Recent posts

#11

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by Link-NM - January 20, 2025, 02:09:12 AM

It's pretty cool to see that I've started something, however small. Reading @kevinmahoney95's story made me happy knowing others are out there who miss forums as well. I used to look around places like this when I was younger, but never directly participated for reasons I cannot remember. Maybe we could get something going here if the forums aren't being shut down for good. It's hard to tell with how stripped down things are.

Yeah, I get what you mean. I also miss forums. I don't think this place is going anywhere, though. Vixy has kept it up during all this time, even if it was a bit abandoned. But based on what she's told me, she does want to work on it again. Just that it'll require a lot of time and work.

But well, look at that. She's actually logged in atm and fixing stuff. We got the emojis back now. ^_^ 

Cleaning this place up would require some serious moderation. Bots comment on junk automatically. At first glance, it seems that bots have been having their run of the place for years. How long's it been since this place had frequent active human users?

I think the first thing you'd need is to strictly prohibit anyone from making a post without a registered and email-verified account. Further, I think it's sad but true to say that the entire forum would need to be purged of all its existing content and we'd need to start over. Given the sheer volume of nonsense on here, it would look sketchy to newcomers for it all to remain, and it would make the job of reviving the board even tougher.

Also, it appears that the majority of the emoticons don't even work. There are just a lot of structural problems, but with proper moderation, I think they could be overcome and we could perhaps use existing Mega Man spaces like Facebook groups and Reddit boards to spread the word.

Yeah, it is a lot of spam and bots atm. But it's actually not a lot of work. It's just a bit time consuming.  Basically, you target the bot accounts and delete their account together with all messages. I've had to do that with my forum at one point too. 😅 (Then you also ban and increase security and recount totals to fix the database)

I wouldn't mind help to do it here too if it's needed. Like I said earlier, I also do miss forums.

#12

Emulation / Re: Unlocking the PC version o...

Last post by TheRedFlash - January 19, 2025, 09:31:54 PM

You should really look into Final Weapon, it's genuinely the best way to play X4 game. I think the only issue is that most people (reasonably) do not turn to the PC versions when modding, as interesting as it would be as a base. It's still weird they exist tbh.

#13

Emulation / Re: Unlocking the PC version o...

Last post by kevinmahoney95 - January 19, 2025, 06:22:57 PM

I've played the PC ports of X4 and X3. I liked them. However, I find that their use-case is kind of niche today. I was only playing them because I had this super old laptop and I was trying to find out some ways I could inject new life into it.

#14

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by kevinmahoney95 - January 19, 2025, 06:01:27 PM

Cleaning this place up would require some serious moderation. Bots comment on junk automatically. At first glance, it seems that bots have been having their run of the place for years. How long's it been since this place had frequent active human users?

I think the first thing you'd need is to strictly prohibit anyone from making a post without a registered and email-verified account. Further, I think it's sad but true to say that the entire forum would need to be purged of all its existing content and we'd need to start over. Given the sheer volume of nonsense on here, it would look sketchy to newcomers for it all to remain, and it would make the job of reviving the board even tougher.

Also, it appears that the majority of the emoticons don't even work. There are just a lot of structural problems, but with proper moderation, I think they could be overcome and we could perhaps use existing Mega Man spaces like Facebook groups and Reddit boards to spread the word.

#15

General / Re: Any actual people still lu...

Last post by TheRedFlash - January 19, 2025, 05:49:06 PM

It's wild yet reassuring to know that I was not alone in 'recently' checking this place out. Hello if you are still here!

#16

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by TheRedFlash - January 19, 2025, 05:35:16 PM

It's pretty cool to see that I've started something, however small. Reading @kevinmahoney95's story made me happy knowing others are out there who miss forums as well. I used to look around places like this when I was younger, but never directly participated for reasons I cannot remember. Maybe we could get something going here if the forums aren't being shut down for good. It's hard to tell with how stripped down things are.

#17

Emulation / Re: Unlocking the PC version o...

