What if EoFF shut down?

Thought I'd get your thoughts on this. I've considered palming the place off to a couple of people on staff, but both were not interested and at this point I'm thinking it's perhaps time to close the doors. I'm in no real rush, I don't suffer immensely from the cost of the place but having an extra £40 a month wouldn't be a bad thing. But at the same time, I don't want to make this a spur of the moment decision and I'm very interested in hearing what you all think. Feel free to PM me if you would prefer to keep your thoughts private. I don't check the place every day but I try to, and I'm just at the point in my life that I want to tidy up some loose ends, and this is one of them. I might keep the place running, I'm really not decided on it all. But I thought I'd mention it here and see what the masses think.

No. I come here every day and refuse to accept this.

I'd be pretty bummed since I still come in everyday, but I also understand.

I'm not going to say what should or shouldn't be done, but as you weigh your options, know that if there is a way to donate with some auto-subscription thing. I'd be more than happy to be added to the list to keep the lights on. Even if I don't frequent like I used to, I still consider this home. I have small donations coming out monthly for patreon and wikipedia. I feel like the internet is better with this place around. There's a high concentration of good, honest, and knowledgeable people here. I'd like that to still be here for new people in the coming releases of Final Fantasy games and such

I'll formulate some thoughts later, but on the purely financial side of it:

Does the traffic these days on the site warrant a £40 a month hosting package? I can see how it would in EoFF's heyday, but in 2020 that price seems excessive to me for a fansite. But I also have no idea what the traffic/bandwidth usage of EoFF is like these days so it's just pure conjecture on my part.

Still, there are much cheaper hosting packages out there. Heck, vBulletin's own cloud hosting service has 2 plans that cost less than £40 a month (cuts a few of the bells and whistles of a standalone installation but the trade off is the place is kept up to date).

The Ruby package here is also a lot cheaper.

(Admittedly migrating to a new host can be a pain the rear so I can appreciate that being a concern too...)

I would not be happy if EoFF shut down. I want it to still be here when my kids are old enough to use the internet. If it is the hosting cost that is the problem, I'm sure we can work something out among some of us die hard members. If this is more about tieing up loose ends, then maybe we can also work that out.

There are currently 337 users online. 3 members and 334 lurkers.

How much does hosting the site for members cost and how much for the bots?

My thought would be to delete some of the older threads and visitor messages. Especially VMs - bots love to read VMs! This is just page one of Who's Online:

(SPOILER)Viewing Conversation FallenSilence and Laugh at face of Danger
Viewing Conversation Fynn and Skyblade
Viewing Conversation Yeargdribble and Ayen
Viewing Conversation Flying Mullet and theundeadhero
Viewing Conversation Fynn and Pumpkin
Viewing Conversation McLovin' and Shiny

I know the content of VMs means a lot to some people, and so I would be very strongly opposed to deleting anything without giving people ample time to transfer their VMs and old threads to a more permanent format on their own drives.

I would also love to go on a campaign of deleting accounts with 0 posts.

http://home.eyesonff.com/memberlist....joindate&pp=60

The overwhelming majority of bots now don't even post - they're perfectly happy just putting their links in their profile fields.

If it happens, it happens, but I'll miss you all.

As I said in the staff thread, if there's any way to cut the costs of running this place then I'd hope we'd explore all those options before bringing the shutters down.

It is an ultimate inevitably that this place will go, but if we can drag it out as long as possible with the smallest costs for everyone involved then what more would we want?

For the bots, if SEO and user acquisition is no longer a concern (which given the amount of broken frontsite links there are in older articles/pages/posts/blogs etc. that will be tanking the SEO algorithms, I guess it isn't) the bots can be combated using a Robots.txt file to block many of them, and then IP ranges on the server side can also be blocked.

Honestly I'm not even sure why EOFF gets so many bots browsing it, for ex. Zelda Universe the biggest Zelda fansite out there that's still got unusually active forums for 2020 tends to have around 5 bots for every 1 active member, not 100.

But yeah, the bots side there are plenty of ways of mitigating that. Some are quite nuclear, but there are softer ways.

I mean heck the forums are also running on an end of life version of vBulletin which doesn't help things either, and vB4 has always been kind of the Windows Vista of the vB line.

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Regarding the site BoB. You do you. EoFF has meant a lot for many of us throughout the years but there's no denying the site has been showing it's age over the past few years. The internet is moving on to a place where video is king, and social media platforms have become the new forums (sadly still missing a lot of features) - and heck a decent proportion of the regulars of EoFF have shifted over to the EoFF discord. I know this site meant a lot to you in the past, but I know your life has also changed substantially over the past 4 years or so so maybe that bond isn't as strong as it once was.

Like I said, if it's the financial side that's the main concern - there are definitely ways it that can be cut down. If it's about tieing up loose-ends and moving on, I can fully understand that too, and like Del said, maybe we can figure something out there too.

I'd be sad to see the site go as I have a lot of memories here, but there's no denying it has been on its last legs for a quite some time now. The discord is all well and good but like most social media platforms, it's very in the moment and it's hard to go back and look at this that happened weeks/months/years ago with the same context in the way you can a forum thread.

But whatever decision you make, I'll respect it.

I still visit every day. I only post once or twice a month. If the site closed it would leave a little hole where it once was, but that hole would be much smaller than it would have been a decade ago, I could move on. I'm not close to anyone here anymore and it's more comforting just seeing old faces than actually interacting with them. Most of those faces I don't see anywhere else.

I'm not sure of the main reasons you're thinking of closing the site down, but I would guess that there are solutions that could be found without the need to close the place.

There are a few things that concern me. The money is one, but if that was literally the only thing I probably wouldn't be that bothered. I know that if I offered a Patreon style thing that people would be around to help me out. I still get very rare help from Amazon so whoever is still using those links, thanks, I appreciate it.

But there are other things. Some have even been mentioned here already.

- EU regulations have kicked in. How long can we hold data? How do we manage that? Could be legal issues to consider there, and that's when I get in over my head and don't want to be running the place. I'm no lawyer, and I don't want to have to pay for a lawyer for the sake of a fansite.
- vBulletin 4 is old news and not getting updates. What do we do about that?
- Personally, while you all know what this site has meant to my life, it has also been dragged down by people who I met through here to become a place of unwanted drama in my life. Admittedly none right now, but I'm confident that this place is not the home I used to have, because if I came back full time then I am confident that I'd just wind up a bit upset about things again.
- As mentioned, I'm trying to just... simplify my life. I may regret that. I don't know. But this place is my past, now. The friends I have made on the way, I am grateful for... but I also know that I am, really deep down, just another part of the past for all but a very small handful of them, too. So yeah. That's a thing.

Seems like there's a lot of emotions left in you about this place. Sounds like it's time for you to move on, maybe not permanently, but this forum still has life for a few. I have also been around since '99-'00ish (lost my old account log in information ages ago) and I know how much this forum has been a part of your life. You were always there.

Look at it like an ex. You wouldn't want them to be gone, but that doesn't mean you can interact with them everyday either. You tried being friends, maybe it was fine for a while, but you've grown apart. That's totally okay.

I'm sure you'd always be welcome back anytime, too. You may find that after some time away, returning as a member instead of running the website may make some of the feelings you're dealing with feel far in the past.

Announcing it like this will hopefully give people a chance to take over administrative/financial responsibilities.

