It was not relative to gaming in any way. Shortly after that the chat community started to pour over in to the private subs and do the same. Point is, I would imagine it's the chats that drew in 99% of the traffic, the forums were only populated by the same 10 people every day who could have very well been using skype or something similar.

The thing Jesse has to choose between is making money and allowing the circlejerk to continue.

Jesse Smith wrote:
Aleckohol wrote:Also, how hilarious is it that I randomly checked on this site right now after so long ...so good ...so good


Something tells me it was before December 2009 when you were last here! I just got the domain after fnool was admin since then! I've hardly been here over the last five years!!!


I was here both long before and after that, but no so much after because Fnool was not a big fan. ;)
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby stalolin » February 15th, 2015, 9:07 pm

this is new and frightening i don't like it
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby ExoXile » February 15th, 2015, 11:32 pm

Just get your old avytar back, it'll be like nothing happened.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Infyrin » February 16th, 2015, 12:02 am

This is surprisingly the most neat this site has looked. I like it, maybe that's why it creeps some people out.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Strato » February 16th, 2015, 3:31 am

Kamek wrote:Who hacked us


There's a lot of bots out there that look for old installs of software on web servers with known vulnerabilities. The install of vBulletin on the old VGChat was outdated and had some security holes. I haven't talked to anyone who would know, but I'm pretty sure this is how it went down. As far as motivation, people who do this type of stuff usually do it to either add a site to their botnet or to steal the database with passwords/E-Mail addresses that may be used to get into other accounts people own (like for instance if you use the same E-Mail/password on your Paypal as you do on forums you visit).
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby radical » February 16th, 2015, 11:09 am

good to see we've already got a michael kors spam bot. things will be back to normal in no time! also i vote to change the banner but that's not something that's really a priority right now.

weeeeeiiiirrrdd.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Yoshi[NX] » February 16th, 2015, 11:53 am

So are we back under the rule of Jesse the great?

E: ****, forgot to capitalize my username
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 16th, 2015, 3:17 pm

Aleckohol wrote:The thing Jesse has to choose between is making money and allowing the circlejerk to continue.


I don't plan on making very much if any money from the forums or chats!

yoshi[nx] wrote:So are we back under the rule of Jesse the great?


Yep! Fear not, I'm here!!!

Kamek wrote:So can we have a detailed account of what actually happened? When did you decide to get the forums back from fnool, Jesse? I thought Hyper was thinking about it but wasn't sure at one point. Are these new forums better than Vbulletin? Whatever I can do to help out, I want to do. This place honestly means way too much to me. I was considering contacting fnool when I saw the place went down, and asking him to buy the domain. Glad it's back in your hands though, Jesse. I'm just curious as to what actually happened. Who hacked us, and how did everything get sorted out.


I first tried to buy the forums last October. Dexter didn't get a reply back then. A month ago I tried again. He didn't get a reply. So of course when the forums kicked the bucket, I tried again. Had no one bought the domain, the forums would of probably been gone for good, since fnool has very little time to do much here. Knowing that, I quickly made the buy offer again, and of course this time he did reply to Dexter and we chatted on Facebook. And two weeks later, he had the time, so I was then bought the forums and got the domain transferred.

Hyper did try to buy the site. Both of us were going for $500...before the hack. His issue was having to *also* get a new vBulletin license, since the old one couldn't be transferred. Then the hackers showed up which greatly lowered the value of the forums, since the database was a goner. I wasn't worried about fnool not having backups, so I just went for the domain, since the easior it would be for fnool, the better. I do have the database from when I sold the forums to him in 2009, and just plan on using the members table to E-Mail the more active members, just like I E-Mailed you!
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Kamek » February 16th, 2015, 4:15 pm

Jesse Smith wrote:
I first tried to buy the forums last October. Dexter didn't get a reply back then. A month ago I tried again. He didn't get a reply. So of course when the forums kicked the bucket, I tried again. Had no one bought the domain, the forums would of probably been gone for good, since fnool has very little time to do much here. Knowing that, I quickly made the buy offer again, and of course this time he did reply to Dexter and we chatted on Facebook. And two weeks later, he had the time, so I was then bought the forums and got the domain transferred.

Hyper did try to buy the site. Both of us were going for $500...before the hack. His issue was having to *also* get a new vBulletin license, since the old one couldn't be transferred. Then the hackers showed up which greatly lowered the value of the forums, since the database was a goner. I wasn't worried about fnool not having backups, so I just went for the domain, since the easior it would be for fnool, the better. I do have the database from when I sold the forums to him in 2009, and just plan on using the members table to E-Mail the more active members, just like I E-Mailed you!



The thing with that is, I'm sure many of us used throwaway e-mail addresses for this site. I know I did. I registered in 2001. I only just somehow remembered my login and went back in to that e-mail and saw the message. I hope other people used real e-mails. I'm sure the more prominent and active members will be back just by checking the site again.

So are we going to get a post at some point about your vision for the site? i'm excited to have an admin who is actually here again.

Kind of telling/strange that fnool didn't even get back to you guys about buying the site. He's always on twitter. He's reachable. Only when things got **** up did he offer to sell and get back to you guys? :/ I was going to buy the site myself and try to get you or Strato to help since I have little experience, but I'm glad you guys are back in charge.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Aleckohol » February 16th, 2015, 4:30 pm

Jesse Smith wrote:
Aleckohol wrote:The thing Jesse has to choose between is making money and allowing the circlejerk to continue.


I don't plan on making very much if any money from the forums or chats!


