OK, what happened??!!!

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OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 12th, 2015, 10:17 am

This is what happened.

They got the database before totally erasing the domain, so the newest database I got is...from December 2009 when I sold the forums to fnool, way too old to bother even continuing vBulletin. So...um...even though the password was encrypted in vBulletin, you might not want to use the same password you used before!!!

No, it's not in it's final state. There's still changes to be made! For example, logo, smilies/icons, possibly adding Web Log boards, depending on who comes back...

And yes, I bought the domain. The wacko's back! Oh, and Hyper is now also an admin, and both Hyper and Dexter got access to the domain.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Hyper » February 12th, 2015, 7:56 pm

♫ And that's whats goin on... Nothing's right I'm torn ♫
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 13th, 2015, 12:03 am

Once everything is set-up here, I'll then post my ideas for generating traffic. If you got ideas, post away.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Aleckohol » February 13th, 2015, 2:06 pm

Okay, first of all .... BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Second of all, if you want traffic, omit the autistic forum circle jerk community and use this damn domain for something that is actually relative to video games and bring back the terrible pokemon chat.

Also, how hilarious is it that I randomly checked on this site right now after so long ...so good ...so good
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby ExoXile » February 13th, 2015, 3:26 pm

It's working~
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 13th, 2015, 9:24 pm

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

Postby gsides » February 14th, 2015, 6:08 am

it was me
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby LoS » February 14th, 2015, 9:58 am

Aleckohol wrote:omit the autistic forum circle jerk community


Aleckohol wrote:bring back the terrible pokemon chat.


Pick one
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Vryheid » February 14th, 2015, 10:36 am

good to see Jesse is still on the case, it will be kind of sad not having the old vbulletin software but this has some charm. let us know if you need any help with donations or finding software plugins or something

I really suggest getting that Pokemon chat link back except putting it on some different software so the site isn't immediately hacked again. Maybe a portable IRC client or something that isn't completely depreciated. just make sure it at least redirects from that URL that was on google so you can get dem page ranks
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Jesse Smith » February 14th, 2015, 5:48 pm

Vryheid wrote:good to see Jesse is still on the case, it will be kind of sad not having the old vbulletin software but this has some charm. let us know if you need any help with donations or finding software plugins or something


Cost wise, for the domain, I paid $200 and forgave the $347 that was still owed. For future costs, the only one I'll have is doing advertising on Facebook, to use Facebook to send traffic here through a Facebook page.

Vryheid wrote:I really suggest getting that Pokemon chat link back except putting it on some different software so the site isn't immediately hacked again.


I think it was vBulletin or a mod that caused the hack, since old mySQL scripts can be easily be hacked with mySQL injections. For the chats, I was thinking of just having two of them, a Video Game Chat, and possibly keep the Sim Battle one, depending on how active it is, since all those systems are so old. Currently all the chat rooms are up as they were when I sold the forums to fnook back in 2009. I got back-ups of every thing from back then.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby BJ Blaskowitz » February 14th, 2015, 5:53 pm

Have no fear, Beej is here.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Infyrin » February 14th, 2015, 7:28 pm

Oh, so the site is back into it's rightful hands once more, I see.

Yeah, that was a bit...messed up what happened. =\
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Maddy » February 14th, 2015, 9:36 pm

Out of the ashes, the Phoenix rises.

Perhaps this will be the new and improved VGC we were all hoping for? New and improved ****posting from all of us! :D
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Vryheid » February 15th, 2015, 1:19 am

Jesse Smith wrote:For the chats, I was thinking of just having two of them, a Video Game Chat, and possibly keep the Sim Battle one, depending on how active it is, since all those systems are so old. Currently all the chat rooms are up as they were when I sold the forums to fnook back in 2009. I got back-ups of every thing from back then.


I would strongly recommend having a Pokemon chat (there is a lot of Pokemon specific discussion here that needs to be more heavily moderated), a general chat (for other games and non-gaming related discussion), and a roleplay chat (yes this is still sometimes a thing here). I know Sim Battle used to be a bigger deal back in the mid 2000s but it isn't really done formally anymore, "RPing" tends to be more like a loosely organized fantasy adventure scenario.

also I made this avatar to see just how big I could stuff one on here while keeping a decent image quality, turns out GIMP jpg quality tweaking is a pretty impressive thing even under those strict limitations. You might want to up the file size and lower the image dimensions max a bit
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Infyrin » February 15th, 2015, 3:29 am

Before we can even discuss the idea of what rooms that should be here. We need chat rooms that can thwart the idea of spamming, if not, make it significantly less and not as exploited as the other rooms. As nostalgic as the old rooms were, we need to think ahead.

I would almost recommend a system similar to how Oasiz does their chats. But, again, it's susceptible to bad spamming. But it would also open it's doors for proper moderation.

I guess though for rooms, we need to be relevant with the times. A Pokemon chat would be nifty, but I don't know about a general chat. People are too lazy to carry things over and they'll talk about anything anyways regardless of the room's created intention.