You've got nothing but love here BoB, but none of us are going to get mad at you for stepping away. Hopefully we can find a new caretaker.

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Originally Posted by Loony BoB

The friends I have made on the way, I am grateful for... but I also know that I am, really deep down, just another part of the past for all but a very small handful of them, too. So yeah. That's a thing.

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That's how I feel about it. I don't really have personal connections to anyone that posts here anymore, I just sort of pop in now and then becasue this place was a huge part of my life for a long time. I'd be sad to see it go but, I came to the realization that it was probably going to go away at some point a long while ago. This place was my "safe space" for much of my teenage years and a place to chill and have fun in my 20's. I miss those days for sure, this place was so much fun and full of so many different and interesting people even if I didn't always get along with everyone.

The problem with forums is that generally only the Painfully Online still visit them, and that isn't really a problem unique to here.

I met my wife on this website and I've been married to her for over a decade now, so I'd definitely be a little sad and nostalgic if it went away, but it is what it is. It's already functionally dead.

Hmm, that feeling of increasing distance and disenfranchisement is not going to lessen. It's only going to grow. If that makes the end result inevitable then this isn't a choice between keeping it up or not, it's just a matter of *when* and *how* you move on.

EoFF has been really important to me in more than a few ways, and it remains a place I visit daily with interest due to the few who still keep it going (major shoutouts to Wolf Kanno) but it has its ups and downs for sure and is certainly no longer the main place I frequent on the web, so ultimately I'd probably get over it soon enough. But I also wouldn't reject it being handed over or anything either and continue to visit as I have been. Still, even if you'd rather it shut down entirely, I don't feel you owe me or any of us anything, so whatever your choice may be I'd rather you make it for yourself than anyone else. It's not like bonds between users would just break over it, so dw too much on that front.

For me, personally I get it. I stopped coming here for most things years ago. Now and then I pop up in threads and have a post. But, if I'm honest I think the last legs status of EOFF has also made the clique mentality ever stronger. What I say may upset some people but look at this from my perspective:

At one point I was one of the most active members of EOFF and love or hate me, you all spent time interacting with me. I came back most recently because Paul invited me to partake in my first ever D&D session with some of you guys and it was fun so I figured let's post a little see how people are, engage a little. Almost exclusively, I feel like any thread I've posted in (ironically bar the one about anthromorphic sexuality a thread some of us may quite happily have seen die in obscurity following a post by me) has been ignored and died a death of deaths, or my post has been ignored completely by those around it. From my perspective I who used to be a massively integrated part of this community was "out" and by being "out" wasn't welcome here any longer.

So if EOFF was shut down Daniel, I can say this: I would miss it.

But I wouldn't miss the EOFF that currently exists, if I'm honest the EOFF that presently exists makes me more than a little sad. Sad because it was such a big part of my life and helped me so many times over when I was at low ebbs in my life and was always somewhere safe online to share the glories of the high points with too. I would miss the EOFF of it's heyday when this community was huge, diverse and genuinely funnier, more entertaining and engaging than today.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't blame anyone here for the situation with EOFF; the fact is that times have changed, we're all older with real commitments in our lives and that means that most of us don't have the time to be sat around for hours at a time playing video games and gassing about them to random people online (or not so random as so many of EOFF became). Because of this, members have slowly faded away in to the sunset. If this was a camp fire party, the campfire is burning low and more and more have finished their last beer and said "Right, well that's me done for the night guys, it's been fun but I'll see you around" except the seeing us around is no longer at the camp fire and the circle of those around the fire grows ever smaller and pretends not to notice the emptiness around them or the lack of people coming back.

These days EOFF is roughly a collection of around 40 people, many of whom like Matt (TUH) and myself are barely here, flitting in and out to check in really out of old habits and a vague curiousity as to if it's still here. If EOFF was a person, they'd be a person who is in a Long Term coma who is never expected to recover and we're the medical staff popping our heads in occassionally to check the life support machine is still switched on and detecting a pulse. The "die hard few" as Del refers to them are pretty much the devoted family members of the patient sitting by the bedside wishing for a miracle. But even for them, the attendees have started showing up less and less and no one really talks about anything anymore they just sit in silence with their thoughts not wanting to be the first to voice that they need to step back to run their own life.

That you've tried to palm EOFF off on to other members of the site/staff and they've turned you down for it says something too. EOFF is simply not a good investment of time or money for them. As much as some may hate to admit I think EOFF is something that has become our collective past and as sad as I would be to see the old girl go with such a whimper instead of a roar of triumph. If you decided to pull the plug on the site because it's simply become nothing but a drain of £480 a year to you and no one else was willing to take it from you I would understand completely. £480 a year is not a lot to some people no. But it's a holiday in parts of Europe for a long weekend, it's a months worth of groceries for a couple. It's the opportunity to build new memories with someone who matters most rather than becomming upset or angry over the failures of the past.

From the legal standpoint of GDPR well based on my job meaning I have to know what you can and can't do with data under that (as a recruitment consultant, our databases are full of candidates from years and years ago and client info etc we have to be extremely mindful of it) you would need to do the following at a minimum to keep the forums safe from any legal objections:

- You would need to contact every single member of the forums via email and ask them if the consent to having their data kept (either by logging in and accepting a "terms" document, or by clicking a link in the email) anyone who does not consent or respond to that email would be considered someone who has not given consent. This "Terms" document needs to clearly outly what information you hold on us, what use this information has, what legitimate interest you have for holding said information etc etc as well as who we contact to enact any of our rights etc and any outside sources you grant access to the data (this could be for example the hosting company you use)

- Every account that does not give consent needs deletion of any and all personal information. Names, email addresses, contact details no matter how out of date. You would also need to run an algorithm on the forum to delete this content in their posts. It would honestly be easier to just delete their posts and if it is automatable, any posts quoting their posts. This would also apply to front site articles and blog posts etc.

- Any threads I think would have a two year lifespan at best for how long GDPR would allow you to keep that information since it was last posted in. So any of the "Good Old Days" threads would be purged, about the best you could do is keep the thread heading without the content

- You need to offer access to the 8 rights protected by GDPR on request they are as follows:

1. The right to be informed <--- meaning the right to know exactly what you hold and why you hold it
2. The right of access <--- full access to any information including staff discussions and Private Messages about a person held on EOFF servers even if not on their account.
3. The right to rectification <--- The right to correct any factually wrong information
4. The right to erasure <--- the right to be forgotten essentially a full wipe of the person from the forum all mentions, posts about, PMs about etc etc and accounts associated with them
5. The right to restrict processing <--- not so applicable to EOFF so long as you're not selling the data on members
6. The right to data portability <--- you have to present all data to the person requesting right 2 in any reasonable manner they ask. I.E: If I asked you to print every single thing about me you'd be obligated to do so and provide it to me. Or a USB drive with the files accessible in any format I chose so PDF or screen dumps or text files.
7. The right to object <--- not so important again because you're not selling the data but if you were to sell the data, and someone objects, you have to pull their data from the rest of the data you are selling.
8. Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling <--- not so important

Frankly, I can understand why you would consider the need to close it down based on the GDPR nightmare this place is alone.