Then we're golden. My only additional word of advice is that you do not use the 15 year old chat scripts and instead use something that absolutely does not require human mods.

Also, hey everybody. :D Long time no see my darlings. ;)
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Corrupt » February 16th, 2015, 7:40 pm

it's just nice to see your names again.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Nukacola » February 16th, 2015, 11:47 pm

I'm Skipz. This design looks so sleek and muted compared to the old design. It's weird. It's really good to see Jesse in charge again though and hopefully it leads to better times for this site.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 17th, 2015, 12:37 am

Kamek wrote:
Jesse Smith wrote:So are we going to get a post at some point about your vision for the site? i'm excited to have an admin who is actually here again.


First I'll hunt through phpBB mods to add (think much better SPAM control for example). Then when I'm done mod-hunting, I'll post my ideas for gaining new members.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Kayla » February 17th, 2015, 12:50 am

Playing with the chatroom, and noticed bbcode worked in usernames for some reason. Looked like it got disabled pretty much immediately by some mod. lol
Anyways, I chatted here before 03 but never used the forums. Weird to see the chats ported to this website rather than world-of-nintendo after all these years.
...also never going to get used to having my IP before my posts.

B> chatform.html for ultimate

oh wait, proxies. =w=
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Infyrin » February 17th, 2015, 7:14 am

Jesse Smith wrote:
Kamek wrote:
Jesse Smith wrote:So are we going to get a post at some point about your vision for the site? i'm excited to have an admin who is actually here again.


First I'll hunt through phpBB mods to add (think much better SPAM control for example). Then when I'm done mod-hunting, I'll post my ideas for gaining new members.


New members would be lovely. Especially ones who aren't part of cliques.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Hyper » February 17th, 2015, 11:37 pm

Kamek wrote:
Jesse Smith wrote:
I first tried to buy the forums last October. Dexter didn't get a reply back then. A month ago I tried again. He didn't get a reply. So of course when the forums kicked the bucket, I tried again. Had no one bought the domain, the forums would of probably been gone for good, since fnool has very little time to do much here. Knowing that, I quickly made the buy offer again, and of course this time he did reply to Dexter and we chatted on Facebook. And two weeks later, he had the time, so I was then bought the forums and got the domain transferred.

Hyper did try to buy the site. Both of us were going for $500...before the hack. His issue was having to *also* get a new vBulletin license, since the old one couldn't be transferred. Then the hackers showed up which greatly lowered the value of the forums, since the database was a goner. I wasn't worried about fnool not having backups, so I just went for the domain, since the easior it would be for fnool, the better. I do have the database from when I sold the forums to him in 2009, and just plan on using the members table to E-Mail the more active members, just like I E-Mailed you!



The thing with that is, I'm sure many of us used throwaway e-mail addresses for this site. I know I did. I registered in 2001. I only just somehow remembered my login and went back in to that e-mail and saw the message. I hope other people used real e-mails. I'm sure the more prominent and active members will be back just by checking the site again.

So are we going to get a post at some point about your vision for the site? i'm excited to have an admin who is actually here again.

Kind of telling/strange that fnool didn't even get back to you guys about buying the site. He's always on twitter. He's reachable. Only when things got **** up did he offer to sell and get back to you guys? :/ I was going to buy the site myself and try to get you or Strato to help since I have little experience, but I'm glad you guys are back in charge.



The only way I communicate with fnool is through twitter DMs. I try to keep up with him personally because he's a great person and I want to see good things happen to him. In my opinion, running a video game chat forum is probably not at the top of his priorities list, and it probably felt like a burden to him to have it without any time or motivation to do anything with it.

It would have been bad for my family's finances to buy VGC when I was originally trying to. Not that I didn't go blow that money elsewhere, but the point is still that I needed to be cautious. I wanted to buy the site and not even tell anybody until I was able to get everything sorted out, updated, and ready for progress. When I realized it was going to cost too much (relative to my finances) to make that happen, I backed off.

It really pissed me off when people were showing up before the hack talking about how "cheap" it was to buy this site. As if they had some sort of expert perspective. $500 is a lot of money to plop down on something that obviously had giant security holes and dismal prospects. At least it is for me. But I care a ton about VGC, I think everybody knows that. So it was very hard to pass on making the deal.

With all of that said, I am VERY EXCITED that Jesse Smith is back on board here. Mr. Wacko IS VGC to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only person with that view. I am deeply appreciative of his choice to make me an admin. I hope I can implement some ideas I had here, or at least make Jesse's vision a reality in the meantime! He's got some good ideas. VGC isn't done yet.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 17th, 2015, 11:56 pm

Vryheid wrote:You might want to up the file size and lower the image dimensions max a bit


Just doubled the file size max.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Raptor » February 20th, 2015, 12:29 pm

I never thought it would be such a relief to see Mr. Smith in charge again. Such is the way it seems meant to be. This reminds me more of the simplicity of the old wwwboards than VBulletin. I actually like it better.

Of the dozens of other forums I frequented over the past two decades, nearly all of them eventualIy crumbled and vanished without a trace, or were left to rot. In internet years, this one may be akin to a 20 year old cat on its 4th or 5th life. Impressive.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jint » February 20th, 2015, 5:14 pm

Glad to see you back jesse,it feels like the old days again.starting over from scratch may not be a bad thing.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Sabredog » February 21st, 2015, 10:11 pm

wow vgc is back.

i don't really think this place has much of a future as a thread like this was the norm ever 6 months and nothing ever came of it.

Also reddit and neogaf kinda make this place obsolete. well see ya.
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