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Recent events & OG's future

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Well this has been a messy few months. for those that didn't know, Morphic took over OG in December after I (Damien) was repeatedly attacked by people posting claims that could be proven false. (More on that later)

Around 10 days ago information was sent to me that one of OG's former staff, MrPinball64, who was demoted in December was infact a known scammer. The stress from dealing with this lead to Moprhic quitting OG and things I'd rather not going into happened. He gave two choices, Let OG burn or make me take it back until another owner can be found. OG will not be sold, it'll only go to a group that's proven to be trusted and does preservation without drama. If nothing suitable is found it'll remain online as is with just the staff managing. The server's are fully paid for over a year and the site will not close. It will however be forced to change.

Upon being given OG back I took staff approved steps of banning him from here, and the Discord. Enough information was provided so we agreed best to ban. This however has resulted in another glaring issue, People posting constant baseless claims about both users & OG's staff. From now on any claims must have concreate evidence supplied. OG will not step into "offsite" matters from now on unless it harms us.

Prime examples of baseless claims can be such that I've been accused of scamming and stealing OG's users information. This was never the case and a TL;DR spoiler has more info.
In March a group of 10 PS3 kits was sold for £1100, this included a single PS2 TEST KIT.

Around this time my home was flooded, it caused major damage to my home and belows. Everything was stored safely, nothing was ever damaged. Due to the flood I agreed to look after their friends dog upon help them repair any damage to their home, this was roughly June and unknown to me this Dog was disabled, It piss, shit everywhere, it ripped carpets, damaged furniture and terrified my cats. The stress from this lead to me having to take me time, I explained to buyers who said this is fine.

During this time I was hunting for free boxes, I have no car/transport so I'm stuck. It's over 1 mile to the closest shop and due to Covid they wouldn't give free ones. I didn't want buyers to fork out for a £5 box when I could get them free.

I should also mention, I had to dump/decrypt each kit and do data recovery/upload images/data.

Three kits were shipped on the 8th of July. Me and staff paid the postage costs in full this was £112.15/$157USD I never got a real thanks for this. The UK has been in lockdown most of this time, we get fined if we go out and I wasn't walking 1mile+ with peoples valuables.

A month later, on 22nd of September I shipped another kit it cost me again £16.47 out of pocket. that makes 4 kits shipped, The next in line was EdTheNerd, the UK then went into lockdown again. We've been in and out of it since which is when I got bad news, my mother is sick and on top of this my grandmother is dying of cancer, I told Ed there'd be more delays but instead of showing care he moaned in private and never spoke to me direct. This is where I was then accused of scamming, I leaked some builds as I was upset which I shouldn't have this was later resolved with the user Xe posting I hadn't scammed.
1613755169755.png

In late December, while still being in lockdown MrPinball64 sent me a passworded GoldenEye XBLA build, I can't remember exactly what happened but I was attacked/doxxed by people and I got extremely upset, I leaked the passworded build and left. Ed again got pissy as no kit, I refunded him £105 which he hasn't told people. He posted this in a private Discord channel proving I had refunded him, he made no mentions elsewhere resulting in people accusing me of being a scammer.
1613755299458.png
He profited £5.

I then google'd a users info which had been sent to me on AG, they were using hacked info and being upset I logged into their account to prove they didn't listen to our own advice, do not reuse passwords, use 2FA. One was reported to the FBI for illegal things found offsite.

I know I done wrong things, but I never once abused OG's user information. I'm sorry if you feel betrayed. All IP's are in INET_NTOA format, Passwords are encrypted using BCRYPT. I've never scammed. I've never taken donations for personal gain. I've failed you yes, but I'll be gone again as soon as a replacement is found. If no replacement is found OG will run with it's current staff making all decisions. The bills are paid, OG will not close.

Another example of baseless claims was made by Shane Battye claiming a user was MrPinball64 and the OG staff share accounts, this has not and will not ever be the case. (The account I'm posting on was made by Morphic to do backend upgrades he couldn't it never had user access etc until he left. ) Shane's baseless attacks are based on a user saying "aha" yet with a little research he could find out the user was real, Shane had the users address and mobile number from transactions, could verify it wasn't the banned user. OG has a zero policy on scammers and will never bend to demands by them. OG also has never had shared staff accounts, and to show this we recorded the admin panel showing MrPinball64 is infact banned and no secret staff accounts exist.
https://youtu.be/mpHU9t0Ec3k

From now on OG will be forced to ban any users posting baseless claims, although this is be based upon any evidence provided. Baseless claims can cause real life harm as Shane is fully aware of now. I honestly feel both of you should apologize to each other and you should apologise to those you accused without evidence.

