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Topic: Dee Dee Planet Is Now Online!

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killer-elite
rank 8
Posted:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:38 am
quote : #1
profile : pm
Posts: 81
"It’s been a good bit since I’ve been able to make one of these posts, but Shuouma is back folks! This time he’s restored the online functionality for Dee Dee Planet! Well, I guess I should say he’s brought the game online for the first time since the game was never officially released.

If you don’t know the story behind the game, it was intended to be the second game in Sega’s “Easy Network” series of online games following ChuChu Rocket!. The idea behind this series was to make online games that anyone could play, regardless of their gaming skill level. Sadly, ChuChu Rocket! was the only “Easy Network” game released due to Dee Dee Planet’s cancellation.

The reason behind the game’s cancellation was an unusual one. It was actually finished and ready to go into production when a “network bug” was found at the last minute. Initially, this just postponed the release but ultimately the game ended up being cancelled altogether, most likely due to the Dreamcast being on its way out at this point in 2001.

The nature of this “network bug” is still unknown. In our testing, we have yet to encounter any issues when playing online. It’s possible the bug was on the server side of things, which would make it a non-issue since Shuouma has built the server from the ground up. Then again, maybe the bug is still in the game but only rears its ugly head on rare occasions. Who knows. Either way, we’re just thrilled that the game’s online mode works at all. Worst case scenario, it might have been completely broken. Count your lucky stars folks!

A huge thanks goes out as usual to Shuouma for giving us the awesome gift of another online game, giving us a grand total of 24 online multiplayer games playable in 2022! If you want to know how to get online with this game, be sure to check out the Connection Guide. Hope to see you on the Dee Dee Planet soon!

As is usual with these new server launches, there may be bugs. Be sure to report them in the Dreamcast-Talk thread here.

Update: The “network bug” may have been identified. We’ve discovered the game doesn’t report player stats correctly to the server, so this means the rankings are completely broken. That being said, they’ve been removed from the server. The game still plays perfectly fine online, there just won’t be any leaderboards. Regardless, just the fact that we can play this game online at all is amazing enough!"

https://dreamcastlive.net/blogs/post/dee-dee-planet-is-now-online/
https://youtu.be/HVl-TN5PcGc
 
Nico0020
rank 11
Posted:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:37 am
quote : #2
profile : pm
Posts: 169
Type: NTSC-U
Totally stoked to try this out, just downloaded it. Though the Online-Games / info on this site is like a decade outdated. So many games are online and not reflected on here at all. Is this place completely dead at this point?
 
killer-elite
rank 8
Posted:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:46 am
quote : #3
profile : pm
Posts: 81
its because the 24+ games that have been brought back online dont have its server software available for download for future preservation, hence why they are still considered dead in this forum and why the forum is a ghost town...I post some major developments here for those who may wander here
 
Xiden
rank 5
Posted:
Wed Jul 26, 2023 3:15 pm
quote : #4
profile : pm
Posts: 38
killer-elite wrote:
its because the 24+ games that have been brought back online dont have its server software available for download for future preservation, hence why they are still considered dead in this forum and why the forum is a ghost town...I post some major developments here for those who may wander here


The server software has been out there for years actually, including website backups.

https://dreamcastlive.net/server-software/
 
lordnikon
rank 87
Posted:
Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:56 pm
quote : #5
profile : pm
Posts: 5902
Type: NTSC-U/C
I only recently noticed this thread, so my reply is very late.

killer-elite, you post links in every single one of your news threads here at OC, linking back to the very site which has had some of the server software available to download for years, exactly as Xiden pointed out above.

To clarify some history on preservation, the existing download links originally became available at dreamcastlive.net because years ago I raised a big stink with dxtriad/Shuouma about the importance of binaries/code being publicly available. He said the code was in good hands, and that if he somehow gets hit by a bus, people in his circle will release the files. I said that's not good enough, and that they need to proliferate online in the wild in order to survive and be preserved. You all have heard me say this a million times: "Users should not be put in the same position they were in when Sega hosted the servers." Whatever I said at the time apparently made logical sense, because shortly there-after source code was made public at dreamcastlive.net for download. I am not trying to claim credit for anything, but my actions sure as hell aren't holding back preservation.

Just so we are on the same page. I don't have server software for 24+ games. I don't have anything aside from downloading the files from dreamcastlive.net to a folder on my computer 7 years ago.

