UPDATE JULY 31, 2023: It seems like since I posted this thread the forums are actually being used. My current plan (as of just now) is to keep the forums open as long as they are actually being used regularly. This means that I am now going to explore a vbulletin and server upgrade to get rid of the security issues.



UPDATE JUNE 30, 2023: Just providing an update: I haven't quite finished the export so the forums will stay open at least 1 more month. New plan is August 1st, 2023.

All my Massassi friends and acquaintances,

It is time to shut down these forums. I am planning to convert them to a permanent, readonly archive on June 1, 2023.

This was discussed in a previous thread, but the main reasons are:

• usage is extremely low
• vBulletin is out of date, out of support, and has various unpatched vulnerabilities
• the PHP version these forums use is out of date, out of support, and has various unpatched vulnerabilities
• the forum is costing me too much time
  
  • manual verification of new users, when 99% of them are spammers or bots
  • always worrying that they're gonna be hacked (again)
  
  
• the forum is costing me too much money
  
  • any money is too much, since they're not being used
  • $60/month (since they're on the old massassi server, which is also out of date, out of support, and has various unpatched vulnerabilities
  
  

Please say your farewells, download/archive any private messages you want to keep, share your contact information out to your pm friends, etc.

There are quite a few of us in the Discord now if you're still looking for some JK discussion.

Thanks for the memories!
Brian


P.S. I'll post a reply with a list of the specific things that are going to be archived and those that are not.

The public archives will consist of HTML versions of all the active forums.

• Discussion Forum
• ISB
• Music Discussion & Showcase
• Showcase
• JK & MotS Editing Forum
• Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy Editing Forum
• Cog Forum

The archives will consist of the currently public threads and posts by all users. The archives will include usernames but not email addresses.

• No user profile information will be archived.
• No private messages will be archived
• No hidden forums will be archived
• No deleted threads will be archived
• Attachments/images will be preserved and archived for public threads

The archive will be available indefinitely at forums.massassi.net and my plan is to also support the current URLs for forums and threads (with redirects to the new plain html ones).

I've also got an intermediate JSON representation of the stuff that will be archived that I will make available for download.

Most sincere thanks to Brian, CoolMatty et al for maintaining this forum throughout the decades, it was quite the ride indeed. And I guess some shreds (and Shred18s) of credit can be scattered among some of the punters as well, though most are long gone by now.

(Miscellaneous observation: I might be one of the few members who registered pre-December 2003 whose very first and very last posts were never purged)

While the post count bug (there's a thread or two about it) can't be fixed, and thus my last post count is still higher than 17.5k (no idea by how much), I'm still gonna have my last post express one of my seemingly immortal statements (that I haven't said in ages) which I got chided for back in 2006 or so-abouts, but which has not been disproven at any point ever since:

Damn, you Americans are nuts.

Not surprised, but this is one of the longest lasting forums I've been on.

This site was my introduction to modding, and while I mainly wound up working on the X-wing series and tools to mod them, firing up JED and getting a plain test map loaded for the first time was pretty amazing to me as a kid.

Pressing "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" to pay respects! I've been on these forums since I was 13, and am saddened to see the opportunity to shamelessly self-plug go. But, alas, I will take this opportunity anyway. As some of you might know, I am a writer. I write. That's what I do. If anyone is interested in any video game collabs (although we're *hopefully* working on a game with BAH_Strike already, once he's done with his JK Bot magnum opus), you can find me here:

https://maxsalnikov.wordpress.com

Or you can send me a direct e-mail to tyrovogel@gmail.com.

I released my latest English-language book 3 days ago, it's FREE, and you can find it here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1391039

Hopefully this isn't counted as spam, it's just, that, well, sometimes it seems that almost nobody reads my work, but those who do usually have something positive to say about it. Maybe you'll like my musings too.

Self-plug over. HELLO WORLD, GOODBYE MASSASSI!

P.S. I'm "Koobie" because it's short & sweet for "Kublai Khan."

Peace out, friends, and see you on Discord!

Damn. This forum was the one thing that tethered my web presence all the way back to my adolescence. You're gonna make me a digital hobo!

Anyway, thanks for all the work and money everyone put into Massassi over the years. And **** bit rot. All you software devs should take a chill pill, eh? Make software last a little longer?

Thank you Brian and everyone who has made it possible for these forums to live as it has for so long! The forums have been a significant and positive part of my identity, and I'm glad that they will still be available as read-only.

As the "ISB kingpin" I'll see what I can do before the end of the month to 'update' the Interactive Story Board portion for folks who might read it in the future.

Sad to see it happen, but I suppose it was inevitable. Thanks for the long run, everyone

Also, I really appreciate you keeping it as an archive instead of deleting everything wholesale.

Congratulations, Brian, on taking care of this (and thanks for everything). vBullitain is a disaster, and we can at least look forward to a static HTML archive being something that is actually possible to search the text of.

Anyone have any opinions about Donald Trump?

NOOOOOOOOO

Can we try a patreon first?

Any chance you'd let anyone else run it?

