New SSRG site opens!

Discussion in 'Site News' started by Qjimbo, Feb 29, 2008.

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  1. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic Also known as RHS Member

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    SSRG forever! Or is it still SGMC? I'm so confused now =/
     
  2. Tweaker

    Tweaker OI! MIRON! Member

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    The issue isn't the fact that we need change--that much is evident. The issue is what kind of change needs to be made.


    SSRG/SGMC has always been rather humble, but we've been stuffed for content lately after our last server bailed on us. We need to restore the old site content and layout, which was extremely easy to navigate and chock-full of helpful information. We can probably snag it from archive.org or something... But this whole idea of hosting tons of other "research" sites and whatever... that's not what we're about. We've always been about ROM modding, pure and simple. No need to overstate our purpose.


    From there, we can add more user-submitted guides, tutorials, tools--anything we need to keep up-to-date. I don't see anything wrong with that; it's not like we're taking a step backwards or anything.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 6, 2008
  3. Sephiroth

    Sephiroth WHY SO CURIOUS?!? Member

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    In reply to Tweaker's last statement in that post, if we do indeed take a step backwards, then you just have to remember you sometimes have to take one step backwards, to take two steps forward.
     
  4. Qjimbo

    Qjimbo Well-Known Member Member

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    Well sure, if anyone wants to submit that stuff thats absolutely fine. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not going to force the site to change by saying no if anyone wants to contribute hacking related materials. And I agree we should get the content from the old site back. Unfortunatly even JohnnyUK lost his backup of SSRG in a hdd crash as well, so it looks like web archive is our best bet.
     
  5. StephenUK

    StephenUK Working on a Quackshot disassembly Member

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    SSRG was owned by Andy, who passed it on to Magus (then known as Chaos), who then passed it on to JohnnyUK and Ultima. SSRG was then passed onto it's current owner, OrdosAlpha, and that is what you see here now. The reason for the name change originally was to place more emphasis on the modification side of the community rather than the research side, but recently, after discussion between myself, Ordos and Qjimbo, we all agreed that we would prefer it as SSRG again, and try and rebuild both the site and forums into something which contributes to the community, rather than leaving them to rot, which I will admit, I have been guilty of doing recently. The only part of SSRG that Qjimbo has a direct impact on is the website itself, since my HTML / PHP knowledge is quite limited and I think Ordos may be in a similar position, although I think he knows more than me about it. Ordos and I will still have a small input on the website, but the majority of the handling will be done by Qjimbo.


    Content such as hacking guides and such will be added in due time, but it will take some time for it to be rewritten with new knowledge and formatted for the website. Nobody has said that this will be an overnight success, and nobody has said that it's intended to be a competition with any other sites, but a selection of sites with hacking knowledge and information which may not be available everywhere can only help the community. Rather than arguing and fighting it out about whether it is the right direction, the various sides of the comunity should be working together to build a collection of pages and information which will be able to help anyone who wishes to start hacking. Whether it is successful or not, I don't really see there being any harm in trying, and that is what we're going to do.
     
  6. Upthorn

    Upthorn Newcomer Trialist

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    This does clear up many of the misconceptions I had which were causing my objections. I do still have misgivings about Qjimbo's role, as he has acted irresponsibly in the past, and used server access to provide himself with powers that he was not supposed to have. (Unless I misunderstand how that S2Beta situation went down.) But this has convinced me to shut up, and that I was incorrect in my prior assessment.
     
  7. Sephiroth

    Sephiroth WHY SO CURIOUS?!? Member

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    I completely agree with you, and not because your an admin, but because it is a valid statement. It doesn't matter who we were, it matters who we are. I was the kind of person that would get into fights all the time back in the day, now I'm an ALMOST straight A student. I shaped up, and learned from my mistakes, and I believe Qjimbo did too. Give him a chance to reprimand himself.


    And this is off topic, but this has to be one of the most hateful topics I have seen here in a LONG long time.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 7, 2008
  8. Shadow Fire

    Shadow Fire Well-Known Member Member

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    Topic split to keep on-topicness...


    For all the talk about what trolling is, who'd take offence to what, etc, go here.


    Anyhoo... QJimbo and I were discussing site stuff a couple of nights ago... and yeah... I'll be checking out some stuff very soon.
     
  9. Cinossu

    Cinossu A blend of secret herbs and spices Member

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    .. to be honest, whichever name it is, be it SGMC or SSRG, I've never liked the whole seperatedness of having two sites doing the same things. Sonic Retro has the wiki with all the info, the hacks, the forums, etc. Yes, SSRG is the place where it all started, but wouldn't it be better to just bring it back in its archived state as a homage to how things used to be, to preserve it, rather than try to recreate it for now when the whole scene has already evolved beyond it?


    The one thing I especially don't like is all this "exclusive insert site name here content". It's a lame idea, and whilst it would draw people to the site it would be much better stored all in one place. This isn't the gossip mags on the middle shelf down your local newsagent.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 8, 2008
  10. Ivy

    Ivy Guest

    What if people don't like Retro? Isn't the biggest reason for this to give people an ALTERNATIVE?


    I don't get this. If you have a problem with another forum, generally, you're told to go and set up your own one because of PRIVATE PROPERTY and all that nonsense. But then when you do, hey, why bother when an existing forum caters to it?


    Both statments seem like little more than a cop-out to me. There should always be multiple boards so people can pick the one they like best.


