What the hell is happening? Is there a single soul here?

[TheRedFlash]

So, I've been looking into forums again as a hangout for slow, more thoughtful discussion about things I like. Rockman is pretty core to me as a person, so obviously I found a forum based on it. It seemed semi active until I looked and all the threads, and it's just a bunch of old content being necroed by bots? What the hell is this? Why is nobody here? Why is it overun by bots?

I'd love to revive this place, but Rockman is basically dead in terms of new real game content outside of mobile games, so I understand why it fell out of favor. Still, I'd love to have a place to communicate to Rockman fans and chill that isn't a terrible Discord. If a real human being sees this... hello! Maybe this place can be revived?

Side Note - It is very funny to see all the ancient cracks in this website. AoL, MSN Messenger, hoo boy this place is ancient. Still, many ancient forums live on with great activity, and I was hoping this would be one of those.

[crasgts]

I just happened to stumble across this while I was googling something about Command Mission. Not to be too much of a downer, but I don't think this place is getting revived. If a third human happens to see this page, obviously don't click on any of these links. Pretty much every recent post here is made by bots, and the links are spam at best, viruses at worst.

I'm kind of shocked this website's still up at all.

[TheRedFlash]

I kinda figured, it was just a desperate scream into the dark. I'm honestly surprised a series as iconic as this has such dead forums, I can't even find a post that has human activity within 10 years. I've seen series that are significantly more obscure with thriving, or at least decent forums. It makes me incredibly sad, just what the heck happened to this place? I want to know the story behind it all.

Hope you have a lovely day btw, it's nice to see someone who appreciates that old game.

[Phi]

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.

[Amatiramisu]

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!

[TheRedFlash]

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.

[kevinmahoney95]

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.

[Link-NM]

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. )

[TheRedFlash]

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.

[kevinmahoney95]

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.

[Link-NM]

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.

[kevinmahoney95]

Very nice! It's looking like a Mega Man forum again!

This actually made me want to create my own forum, like I had way back when, so I did. Can't imagine it'll have a ton of traffic, but hey.

[TheRedFlash]

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.

That's a relief. The Rockman games aren't even a super big part of my life anymore, but it contributed so much to my childhood that some part of it just won't leave me. I have some fan projects in the work, but I have no idea when I'd even begin to talk about them. It also makes it hard for me to make any discussion topics, but maybe I can do something random. You have to start somewhere, and I'm still getting used to forums. I guess the one disadvantage of all these older forums is that I really miss markdown.

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.

I agree somewhat. Even figuring out how to upload a pfp was a chore, and I've used forums with the exact same base that didn't have this issue. The social/messenger options were also funny. MSN and some other one I've never used before. Gosh, I probably sound extremely young.