My biggest concern is the roleplay chat. Just how relevant has it been to VGChat all this time? Most, if not, all of the dedicated roleplayers of the times of old no longer bother with this place. Even if they did, they don't roleplay often because they have lives to tend to. As far as modern roleplaying has demonstrated, people consider it too much of an effort to even make it as close as interesting. Watered down to simply one-liners and crappy adventure-esque, but mostly themed, sessions where it'd make you think you're watching a bad filler episode.

If a roleplaying room is inevitable to be implemented, perhaps there ought to be guidelines or even rules made by those who are still into it. I'd say it should be up to the more experienced kind, but I'm not exactly at liberty to say just to guess who even bothers anymore.

My suggestion for rooms though, ought to be general-centric. It was cute to have a Call of Duty room, a Super Smash Bros room, a Game Boy room etc. But, they were simply just rooms people used to spam in and barely so much keep things relevant. Not to mention some rooms outdated like Game Boy Chat Room.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Maddy » February 15th, 2015, 4:05 am

I wrote a long status but VGchat logged me out. Please fix that if you can.

Being a massive roleplayer in the chatroom days, (I was 13 when I first started holy **** - it's been that long?) I fully support the idea of a good RP group. I remember we had some pretty epic D&D style RPS. Good times. But with the good comes the bad. At one stage, moderation in the chats became VERY poor. Mods either left or did nothing, but fun-loving roleplays and discussions quickly turned into the most cringeworthy, face-desking rps ever written on the history of the internet. Think of 'hardcore yiff' written by 14 year olds who may or may not live up to their age. And don't even get me started on the Pokèmon ones....Never looking at Ash and Pikachu the same again. ..WHY INTERNET PEOPLE WHY?
Moderation should be swift and powerful. For the love of GOD, prevent the dirty rps from happening - I can't afford to have my childhood ruined further!! The dirty rps were spammed out later on, so spamming was definitely an issue as well.

I remember the censor word back in the day was 'love'. Censorship stars seem sufficient.

I had mod powers then and I got banned for shits & gigs. (I was also as dumb as a bag of bricks so that might of explained it. 2010 Moody meltdowns lol)

The color wheel was cool. Bring that back too. Feeling so much nostalgia now...Pokèmon chat forever!
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby LoS » February 15th, 2015, 8:52 am

Yeah, let's have a bunch of chatrooms, that way people spend all their time there and never actually post. That'll surely get people to post on the forums more.

top notch thinking, people.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Ant » February 15th, 2015, 9:03 am

LoS wrote:Yeah, let's have a bunch of chatrooms, that way people spend all their time there and never actually post. That'll surely get people to post on the forums more.

top notch thinking, people.


eh, there's always been this weird duality to the site between the chats and forums so idk if it would be a good idea to get rid of the chats just yet. maybe slowly congeal the two over time.

also I'm glad to see we'll finally get SOMETHING done to make the site better. Not to **** all over fnool, but his lack of care for the site really turned me off from posting here. Felt like I was doing something for someone who couldn't give a ****, and I am NOT about that.

in any case, I'll be around.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Vryheid » February 15th, 2015, 9:57 am

Infyrin wrote:My suggestion for rooms though, ought to be general-centric. It was cute to have a Call of Duty room, a Super Smash Bros room, a Game Boy room etc. But, they were simply just rooms people used to spam in and barely so much keep things relevant. Not to mention some rooms outdated like Game Boy Chat Room.


Right. I think there's a time and place for a more detailed discussion on how the chats can be improved, but I think we can all agree that there are way too many unused rooms, the current software has serious issues such as flooding vulnerability that no amount of community effort can overcome, and that the chat helped immensely at prolonging VGChat's slow death into inactivity (it was the biggest source of new dedicated members for several years). A shiny new coat of paint and some effort at getting the chat rooms high in the google rankings again would go a long way in helping the forums grow as well.
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Re: OK, what happened??!!!

Postby Kamek » February 15th, 2015, 10:48 am

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, if not to just try to get some old heads together and piece the site back together - but I had seen he had been going through some personal problems on twitter, and I decided to let him be for a bit before I approached him about it. 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.

As for how to grow the site, I feel like the Pokemon chats coming back is a must. It was one of the most popular aspects of VGC/WoN or whatever, and got us a lot of new members. With the new games that came out, I feel like there was a lot of opportunity for growth, so I think that's #1 the chat that needs to come back, even over my beloved Sim Battle. Also a more integrated forum/chat experience somehow would be great. Maybe like a better version of the "chatbox" we had. When VGC "relaunched" in 09, a lot of us spent time in the chatbox, and that's when I felt most at home at the site, (well, since the WWWboard era).

Whatever I can do, I'll help out. I just want this place to be homely again. Glad to see the OG colorscheme back, but like I think Fate was saying before, maybe some alternative skins/schemes to attract newbies would be good. The more pretty the site looks, the more likely people are apt to stick around.
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