    As for the thread in general, it's nonsense. People from Retro don't have a right to criticise Jimbo given how terrible their own moderation is. The nexus of activity? Come on. It might be the only really active board right now aside from Cult, but it's a shadow of it's former self. The staff there have killed all the fun. In the IRC channel, they have a notice saying not to come up with "retarded" theories at all. No matter what they say afterwards to contradict themselves, Retro is 100% technical, and most of the techies are incapable of theorising on their findings, it takes a different mind set.


    There are people out there who simply won't allow Jimbo to be successful. Not only do they enforce a particular way of being on their forums, they don't seem to want any other forum to deviate from it either. They moderate people's personalities, which is shameful. They try to act all mature and dress everyone up in suits - this is SONIC we're talking about. SONIC. It's no less pathetic than when Sonic Cult equated Sonic with Gangsta. Surely changing the name from S2B would indicate being more open and less elitist than the old S2B, whereas it's considerably more so? This doesn't make any sense. They talk about what they want the board to represent. What nonsense. That's not what boards are for.


    Why do people care that Jimbo was OMG WTF H4X? If an action is for a good end, which I'm sure it was given it's Jimbo and he's normally a decent guy, then it doesn't matter. Even if the Retro admins got where they are through "Honest" means, they are not honest people. Proof? This thread. It's hardly a "cross board grudge" on our part because of that, it's theirs. In the past, Tweaker in specific has had the cheek to say to Jimbo "No offense, Jimbo, but you're a terrible admin." and they talk as if they're the ones giving "chances" to people, and not the other way around. This high and mighty attitude is completely unwarranted. If they were doing a better job, there would be more people on Retro and having more fun. Even drx's UNLIMITED BETA WORKS failed to stir up that much interest, because betas(especially ones with minor changes) are nothing without having a good community to enjoy them with. The people who come out of the woodwork for it will be gone again in a few weeks.


    Retro was never successful on it's own merits. The first Retro was basically a rename of Sonic Classic, a derivitive of Sonic 2 Beta, with Hot Dimmensions, a spin off of Sonic Classic, shoved in. This current one is just the same trick again, a rename of S2Beta. "Sonic Retro" does not exist outside of a personality mould the admins and mods want to enforce on people. If anything, it's just a parasite.


    Whereas SSRG is a real board with a real lineage. Hacking betas isn't what made people stay on Area51, etc., it was the awesome community and the fun you could have coming up with theories. While the technical side may one day run dry, the theory side will never. The problem is it's too easy to cast Sonic Secrets as immature so people who want to mould the Sonic Scene into a cold, fake, empty vessel take advantage of this. Research is NOTHING without a good community to enjoy it with. And you can't create a good community by forcing personality archetypes on people.


    The Retroid's act on this board is nothing more than that. An act. In reality most of them are just kids trying to play grown ups, or else they wouldn't come here flinging candy coated turds. This sums up Retro for me, a fake place. Not only is the idea of Retro a real forum a facade, so too is the way it's members act. The mods use and abuse people as they see fit to make the place more interesting and throw them away when they act outside of their boundaries. I hate that they talk as if they're intelligent, competent guys, because for the most part, they aren't. I might get flamed for this, but nothing makes my blood boil than that.


    Substance is more important than style. What I have to say is more important than how I say it. People can claim style is important, but any vaguely intelligent person is capable of discerning, they just choose not to. It's sad because people in general tend to be sheep who follow whoever is in charge. This is how Cult happened, and it's how a lot of bad forums keep afloat. People don't care if a forum is a "good" forum or not, only how much it deviates from the norm.


    They fear SSRG because despite being a re-incarnation of an older forum, it still represents change and a shift in the balance in power.


    So I say let's do it, and get back to a point where we can talk about Sonic as if it was some crazy cartonny game about a big blue hedgehog and not SERIOUS BUSINESS.

    The Retro mods act consistantly irresponsible. The only difference is that Jimbo's actions went againt the fold, not with it, which is why you support one and not the other.

     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2008
  11. Scarred Sun

    Scarred Sun Newcomer Member

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    HEY YOU KNOW WHAT GUYS I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO REPLY TO THE TOPIC INSTEAD OF FEEDING THE TROLL


    You know, I definitely think SSRG can survive--and thrive!--but as Marc said, I'd be really wary of duping content. For instance, there was a nice little series on the old SSRG that explained how to effectively DESIGN a level, not just the nuts and bolts of how to MAKE a level. There's a lot more that could be done along these lines: how to make a palette that isn't god-awful but instead god-awesome, making music that sounds great on the Genesis (I fear we'll see lots of crappy MIDI ports of songs that don't play well for the nature of chipsets with the onset of XM3SMPS), designing new ways to play a game, or even building a new engine from scratch a la S4.


    You know, Retro sort of has painted itself into a corner by basically only dealing with S1+S2, and occasionally S3K. There's still tonnes of stuff to dig up, tonnes of research, and things to mod out. It's just a matter of taking the initiative to bring something new to the table.
     
  12. Shadow Fire

    Shadow Fire Well-Known Member Member

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    Topic has been split... again!


    Now, this is the last verbal warning I'll give. Anyone else who starts inciting trolling in this topic will be given a warn, and may even find their posting rights suspended. This also applies to people who troll back.


    That is all for now.


    Anyway, to keep on topic... have you started working on getting the site's code 100% W3C compliant yet, Jim?
     
  13. Ivy

    Ivy Guest

    This place desperately needs more activity. It's hard to get people to care about anything these days.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2008
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