Last post by TheRedFlash - January 19, 2025, 05:31:31 PM

This is pretty interesting, especially since most people seem to forget the old native PC versions exist. Thanks for the preservation effort! On that topic, have you heard of Final Weapon? It's a modified/fixed version of X4 using the PC port as a base.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnx9pfmWHc4

There's similar projects for X4-6 that I thought were applied to the PC port as well, but it seems I am mistaken.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6131/

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4035/

#18

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by Link-NM - January 19, 2025, 03:37:16 AM

More activity here? And from more than one person? This is pretty great to see. ^_^
(Last time it happened here, btw.)

From what I'm seeing, Vixy recently logged in too. Around 3 days ago. Don't know if she did something, though. I do remember she had updated the forum and then had to switch the theme to a temporary one. The old one she had that matched the rest of the site was not compatible anymore, AFAIK.

But I don't know who swapped the theme again to the default SMF one. I'm gonna guess Vixy is the only who can do that and mods can't, so maybe it was what she did 3 days ago?

Hello there.

The name's Phi, and I am a moderator. Yes, it is very unfortunate to see RPM like this; RPM means a great deal to many people even today, despite the bots spamming everywhere.

If you are interested in joining this community, we do have a discord. Please let me know if you want me to send you an invite link, and you can join the discord.

Oh! Oh heya - real glad Phi noticed you guys, much more that I got pinged too, haha! Yeah, it's tragic what's been going on with the forum situation here. We were already a pretty small, close-knit community but we'll be more than happy to see some new faces around! I'm Ammy, and I 'technically' run the Discord server, mostly in name since I'm not super active - but yeah, any of you guys blast Phi or myself a DM and we'll happily add you!

Wait... you guys made a Discord server? You know Vixy has her own Discord server too, right? 😅 Only difference is that it's not just Mega Man focused anymore but now it's more general gaming focused. Games and art, to be more exact. A few old members from here are in there, from what I can see.

(Btw, since there's a mod in here, would it be possible to clean up the forum from the bots and their spam, please? They already pushed down a thread I recently did. )

#19

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by kevinmahoney95 - January 18, 2025, 11:38:22 PM

Here I was browsing some of the old websites I used to frequent in the '00s and '10s, and I find that most of them are totally dead. The OP for this thread posted exactly the kind of question I have been thinking myself. Every site in the Mega Man fandom is either dead, overrun with bots, or they've been taken offline.

My account here was made in 2014, but I was a user here in the mid-2000s, before they changed the bulletin board platform used for these forums. It looked a hell of a lot more personalized back then. All sorts of blue sprite graphics and mechanical/robotic-looking accents in the interface to showcase that, without a doubt, this was indeed a Mega Man forum. I was also active on many of the other Mega Man fandom boards, like Sprites-INC, Damaged Games, BME StudioZ, and several others (whose names are escaping me.) I can't remember if he had a forum, but I used to chat with Strider of Strider's Mega Man Domain. I was also the administrator of Protoman's Lair, a lesser-known site and forum that specialized in sprite comics, from 2006-2009. There were so many options to engage back then, which was great, considering I found it was somewhat challenging to meet fans of the series IRL. (Still is. Probably harder now, honestly.)

I check in every now and then to places like these just to see "if there's anyone out there." Almost always, the result is the same: the boards are long dead. Sadly, another thing I notice is that when I find some forums for other areas of interest for me (not necessarily gaming) which *aren't* dead, they are overrun with people trying to talk rather aggressively about hot-button political issues.

I appreciate you making this post. Reminds me that there are still people out there. There are no shortage of fans of this series in the world, but in my experience, few are dedicated.

#20

General / Re: What the hell is happening...

Last post by TheRedFlash - January 16, 2025, 12:54:07 AM

I appreciate both of you reaching out, and maybe the server's nice, but I came to forums specifically to avoid Discord, as I find them more engaging. The discussions are better, longer lasting, and you tend to get buried less.

I take it that the forums are going to be taken down given the rather barren UI? That would be unfortunate, but I understand.