Author Topic: (The discussion of) "What happened to Studios?"  (Read 9743 times)

Offline jcompton

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(The discussion of) "What happened to Studios?"
« on: June 26, 2005, 09:51:15 PM »
Edit: Excitement over, Studios works on its new server. http://www.spellholdstudios.net
« Last Edit: June 27, 2005, 08:48:47 AM by jcompton »
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Offline devSin

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #1 on: June 26, 2005, 10:01:39 PM »
Quote
Quote
Quote from: devSin on Today at 07:13:13 PM
I wonder if it was intended that FW be yanked before they got the new stuff online? It was a forum warning "We're moving!" then somebody pulled the plug.
Not in the elast intended.
See, I thought I smelled sour grapes.

Offline jcompton

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #2 on: June 26, 2005, 10:11:54 PM »
"elast"? That'll teach me to pay more attention.
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Offline jcompton

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2005, 10:14:22 PM »
But, yeah. I don't remember the precise wording but various public assurances were made that the domain name would point at the new site for some appreciable length of time.

So, for the second time in about a year, the most well-known URL in Infinity Engine modding has become useless. Which is always really convenient for keeping people engaged and interested, y'know?
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Offline Bex

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2005, 12:49:21 AM »
Pretty much everyone at Planet BaldursGate refers people with questions about mods for the game to the modlist hosted here. I'd say PPG is second only to Baldurdash, as far as providing linkage goes.  Once G3's fixpack is ready for wide release, that might change. (It will if I have any say in the matter.)

That said, I don't know if people at Bioware's forums or other communities referenced FWS more. But word will spread. And if we start getting "what happened to...?" questions like those that still crop about about TeamBG, then we'll continue pointing people in new directions.

(Edited because threads I thought were at FWS are actually here. This is what I get for just using the modlist when I need to look something up. I don't know where any of it actually IS.)
« Last Edit: June 27, 2005, 01:03:37 AM by Bex »
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Offline devSin

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2005, 12:54:18 AM »
I guess a preliminary FAQ should at least have a link to the new site.

Offline jcompton

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2005, 01:06:50 AM »
Pretty much everyone at Planet BaldursGate refers people with questions about mods for the game to the modlist hosted here. (Note: make sure the tutorial URLs for clean installs and such get updated!)

Yeah. If you search for the two now-defunct URLs in question, there are about 10 pages worth of posts affected. And a simple find-and-replace isn't the right way to go, actually, because some of the links are now simply dead-dead (those which led to FWP), some are/will be on the new Studios, and some should actually be pointing _here._

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I'd say PPG is second only to Baldurdash, as far as providing linkage goes.  Once G3's fixpack is ready for wide release, that might change. (It will if I have any say in the matter.)

That sounds vaguely like a threat. :)

Quote
That said, I don't know if people at Bioware's forums or other communities referenced FWS more. But word will spread. And if we start getting "what happened to...?" questions like those that still crop about about TeamBG, then we'll continue pointing people in new directions.

Yeah, I know. But the fact is that plenty of people over the past year simply entered a TBG URL into their browser, went nowhere, and went off to play Sims 2 instead. Now that process happens _again._
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Offline jcompton

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2005, 01:07:54 AM »
I guess a preliminary FAQ should at least have a link to the new site.

This thread won't be around once the site is back up.

And you linked to PPG. :)
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Offline devSin

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2005, 01:17:47 AM »
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I'd say PPG is second only to Baldurdash, as far as providing linkage goes. Once G3's fixpack is ready for wide release, that might change. (It will if I have any say in the matter.)
Baldurdash will be dead and buried and re-direct to GeorgeWBush.gov and people will still be hailing it as the second coming.
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This thread won't be around once the site is back up.
Honor the memory of FW* by locking it, I say.
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And you linked to PPG.
I didn't say *I* was going to provide a link, just that one should be posted. 'Twas merely an example for whichever industrious soul is willing to point people in the right direction. ;)
« Last Edit: June 27, 2005, 01:28:43 AM by devSin »

Offline Bex

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2005, 02:16:35 AM »
I'd say PPG is second only to Baldurdash, as far as providing linkage goes.  Once G3's fixpack is ready for wide release, that might change. (It will if I have any say in the matter.)

That sounds vaguely like a threat. :)

Heh. Maybe I should start threatening to take away people's game discs when they come around whining about TDD not working right too, eh?
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Offline jester

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2005, 04:13:25 AM »
I cannot help but get the impression that the guy previous known as 'the one who called the shots at FWMC' made everything in his power to prevent a smooth transition to Spellhold Studios. Cutting off a major community without at least a month of overlap is something that shows me again how much this person cares for the community itself.
(Close all fora and point everybody to the new location, but don't leave everybody helpless and wondering where that toolthread/advice/other thread just went that they only posted in/relied upon yesterday.)
Some might consider his actions to be meanspirited at best and would consider him a major pr*ck for this, but not me as I never swear in public. ::) Thanks for SConrad (and that he took over and tries and tried everthing to make this a smooth transition and keep the boat afloat nevertheless.
Although it is a major hassle to run a forum and it should be widely acknowledged that the guys who run the database also get to have the final say, I strongly believe that a forum is a community effort and does not just belong to the ones who 'own' the database and as it seems its content.
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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2005, 05:11:12 AM »
The person who called the shots as you put it did not call this one.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2005, 05:29:09 AM »
Well, either the Telefragged staff browse the site frequently enough to have a 15 minute response time to an announcement, or somebody told them to shut the site down. Do you have any idea what caused it? (And, of course, you still own the domain, so presumably it can still be redirected to the new site-- since it's not doing much good right now. :))