Now, onto privacy, many of you maybe still worried which is why I installed a new feature, PM/Conversation encryption. You can now encrypt your PM's and for 7 days your message will be cached with a key, if you lose the key, you lose the message simple as. The key once exchanged with the user it's sent to will then be purged from the database.

1613758052413.png

1613758080226.png
You, and the party you sent to will get this screen on first message.

If you enter the wrong key/lose it you will see this,
1613758128507.png


Back in September OG became a company/online museum. Sadly due to the baseless claims/attacks this is ruined now. This is costing me hundreds in taxes.

Going over feedback, it seems users feel the site is too cluttered I decided to condense most sections or make them subforums, this means you will have to select a prefix to find content.

Back when Morphic took over he also asked me to kill sub projects, i.e the assembler archive. The server is gone now and there is no intentions of bringing these projects back. Backups were also destroyed upon request.

Regarding Group Buys, these will no longer be happening. With peoples attitude and lack of care no staff are willing to do. Which reminds me, the 2.0 saturn buy was completed, the one also MrPinball64 messed up.. Discs are being shipped any time and tracking is sent to staff. Data will be released whenever they arrive and are dumped.

If you have any questions, please ask or a member of staff will reply.
 

Tongara

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Yeah, it's great to see it back up, just wish any page would load. haha
 

FamilyGuy

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Doesn't want to load for me at all. I'm trying to find one darn thread too, because the archive I found has no pictures.
I'll try to look into my own backup. Remind me via PM in a few days if I haven't updated you.

How legal or not would hosting the backup on GitHub be? So that we can collaborate on fixing stuff?
 

Damien

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Doesn't want to load for me at all. I'm trying to find one darn thread too, because the archive I found has no pictures.
The pictures never worked on ours. We manually created the database from scratch, I'm not sure if I could "trick xenforo" into taking old backups. I think I have 8GB of attachements still.
Yeah, it's great to see it back up, just wish any page would load. haha
Issue is the old servers gone, I'm not staying here more so with the freak show that caused me to leave still firing without care.
I'll try to look into my own backup. Remind me via PM in a few days if I haven't updated you.

How legal or not would hosting the backup on GitHub be? So that we can collaborate on fixing stuff?
The issue with the .org clone is the guy didn't keep the ID's from AG.com, The one he has post 1 could be post 55 where's post 1 on the one we had is still post 1.

We made sure every id matched unless the script we had coded messed any up. this means if you wanted
https://www.assemblergames.com/threads/signature-maximum-image-size.67238/ on the archive it's
https://www.assembler-games.com/threads/signature-maximum-image-size.67238/ the only change is - in the url.

If there's enough demand I'll sort another VPS but the main concern is if the new owner once found will be able to afford. So I stuck it on the CDN which isn't designed for loads like this. The VPS we had before had 8GB ram where's this only has 4GB and it also lacks an SSD.
 

FamilyGuy

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The pictures never worked on ours. We manually created the database from scratch, I'm not sure if I could "trick xenforo" into taking old backups. I think I have 8GB of attachements still.

Issue is the old servers gone, I'm not staying here more so with the freak show that caused me to leave still firing without care.

The issue with the .org clone is the guy didn't keep the ID's from AG.com, The one he has post 1 could be post 55 where's post 1 on the one we had is still post 1.

We made sure every id matched unless the script we had coded messed any up. this means if you wanted
https://www.assemblergames.com/threads/signature-maximum-image-size.67238/ on the archive it's
https://www.assembler-games.com/threads/signature-maximum-image-size.67238/ the only change is - in the url.

If there's enough demand I'll sort another VPS but the main concern is if the new owner once found will be able to afford. So I stuck it on the CDN which isn't designed for loads like this. The VPS we had before had 8GB ram where's this only has 4GB and it also lacks an SSD.
Turns out that I'm not sure if I backed up all of AG or only my PMs.

In any case, hosting the backup on a github repo should be feasible no?

I'm thinking this: https://pages.github.com/

Microsoft owns github now, so their servers should handle that just fine. Plus, if people want to take a look at the pages and fix stuff, they could do that and submit pull request.
 

Damien

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Turns out that I'm not sure if I backed up all of AG or only my PMs.

In any case, hosting the backup on a github repo should be feasible no?

I'm thinking this: https://pages.github.com/

Microsoft owns github now, so their servers should handle that just fine. Plus, if people want to take a look at the pages and fix stuff, they could do that and submit pull request.
I'm unsure if they would let us host the MySQL database, on top it's under a paid XenForo license which means I can't legally post files from XenForo, at best I could convert it to PHPBB or something from this. Database itself is easy, I just remove the login info/ip logs. But it'd mean converting it back to HTML would be a real pain.

