Fixing the Forums: Radical edition

[Sat42]

UB is right when he says that a lot of us have grown, we got older, we have jobs etc.

Let's not exaggerate though.

It's amazing that USP.org and OldUnreal are still around 20 years after Unreal's release, and it's natural that the communities would be small at this point.
I haven't stopped although yes, life etc. makes me slow on this front.
UB has released something insane this year (final G59 release! Hellkeeper you should check it out) and I will give him some decent feedback on this site in the relevant thread as soon as I finish what constitutes his magnum opus for this game (will take time to get all the feedback posted but it will be done). That might be UB's last hurrah here, but I haven't realised my projects for Unreal/UT yet so I will continue.
Same with a bunch of others.

Things change, and we all move on towards greater things, but playing/mapping is a hobby and as long as some of us enjoy Unreal, some of us will continue to be here, sharing stuff.

[gopostal]

I toured the ruins this afternoon: this place is a cemetery, BeyondUnreal is a ghosttown, Unreal.fr is empty, UnrealWiki is in stasis when it works, same for LiandriArchive, UP has no activity... And people have left.
OldUnreal and UT99.org are the only place where the heart still beats, it seems.

You pretty much summed it up perfectly. You guys shouldn't be sad though. We were here to see the beginning, to be part of something truly special. Like all things it ends and that's OK. Enjoy what was and don't cling to the old things with false hope.

I had a blast and enjoyed every moment with you all. It's important that the community realizes the true state of things and efforts are started to properly archive and store things for future historians. I wish more people understood this and created proper archives that were lasting.

[salsaSkaarj]

Jeezes, too much of a mortuary mood
The userbase may be declining seriously and the developerbase is following suit but there no need for a premature eulogy.
There are still quite a number of active projects and maps to look forward to!!

[Hellkeeper]

I wish more people understood this and created proper archives that were lasting.

Feralidragon is working on this over at UT99.org, to archive Unreal and UT content, there's some guy at OldUnreal who plans on doing something like that too.

[gopostal]

I've talked to Ferali about his project and it's considerable but archiving older stuff isn't really what it's all about. What I'd like to see happen is a true archivist get as much of the old stuff as they can and safe it away. It doesn't need to be hosted but it does need to be accessible. Think of it more as a library of sorts. There's a PDF of everything in the repository and you just submit to the archivist to get copies of things sent. The thing that stops all the past hosts of content was the considerable bandwidth involved. If that issue was lessened or even removed then more people would step forward to be host archivists.

Instead we discuss what color the forum background needs to be and what font is used in the "TOURNAMENT" text on the splash screen Look around gentlemen...the people you see here are pretty much it now. In honor of all the work done with this wonderful engine we have an obligation to make sure it doesn't get lost.

[Darkon]

How can there be much bandwidth involved if hardly anyone comes to this place?? I think this forum IS STILL relevant, so yeah.. keep this stuff. You could prolly archive some stuff to pdfs if you need to, but some of the stuff here is still very much alive. So don't stop!

[bob]

the library concept is very interesting. it destroys the leaching aspect.
a group email could let any of the cartakers reply with the file too