I've only been here a short while so my opinion might not hold as much weight as someone who's been here since the beginning, but this is definitely the FF forum I've felt most at home at. I've met many interesting people and had many interesting discussions, even if I don't agree with all of them, but that's part of why I was drawn here in the first place. It's a shame to see such a large part of the FF community that's been around for so long be gone, but if it happens it happens. And it sounds like your reasons for closing down the site are a lot more personal than just the money, so there's nothing we really can do about that. I'll definitely miss this place though, it's been a lot of fun.

What if we just move EOFF to a free forum place ?


https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Well, I'm pretty new here and I've still got Square Gamer either way. In fact, I only originally came here to start a forum flame war, but you guys were so boring about it and we were tired put from destroying FFWA, so... I guess what I'm saying is don't go disappearing before we get to have our flame war.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lord Golbez

Well, I'm pretty new here and I've still got Square Gamer either way. In fact, I only originally came here to start a forum flame war, but you guys were so boring about it and we were tired put from destroying FFWA, so... I guess what I'm saying is don't go disappearing before we get to have our flame war.

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Not gonna lie I think you'll be disappointed wrt this for eternity don't get your hopes up

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lord Golbez

Well, I'm pretty new here and I've still got Square Gamer either way. In fact, I only originally came here to start a forum flame war, but you guys were so boring about it and we were tired put from destroying FFWA, so... I guess what I'm saying is don't go disappearing before we get to have our flame war.

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You'd be batting for team EoFF now fella, you're one of our heavy hitters.

If this site does end up shutting down, please let us know ahead of time. I’ve got a couple ideas for some final threads before we say our last goodbyes to this place.


...

But I’m still hoping that’s not going to happen anytime soon! I don’t care what people say, honestly - there’s life in this forum yet! The people who have contributed fairly recently have all expressed the same sentiment and I want to believe it’s not over yet. If only I had the money, I’d buy this site from you in a heartbeat, BoB, but raising a child on just my salary with a little bit of money made by my wife on the side is stressful enough as it is for me. But to any potential investors for the future, I just want to tell you that there’s enough passion left for this site to go on for longer!

We’ve got new guys! Actual newbies joined for the first time in forever since FFVIIR launched, and they’ve all been awesome! There’s our seasonal writing contests that I’m sure will see even more good stuff in the future. The old guard may be gone, but those of us who are around do spend time together, both on here and on discord. I’m just personally not ready to say goodbye just yet, and I know I’m not the only one!

If push comes to shove, I’ll say my goobyes, and you can be damn sure I’ll make you guys cry with the power of my pathos. But as things stand now, I’ll remain hopeful. Let’s enjoy this ride while it lasts.

Well it would be sad if it disappeared.

But that hosting cost is insane. You can almost definitely find a better price for that!

The price is 80% storage costs, 18% CPU, 2% bandwidth these days. We're currently on a plan that allows for 160GB storage and I think that's because we tipped the 80GB limit on the previous plan. I don't know how much of that is actually used by the forums (I suspect less than 30GB) and how much is random files we host for the frontsite, but yeah. I just don't have the energy to deal with it.

30GB of forum text?

That seems almost impossible.

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Originally Posted by JJ Strife

30GB of forum text?

That seems almost impossible.

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20 years of posts :P

Text, attachments, profile pictures, avatars, raw files, etc. It might be much less than 30GB but it's definitely not the majority of disk space used.

its all those damn eoff nudes

i no longer speak to most of the people i met here, mostly due to my own terrible ways of interacting with people. i look back and see a lot of sadness.

there was a really good year or two (for me) and it's all the past so its not like im looking at old posts from the good-old-days. its all locked away in my brain.

if saving £40 a month makes your life easier, then let's have a nice wake, some beers, then throw the server into the sea.

I post maybe once a year now, but I show up pretty frequently to just look and see who is still around. This place was a fun place for me to hang out well before I even joined. This may even have been the first forum I joined. It's got a special place and I would be very sad to see it go, but having closed down my forum after the 10 year mark I know how even though it's not a significant cost, it is still a cost. I've been coming here for 14 years now and I'll keep coming back as long as it's around.

I have been an extremely sporadic poster here so I am not nearly as attached to this place as some people are however during the times I have checked in at this place I notice now that this site probably gets about 5% of the activity that it did ten or fifteen years ago (maybe even less than that).

Loony Bob you should never feel obligated to keep a forum up and running in this day and age if you yourself are no longer that interested in it. Probably pretty much every one here has a facebook, twitter, or instagram page that they could continue to talk about video games if this place shuts down. And there are also many other online avenues for people to socialize if that is what they are interested in. Gone are the days where message boards like this were about the only option people had to talk about their fandom with people that had similar interests or make friends around the world who had similar interests.

What I think you should do Loony Bob is open up the option for other people to take on the costs of keeping this place running. If there are people willing to carry it than great but if there is not interest in carrying the financial load than the place probably does need to be shut down. 40 a month is a lot of money. That is almost 500 a year. You should only invest money like that if you are still enjoying the place.

:eek:Dropped in to just randomly post in a couple random threads and was not expecting this...

This place has for me like so many others a lot of fun memories of great times in the past, but at the same time I have not been really active for years, purely as a result of simply not having the time like when I was a student in my early 20's. I just happen to have overslept this morning and can't fall asleep that I'm even here right now. :sweat:

What would be nice to see as a last song of the site is another mass email to see if anyone from the past wants to return for a final reunion. I can think of a few people from here I would love to try and reconnect with.

Echoing what most people have said here - I have a lot of memories of this place and it really helped shape me in my formative years, but I don't really have a leg to stand in saying I'd be sad to see it go, seeing as my last active postings were a good 5 years ago, and they were few and far between.

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

What would be nice to see as a last song of the site is another mass email to see if anyone from the past wants to return for a final reunion. I can think of a few people from here I would love to try and reconnect with.

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I'm pretty sure that would be a great laugh, and frankly a pretty fitting send off.

I think all the legal nonsense Steve was talking about is a bigger issue than the cost to keep the place running. If it was just pricing that could be easily fixed.

Legal nonsense and forum software. We've had at least one member concerned about the unsecure login!

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Originally Posted by Steve

But I wouldn't miss the EOFF that currently exists, if I'm honest the EOFF that presently exists makes me more than a little sad. Sad because it was such a big part of my life and helped me so many times over when I was at low ebbs in my life and was always somewhere safe online to share the glories of the high points with too. I would miss the EOFF of it's heyday when this community was huge, diverse and genuinely funnier, more entertaining and engaging than today.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't blame anyone here for the situation with EOFF; the fact is that times have changed, we're all older with real commitments in our lives and that means that most of us don't have the time to be sat around for hours at a time playing video games and gassing about them to random people online (or not so random as so many of EOFF became). Because of this, members have slowly faded away in to the sunset. If this was a camp fire party, the campfire is burning low and more and more have finished their last beer and said "Right, well that's me done for the night guys, it's been fun but I'll see you around" except the seeing us around is no longer at the camp fire and the circle of those around the fire grows ever smaller and pretends not to notice the emptiness around them or the lack of people coming back.

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This summarizes my feelings pretty well. To be honest, for a number of years now, coming here has felt a bit like going to my home town over the holidays and running into people from high school. Some people stuck around, some people are just passing through. But ultimately, all of our lives have moved on. Even though it's *really* nice to see everyone, and to know people are doing well, it's not where my life is now.

