DOES ANYONE REMEMBER GAMINGW? (REMEMBERING GAMINGW)

Posts

halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
from Shinan
Jenq was Psyburn. Was the ALEX games run by RPG? Because as far as I know he's still around... Somewhere. He had a Kickstarter some years ago (of a game that isn't out yet, obviously, it happens to all the kickstarters :) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostinabottle/octopus-city-blues

PSYBURN!!! God, was that guy ever the butt of some jokes. I can't remember what manner of drama surrounded him, but it was definitely something.

Yes, the ALEX games were run by RPG. Not that I would ever expect him to come back around for that. Besides, Alex is a timeless RTP hero who can never go on enough adventures.
I hung out a lot with psyburn and RPG on IRC there for a while. Mostly in #movies or whatever that channel no-one visited was called. (Maybe Krinsdeath was there also)

On IRC Psyburn
always
wrote
one
word
per
line

Or not always but often enough. He's a photographer these days, I'm pretty sure I follow him on instagram for some reason.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
6309
author=Shinan
I hung out a lot with psyburn and RPG on IRC there for a while. Mostly in #movies or whatever that channel no-one visited was called. (Maybe Krinsdeath was there also)

On IRC Psyburn
always
wrote
one
word
per
line

Or not always but often enough. He's a photographer these days, I'm pretty sure I follow him on instagram for some reason.

He's a pretty good photographer too. I love his feed.
Wow, such thread. People still have FEELINGS and shit, huh?

I tried to make this edit, but it didn't take: Obviously GW affected everyone differently, and everyone has a different takeaway. To me, though, it was a nasty joke that I wasn't in on. If I approached it now, as a thick-skinned adult, it wouldn't have affected me. As a wee babby taking his first steps into the online world, though, it was a vile place, full of bullies and elitists who clumped together to shit on people for no discernible reason.

This really upsets me, actually. I'm really sorry that this was GW's legacy to you. I'm not going to lie, I have something similar, but experienced from the other angle.

I was obviously at GW during the halcyon days (and rpgmaker.net prior to that).

2000-2005 was the period I was most active.

What was it like during the early days? Like a fun forum of nice people, talking about games, planning to make games etc. Bart and I used to write terrible reviews of everything we could get our hands on and bang them up on the main page to add content. Then DP and I would upload every resource we could get our hands on in the hope it would help people with their games.


Someone mentioned Rm2k3 not being hosted earlier - I was actually behind that decision, and (short-sightedly) wrote the "Rm2k3 manifesto", which was kept to by a lot of the community sites at the time. Like a way of trying to avoid rm2k3 entering into the community? Very naive to be honest, as it just meant that sites that DID support it got a lot more traffic. I guess the theory at the time was that RM95/2k/2k3 bullshit was never going to go anywhere, and people should develop their own skills with "actual" game engines if they wanted to actually get anywhere.

Ironic really, given that I now own hundreds of Rm* titles that I've purchased on STEAM. And that I personally developed literally no computer-based skills at all, aside from imposing my will upon teenagers (GO FIGURE, I TEACH NOW HOORAY!)

I did notice a huge decline in GW post-2004. Prior to that, there WAS some unfriendly feeling, but I remember it as being largely a battle between decent people and "bigots" - be aware that this was coloured by the fact that I was openly gay at the time, and in the early 00s there was still a lot of negativity around that, especially among teenagers. So attempting to keep the community clean of prejudice was a big focus. A chunk of my time was spent arguing with homophobes on the forums, and attempting to win my fellow staffers around to the idea that being gay was A-OK!!

I eventually became "chief of staff", which was a bullshit title I invented for myself to distinguish myself from the other admins (being the person who could decide who got to be an admin or not). A lot of it from my end was ego driven, and I genuinely felt I was responsible for the growth of the community sometimes? In retrospect, it was an organic thing that was most likely hindered by my approach, but at the time it felt I was involved in something amazing and full of growth. I sacrificed the majority of my time between the ages of 15-18 to the community, so it was like, it felt like it was mine, if you get what I mean?