I don't have a server for Alien Front Online.
I don't have a server for Daytona USA.
I don't have a server for all the Visual Concepts games.
I don't have a server for Dee Dee Planet.
I also don't have a server for any of the other games that made it back online.

Were these posted somewhere? Where can I download them? Please give me a link. I would love it.

If these aren't available, get back in your car, and turn yourself around and go to the authors of the servers for those games, and ask them to release the binaries/source code to ensure any community covering this stuff DOES NOT end up a ghost town. Because your talking to the wrong person on this topic.

At one point in time I helped "test" an early server solution for a gamespy based Starlancer server (I stress the word test because NO development was done by me). The binary exe's were posted online here at OC in a news post many years ago, and I didn't do a very good job of keeping those files in a prominent location. I have never written a server for a game, nor have I ever been directly involved in restoring ANY network functionality for an online dreamcast game.

Yea, I get it. You want the Online Game List here updated. Current. The latest accurate information on what is playable online for the Dreamcast. Because having the online game list here inaccurate, is breaking the universe. But I made myself a rule years ago, that I am not going to update or change OC until I could figure out how to evolve the site in a meaningful way that would ensure it didn't continue to be a ghost town. I spent many years trying to solve this puzzle. Unfortunately, the fact that the Sega Dreamcast community (specifically), has a never ending marketing campaign for the Dreamcast demotivated me from pursuing this further.

Other console communities of the 6th generation don't have this problem. Even other Sega communities like the Saturn Community aren't trying to claw their way into the arena of relevance that the Dreamcast community has been trying to do pretty much ever since that Dreamcast-Scene site came along, and all the indie games started getting released. Did you know... the Dreamcast still has new games being released? It has all these games that you can play online... the Dreamcast has an ONLINE "NETWORK", and by gosh you can use a controller that doesn't even have a wire, and the Dreamcast practically has HD with "480p" and an HDMI adapter cable... "digital out" just so we're clear... you can even load all your games off NAND flash... you don't even need discs! ... it's as if the Dreamcast is STILL competing with the likes of the PS4/PS5/Xbone Series XYZ... it's STILL thinking...

I am so tired of this narrative. I am done with "it's still thinking".

It blows my mind how the Dreamcast Community has never accepted its place in the history of consoles, and is in a state of constant insecurity over its existence.

This website has reached its settling point. It is dead. It will never re-blossom into relevance with its current format.

I am NOT the gatekeeper to Online Game Status information. Isn't this up on Dreamcast-Talk or DreamcastLive? I am pretty sure they just made a ton of updates to their online games list if I recall.

Also, how about that Flycast with Rollback netcode? Pretty nice. Smile It's like EVERY Dreamcast game is online now. Damn, I guess the online game list here is now REALLY REALLY out of date, because I have been playing Capcom vs SNK 2 Online with rollback for at least a year. Pshh, how about that Bomberman Online? Pretty awesome! Ah that's right. killer-elite you were supposed to make a news post about that. "Bomberman Online is back online with Flycast!" You make nothing but news posts here since 2017, with almost zero community centric interactions, and forget to spread the word about Bomberman Online being playable online again? You're slippin'.

By the way, I just want to say Virtua Fighter on the 32X is a great game. The little mushroom is awesome.
  _________________
I'm already numero uno on Dark Helmet's hit list...
Xiden
rank 5
Posted:
Wed Aug 16, 2023 10:07 pm
quote : #6
profile : pm
Posts: 38
lordnikon wrote:
I only recently noticed this thread, so my reply is very late.

killer-elite, you post links in every single one of your news threads here at OC, linking back to the very site which has had some of the server software available to download for years, exactly as Xiden pointed out above.

Just so we are on the same page. I don't have server software for 24+ games. I don't have anything aside from downloading the files from dreamcastlive.net to a folder on my computer 7 years ago.

I don't have a server for Alien Front Online.
I don't have a server for Daytona USA.
I don't have a server for all the Visual Concepts games.
I don't have a server for Dee Dee Planet.
I also don't have a server for any of the other games that made it back online.

Were these posted somewhere? Where can I download them? Please give me a link. I would love it.

If these aren't available, get back in your car, and turn yourself around and go to the authors of the servers for those games, and ask them to release the binaries/source code to ensure any community covering this stuff DOES NOT end up a ghost town. Because your talking to the wrong person on this topic.