I'm not sure how feasable it would be to convert to simply HTML when we have wgets etc. The idea of this was always to keep info readable in as basic means as possible. phpBB whild I dislike it could work maybe. I think it may even allow HTML so posts would show better. I guess I'll order another VPS tonight and look better.
 

FamilyGuy

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I'm unsure if they would let us host the MySQL database, on top it's under a paid XenForo license which means I can't legally post files from XenForo, at best I could convert it to PHPBB or something from this. Database itself is easy, I just remove the login info/ip logs. But it'd mean converting it back to HTML would be a real pain.

I'm not sure how feasable it would be to convert to simply HTML when we have wgets etc. The idea of this was always to keep info readable in as basic means as possible. phpBB whild I dislike it could work maybe. I think it may even allow HTML so posts would show better. I guess I'll order another VPS tonight and look better.
IMO just a static HTML website would be fine. Just like a WGET dump.

GitHub host projects with no limitation to size as long as they are public and legal.
 

Damien

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IMO just a static HTML website would be fine. Just like a WGET dump.

GitHub host projects with no limitation to size as long as they are public and legal.
We did that the first time, then users moaned it wasn't searchable. Which lead to a fully custom system that overloaded so we just moved it to xenforo.

Seem's the server we used to have for this is no longer sold and the next one near to it's specs is double the price. I'll look into maybe trying MyBB it seems that works, phpBB doesn't have a means to convert from what we use. Other worry about releasing an almost intact clone is people making AG fakes. We've already got people trying to steal OG and it's users over stuff they're to thick to read about.
 

Greg2600

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We did that the first time, then users moaned it wasn't searchable. Which lead to a fully custom system that overloaded so we just moved it to xenforo.

Seem's the server we used to have for this is no longer sold and the next one near to it's specs is double the price. I'll look into maybe trying MyBB it seems that works, phpBB doesn't have a means to convert from what we use. Other worry about releasing an almost intact clone is people making AG fakes. We've already got people trying to steal OG and it's users over stuff they're to thick to read about.
Searchable? Goodness, they can't just let google search it? "Atari Jaguar 123456 site:assembler-backup.com"
 

Arcadia

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I think I've just experienced some of this drama in this thread.

If this is some admin or mod abusing his powers I'm gone.
 

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deadlegion

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This may seem really obvious but if people are interested in buying and/or selling stuff it might be helpful if they actually displayed (or included in relevant thread/post) their country or at least region (eg North America, Europe). Why you would want to omit that information with the world the way it is at the moment is beyond my understanding.
 

Damien

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I think I've just experienced some of this drama in this thread.

If this is some admin or mod abusing his powers I'm gone.
I’m unsure whats going on currently on a bus to get a tooth repaired. From what i can access on phone no staff have. It appears there maybe a bug in the warnings system the user will be removed until I am home
 
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Arcadia

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I’m unsure whats going on currently on a bus to get a tooth repaired. From what i can access on phone no staff have. It appears there maybe a bug in the warnings system the user will be removed until I am home
Thanks for clearing that up Damien. Top job.
 

Anthony817

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Why were all the development sections merged? Now it is a huge clusterfuck checking for old threads for system specific stuff.
 

Damien

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Doesn't want to load for me at all. I'm trying to find one darn thread too, because the archive I found has no pictures.
Yeah it never had any it's too complex to manaully add them, we have 8GB of attachments with correct id's and it's in the wget releases too but if something is important I'll try manually finding.
This may seem really obvious but if people are interested in buying and/or selling stuff it might be helpful if they actually displayed (or included in relevant thread/post) their country or at least region (eg North America, Europe). Why you would want to omit that information with the world the way it is at the moment is beyond my understanding.
The bummer to this is XenForo only allows one prefix. I've often suggested making a proper marketplace/classifieds for OG but nobody's really bothered.
Thanks for clearing that up Damien. Top job.
Sorry this happened, it seems I made a mistake (or one of the older staff) and left warning perms on retail. I disabled that, banned the user for a week for impersonating staff. RacingFreak revoked the warnings given as I couldn't do due to poor signal.
Why were all the development sections merged? Now it is a huge clusterfuck checking for old threads for system specific stuff.
This was requested on the Discord, just nobody ever added prefixes to their threads. If you click the prefix at the top of the forum it wouuld display just those threads. I'm manually editing each page of threads to correct this.
 

Anthony817

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How many people requested this on the discord though? Just curious if it was just like a single person saying this or something and affecting the complete layout of the site over it? I thought it was best the way it was as it mirrored the layout of the way it was done over at Assembler and things were way easier to see. I mean I liked seeing all Sega stuff in 1 place, but it would appear we have to filter by each individual system now instead of seeing all systems by a single manufacturer like before?