Likewise, I had a bit of a history with the original rpgmaker.net (as did Bart/Fenix) which led to negative interactions in how we approached that site. I got fired from the site when it was attempting to relaunch (by Linguar) and had BITTERNESS IN MY HEART!! So when X13 was granted an opportunity to create a new rpgmaker.net, and it failed, with Rast giving the domain to Bart instead, I was full of mockery and gloating towards that community (who became RPGSource). They responded by editing Jack Chick tracts (if you're aware of those), to feature me and mock me for being both gay and Jewish! Oh no! That was an A-OK thing back in the early 00s!

Obviously the whole "targ" thing (which I was never included in NOR really fully understood) seemed to have elements of prejudice to it, especially regarding epithets, but I can't claim to really have ever gotten my head around that, and its prominence grew when I left. Oh yeah - me leaving. Basically, I'd been gone for a few months, as I went to university and my internet had issues (I got banned for downloading too much OH NO!) Bart had stepped down and given the site over to MrY, Alexander, Moriason and AnonymousGuy - four of the previous admins. I still kept in touch with them and gave them advice, but they eventually quit due to a perceived lack of autonomy. I then became homeless for a short while (not like PROPERLY street-level homeless, but couch surfing as some shit had gone pretty wrong for a short period hehe), and while at a friend's house decided to check in on GW (Rowain had been appointed site lead after MrY/Alex/Mori/AG quit previously, as a kind of last man standing thing?) I returned briefly and we clashed a little and basically it was demanded that I stepped down as admin. At the time I didn't see why I should, given that I felt I'd played a significant part in building the community, and having me on staff detracted from the site in no way? Anyway, this response caused Rowain's team (the new staff body he'd promoted, like Steel, fatty (I believe?), panda, various others) to openly and seriously mock and insult me, all over the forum. Given the state my life was in at the time, it very much upset me. So I left.

I popped back every so often after that, to find that it seemed to be mostly targ-based, and very unfriendly. The staff team didn't seem to give a shit about game creation, people like MrY (one of my closest friends at the site) had jumped ship to join rpgmaker.net, and most of the people of influence would openly insult me when they saw me. In fact, Steel (who, weirdly, I later got on with quite well), constantly used me as a kind of early meme to mock people who complained about the direction the site had taken, like "OH THINGS WERE BETTER WHEN LORD_GREMLIAN AND FROZ". I spoke to Bart and he basically backed up Rowain, saying he could do what he likes, so I resigned and left the site. I've never forgiven Bart for that really - behind the scenes, Bart had a great vision for early GW and put SO much work into actually coding the site, but wasn't great at dealing with the community. At the time, I felt that I'd given SO much in building and running the interactional aspects of his website and social community, that it was a total betrayal on his part to basically say "Oh yeah, you get nothing", during a period in which I was already suffering.

I kept in touch with some people, but basically got my life back on track and made myself into the BIG SUCCESS OF TODAY haha.

Note, this is not to vindicate myself - I am very aware that I acted atrociously towards many people back in 2000-2004. I had a whole ego-trip on the go, I genuinely saw myself as like the "father" of the community and therefore felt I "knew best" regarding decisions (including who got to be a member of the community, who got to be in its inner circle etc), I promoted people based on friendship rather than ability (although they DID turn out to be very able in most cases, I MISS YOU MrY!!)

Always happy to chat about the older times with anyone who remembers them. I've actually spoken to a number of people since (I've returned to the site every so often since leaving obviously) and MADE PEACE with some. If anyone remembers me and wants to remind me of how I'd acted like a shit rather than the NICE FIGURE I make out, feel free to do so also.

SORRY FOR RAMBLING, TURNS OUT I STILL CARE ABOUT THIS SHIT WELL INTO MY 30s, OH NO!!

