Cuz it's GC-forever. For-fucking-ever.
ASSEMbler Games forum about to close
- Thread starter MockyLock
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Cuz it's GC-forever. For-fucking-ever.
This was my immediate thought as well when I saw those figures. I really doubt Assembler has that amount of traffic these days.
I imagine the motivation to migrate the server to a lower cost solution isn't there, and sometimes the service providers don't want to make it easy or possible to move to a lower tier as part of their business model (1Fichier-style).
I agree. This is unfortunate result of the sites collapse. There was a lot of trading and relationships that were built there to facilitate the kind of trust required to do some of those kind of clandestine transactions for both hardware and software, considering peoples reputations and careers are sometimes on the line.
Several times I have heard of someone come up with something unusual/sensitive over the years and the obvious place to send them was to Assembler. The one positive in this situation is that gaming history and preservation is becoming more of a mainstream idea so the options for this have expanded a bit.
Sad news, such an institution for gaming. Here's to hoping someone picks up the mantle and at the very least, hosts the unreleased games.
Never did much with anyone from there (or at least knowingly -- if someone from here had an account there then so be it), and despite doing all that I do never really even landed there in a search which might have been part of the problem. With that said I will certainly recognise their contributions to things over the years. I will also join the others in pondering what goes here with the costs -- if it is that old did the domain get tied to a nasty hosting plan or something?
They had some cool stuff I’d post as news from time to time. If anyone remembers the prototype Vita or Wii console posts, those were sourced to that site iirc. I can’t say I’ll miss it terribly, but it is a shame to see it go.
I'd say they just simply never changed their hosting plan in years.That's one possible option... as are the new owner enjoying them themselves, or selling out (in good faith or as a scalper)
He indeed nominally did, after mentioning in a different post (I wasn't able to find in the ~2 hours I took to write the article) that his psychological condition made him unable to continue participating - but more than one person called bluff, with the new and not-better-identified admin also "not doing anything for most of the year then doing unpopular things for the week he's there", posting in a very dry tone, and ignoring even constructive criticism...
I actually tried to register 3-4 months ago, because a large load of current PS2 developments (Popstarter, FMCB/wLaunchELF, HDLGameInstaller, the DVD Player hacks, very comprehensive discussions on HDDOSD/PSBBN/the hard drive format itself) is there!
I guess it mirrors what happened to animalcrossingitalia.com (at the time one of the 2 leading Italian forums for the series) - founded by the rather active Luca Poni (bastard666 with some punctuation I don't remember), in 2013 or so he just disappeared and didn't reply to site-related questions on social networks, the (phpbb 2) forums started breaking down and becoming unusable (at least we still had some moderators, I guess) and the domain was about to expire, so I started a replacement forum on free hosting (mainly used as a stopgap hosting for guides and other original content, which were mostly manually transferred by other volunteers - right between the imageshack and photobucket apocalypses, just to add entertainment value), most of the activity stayed on the existing and separately-staffed Fecesbook group, and we got a Telegram group too;
of course we're nowhere as big as the old website was in its heyday*, though we probably are bigger than its last months/years when it had flagrant issues even more evident than Assembler's lack of staff and new accounts
* and we'll never know how much of that is due to rampant attempted centralization of the internet into commercial social networks, how much due to people moving to competing websites because their former favorite became broken, how many simply got bored with the series (especially with New Leaf having very unstable online multiplayer), ...
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As recently as 2012, Amazon's hosting wasn't cheap (https://blog.codinghorror.com/building-servers-for-fun-and-prof-ok-maybe-just-for-fun/) - granted, that's not exactly a bottom barrel and/or no name solution (and it's certainly not the one involved in this case), but it wouldn't surprise me too much if it was simply a very old plan designed around very old costs, still ongoing...
...and/or as someone pocketing the money (there's no evidence reasonably supporting this idea, but let's say administration, calls for donations included, haven't exactly been transparent for a long time)
Last edited by Ericthegreat,
They can take a few easy steps to fix this.
1. Start taking donations to cover the cost. Patreon would be good.
2. Get a cheaper server ($60 a month gets you a pretty powerful server and I can't imagine the needs of the site are that great with only 26k something members, it's just a forum after all, so something even cheaper might be enough)
The site is well loved by the community and I don't think they would have much trouble getting enough donations to cover the cost if it means the site stays up. I get it if they don't like asking people for money but I'm sure there are some that would be more than happy to help the site stay alive. And they could give donators incentives so that they're not just taking their money and giving nothing in return, which makes it fair in my book. And it's a much better option than the alternative of the site being shut down.
Well, let's hope it doesn't end up with a fractured community when inevitably 3 different clones of the site show up using the dumped data. And let's hope the new owner(s) do a good job at running the clone site(s). And if they also run into money problems, let's hope they're smart enough to take donations and don't let the new site die.
1. Start taking donations to cover the cost. Patreon would be good.
2. Get a cheaper server ($60 a month gets you a pretty powerful server and I can't imagine the needs of the site are that great with only 26k something members, it's just a forum after all, so something even cheaper might be enough)
The site is well loved by the community and I don't think they would have much trouble getting enough donations to cover the cost if it means the site stays up. I get it if they don't like asking people for money but I'm sure there are some that would be more than happy to help the site stay alive. And they could give donators incentives so that they're not just taking their money and giving nothing in return, which makes it fair in my book. And it's a much better option than the alternative of the site being shut down.
Well, let's hope it doesn't end up with a fractured community when inevitably 3 different clones of the site show up using the dumped data. And let's hope the new owner(s) do a good job at running the clone site(s). And if they also run into money problems, let's hope they're smart enough to take donations and don't let the new site die.
Last edited by The Real Jdbye,
Wow, this is really unfortunate news. I had gotten into Dreamcast romhacking a few months back, and many of the posts on that site have been a huge help, so it'll be sad to see it all vanish.
I signed up at the time to ask some questions (was working on Asuka Kenzan) but was never allowed to post. Now it looks like I won't have the chance to contact some of the people writing tools and such.
I signed up at the time to ask some questions (was working on Asuka Kenzan) but was never allowed to post. Now it looks like I won't have the chance to contact some of the people writing tools and such.
I’ll host the website
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Have a realy good server
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Have a realy good server
It's not closing solely due to lack of funds. The tl;dr version is the owner has been having personal issues (and probably money issues too) and is unwilling to sell the site or let anyone else run it. There are many threads on the matter.
I'll certainly miss it, but the last year or so it's been pretty quiet around there.
I'll certainly miss it, but the last year or so it's been pretty quiet around there.
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