At one point in time I helped "test" an early server solution for a gamespy based Starlancer server (I stress the word test because NO development was done by me). The binary exe's were posted online here at OC in a news post many years ago, and I didn't do a very good job of keeping those files in a prominent location. I have never written a server for a game, nor have I ever been directly involved in restoring ANY network functionality for an online dreamcast game.

Yea, I get it. You want the Online Game List here updated. Current. The latest accurate information on what is playable online for the Dreamcast. Because having the online game list here inaccurate, is breaking the universe. But I made myself a rule years ago, that I am not going to update or change OC until I could figure out how to evolve the site in a meaningful way that would ensure it didn't continue to be a ghost town. I spent many years trying to solve this puzzle. Unfortunately, the fact that the Sega Dreamcast community (specifically), has a never ending marketing campaign for the Dreamcast demotivated me from pursuing this further.

Other console communities of the 6th generation don't have this problem. Even other Sega communities like the Saturn Community aren't trying to claw their way into the arena of relevance that the Dreamcast community has been trying to do pretty much ever since that Dreamcast-Scene site came along, and all the indie games started getting released. Did you know... the Dreamcast still has new games being released? It has all these games that you can play online... the Dreamcast has an ONLINE "NETWORK", and by gosh you can use a controller that doesn't even have a wire, and the Dreamcast practically has HD with "480p" and an HDMI adapter cable... "digital out" just so we're clear... you can even load all your games off NAND flash... you don't even need discs! ... it's as if the Dreamcast is STILL competing with the likes of the PS4/PS5/Xbone Series XYZ... it's STILL thinking...

I am so tired of this narrative. I am done with "it's still thinking".

It blows my mind how the Dreamcast Community has never accepted its place in the history of consoles, and is in a state of constant insecurity over its existence.

This website has reached its settling point. It is dead. It will never re-blossom into relevance with its current format.

I am NOT the gatekeeper to Online Game Status information. Isn't this up on Dreamcast-Talk or DreamcastLive? I am pretty sure they just made a ton of updates to their online games list if I recall.

Also, how about that Flycast with Rollback netcode? Pretty nice. Smile It's like EVERY Dreamcast game is online now. Damn, I guess the online game list here is now REALLY REALLY out of date, because I have been playing Capcom vs SNK 2 Online with rollback for at least a year. Pshh, how about that Bomberman Online? Pretty awesome! Ah that's right. killer-elite you were supposed to make a news post about that. "Bomberman Online is back online with Flycast!" You make nothing but news posts here since 2017, with almost zero community centric interactions, and forget to spread the word about Bomberman Online being playable online again? You're slippin'.

By the way, I just want to say Virtua Fighter on the 32X is a great game. The little mushroom is awesome.


Will you or your buddy DreamcastTM ever share the f355 online logs? You guys should share what you have too if you believe in preservation. Lets all help the community... Smile Im sure you'd guys would enjoy playing that online again.
 
lordnikon
rank 87
Posted:
Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:46 am
quote : #7
profile : pm
Posts: 5902
Type: NTSC-U/C
Xiden, I don't have anything. I don't have any packet logs. I don't have any server source code. I wish I did.

I wish I could have gotten the UTDC server, that is on a disc, sitting in a cardboard box in some former Sega tester's house that I once spoke to over 12 years ago, who stopped responding to my emails. He probably threw it in the garbage by now, and I don't even have the email address. I just know I spoke with him multiple times many years ago and could never convince him to send me the disc. He kept saying he didn't feel comfortable because the server had a security vulnerability. Eventually I just had to let it go. I have a neat story, but nothing in hand.

I shared some Sega Snap stuff I grabbed off Nokia's mobile developer site years ago in a thread at OC, and that's it. Because I don't have anything else. I am not sitting on anything, and the relentless approach of certain individuals in the DC Community to beat people into submission for information, regardless of the social costs or bridges that they burn, wears really thin.

Do you know why I still talk with DreamcastTM every week? Almost every day? Because we are friends. We talk about technical projects, getting games running on Linux, building computers, Nintendo Switch emulation, and lots of stuff on open source games like Minetest. We are friends because I never treated DCTM like an expendable resource and he never treated me like that either. We have not talked about Dreamcast Online together in years. It just doesn't come up.