EDIT: OH! I think I missed a step - before Rowain was sole GW Site lead, I'm sure he was part of a second group with UPRC and Mateui? Correct me if I'm wrong. That was the short period I was away for which I missed, in between the MrY and Full-on-Rowain era.
-Dark Priest's Santa's Sled Racing.(does anyone still have this?)


I do btw. Well, SSR:II, which was the one DP, H3who, myself, Pyrate, and Moriason made (with Santa collecting shit and doing SICK JUMPS).
I hate to be that guy but...

Holy shit it's Faust!

Nice to get your perspective on things since it's one that most of us were not privy to. I always remember every time you being back it being a thing of "hi man welcome back" so I had no idea people were so shitty. Or maybe I was being shitty to, I probably was and didn't realize it.

It's also interesting how many names there always are. I had completely forgotten about H3who, but he was another one of those guys that were always around. I like to think I've remembered most people but then someone lists off a couple of names and I go "oh damn, those people were also there".

On a semi-related note. Last week I rummaged through some old hard-drives and found loads of ancient rm2k(3) games and also all the GW Troubadour Albums. There's probably actual IRC logs and stuff hidden there too if I do more digging.
Hey dude! Haha no, you were never horrible to me actually, as it happens! Genuinely, not to be all "OLDBIE YO" about it, but it was largely the post-2004/2005 crowd that were like HARRYING ME - I actually found quite a few people from before those days were really respectful and friendly and welcoming.

Yeah I hear you. I have like so many memories and details of that period, but obviously my own brain has melded some of the memories to the point where they are beyond recognition. Summarised, I loved the place before I was like "driven out" lol, and felt SADNESS AND LOSS afterwards. Not exactly in-depth revelations XD!

Shit, you have IRC logs and stuff? I remember you pretty much always being like a permanent feature of the IRC channel haha. I had an old PC with pretty much everything on (including some photos of me from the period, like the one in a HAT!) which I wanted to transfer and save things, but then I got lazy and didn't do it, and then my partner's mother made me throw it away when she came up to help us move house (oh no, lost forever :( ).

I know what you mean about old names too - like every time I see one, I get pangs of glee. The issue is, every time I search (over the past decade, anyway), there are fewer and fewer references to those people online - it's how I got here this morning, in fact! Random memory followed by "I WILL SEARCH GAMINGW IN THE GOOGLE", followed by this thread. Like I've totally bummed myself out this morning, just due to the transient nature of things, and like how the vast majority of everything only exists in memory now?

It's really comforting that rpgmaker.net still exists. It kind of reminds me that I didn't just dream that whole period?

But anyway: GOOD TO SEE YOU SHINAN!!
Hopefully RMN continues to exist well into the future. Like, at least another 5 months.
Thanks for your contribution Faust! ❤

Yeah, part of the reason why I started this thread was because of exactly what you mentioned:

author=Faust
The issue is, every time I search (over the past decade, anyway), there are fewer and fewer references to those people online- it's how I got here this morning, in fact! Random memory followed by "I WILL SEARCH GAMINGW IN THE GOOGLE", followed by this thread. Like I've totally bummed myself out this morning, just due to the transient nature of things, and like how the vast majority of everything only exists in memory now?

Google seems to favor the most recent search results now,

(Like for instance, when someone had stolen the Phantom Legacy Fan Trailer I did awhile back, it became the first result on google, just because it was the most recent version to be uploaded to youtube)

But yeah, anything older than 5 years is considered irrelevant to the search engine – but it’s still out there, It’s just so much harder to find now because of google. If you guys have like, any old material you feel that’s worth sharing on a harddrive, please use this thread! I’d love to look at it. Shinan has been a big contributor to this thread and I can't thank him enough for it. As I mentioned previously, I only joined around 2007.

But I often look at the front page of GamingW as like a motivation booster and wonder what could've been. But I'm constantly going through the archives, just for info that simply just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, which is really unfortunate. Like, GamingW may not have been great at times, but similar to RMN, it still mattered to a lot of people.