I saw this thread on Friday and actually tried to use the weekend to collect my thoughts. Obviously the way people use the internet is very different nowadays. There's modern, self-hosted social media software - I suggested something like an EoFF Mastodon a while back, but there wasn't a particularly enthusiastic reception, which I think is just because people like the forums. Which is sort of an impossible catch-22; 99% of our online lives now are on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc., all of which have been modernized and streamlined to integrate into your life as easily as possible. But the magic of EoFF as a message board is in a format that is just clunky relative to those other monolithic platforms. So in a lot of ways, the EoFF that we all remember and love is something that *only* could have existed and thrived in the time that it did, and that time seems to have passed.

The saddest part of realizing that is knowing that what remains of the community would scatter to the wind without this central location to tether us. Obviously there will still be clusters that keep in touch, but it will always be fragmented. People who want to keep in touch on Facebook might not want to use Discord; people who use Discord might not want to exchange phone numbers, etc. etc. (Personally, I don't even use Facebook, Twitter, Discord, etc., simply because I disagree with the way they run their businesses. I also think moving the community 100% to them is a bit short-sighted, because you ultimately cede any control to the company. Zuckerburg is never going to post a heart-felt thread asking for direction.)

To me, it's not that important to keep the content of the forums itself alive. Realistically, you could probably figure out a way to throw the whole thing into archive mode, zip it up, and share it around as a torrent if people wanted to be able to still browse it without dealing with the hosting costs. But still, there's value in having a central meeting ground for all of us to at least be able to keep in touch. Maybe that's a forums v2, where you just start from a blank slate. Just throw up a phpBB on a tiny Linode plan. Or set up something like Lemmy for EoFFers that keeps the discussion style but modernizes it. There are options. You do seem a bit weary about dealing with new platform migrations - and I completely understand that - but for what it's worth, I'm willing to lend a hand as much as I can if you want to do something to keep the lights on without maintaining 20-some-odd years of post history.

Just my thoughts. I might have too idealized a vision of how much technology could keep us all together. I'm ready to acknowledge that the era of the EoFF forums may have reached its end, but it'd be a real shame for us to lose this place as a central hub. Like I said above, even though I'm usually only passing through, it's still really nice to see you guys.
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i came back here after many years because of the FF7 remake, but in all honesty: it feels a little dead here.
it had been great discussing ff7r and bringing back some memories but by now i'm already noticing that i'm here once a week tops, and not finding anything to respond to.

The discord channel on the other hand, i really love and use alot.

if the forum would shut down it would definitely make me sad for nostalgic reasons, but at this moment that is the only reason.

delet this (website)

Add me to the list of people who stop by every once-in-a-while and would be saddened if this place went away for good. EoFF was a big part of my life for a number of years, starting over 20 years ago. Even if I don't post much anymore, it's nice knowing this place still exists.

That being said, it's your life, your money, and your website. I will say that, while I know nothing of EU law, I'm skeptical some largely-inactive fansite would be required to do anything preemptively. From what I've read of the EU's "right to be forgotten" regulations, you may just need to delete someone's posts if they request it (again, this is not legal advice).

My days of spending all my waking hours on forums are behind, but it's still nice to check this place once every few days or so, occasionally drop some incredible, world-changing opinion in a thread. A lot of EoFF frens I chat to on discord everyday (we'd still keep that, right?) but there are some who don't use it that I'd never talk to again if this place shut down.

That said - it happens. FFXII.net, FXN, all returns to dust eventually. I can't exactly pretend a grand revival with dozens of daily active users and lively 'keep refreshing the page' discussions are just around the corner. It would be a shame but I would understand and support you if and when you choose to close the doors.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wants to see EoFF close up shop, but it was always going to be an eventuality. It's not that I'm not sad about it—it absolutely does leave me melancholic—but it feels a lot like one of those growing up losses, you know? This place and all the people here have played an unreasonably integral part in my life and growth, so leaving it behind permanently is tough. But, well, as with all things, this too shall pass.

I would feel sad for the regulars and the people who would miss it, but honestly I don't think I would. I never visit anymore unless someone brings my attention to it and I think I mourned a while ago.

I got a lot from this site including a husband but, I don't know, I associate this site with a part of my life that I'm through with now. A period of painful and uncomfortable transition before I became someone who is still far from who she wants to be but is finally okay where she is instead of working from a place of fear and self-loathing. None of that is this sites fault but coming here feels like going through a photo album of a point in my life that was necessary but not something I'd like to revisit. Like puberty

I am glad to have met the people here and am forever grateful for my husband and the wonderful life that opened up for me

All of my feelings have already been echoed here by people who are better with words than I. I would be really sad to see the place go. Mostly what stu said about the central hub, I would miss that most of all. But I dont want to ask you to cart all this weight around just for our fond memories. Like Sam I would grieve, but someday this place will have to go.

I didn't get much sleep last night and am pretty much half asleep right now, so hopefully this makes sense. I wasn't here as long as some, but I still consider EoFF a big part of my life. I was probably most active here when I was feeling at my most depressed and alone, and this place really helped me in those times. I made friends that helped shape who I am now, and I also had a ton of fun with all of the events that happened back then. The Ciddies, the April Fool's Day pranks... I also enjoyed my short stint on staff. I have a lot of fond memories of this place, and I'm certainly glad I found my way to this forum however long ago. It's not really too active anymore though, and a lot of the familiar users are practically gone. Those who are still around for the most part are in the Discord. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't miss this place, but I also don't really post on here much anymore. I tend to get on Discord since it seems more active most of the time.

In any case, I will echo what I think most everyone else said that you shouldn't just hold onto this place for our sakes. I would be wary if I were in your position just because of the EU laws. I don't really know or understand those laws; so, I don't really know how much work it would be to keep this website up to par. I'd also not like that it was running on basically dead software. I personally also wouldn't be able to justify the monthly payment. I'd be sad to see it go, but I probably wouldn't keep it running in your position. Hopefully if you decided that, someone else would be able to step up and take over the site for you. Or maybe other people have some ideas to make running the site more doable.

In any case, if you decide to shut this place down, we should definitely have one final hurrah. Maybe we could somehow try to contact a bunch of the old guard to try to get them here to make the forums feel like they have the activity levels of its golden age. Maybe we could have one final Ciddies or an event along those lines (if anyone would even want to anymore). In any case, it would be fun to just bring a bunch of people back if we could make it work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Madame Adequate

delet this (website)

---

Someone call for Super Delete?

And god damn it rename Eyes on Each Other to its proper name on the way out

Proper name? What's that? Eyes Descushion?

"eoff is like a guy in a coma" - steve, 2020

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fox

A lot of EoFF frens I chat to on discord everyday (we'd still keep that, right?)

---

Yes, the Discord isn't going anywhere.

Would probably look to revamp a little bit to make it even more of an awesome place since it'd no longer be the Official Discord Server for the EoFF Forum (which allows for a bit more of a simple set up), it would be EoFF ostensibly.

Yeah.

Guys, eoff already closed. This is dream.

Having a think of things concerning the GDPR side of things.

It's possible you could have a mass email to members stating "You're registered with EOFF, unless you object to us keeping your personal data which we hold for XYZ reasons we will continue to do so. Please note under GDPR you have access to the 8 rights (list them and specify you aren't looking to sell data). If you do this you should be able to claim that non-response/objection to keeping the data is consent. Not 100% sure of this.