Myself and many others always added prefixes to our threads at least I can say megavolt85 myself and few oithers did in the Sega section. Just make it mandatory for each thread in that section of the forum, or for all so people adhere by the rules better maybe? I mean you are doing a great job coming back after all this time to keep the ship afloat so it is really admirable what you have been doing. I just think if it was a minority of the people asking for it or 1 person that isn't the best way to go about it maybe? I just think we should have maybe held a poll to gauge the interest of the community what was best to do?
 

Dans34

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We have streamlined the forum experience by either merging or completely removing some sections

The Programming And Development section was very under used even after merging all the different systems it only has 404 threads in it
 

T_chan

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The Programming And Development section was very under used even after merging all the different systems it only has 404 threads in it

I'd propose to do something like "Resources, Tools & Guides" on the main page then, but per brand -

Programming & Development
Microsoft Sega
Nintendo Sony
Others

After all, if you take eg the "Dreamcast" tag, you'll find 5 pages worth of threads... much more than the whole "Resources, Tools & Guides" combined...

When I'm looking for news/info, I'm OK with info for the same brand (eg: looking for Dreamcast, but having info about the Saturn from time to time is OK), but when all brands are mixed, it becomes a mess/cumbersome
 

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You guys basically took the 2 worst aspects of the AG community (beta/proto collectors and live chat) and made that the main focus of this site.

99% of the drama on AG was due to people sharing/stealing/scamming beta games and people causing hassle in the live chat.

Most of the vita information on AG that nobody wants to loose is related to modding/hardware/research.
These where the sections of AG where most of the members where mature and respectful.
 

Anthony817

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We have streamlined the forum experience by either merging or completely removing some sections

The Programming And Development section was very under used even after merging all the different systems it only has 404 threads in it

Now I don't know about that. You have to understand developing homebrew takes lots of time. So it is reasonable that it would not be as active as some other areas. 404 threads is a shitload for only a few years for a really niche site like this. If you checked the Sega section regularly, you would see those many pages which showed we still have one of the largest active homebrew community thus far. Even OG Xbox is an active community but I will admit that section wasn't nearly as active as the Sega one here. I tried to post a few threads in that and the Sony sections whenever I could find interesting things going on in those communities I really liked and kept up with.

But the PS3 sadly can't hold a candle to the Dreamcast and OG Xbox's large collection of homebrew games like PC ports and other stuff otherwise I would have posted a lot more in the Sony section. I may be more active in the Dreamcast community but I like those other 2 very much so, but the truth is other than the Xbox, and maybe Wii and PSP and Vita you didn't really see a lot of other consoles get the same kind of homebrew community around it like the Dreamcast and OG Xbox. Blame that on lack of open SDK's and ability for PS3 homebrew games to tap into the RSX GPU or any number of factors you want, but now the sad truth is we have to sift through everything else to find stuff which should have honestly been left alone for aruably the most active development section on the site.

I wouldn't call that streamlining when it introduces way more complexity and complicates things and disorganizes them further. I love this place, it is the best thing to happen to the alpha/beta/unreleased/homebrew gaming community since Assembler went to shit and ultimately died. I just think I am not alone in saying the development section was best left untouched.
 

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Im usually not into drama...at all...but...what the actual fuck is going on here ?!

This forum just go born...wasnt AG a lesson ?! To all of you ?!

Harrassment and lies !?! Scam Accusing ? Accounts claimed to be compromised ? Deleted Assemblergames archive ?!

Honestly, after the McDonalds ROM incident I was already about to leave all of this behind me.
Sick bastards messing with the mind and feelings of honest people !!!111 Why would anyone tolerate that and make fun of it !? Disgusting !

Assemblergames was my home (btw.: FOOK YOU KEV!N!) and I was honestly hoping to be able to re-start here...sigh

I always was a silent visitor. I never crossed the lines.
I loved the origin of this community. loved sharing missing oldskool stuff, whenever I was able to get my hands on it...and I still have a lot to share when I would just have some more time IRL. Even if its just as a "big thank you" for all the recent releases by this community.

AG felt like a 2nd home already, dont fuck this one up early...please. Arent we all grown ups by now ?
Shouldnt we be powerfull enough to ignore the annoying and embarassing internet trolls that have no life ?

I wont accompany another mess like AG again...if you let sick bastards start to ruin another beautifull experience like OG, be it that way.
But I dont want to be part of this anymore. History repeating anyone ? Jesus...

p.s.
This is NOT meant beeing personal...not pointing fingers at individuals...BUT the whole situation.
 
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