EDIT:
author=Faust
-Dark Priest's Santa's Sled Racing.(does anyone still have this?)
I do btw. Well, SSR:II, which was the one DP, H3who, myself, Pyrate, and Moriason made (with Santa collecting shit and doing SICK JUMPS).

Upload this ASAP!! ❤
author=Faust
I know what you mean about old names too - like every time I see one, I get pangs of glee. The issue is, every time I search (over the past decade, anyway), there are fewer and fewer references to those people online - it's how I got here this morning, in fact!


If you remember anybody's email from back then, googling it in parenthesis is a great way to find their old forum posts, if any still exist, if you feel like creeping/reminiscing on long-lost internet friends. I often do this with the email I used back in 2002/2003 to find my own forum posts or user pages (and then quickly regret it when I actually read my cringe-inducing posts).
author=Kaempfer
author=TFT
That was Strangeluv btw. Going through this topic today just shows 90% of what's been posted isn't even remotely accurate.
You thinking that it matters more the accuracy of specific memory and less the accuracy of accumulated feeling is evidence to suggest that you have a dramatic misunderstanding of what the problems people had with GW were.

I apologize for incorrectly ascribing blame. I guess you were frenetically high-fiving him too much for me to distinguish from the blur of troll which one you two it was.


What? I never did this. I don't even know who you are.
By the way, does anybody have that essay Steel wrote before he died? The one about being good to each other.
author=Strangeluv
By the way, does anybody have that essay Steel wrote before he died? The one about being good to each other.
Saltw has that archive where you might (or might not) find it. (if you do find it, I wouldn't mind a link)

EDIT: Doing a quick look through the archive it's been ten years this November...

EDIT2: Maybe it can be found somewhere in here: http://saltworld.net/forums/topic/6140-okay/
Man, this November 5th will be the 10th anniversary of Steel's death, won't it? Fuck man.
http://saltworld.net/forums/topic/6140-okay/page-182#entry364208

Thanks Shinan♥
I think this might be it:
This is Steve, one of Steel's friends, and his family asked me to look through his computer to see if I could find anything helpful. I know that some of you who knew him well were looking for a message that he might've sent, knowing what was up, and as far as I can tell, he wrote this to be sent if something went south.

Forgive me if this is a repost, but it's one of the most beautiful things that I've ever read, and I hope that it helps you out during these times.

Here goes:


Okay, first of all, let me get the technical stuff out of the way. The surgery is on the 29th. It's expected to last anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. On hearing what happened, I've instructed my sister to call four people; Manan, Jon, Alex Reher, and Steve. Aside from being my closest friends, almost like brothers, they also have contacts with different groups of people and will probably let the rest of you know what happened. If you don't hear from them or don't know them, I'll attempt to post something on Facebook when I can. However I know if things go well, they'll be forcing me to do breathing tests and walk up and down the hall a lot to prevent pneumonia since I have a history of it now. So if you don't know by Halloween, expect that something has gone wrong.

For those of you who don't know; the chemo worked as well as it could, shrinking the tumor a few centimeters on all three axes (this may not seem like much, but think of volume and the difference between a 1 cm cube and a 2 cm cube). It's also apparently killed the active cancer, although we can't know for sure yet. This type of cancer however, comes with a teratoma, a type of tumor that is unaffected by chemotherapy. Teratomas can be benign; however they most often just reactivate the cancer later down the road. Thus, surgery is needed to remove it.

The reason I'm writing this is not just because I'm afraid of the surgery; I've got a 95% chance of going through the surgery with no complications, and that remaining 5% isn't DEATH (most of it is post op pneumonia), but yes, I'm still afraid considering I never had a surgery before. But aside from this, if the removed mass shows active cancer still, I may have to undergo more dangerous and harsh chemotherapy. From this round already, I've had severe neuropathy in two of my fingers on both hands; another round of chemo might finish them off. Worst of all is the 50 to 60% cure rate has never changed; that means there's a 50 to 40% chance that even if I make it through this, it'll come back. If it does come back, I might not make it again. There was also a large blood clot in my neck that could have killed me; something tells me that wasn't the only close call I'll be having.