If the above works it should allow you to keep threads older than 2 years too but I would both as a precaution and a size management delete attachments in those threads.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Gashtacular

"eoff is like a guy in a coma" - steve, 2020

---

when you quote me like that, I have to laugh lol

(double post as very un-related to my GDPR thoughts)

​If this is the end, I'm glad one of the last threads at the top of GC was titled "Anthopomorphic sexuality."

Just cause most of you oldies left doesnt mean our weirder members did :gator:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shoeberto

​If this is the end, I'm glad one of the last threads at the top of GC was titled "Anthopomorphic sexuality."

---

And really isn't this the true meaning of Christmas

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

You were all pretty weird and this place recorded all of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Freya

You were all pretty weird and this place recorded all of it.

---

Yeah you people are all weirdos.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Freya

You were all pretty weird and this place recorded all of it.

---

There's so much it didn't record, thankfully xD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 😒

This was really just a late April Fool's designed to get everyone to come back. BoB played us all like a damn fiddle.

ITT now: We discuss paranoid conspiracy theories about BoB's true intentions.

Psy is right; he is trying to get everyone back. To prop up his SEO numbers, and sell us for top-dollar to some advertiser. The forums will just be turned into pure sponsored content optimized for ad dollars. He'll run off to the Caymans with the $$$$ he made off the sale. He's been planning this for *decades*, before even owning the site. That son of a bitch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

https://media1.giphy.com/media/bal0OZzvIWGoU/giphy.gif

I'm just gonna use this opportunity to plug my end of EoFF merch.

Here's an EoFF top posters quiz if you're feeling nostalgic: https://www.sporcle.com/games/CorrBl...-eoff-10k-club

Here's a game made in that time-honoured EoFF tradition of RPG Maker that I made 3 years ago to cope with the inevitable demise of this website. http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....te-An-EoFF-RPG That it was three years ago is pretty impressive - we survived longer than I thought!

Death of a Fansite was one of the best, most wholesome experiences I’ve ever had here and it definitely feels like a nice send-off to the community. And no I am not saying this because Psy made me a playable character - though it is very flattering ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Psychotic

Here's a game made in that time-honoured EoFF tradition of RPG Maker that I made 3 years ago to cope with the inevitable demise of this website. http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....te-An-EoFF-RPG That it was three years ago is pretty impressive - we survived longer than I thought!

---

I'm disappointed in myself for not knowing this existed before now!
Downloaded. I'll play it as soon as I can make some time.

That game gave me heavy feels and maybe I'll stream it once more after I hand the place off to someone or nobody.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

---

I don't understand how you wouldn't have know this is something I'd do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

---

I don't understand how you wouldn't have know this is something I'd do.

---

I'm sorry I confused you with someone who could be a decent human being

Death of a Fansite had fantastic gameplay and would have been legitimately fun if it had nothing to do with this place. The in jokes, references, and cameos for this place combined with that gameplay made it into something truly magical.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

Realistically, you could probably figure out a way to throw the whole thing into archive mode, zip it up, and share it around as a torrent if people wanted to be able to still browse it without dealing with the hosting costs.

---

publish the staff forum porn threads

tbh what I want is the knowledge that I can look up that one random thing I said in 2006. the people I have already

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

I'm just gonna use this opportunity to plug my end of EoFF merch.

Here's an EoFF top posters quiz if you're feeling nostalgic: https://www.sporcle.com/games/CorrBl...-eoff-10k-club

---

I got like 10 names then had to just start plugging in names from people posting in this thread

I got 0 names, and I just stalked the entire forum.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

---

I don't understand how you wouldn't have know this is something I'd do.

---

I'm sorry I confused you with someone who could be a decent human being

---

I'm surprised you keep making this mistake.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

---

I don't understand how you wouldn't have know this is something I'd do.

---

I'm sorry I confused you with someone who could be a decent human being

---

I'm surprised you keep making this mistake.

---

You've made an enemy for life

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I'm just gonna use this opportunity to plug my end of EoFF merch.

Here's an EoFF top posters quiz if you're feeling nostalgic: https://www.sporcle.com/games/CorrBl...-eoff-10k-club

Here's a game made in that time-honoured EoFF tradition of RPG Maker that I made 3 years ago to cope with the inevitable demise of this website. http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....te-An-EoFF-RPG That it was three years ago is pretty impressive - we survived longer than I thought!

---

37/59. I'm glad my penchant for absolutely useless knowledge still continues into my old age.

And Death of a Fansite was a great game. That also reminds me of Sick Irony. Does Sick Irony even exist anymore?

I have a copy on an old computer I dont feel like digging out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

I've been on a huge nostalgia run and it ended with me reading some of the posts from my most active years and I say we bite the bullet and just let this place burn before someone finds out how weird I was

---

Too late. I screenshot all your posts and tweeted them out. 

---

I am betrayed. I was foolish to have trusted you


Conspiracy theory:

This is all just an excel documented virtual reality

---

I don't understand how you wouldn't have know this is something I'd do.

---

I'm sorry I confused you with someone who could be a decent human being

---

I'm surprised you keep making this mistake.

---

You've made an enemy for life

---

Not the first. Not the last. Definitely not the best, but also not the worst enemy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I'm just gonna use this opportunity to plug my end of EoFF merch.

Here's an EoFF top posters quiz if you're feeling nostalgic: https://www.sporcle.com/games/CorrBl...-eoff-10k-club

Here's a game made in that time-honoured EoFF tradition of RPG Maker that I made 3 years ago to cope with the inevitable demise of this website. http://home.eyesonff.com/showthread....te-An-EoFF-RPG That it was three years ago is pretty impressive - we survived longer than I thought!

---

37/59. I'm glad my penchant for absolutely useless knowledge still continues into my old age.

And Death of a Fansite was a great game. That also reminds me of Sick Irony. Does Sick Irony even exist anymore?

---

DMed Mikegon on Twitter asking this.

Funny thing about death of a fansite. I never got around to playing it at the time though I learnt about me being a hidden boss. I read through the thread last night and saw a comment about Eastern European Girls and KNEW immediately it was referencing me.... am I that transparent? lmao

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steve

Funny thing about death of a fansite. I never got around to playing it at the time though I learnt about me being a hidden boss. I read through the thread last night and saw a comment about Eastern European Girls and KNEW immediately it was referencing me.... am I that transparent? lmao

---

I just booted up the game to see Steve and he killed me by pooing on me twice great experience 10/10

I've literally forgotten everything about that damn game even though I made it. You can fast travel?! Nice work, past me!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Psychotic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Steve

Funny thing about death of a fansite. I never got around to playing it at the time though I learnt about me being a hidden boss. I read through the thread last night and saw a comment about Eastern European Girls and KNEW immediately it was referencing me.... am I that transparent? lmao

---

I just booted up the game to see Steve and he killed me by pooing on me twice great experience 10/10

I've literally forgotten everything about that damn game even though I made it. You can fast travel?! Nice work, past me!

---

Is it time for an update?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I have a copy on an old computer I dont feel like digging out.

---

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

DMed Mikegon on Twitter asking this.

---

If you guys find it or hear anything, let me know. That's another game I wouldn't mind booting up at some point for the nostalgia.