I don't chat with you Xiden regularly via any communication method. Have you ever talked to me about anything other than this server stuff? I don't talk with Neoblast anymore. Petterk? I don't talk with this person anymore either. Because these social encounters have always been about someone trying to get something from me. It doesn't matter how willing I am to continue cordially conversing about game topics with someone online. The person on the other side only considers the communications to be a "means to and end". It's a horrible feeling when you realize someone has been talking to you for days, sometimes weeks... just to eventually probe you for source code or some file they think you have. It's even worse when they don't believe you when you say you don't have it. Neoblast only talked to me, because he was trying to get Planet Ring back online, and wanted DreamcastTM's help to do it. So he was going through me to get to him. As soon as he found someone else to code Planet Ring, I never heard from him again. What was the point of all our chats about SDL DC ports and dreamcast.es? *shrugs*

Xiden do you really want to be at this site? It's dead. There is nobody here. What are you doing here? I know you are here because you probably got an email, because my response initiated an automatic notification. But... let's be honest. You're only here for this restoration stuff, and it doesn't matter to you how your communications make me feel, or how the PM's from dxtriad asking me if I am "holding anything back" make me feel, or how it makes me feel when Petterk starts burning bridges with the digital equivalent of gasoline.

You are only here, lurking around, waiting. Waiting for some far flung notion that someone is going to drop a ball you think they are holding.

At what point am I justified in saying "FUCK YOU"? Really, because killer-elite is up there complaining about the same bullshit you are now asking me for. He wants some sort of Fort Knox of Dreamcast Server Code that he thinks are on my Hard Drives. dxtriad asked for the same thing years ago. I gave the same. exact. honest. answer. "No I don't have anything. I am not holding back". And you are asking me yet again (despite what I JUST wrote in response to killer-elite). This is the last time I am answering this question. I am done.

If someone talked to DreamcastTM and he said something about F355 logs or code or whatever, then that's between them. Take your pitch forks and your torches and go ask him about this. I can't speak to what DCTM has on his personal hardware. All I can do, is tell you what is not on my hardware.

WHY would I want to play F355 with other people? The only recent memories I have about this game and quite few other Dreamcast Online games, are of harassment.

I play MVC2 and CVS2 over on Fightcade. The people there care NOTHING about any of the nonsense outlined above. They are probably oblivious that these 2 games were even online in Japan for the DC to begin with, and wouldn't even care if someone informed them. Its great. The FGC just cares about the games themselves, the platforms do not matter. To be able to play Dreamcast Online while completely leaving all this baggage behind? It's pretty awesome.
  _________________
I'm already numero uno on Dark Helmet's hit list...
Xiden
rank 5
Posted:
Thu Aug 17, 2023 6:51 am
quote : #8
profile : pm
Posts: 38
lordnikon wrote:
Xiden, I don't have anything. I don't have any packet logs. I don't have any server source code. I wish I did.

I wish I could have gotten the UTDC server, that is on a disc, sitting in a cardboard box in some former Sega tester's house that I once spoke to over 12 years ago, who stopped responding to my emails. He probably threw it in the garbage by now, and I don't even have the email address. I just know I spoke with him multiple times many years ago and could never convince him to send me the disc. He kept saying he didn't feel comfortable because the server had a security vulnerability. Eventually I just had to let it go. I have a neat story, but nothing in hand.

I shared some Sega Snap stuff I grabbed off Nokia's mobile developer site years ago in a thread at OC, and that's it. Because I don't have anything else. I am not sitting on anything, and the relentless approach of certain individuals in the DC Community to beat people into submission for information, regardless of the social costs or bridges that they burn, wears really thin.

Do you know why I still talk with DreamcastTM every week? Almost every day? Because we are friends. We talk about technical projects, getting games running on Linux, building computers, Nintendo Switch emulation, and lots of stuff on open source games like Minetest. We are friends because I never treated DCTM like an expendable resource and he never treated me like that either. We have not talked about Dreamcast Online together in years. It just doesn't come up.