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2005, 05:40:09 AM »
Yeah I know why, seb had already grabbed the database and its a 200 odd mb file, off the webservers that gets noticed when they are meant to have no downloads, TF don't want to leave a site up redirecting to another, can't say I blame them, I wouldnt either, and yes the domain is still going to be pointed at the new place, I even offered to help seb setup the forum.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2005, 05:46:47 AM »
Okay, glad to hear it.

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #15 on: June 27, 2005, 05:51:05 AM »
Only thing is the domains will be dead two days because of the dns updates

Offline jester

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2005, 06:01:32 AM »
Well then I redirect my wrath to the telefrag people which only takes me second. Thanks for clearing things up.
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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #17 on: June 27, 2005, 06:12:46 AM »
They dont really deserve it, lets face it fw has run at a loss for years, nobody clicks the banners so they could never pay the bw the site used, would you want to keep paying money? I wouldn't. Lets say 1000000 page views a month are made redirecting to the new site, at 30k+ a view with no banner revenue it ads up to alot of bw not being paid for. TF have said they will let the 3dd account to be kept (3dd has tons of ads :P), I know you lot don't like 3dd but its free and for some big stuff it is better than nothing.

Offline jester

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2005, 06:43:54 AM »
I am surprised they did not shut down the site after a year or so when the clickthrough ratings came in. If they do not put a banner on the redirect page the BW-amount is small and I would doubt 1000000 people after a week or so, if it is sufficiently published and Spellhold catches the traffic as they include 'forgottenwars' into their metakeywords and over time Google will adapt. Also I consider it weird that a site which cannot be blamed for a serious decline of revenue should be shut down by telefragged the second it changes 'owners'. What business model is behind this idea? So the reasoning behind this escapes me somewhat. Quarter results? On June 26th?? Since they never made any money they could have let the site up and running as a personal favour. I would have done that, if I ever had agreed to host it in the first place.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2005, 06:54:39 AM by jester »
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Offline SConrad

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2005, 06:56:09 AM »
Thank you for your patience. I very much hope we can get the forum online as soon as possible (not to mention the fact that I'm taking the early flight to the States tomorrow morning).

The database issues has now been solved, and I just have to 'trim' the settings and so on before I can take the board online. :)

[A]s far as I can tell SConrad decided to take a nap at 4 AM his time rather than plod on and risk making one of those embarrassing sleep-deprivation mistakes.

That is correct, yes. :)

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Offline CoM_Solaufein

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #20 on: June 27, 2005, 07:00:35 AM »
Yes I faintly recall how TF likes to bury the corpse before it is even cold.  ::)

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Re: "What happened to Studios?" FAQ
« Reply #21 on: June 27, 2005, 08:45:16 AM »
I am surprised they did not shut down the site after a year or so when the clickthrough ratings came in. If they do not put a banner on the redirect page the BW-amount is small and I would doubt 1000000 people after a week or so, if it is sufficiently published and Spellhold catches the traffic as they include 'forgottenwars' into their metakeywords and over time Google will adapt. Also I consider it weird that a site which cannot be blamed for a serious decline of revenue should be shut down by telefragged the second it changes 'owners'. What business model is behind this idea? So the reasoning behind this escapes me somewhat. Quarter results? On June 26th?? Since they never made any money they could have let the site up and running as a personal favour. I would have done that, if I ever had agreed to host it in the first place.


Nothing on tf has ever paid the bw bills, the ads help a little but Marv basically pays it out of his own pocket, most of the people on fw blocked banners and adds, hell some of the staff told people where to get addons to block the ads, no add view no ad revenue, after Marv got a phonecall from jason trying to get the old database he was very pissed, since someone else had already asked and been told no. He doesnt like people searching out his private phone no and calling him trying to trick him, I really don't blame him there either.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: (The discussion of) "What happened to Studios?"
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2005, 08:51:49 AM »
The "someone else" who tried to obtain the database wouldn't have been the legitimate Forgotten Wars administrator at the time, would he? He was certainly interested in having the FWP data, yet for some reason it wasn't made available. I think if the Telefragged admins are going to get pissed when site owners, or people helping them out, try to obtain their own data, then they should strongly consider a different career path.

Offline NiGHTMARE

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Re: (The discussion of) "What happened to Studios?"
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2005, 09:02:24 AM »
If I'm reading Neil's post correctly, it's how Marv was contacted that got him pissed, not what he was contacted about.
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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: (The discussion of) "What happened to Studios?"
« Reply #24 on: June 27, 2005, 09:03:50 AM »
I'm told that there's no way to directly contact the site owners-- the contact details for the domain are their dad's or something.