I am extremely confident I have it somewhere, but I don't know what the file is named, so I'm just searching my old backups folder for "irony" atm and hoping for the best.

EDIT: While you wait, you can watch a playthrough of it here:

Found it. Look, it's me, double posting. Heck.

http://www.aiyon.com/keke/eyeonff.zip

I never played through Sick Irony but from that walkthrough and everything I've seen of it, it's clear that Mike/BOU/gokukid put a lot of effort and care into making it.

As for Death of a Fansite, it was great for about 90% of it but then took a really tragic turn. :mad:

We're all ignoring the first RPGmaker game Psy made too. If someone has a copy of that I would appreciate not having to dig through storage and hooking the old computer up for a copy.

coincidentally, i just registered this account last week to lurk and look back at some old (*old!*) threads as part of a major nostalgia trip; this was the first forum i ever posted on when i was probably around 12 years old, back in 2001. understandably, i was too shy then to really post (i don't even remember what my username was), but the community left a mark on me and it's been pretty heartwarming to realize that it's still active in some form, even if it's not as bustling as it was then. regardless of what ends up happening, i would bet there are a lot of other people like me out there who still remember this place fondly as a formative part of their lives.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

We're all ignoring the first RPGmaker game Psy made too. If someone has a copy of that I would appreciate not having to dig through storage and hooking the old computer up for a copy.

---

I was thinking about that one! I never actually finished it. I sort of feel like I need to make it a point to play through all of the EoFF RPGs now. I think Sick Irony is the only one I ever finished.

For posterity, I did upload my very old, very bad EoFF-based RPG Maker game for download just now:
https://expectnomore.net/misc/Endless_Idiocy.rar
I got it to run a few years back but can promise nothing. I made it when I was like 12. But it's absolutely Canon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theundeadhero

We're all ignoring the first RPGmaker game Psy made too. If someone has a copy of that I would appreciate not having to dig through storage and hooking the old computer up for a copy.

---

I've actually made three. I disavow BAoTW Forever as a cringy mess, the magnum opus of an edgy unfunny teenage boy. Even by standards of RPG Maker Game for a FF Forum cringe (which are cringy by default) it's terrible. Don't waste your time if you do still have a copy, it is bad and it should stay forgotten!

This is long so I'll spoiler tag it - if you're interested in my second gameThis was an abandoned project where you would play as a Cid's Knight. You could choose your name, join date (so if you were an oldbie or a newbie people might react differently) and even your avatar, represented by hundreds of sprites from generic Mage #4 to Cloud Strife, C3PO, Aladdin, and so on.

You'd start off by having to win the Eyes on's Next CK contest, making your way through a series of tasks before the final round which I had intended to be an open world Battle Royale/Hunger Games style event where you could recruit and betray allies, and you had to hunt for food and scavenge resources.

Once you won, there'd be a ceremony at the Ciddies, presented by Cid himself, before a bomb goes off, killing Cid. The sign above his head splits in two: CID DIES. Subtle. This was in the Four Admins era, and all four of us are utter lazy troutbags far too interested in our own stupid games. Del was a crooked boss extorting people, Shlup was a hedonist, I was just a stupid jackass who would randomly show up and change people's names and avatars for fun and so on. In the absence of any real leadership, you as a CK kind of take on the role of a cop/detective, and you have to solve the murder of Cid while doing jobs and quests for people.

The battle system was a tactical RPG like FF Tactics. I think it had job classes like snarker, troll, creative type and so on. I don't remember too much about it.

Its downfall was that it was entirely too ambitious. There were multiple ways to solve every quest and dialogue with NPCs. You'd also gain different types of reputation depending on what you did - if you always give snarky responses, you get known as a bit of a joker. While the cool kids might like you for that, a quieter member is not going to hire you to help with a sensitive quest. There were all sorts of scores tracked - if you were friendly or mean, intelligent or dumb, suave or uncharismatic, trustworthy or a charlatan, and so on.

It is now literally unplayable because RPG Maker XP is awful. And, yeah, far too ambitious. But I think a dozen people played my demo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

Found it. Look, it's me, double posting. Heck.

http://www.aiyon.com/keke/eyeonff.zip

---

Thank you! Now I have that and Death of a Fansite downloaded.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

I never played through Sick Irony but from that walkthrough and everything I've seen of it, it's clear that Mike/BOU/gokukid put a lot of effort and care into making it.

---

Mike did do a great job, even if I'm a much better waiter/spinner than him.

It stays as forgotten as Friggin Fantasy 7, sorry buddy.

The version of Sick Irony DT posted requires you to install RPG Maker or RPG Maker RTP, and it's not super obvious how to get it to work. Here is the game in one zip file, fully playable on modern machines (every platform you can imagine is supported by EasyRPG), hosted on my GDrive: Eyes on FF: Sick Irony DOWNLOAD

Here is Marcus Huculak's walkthrough. I also included this in the zip file.

This game actually did take a lot of work. I spent all summer and most of Fall during my Sophomore/Junior year of high school making it, I'm pretty sure. Erik Ramza assisted with dungeon design. Many games did not have sprite rips that you could just find on google, so a lot of the sprites that look ripped from popular Squaresoft games were actually screenshotted by me from emulators, imported into Paint Shop Pro, and then cut and pasted into spritesheets compatible with RPG Maker. When it was finally done, I stayed up all night bug-squashing, and then the next morning stayed home from school to upload all FIFTY MEGABYTES of game files combined with the RPG Maker asset pack on my 56k modem. My mom was pissed when she found out why I didn't go to school, and why she couldn't use the phone all morning. The final sequence of the game where I write a love letter to the community on a black background was thrown together at the last minute because I really, REALLY didn't have an ending. But the sentiment was good and it still stands.

BoBo, this choice can't be easy for you. I'd hate to see the forum go, but I'm very glad to see that there are people who are invested in keeping this beacon shining in some form for years to come no matter what.

Thanks, Mike! And ahaha I never knew that story about uploading Sick Irony. Kids these days will never understand the struggles we faced with dial up internet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

It stays as forgotten as Friggin Fantasy 7, sorry buddy.

---

Pffft, Frig7 will never be forgotten. PIPE!

"I'm Batman... wait, no, that's not right..."

or something to that effect. :) I probably still have Frig7 on my PC somewhere too. You guys know me, I keep everything as much as I can.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Big Ogre Umaro

This game actually did take a lot of work. I spent all summer and most of Fall during my Sophomore/Junior year of high school making it, I'm pretty sure. Erik Ramza assisted with dungeon design. Many games did not have sprite rips that you could just find on google, so a lot of the sprites that look ripped from popular Squaresoft games were actually screenshotted by me from emulators, imported into Paint Shop Pro, and then cut and pasted into spritesheets compatible with RPG Maker. When it was finally done, I stayed up all night bug-squashing, and then the next morning stayed home from school to upload all FIFTY MEGABYTES of game files combined with the RPG Maker asset pack on my 56k modem. My mom was pissed when she found out why I didn't go to school, and why she couldn't use the phone all morning. The final sequence of the game where I write a love letter to the community on a black background was thrown together at the last minute because I really, REALLY didn't have an ending. But the sentiment was good and it still stands.

---

This is amazing. Thank you for providing the commentary, what a nostalgia rush.

did anyone lets play death of a fansite?

i tried it for the first time and couldnt beat sephex and his jerk hole and idk if can justify skipping more work today to try beat that smurfer

Someone obviously needs to livestream Death of a fansite on twitch. I will be there all night eating one cheese doodle at a time.