I don't chat with you Xiden regularly via any communication method. Have you ever talked to me about anything other than this server stuff? I don't talk with Neoblast anymore. Petterk? I don't talk with this person anymore either. Because these social encounters have always been about someone trying to get something from me. It doesn't matter how willing I am to continue cordially conversing about game topics with someone online. The person on the other side only considers the communications to be a "means to and end". It's a horrible feeling when you realize someone has been talking to you for days, sometimes weeks... just to eventually probe you for source code or some file they think you have. It's even worse when they don't believe you when you say you don't have it. Neoblast only talked to me, because he was trying to get Planet Ring back online, and wanted DreamcastTM's help to do it. So he was going through me to get to him. As soon as he found someone else to code Planet Ring, I never heard from him again. What was the point of all our chats about SDL DC ports and dreamcast.es? *shrugs*

Xiden do you really want to be at this site? It's dead. There is nobody here. What are you doing here? I know you are here because you probably got an email, because my response initiated an automatic notification. But... let's be honest. You're only here for this restoration stuff, and it doesn't matter to you how your communications make me feel, or how the PM's from dxtriad asking me if I am "holding anything back" make me feel, or how it makes me feel when Petterk starts burning bridges with the digital equivalent of gasoline.

You are only here, lurking around, waiting. Waiting for some far flung notion that someone is going to drop a ball you think they are holding.

At what point am I justified in saying "FUCK YOU"? Really, because killer-elite is up there complaining about the same bullshit you are now asking me for. He wants some sort of Fort Knox of Dreamcast Server Code that he thinks are on my Hard Drives. dxtriad asked for the same thing years ago. I gave the same. exact. honest. answer. "No I don't have anything. I am not holding back". And you are asking me yet again (despite what I JUST wrote in response to killer-elite). This is the last time I am answering this question. I am done.

If someone talked to DreamcastTM and he said something about F355 logs or code or whatever, then that's between them. Take your pitch forks and your torches and go ask him about this. I can't speak to what DCTM has on his personal hardware. All I can do, is tell you what is not on my hardware.

WHY would I want to play F355 with other people? The only recent memories I have about this game and quite few other Dreamcast Online games, are of harassment.

I play MVC2 and CVS2 over on Fightcade. The people there care NOTHING about any of the nonsense outlined above. They are probably oblivious that these 2 games were even online in Japan for the DC to begin with, and wouldn't even care if someone informed them. Its great. The FGC just cares about the games themselves, the platforms do not matter. To be able to play Dreamcast Online while completely leaving all this baggage behind? It's pretty awesome.



Dude, I ONLY brought up that question due you saying "I don't have a server for AFO, Daytona USA , etc," Seemed a bit hypocritical IMO to ask for things when you've not shared anything yourself. One example? Doom... for DC Online... telling people "if you know how networking works you should know how to do it".

This is where you claimed to have at least 1 Log at one point btw...
http://dreamcast.onlineconsoles.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6130
"However, I searched and luckily found 1 log stored in an alternate folder taken in June"
Sounds like you deleted it maybe *shrugs*. Its fine, you wont hear from me again on it.
DC-TM does(did) have them and I figured he'd share everything with you, guess not.

Now I'm going to be blunt.

-No one has any pitch forks for you.
-You brought your site down all by yourself with your attitude.
-You're being melodramatic to a simple question and maybe that's why this place is a ghost town because quite frankly you come off as a jerk.

I'm a preservationist. So, yes I asked a simple question. Sorry that offended you. Feel free to delete/ban me if you desire.
Enjoy the Fightcade.
 
lordnikon
rank 87
Posted:
Thu Aug 17, 2023 1:11 pm
quote : #9
profile : pm
Posts: 5902
Type: NTSC-U/C
I am not being melodramatic. Look at the history I just laid out. Anyone in my position would feel worn out, and when I get asked for the 10th time if I am hoarding information, its draining. You're not asking me "a simple a question", because I already answered this before so many times. What do you want me to say when you and others just keep pushing? So I am sticking up for myself saying, "Cut it out". Yea, I am going to give a terse response under such conditions. Its not attitude, I'm just not putting up with this. Back off. Does anyone here want to talk about video games? No. At this point this is all there is left. The site is dead, and this is all there is left. Why hasn't lordnikon updated the online game list, and what is he holding back from us. This same theme has been going on for years. I am just tired of it that's all.

As far as the site's activity, your not seeing the full picture.

Life

I have friends who are still really into video games. Some from OC, some from other places, and man.. its REALLY hard to play a game online with them. Most people I know are not spending their time on message boards anymore. "Time" is real luxury. People have jobs, they have kids, multiple kids. They have mortgage payments to make. I am headed to the Zoo on Friday, school starts next week, supply drop off is today, I gotta get a new job, I have freelance client obligations to meet, my entire house needs brick work tuck-pointing done ASAP. Nearly everyone I know, who has these things going on, doesn't have time for this internet stuff anymore. There is one close friend I met from OC, and we just text over the phone. He hasn't posted here in many years. He's a Doctor. He can't sit around on the web getting into message board discussions. He has kids, he's swamped. A lot of OC's community base simply aged out of the board.