I am curious what the reason would be. Since nobody is posting things anyway, why bother keeping them open? A long time ago, like a year ago maybe? I posted a message here asking for volunteers to help with the forums -- verifying new registrations, keeping up with moderation, etc. I also proposed that I could update to the latest vbulletin and then have someone run it. I got offers to help with the money which was the least of the issues.

I would be extremely hesitant to allow someone else to run them at this point unless it was someone who has a long history here and is someone I really trust.

Man, that hits hard. It's sad to see, but it's also understandable.

Massassi is the one community I seem to be able to stick with. I don't use this username anymore anywhere else, and I'm sure I'm not really all that memorable, but I still love this site and community. Thanks for the memories, guys. Thanks Brian, Cool Matty and everyone else for keeping it going as long as it has.

Some of my favorite memories:
- That free lego game we all played for a while. I started building the laggy Massassi Tower, and someone put in a box labelled "SOULS," which a screenshot of still lingers around here.
- The 'name that...' image games that lasted forever.
- The arguments that usually took silly twists and turns.
- Gold and his get rich quick schemes.
- NeS.
- The early internet memes (catloaf anyone?)
- The holiday logo contests (I always told myself I'd participate next year, didn't know 2022 would be the last)
and last, but not least, all of the Jedi Knight editing.

I'll see you on discord (username contains Danzor). PM me if anyone wants to connect for some reason.

It's been a pleasure, boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uffHb6JgoiQ

Trump 2024

**** your feelings

I offered him money. He didn't want it. And nobody else wants to and or has the time, resources, and capability. There is nothing wrong this that. It's time.

Seriously, thank you Brian for hanging on as long as you could. You really didn't have to do that. Coolmatty, as well. Good times and I will never forget you people. I dont really get on discord that much. I need less social media in my life.

Thanks for your efforts Brian.

Do you still drive your wrangler?

That's someone's fetish.

Guess I'll never make it to 8000 posts. Can't believe it's been twenty years.

Nope, got rid of my last one quite a long time ago. Since 2015 been driving a Toyota pickup which allows me to cart around my mountain bikes and dirt bikes.

85 left to go! Chop chop!

it's still here. maybe there's enough time to reach a 10k post count.

I just want it to be memorialized that way back in the day, one of my accounts was the first ever to reach 5k on these forums, but then there was a bug my count was rolled back and deleted. And then I created a number of other accounts. So basically that means I won Massassi.

Also while things are being memorialized and I'm trying to relive the former glory of being the #1 poster in quantity and quality, I can't help but post this DM I sent a Massassi mod that is quite funny in retrospect.

Also just to be clear, even if I don't technically have the most posts of anyone here, I'm still the #1 poster. And that's because even if i'm not #1 in quantity, the quality makes up for it.

Hey Brian, a request for you: what happened to the Asheron's Call forum? Are they still around? I recall that sometimes forums weren't closed but were simply made hidden. If the Asheron's Call forums still exist, can they be made unhidden and archived? I'd seriously enjoy that nostalgia trip, if they still exist.

I can look. There are a ton of hidden forums but I don't remember seeing that one specifically. I wonder if that was even on vbulletin or if that was on our old ubb forums.

Unfortunately, I don't see it.

I was trying to attach a screenshot of all the forums but I can't get the attachment functionality to work... argh. I'll try again later.

Dang, that's too bad. It'd make sense if it were from the ubb days. I'm pretty sure that the archives on the way back machine are ubb.

well, i guess it's time to post a cock pic

Someone on the Discord thinks that the AC forum was renamed and repurposed at some point. To their recollection, it was called something like "The Forum of Tofu Sucks".

Personally I'm offended that that type of language was allowed on these forums, even on a hidden forum. But I digress. Maybe some digging can be done to find the AC content? I have no idea how many hidden forums there are. If you give me access I'd be happy to the digging. I figure if there's anything that at some point I shouldn't have seen, the statute of limitations has lapsed by now.

To be clear, by "the Discord" I mean the official unofficial Massassi discord.

Comprehensive list of all the forums in the database. DISCLAIMER: I've never heard of or visited most of the hidden ones so if you manage to find them, don't expect that all the posts will follow the rules.

Oh, and to find them, you just append a different number to the end of this url:

https://forums.massassi.net/vb3/forumdisplay.php?1

It seems to start from 1 and go on up. I'd expect some missing numbers between actual forums, too.

When I click on some of them, it says I don't have access.

I see the forum of tofu sucks is there. So maybe I can just be given access to that one, and see if I can find the AC content?

It's #30. I looked at it, there's nothing about AC in there. A lot of rule breaking messages/insults/etc. and also some discussion about #massassi irc channel and Sith engine by Jon`C. I will give you access but plz do me a favor and don't post in there or revive anything.

It says it's open to everyone already.

Yeah, I was able to get access to the "Massassi at War" forums by clicking the "party leaders" link. I don't think any of those forums were originally the AC forum. I guess it's still possible that the AC forum is one of other forums?

Ooooh, you know what could make a lot of sense? If the Star Wars Galaxies forum was originally the AC forum? Could that be? Maybe there's some old AC content among its earliest posts?