EoFF, I don't really feel I have a say in anything happening these days, it's been so long since I did much else than lurking. I had a blast here during my high school and even college years, but I guess it's just a whole different time and life now. I don't have the same patience for text as I used to have, there's that as well. I'm still grateful for some amazing friendships I've had, but not been able to keep up with. I still consider them friends regardless of how much time has passed to be honest.

Anyway, not much help from me as per usual I'm afraid, do what feels right!

I streamed it on Twitch. It was ages ago so the VODs are gone now, but yeah.

I started playing Death of a Fansite last night and it's wonderful. Only made it up to Sephex because I didn't have a huge amount of time.

Question for Psy: Did you make that with RPG Maker MV? Any chance you could make an Android APK if so?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shoeberto

I started playing Death of a Fansite last night and it's wonderful. Only made it up to Sephex because I didn't have a huge amount of time.

Question for Psy: Did you make that with RPG Maker MV? Any chance you could make an Android APK if so?

---

Yes I did. I can have a look at that, though I remember some stupid deployment issues the first time around.

--

Also, as this thread is diverging slightly and while everyone is still here, I just want to say it's been good to see you all again. It's brought back a lot of memories and though I'm terrible at expressing emotion here goes nothing.

Thanks for bringing fun, laughs, enlightenment and good times, and thank you for both tolerating my stupid dumb sense of humour and supporting my creative endeavours. I truly hope you've all found joy and purpose in wherever your lives have taken you. I can't think of anything more profound than these clichés so I'm sorry if this all seems a little superficial and generic, but please know I mean it and wish the best for you, regardless of if we've had a handful or hundreds of interactions over the years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Psychotic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shoeberto

I started playing Death of a Fansite last night and it's wonderful. Only made it up to Sephex because I didn't have a huge amount of time.

Question for Psy: Did you make that with RPG Maker MV? Any chance you could make an Android APK if so?

---

Yes I did. I can have a look at that, though I remember some stupid deployment issues the first time around.

--

Also, as this thread is diverging slightly and while everyone is still here, I just want to say it's been good to see you all again. It's brought back a lot of memories and though I'm terrible at expressing emotion here goes nothing.

Thanks for bringing fun, laughs, enlightenment and good times, and thank you for both tolerating my stupid dumb sense of humour and supporting my creative endeavours. I truly hope you've all found joy and purpose in wherever your lives have taken you. I can't think of anything more profound than these clichés so I'm sorry if this all seems a little superficial and generic, but please know I mean it and wish the best for you, regardless of if we've had a handful or hundreds of interactions over the years.

---

I don't recognize anyone here anymore, so it really doesn't matter to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by escobert

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JJ Strife

30GB of forum text?

That seems almost impossible.

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20 years of posts :P

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So why can't you just delete the first 15 years worth?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JJ Strife

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by escobert

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JJ Strife

30GB of forum text?

That seems almost impossible.

---

20 years of posts :P

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So why can't you just delete the first 15 years worth?

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Sentimental value.

They deleted the member wiki at some point and I'm still sad

Also the arcade. :(

I don't know if I remember the EoFF arcade or another forum's arcade, but yes they also got rid of that and the TRIPLE TRIAD WHERE I WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD

You can't just delete old posts, how am I supposed to look up what Spatvark thought about Final Fantasy 7 if you do that??

How about we just delete everything

That would be the easy solution, I know.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Sentimental value.

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Ask the host if they take that as a currency.

:whimper::crying:

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Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

They deleted the member wiki at some point and I'm still sad

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all that work, lost to the oblivion of the internet. :(

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

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Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

They deleted the member wiki at some point and I'm still sad

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all that work, lost to the oblivion of the internet. :(

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Someone must have saved it!

Definitely voting for everybody saving 1 thread each so, one day in the far distant future, a bunch of traumatised descendants can piece together part​ of this clustersmurf and make some new friends discussing whatever the hell you call this :jiro:

I would at least like to become an Admin and Cid's Knight before the shutdown so I can complete a full house of EoFF staff titles.

Yes I need to be a Cid's Knight dammit.

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Definitely voting for everybody saving 1 thread each so, one day in the far distant future, a bunch of traumatised descendants can piece together part​ of this clustersmurf and make some new friends discussing whatever the hell you call this :jiro:

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In all seriousness, I spent some time this weekend on automatically crawling the entire forums and archiving its (public-facing) content for posterity. I could probably set it up to log in so it can at least get Lifestream and whatnot...

Anyways, my internet died this morning, so the crawler was shut down. I can't get a technician out until Wednesday. MAYBE IT'S A SIGN.

Google doesn't forget.

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Originally Posted by Aulayna

I would at least like to become an Admin and Cid's Knight before the shutdown so I can complete a full house of EoFF staff titles.

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Haha yes, I need to become an Admin to do the same. Just to complete the full set of titles, of course. Not to ban Shlup or anything.

I think I was briefly site staff as the first news writer so that just leaves admin for me! Wait



I think we have Tech Admin as well

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Definitely voting for everybody saving 1 thread each so, one day in the far distant future, a bunch of traumatised descendants can piece together part​ of this clustersmurf and make some new friends discussing whatever the hell you call this :jiro:

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In all seriousness, I spent some time this weekend on automatically crawling the entire forums and archiving its (public-facing) content for posterity. I could probably set it up to log in so it can at least get Lifestream and whatnot...

Anyways, my internet died this morning, so the crawler was shut down. I can't get a technician out until Wednesday. MAYBE IT'S A SIGN.

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I would be interested in doing this. Does it archive in HTML format, or just text? Are images archived and properly linked?

We’re gonna have a huge EOFF shut-down party, right? Things to be included...

- Official countdown to the switch off.
- Swear filter completely lifted for one night.
- A karaoke thunderdome containing songs about leaving/saying goodbye
- Every single person on the ban list reinstated.
- All members to post at least one embarrassing moment concerning Steve.
- All previous nudes to be released in a new picture thread.
- Midgar Mist’s complete poetry collection re-posted.
- Official confirmation that soup is a food.
- A 24-hour filter for Fynn so that whenever he mentions the word Witcher it auto-corrects to Willy.

I’ll also post my final Mass Effect Adventures update one minute before switch off so no-one will get to read it.

Please all feel free to add further conditions to apply which will further enhance our night of wonder.

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Originally Posted by Shauna

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Originally Posted by Fox

A lot of EoFF frens I chat to on discord everyday (we'd still keep that, right?)

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Yes, the Discord isn't going anywhere.

Would probably look to revamp a little bit to make it even more of an awesome place since it'd no longer be the Official Discord Server for the EoFF Forum (which allows for a bit more of a simple set up), it would be EoFF ostensibly.

Yeah.

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Is the IRC channel still out there, too?

It might be! I haven't tried to log into it since Discord became the thing.

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Originally Posted by Vyk

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Definitely voting for everybody saving 1 thread each so, one day in the far distant future, a bunch of traumatised descendants can piece together part​ of this clustersmurf and make some new friends discussing whatever the hell you call this :jiro:

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In all seriousness, I spent some time this weekend on automatically crawling the entire forums and archiving its (public-facing) content for posterity. I could probably set it up to log in so it can at least get Lifestream and whatnot...