Fluctuation in Ecosystem

OC really got chewed up over time due to the fluctuation of games coming online-offline-online again over its many years on the net. You really gotta look at the PS2 to see how crazy this was. When OC started it went from like 13 PS2 games online, to 250 games online, then all the way to near zero, then swelling back up to about 100 games online as of only recently. Because I have these "dedicated game boards", I kept changing the site over time, removing boards because the games were terminated, and then adding new ones. If there was ever a factor in what highly damaged OC, this was it. I kept trying to carve this apple, but eventually you just run out of apple. Its just the stem and the seeds left.

Retro Game Prices

Games on ebay got super expensive. I can't have a discussion online with someone about Super Street Fighter IIX being played on an original Dreamcast with an original GD-ROM, because its going for $250. I bought this for $27 in 2007 from Japan. A lot of games are just too expensive. People can't casually get into retro console gaming on original hardware anymore. OC was really geared around original hardware. The retro youtube stuff inflated prices into the stratosphere. OC would need to adjust to better accommodate discussions on emulation, iso's, piracy, etc.

HDTVs

Also... HDTV's? This was HUGE. The rise of HDTV's drastically impacted the site. People were buying new TV's, new consoles, and while they had the best of intentions to get their old systems working decent in HD, eventually their Dreamcast's just ended up in the closet. My friend who is a Doctor? His custom gaming PC is connect to his HDTV, but his Dreamcast is in a box.

Forum Moderation

You also need to understand, for a long time, OC's message board didn't have a way to just move a thread/topic from one forum to another. This is standard today in message boards. A moderator can move a topic, which creates a shadow topic in one board, and moves the thread to a new one. I couldn't do this until a mod became available in phpBB2. This is now a standard feature in phpBB3. So for years, in order to initiate forum moderation, I had to do some really out of line stuff, like sending these forum notices regularly for simple organizational stuff that nobody would have batted an eye over in a modern board, because the tools took care of it. I can't undo the damage this did, and it is what it is.

I am not going to ban anyone. I don't think I have banned anyone since... 2008? Seriously its been 15 years. I believe I banned some rather "loud" users around that time, they went on over to Impact's dreamcast-talk forum, and that was the rise of dreamcast-talk. They did a great job. Their tendency to make short 1-2 word posts, and lots of them, really spammed dreamcast-talk into a really active board in short order. Why do you think Dreamcast-Talk got so focused on online? Those users went over there and made online a prominant focal point of Dreamcast-Talk. I just didn't want that type of posting here at my site. *shrugs* I think as soon as the moderation tools improved at OC, the moderation "practices" also improved,a nd this unfortunately didn't happen until OC was already running for a few years.

I wish I had a created a moderation team. Instead it was just me. I justified this because there wasn't enough work for a team and I could handle the moderation duties on my own. However it took me a long time to understand that spreading the moderation tasks across a team, ensures the community doesn't feel "a single individual is the be all end all of enforcement".

Also having "lord" in my name, did me no favors.

Keeping up with the times

OC's overall site design is a 2008-2010 era style design. It really needed to be brought up with the times. It doesn't lend itself well to mobile. Also, I added so many mods to the site over the years that the entire site is "stuck". I can't upgrade it to a newer forum version. OC also never got into the whole Youtube/Twitter/Social Media scene. All these things make it tough to bring in new traffic and keep OC relevant. OC was not keeping up with the evolution of the Internet.

I think a big reason for this was the many games going online/offline, and without any server software available that I could run I couldn't ensure the direction of these games, so I couldn't ensure the direction of my own boards which had very "game specific" discussion areas. So I just felt like OC was in a constant state of traction.