And most of all, I saw my dad slowly die from pancreatic cancer, and although I was too young to know it then, I can remember now how his eyes had some despair that he could not tell me all the things he wanted to tell me. My mom said the only time she saw him cry was not on learning his parents's death, or on knowing about his coming death, but knowing that he would not see us grow up, would not be there to guide us and tell us and when his son got older, talk about books and falling in love and yelling at him and being disappointed in him and all that stuff that those of you with fathers take for granted (I hope that does not sound too bitter; to paraphrase something I read once, I do not hate you because you have a better life, I only wish that I did as well).

That alone wouldn't have convinced me to write this whole thing if it weren't for a quote I read from Bun B, half of famous Southern rap duo UGK. His friend Pimp C had died, and Bun B said the following: “And I loved him, and he loved me, and we're never ashamed to say it. And I know we're in the era of "pause" and "no homo" and all that, and that's all fine and dandy, but if you really love your homie, don't feel like you can't tell him you love him. Who gives a fuck how somebody take it. Because when things happen, you're going to wish you had said it. You're going to wish you said it louder.”

I remember reading an article about the hidden costs of masculinity where the author made a successful argument, I thought, in how men cannot express how they feel about other men. Women tell each other their love almost every day. And I thought, how fucking solid of Bun B to do that. Men pride ourselves on remaining stoic and unemotional, but fuck, it's not right that I can see it on my brother's face and he can see it on mine, but it goes unsaid.

So here's the truth, if I die tomorrow in surgery or in a week from pneumonia or in three months from a remission gone wrong. Here is the truth.

Too much of life, I think, is dealt with in passivity. We do not celebrate connectedness but retreat behind our barriers. We argue over paying taxes while our brothers and sisters bleed in the street. We look pretty so other people will decide if we're worth their time, but who the fuck decided someone wasn't? We let hatred and fear move us more than love, and I can't help but remember Mookie's bitter words when Sal complains about his broken window in Do The Right Thing: fuck your window, Radio Raheem is dead. So if I die, this is my last message to you; just simple life is easy. Making a good life is the hard part. Never be contented. Never think your work is done. Never do anything by half. If you love, don't do that stupid love where all you do is wonder whether he or she is thinking about you and what your kids will look like and if he or she will still fuck you just as good in twenty years as they do now. Love so that if they ask you to jump you jump, you don't even ask how high. Love so that it fucking hurts. When you do something, do the fucker, do it so it jumps up and ties itself into a knot when it sees you coming. And when you see evil, when you see something despicable, never forget how to hate. Hate till blood runs out of your eyes if you have to. Never do it by half. Never give in. If you're like me, they'll be hard nights, hard times, and you may wonder if it's worth it but one day it will be and you'll be refilled like it was fucking manna from heaven. To quote Henry Rollins, “scar tissue is stronge than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.” That's what I know of life, and that's all I can tell you about its meaning. Never forget fire.

And beyond that. If I die. It'll always be too late for me to say all I need to say. To tell you about the beauty of the blue light of dawn, to tell you that heaven is a spot outside of a village in India with alabaster trees and a muddy brown pond with fish nipping at the surface, of pain so strong it converts you from atheist to believer to atheist, it convinces you to kill anything you have just to make it go away. I cannot tell you everything that I have found powerful in this life. But I can tell you just a little, and under the assumption that I might die, please allow me this one indulgence. The night air is always better than the day; it's like something's cracking open all around you all the time. If you get far enough away from the city, the stars will ruin you. You'll look up, and they'll fucking destroy you, how many there are. You don't even get that whole “I'm so small” feeling; you just realize how vast it is. Part of what makes love great is how incredibly weak it is. Think of all that can break it; distance, boredom, curiousity. If you can nurse it, watch it grow, if you can keep love going without losing yourself in it, you've got a little miracle and anyone who looks at you will be able to tell. Somewhere in the world someone is waiting for you and already loves you. You may never meet them, but the fact that they exist makes all the difference. Don't just accept your flaws; actively correct them. If you aren't smart, become smart. If you're mean, grow some decency. There is no excuse for complacency or boredom. Respect your elders, but know they can be and often are just wrong. Sylvia from Sylvia's Pizza is a nice, heavily accented, Italian man who loves his business and loves his regular customers. It's always better to support a local place than a chain because as an amateur chef I can tell you that if you love who you cook for, you make better food. Try not to laugh at someone, ever. Even hating them has a modicum of respect; laughing at someone only serves to demean you both. There are still bad people out there. You will fall in love with them sometimes. Do not assume you can change anyone.