Anyways, my internet died this morning, so the crawler was shut down. I can't get a technician out until Wednesday. MAYBE IT'S A SIGN.

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I would be interested in doing this. Does it archive in HTML format, or just text? Are images archived and properly linked?

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HTML, with images, and supposedly with links updated to point to local references:
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content...-web-site-wget
Still waiting for the cable company to fix my connection; the cable coming into the building literally fried itself. Once it's back up I'll resume the archiving.

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vyk

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Originally Posted by Shoeberto

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Definitely voting for everybody saving 1 thread each so, one day in the far distant future, a bunch of traumatised descendants can piece together part​ of this clustersmurf and make some new friends discussing whatever the hell you call this :jiro:

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In all seriousness, I spent some time this weekend on automatically crawling the entire forums and archiving its (public-facing) content for posterity. I could probably set it up to log in so it can at least get Lifestream and whatnot...

Anyways, my internet died this morning, so the crawler was shut down. I can't get a technician out until Wednesday. MAYBE IT'S A SIGN.

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I would be interested in doing this. Does it archive in HTML format, or just text? Are images archived and properly linked?

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HTML, with images, and supposedly with links updated to point to local references:
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content...-web-site-wget
Still waiting for the cable company to fix my connection; the cable coming into the building literally fried itself. Once it's back up I'll resume the archiving.

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Googling how to do this logged in, and will have to do a couple of test runs and then I will likely join you in the endeavor, but it seems straight forward enough. Thank you, immensely for directing me to this. After surviving 3 house fires and slowly losing everything from my past, nostalgia is a very important thing to me. I can preserve my online home

My 2 cents:

Count me among the members who would hate to see this place go. And I say that as someone who has "left" more than once.

It may not be as bustling as it once was but there's no place I'd rather go to talk about new FF releases, as I have been doing for the past 15 years.

I'd hate for a Final Fantasy XVI or an FFVII Remake sequel to come out and then have no place to talk about it but a flying wall of discord messages.

One of the great things about this forum, largely, is that due to the small but dedicated userbase, the site has matured with the members. There's no way I'm going to go to like a GameFAQs and revert to a populous of teenage one upmanship.

I would ask the people who turned your ownership offer down if they'd reconsider under the condition that it be fully funded on like a Patreon. At that point, it's at no cost to them aside from keeping the lights on.

Also, yall can sub to my patreon while you're at it.

I'll draw you sexy wholesome tifas?

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Originally Posted by Freya

Also, yall can sub to my patreon while you're at it.

I'll draw you sexy wholesome tifas?

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No sexy FFXII Chewbacca ? :(

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Originally Posted by Bubba

- All members to post at least one embarrassing moment concerning Steve.

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I don't think there's enough embarassing moments concerning me. You all think I'm embarassed? No, it is you who is embarassed.

Wow, what did i miss? :bigsmile:

So, the entire world has gone to trout, and then this?!

Looks like the end result is this. :) All is well.

Yay :D

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Originally Posted by CimminyCricket

They deleted the member wiki at some point and I'm still sad

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Aww, the member wiki was the best part. All my Ciddies :(


EDIT: Doing a quick search looks like I had
Mid-2006
Most Missed Member
End 2005
Best Regular
MLT Get Banned (and howdy I sure did)
MLT Win a Ciddie for the First time


Still bitter about losing to Psy for best spammer and the fact that me and Dan lost MLT get together.

This place had a big influence on me from the end of my teens to almost my mid-20s. Lots of fond memories, and I've met people here who I've stayed in touch with to this day.

That said, it's inevitable that the site will one day go dark. Keeping it online as a shrine to a now-past era in online culture has a certain appeal, but continuing to incur expense for the sake of nostalgia, or out of a faint hope that it might burst back into activity, just feels kind of saddening. If I had to choose, I'd vote for a definite end point, rather than a perpetual digital limbo.

Then again, it's easy for me to say that because I'm still connected, on other social media, with a lot of the people who mean the most to me. For folks who use EoFF as their online social hub, this place is surely as valuable as ever.

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

What would be nice to see as a last song of the site is another mass email to see if anyone from the past wants to return for a final reunion. I can think of a few people from here I would love to try and reconnect with.

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This is a fantastic idea, and it'd be one heck of a touching send-off. I think I'd actually shed a tear or two if I was online at the very end and saw "all cookies cleared" for the final time.

...And now I see that Del's taken over ownership and all's well for the future. No worries, and it's good to know that we'll keep on keeping on :thumb:

I wasn't around for most of your ownership tenure, BoB, but if it was anything like how you handled things when I was around then it's safe to say it was great! And you found someone else great to take up the reins. Even though I don't post regularly anymore it's still nice knowing this place is out there. :)

I would be sad, this is one of the few sites that are still around from my High school days. So much has chanced since then.

2 years on I seem to be the only person that posted in this thread that is active.:mymelbert:

The irony is that my original post was entirely neutral.

I'm still upset about the Member Wiki disappearing. Jiro's entry on me was amazing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shauna

How about we just delete everything

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Hmmmmm

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Originally Posted by Christmas

2 years on I seem to be the only person that posted in this thread that is active.:mymelbert:

The irony is that my original post was entirely neutral.

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Don't revive threads like this :colbert:

If we want EoFF to last forever, we have to rid the cultural zeitgeist of the idea that it could even go away to begin with :bigsmile:

Agreed. I want to come back here in my 50s and see everyone again :P

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

You remember the pact, right? The last EoFFer remaining gets the secret to Cid's lost gold.

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But the gold is haunted :ohdear:

We should genuinely start a tontine, though.

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Originally Posted by Shauna

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Originally Posted by Shauna

How about we just delete everything

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Hmmmmm

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If my old FTP login still works I could make this a reality :thinking:

You would get less than half. I could restore the rest from backups I made when I had ftp access :p

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Originally Posted by Aulayna

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shauna

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Originally Posted by Shauna

How about we just delete everything

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Hmmmmm

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If my old FTP login still works I could make this a reality :thinking:

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Ban this.

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Originally Posted by Aulayna

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shauna

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Originally Posted by Shauna

How about we just delete everything

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Hmmmmm

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If my old FTP login still works I could make this a reality :thinking:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

You would get less than half. I could restore the rest from backups I made when I had ftp access :p

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It is interesting to note that those joined in the 2000s and specifically 2005 ~ 2006 tends to stick around/visit and post more more based on my observation? According to BoB's stats in a previous thread, the activities here peaked around Aug 2006 and those were the times which I had the best memories. I reckon this make us return to this site every now and then unknowingly. Or maybe majority of the members here joined that time.

I would guess a combination of the forum being very active so a lot of memories were made, and just the sheer numbers of people back then mean statistically more people from that era would still be around.

It's a pity I was still mostly in FF9 Forum for 2006. Sounds like I missed out!

But Godzilla3001 has been here since 2004! You have been wanking in the FFIX forum that long?

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Originally Posted by A Pint of Quinness

It's a pity I was still mostly in FF9 Forum for 2006. Sounds like I missed out!

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But you met The Devilman. One of the greatest member EoFF ever had! :bigsmile:

This is very true. He was my favourite of your alts. <3

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

But the gold is haunted :ohdear:

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You could say it's... Fool's Gold.