PSO

PSO itself was really rough here. It was online officially post US shutdown with the PAL DC version, but then schthack released that "PPS" (personal private server) version. We used this, but I couldn't thwart cheating on PSO, and I was having users host their own private PSO sessions with a lot of rules and guidelines. But I didn't write the server, and I couldn't code features into the server like a Legit Check in order to prevent cheating. So we run into the same exact problem as the forum moderation. I just didn't have the tools available to do what I wanted to do. All I wanted to do was run a legit PSO community. But then I just get constantly criticised over this. Users abroad were frustrated that I was somehow taking credit for the shthack server? for not putting schthack's name on the site to prominantly to say who's server I was running? (Do you have to do this when you run a UT99 PC server? LOL) I think you can even look up some comments on dreamcast-talk about some complaints. Some are really pissed off at me, because I didn't run a successful PSO Server for them here at OC. Very "I am using PSN and Sony is doing a bad job" type posts. But... I never had the tools to successfully accomplish this. So PSO at OC has always been a wierd experience.

Over on the Gamecube side, the Fuzziqer PSO server I was running had a bug where if you start a game, go back to the lobby, start another game, and drop items, you can't pick them back up. I learned to get around it you can re-transport back into the lobby. This was really annoying and I had to keep reminding anyone who was playing to do this re-transport trick. Also, this server was constantly crashing due to hackers. Not PSO hackers, but actual hackers. Eventually I couldn't keep the server reliably online. It would go offline so frequently I would forget to flip it back on again.

A good example

I could talk about another 20 bullet points on various factors that have led to the current state of onlineconsoles.

But... the best perspective I can try and give, on the complexities of keeping a community active amidst challenging conditions, is to look at PSO. So Sylverant's hosted server, isn't very active. It has never been very active, aside from brief moments of "look we got 20 people online so we could make this Youtube video". I have been tracking data on this for a long time. Sylverant only has around 2-5.. maybe 7 users online tops. That's it. That's the extent of Sylverant's on average online user base. The most popular PSO "Server" backed community is Ephinea, a PSO Blue Burst Server which currently has 195 Players online right now. There are about 3 other PSO BB servers with low double digit player numbers. Scthack's server has had a huge resurgence in use over the past few years drawing high 20-30+ players at peak hours, despite the fact that they had multiple character data wipes, multiple forum shutdowns, and TONS of drama. That server has been chaos. So why is it becoming as active as it is? Schtserv's forums really aren't all that active. So, why does Schtserv have 5x as many players online as Sylverant? Dreamcast-Talk is pretty active still, yea? Isn't Dreamcast-Talk's ship listed in Sylverant? Why is this situation so lopsided?

Well... Schtserv is the default redirect in the Dolphin Emulator for PSO Gamecube, which is a really popular emulator. There are 9 GC users playing online right now on Schtserv during offpeak hours. This simple technology hook, tips the scale in terms of player activity.

Let's look at another example outside of the Dreamcast. Final Fantasy XI Online Private Servers.

FFXI is still online officially for PC, and still doing well for Square Enix. They still update this game with new events.

Private Servers have existed for this for years, and the top servers had around... 450 players on the most popular server. This went on for many many years.

Then, a group of people run a new server community called "Horizon XI". Right now there are 1,600 players online, and this server peaks at over 4,000 concurent players during peak hours. They did a huge marketing campaign, they run their server different than others. The moderation team is structured a certain way. Its run more professionally. Across the board they addressed a myriad of complexities that led to the high player counts they have managed to attract.

So it's these types of things that are sometimes hard to see, that really influence a community's ability to thrive.

Closing

So, that's fine if you or others feel me talking at high level of detail has "brought down onlineconsoles", but at the end of the day Twitch doesn't thrive because its streamers are chillaxed. Social Media is what it is because its all drama, all the time. I just don't feel posts like this are the linchpin of a downtrend in activity. If anything, they bolster activity. I don't think anything anyone posted at onlineconsoles good or bad, has resulted in the current state of the site. These other complex factors are key components to what makes or breaks a community.

OC is simply an old board, that went through choppy waters, and didn't evolve well enough to still be relevant. It has run its course, and that's okay. WWJD's Dreamcsat Online board faded away before OC, and now its OC's turn. I am fine with this.

Preservaton

Xiden, do you need some tips on preservation?

  • Go convince Bluecrab to write documentation and keep his dependencies up to date, for the open source PSO Server he says he doesn't want anyone to actually run, because he is petrified about "fractioning" the community.
  • Go ask the other server maintainers to release their source code for all the other online games.
  • Take all the server code on dreamcast-live.net, and post it on github. So others can collaborate, improve, and evolve those codebases. (I guess I could take on this task as well, especially considering the permissive license many of those codebases were released under.)


Hanging out on a dead message board, asking an old admin for files who has already said "No I don't have anything", seems like a waste of time if you ask me.
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