As for me; I'm not ready to die. I don't want to. I'll go into this surgery prepared to survive. I'll fight cancer with every last bit of strength I've got. You can shoot me and I'll keep going. But if I do, do not mourn me. I have had a decent life so far. I'm only 22 and I've already gotten so high I've felt the rhythm of the universe around me. I've gotten so drunk in a parking lot that I started singing for no reason. I've known pain, both emotional and physical, that most people don't know till much further in life. I've fallen in love and had my heart broken. I've seen the inside of a jail cell. I beat someone up once to protect a friend, even though I was outnumbered and about five years old. I have done both great and awful things in my life. I have cried tears for dead people I never knew, and I have broken doors in rage over people I cannot save. I have lived a life. I hope I get to keep on living. I hope I can fall in love again and this time make it work. I hope I can adopt a child. I hope I can see my friends get married. I hope I can make an album. I hope I can learn to write, and write well. I hope I can save an innocent man from dying. I hope I can live.

But if I don't, your life still goes on. There are innocent men who will still die if no one saves them. There are weddings and parties to attend that will be missing one guest. There's a beautiful girl reading a book somewhere or about to go to sleep who might suddenly shiver, and not understand why. There are still children who need families. Never stay content unless you've earned it. You have no greater purpose in life than to help others, no matter how small an effort you can exert.

And don't forget I love you.
So while working from home in this lockdown, nostalgia suddenly hit me and I googled GamingW leading to this post. I doubt anyone remembers me, but I've read the entire thread here and I could recall most of the events, names, and games that were mentioned.

I felt the I had to reply as this is coincidentally an exact year from the last and also because I want to know if anyone else has the Chain Games - the mediafire link does not have the files any more. Also there was a 5th unfinished (can't remember if it was 'official') Chain Game that I tried to be a part of. I think GW was dead by that time though.
Here's Chain Game 2, hedge1 likely has Chain Game 3 so you can PM him for it.

Shadowhawk's Chain Game 1 playthrough:
Holy smokes, the Chain Game! Great memories.

BTW, a lot of us old GWers ended up reconnecting around 2013 and started Something Classic (Shadows of Adam). If anybody wanted to catch up please join our discord: www.discord.gg/somethingclassic

We still do discord chain games for fun. Brings back great memories of the old days. That first chain game was a glorious mess
i didn't remember gamingw until just now
Before I forget, here are rest of the Gamingw chain games. Erave posted these awhile back, which I am very thankful for. It includes the Alex games in their original form as well as a few other things. I'll probably add these to the thread post so they'll be easier to find.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/et7i35enai8od/Gaming_World

But yeah, it's cool to see some familiar faces here.

EDIT: someone else uploaded a couple of gamingw games to itch.io as well. I'll see if I can grab the link.

some more games:
https://silbinarywolf.itch.io/rpg-maker-preservation

EDIT2: I'm afraid to ask but, would anyone still have Silver4donut's Monopolo for posterity's sake? I think TheGameArchivist has it, but I didn't get a chance to ask him when he came to help Gari this year with some rpgmaker game requests, so it may be awhile again before we're able to get in touch with him again. But Monopolo would be an interesting game to include alongside Carius's RM2k3 Arcade game "Pirates" and Jenna's RM2k3 Action RPG "Lands of Lunori".