http://sparkbomb.com/index.php?showtopic=626

^Plot link. Read between the lines, discuss theories, and speculate at what the future of Sparkbomb holds.

How... interesting. I wonder how long until a store reset.

Mentioning me as the one to dominate the store makes it good in my book. I already had last time without help until the very end lol. I can do it again. What I don't want to see is the imbalance that happened towards the end (Balance IMO was right after revert was introduced).

Zen will become a force of balance in the new economy.

Rex gazed at Liz's sleeping body.... HOT!

Actually, Rex shifted his gaze to Liz. So ha.

Huh. How long before this plot goes inactive too?

Presumably once it's finished. Or at least, once S:A is released.

Speaking of S:A, it's great how no one (except for Red via IM) is speculating about it.

*glances up from the report on S:A* Hmm? What? Uh... let's see... S:A... probably... starts with S...

Um, my guess it has something to do with the store. Which needs to change. I wait to make judgments however.

It's "Two Years Later." Nobody cares at this point.

For once in my life, I kinda agree with Yoshi. I'm back here for the lulz, mostly.

Nobody is an exaggeration. I care. Shattered cares. Apparently Zen cares. We already know you don't care Yoshi, so that's not news. Although hey, you may change your mind once S:A is up and running.

I can openly say that no, S:A is not directly correlated to the Store (though both may impact each other at a later point in time: such impact will be minimal or from a plot perspective). The intended changes to the Store (while inspired by my own knowledge, past suggestions, the plot (including S:B and S:A)) are there own thing.


::.Coughs.::


And Yoshi, you wouldn't still be coming around here if you didn't still care.

Of course I care about Sparkbomb. S:A, whatever it is, no. If and when it launches, well, then we'll see, but I'm not holding my breath (it could be another two years ).

It could also be another Code Blue or whatever.

S:B could have been another two years, but not S:A.


It's not. S:A is entirely reliant on my laziness me. (And Rex, to a lesser extent, since he'll likely be the one running the grunt work.)

Like the pets system? And familiars/cauldron/NATs/etc? As I've said before (though in private): don't count your critters 'fore they hatch. And don't expect us to be all excited/interested in some project that may or may not ever happen. You're purposely trying to set up all of this suspense, and some of us are just gunna' stop biting when we know we're being baited.

Really? SB has been running on baiting for like five years.

But really, S:A should be finished relatively soon. And no, you might not all be interested in it particularly, but it will at least prove that Shattered (and me, to a greater extent as time goes on) are actually doing things for/on the site.

Great! Now if you could just get the owner to do something for the site...

lol, Marcus has never really had time to run SB, only thing I can think that he did was the shoutbox color items, and the attempt at pets was his too.

Marcus has paid for the site for the entirety of its existence. He's also done substantial coding work and installed the Shoutbox and Store. That's far more than you've done, Yoshi.

Coding work? Where? Oh, thats right, it all blew up two years ago and he didn't have a backup.


I would hope so. It isn't my site.

Database != Code. We never lost the coding, just the Database. Pets were about the only thing that Marcus ever worked on that was obvious front-end: he's done a ton of back-end stuff over the years.

In other words, he's the reason we have... well... everything. He got the IPB code. He installed the forums. He installed the store. He installed the Shoutbox. He's probably the only reason a hacker isn't running the site right now.

...And we did have a Database backup. Just a really really old one.

I offered to pay for the site 2 or 3 years ago when it came up in some topic or other that's lost to the ages.

To be fair, the site blowing up and losing the entire database was the result of a series of unfortunate events, i.e. a series of hard drive failures followed by a failure of SBs host. It was... incredibly nasty but not really anyone's fault.

Either way, I'm still going to wait here and twiddle my thumbs and see if Rift can get off his lazy rear and finish something.

I was under the impression that all the files were lost along with the database. Are you saying that you still have the code for fireworks? ME WANT FIREWORKS!


Installing the forums took all of five minutes I am sure. The store and the shoutbox probably maxed out at an hour. The only reason a hacker isn't running the site right now is that there is not anything worth hacking (and hackers are lame anyway). I also thought the backup was Rift's, which would mean Coaster didn't have one. Heh.

Rift's backup was on a hard-drive that went dead... what? A month before the Database crashed? And I know there was at least one other more recent backup we had that was lost due to mechanical failure, although I don't remember the details.

There's no way you could know how long it takes to install the forum or any of the various forum mods... Why? You have no experience. But trust me, if my experience with the Captcha was any indication, they took much longer than your estimate.

Interesting theory Yoshi. Too bad it sucks due to the fact that at least two hackers have tried exploits on Sparkbomb in the past and failed. Due to Marcus, of course. And the fact that most hackers (i.e. script kiddies) hack to prove that they can hack. Not because they want to control the most awesome forum in the world.

We did have one hack-in problem, though... thankfully we lost no data, besides the forum headers. Sorting through the threads took forever, though.

And Yoshi, if I remember correctly, what happened was that first Marcus's something-or-another failed, and he didn't back it up right away 'cause, well, Rift had one and making backups takes a while and they're big, cumbersome files (I know this after having done it myself). Then Rift's harddrive suddenly died... I think it was less than a month before the big crash, though, I'd have to check my own logs to see, and his computer was in the shop for long enough that we didn't know if his backup had survived or not.

But bashing the admins, I don't believe, is the intent of this thread.

I'd instead like to again wonder how long until a store reset. -Stares at her pile of 100+ frisbees- And how long until Rift does more than just talk a whole bunch. Also looks like he's dragging RPers here, which, to my knowledge, never worked particularly well before in the long-run.

I'm the one who saved the day on that one!

I have had extensive experience with phpBB and, again, it takes all of five minutes to install the forum and the longest I have spent installing a mod was an hour and a half. So either you fail or IPB sucks.


I suppose you view script kiddies and hackers as being synonymous, so I'll just refer to script kiddies from here on out. There is no sensible explanation for why script kiddies "hack" just as there is no explanation for how someone so idiotic Zen can be so full of himself. Script kiddies are the scum of the earth and that is just what they do. iDB was just as secure as this place when it got hacked. As mentioned above, there was a sucessful hack attempt (which I remember well), and I'm sure there would have been many more if this site was bigger. I'll repeat myself, this place isn't being hacked because it isn't worth hacking, not because this ancient version of IPB is so secure with coaster's homemade patches.


Coaster isn't an Admin.


Back on topic: When the first chapter of the new plot be ready? I find it more intriguing than wondering about what/when S:A might be.

That's a joke, right? IPB v1.3 (the version IDB was running on when it got hacked) was full of exploits. That's not to say IPB v2.0 (what we're running on) is impenetrable, but there's a difference between patching up a dozen exploits versus patching up a hundred.

Dunno yet. I've been sick since Sunday evening, and there probably won't be a plot installment until either I need to make one for the sake of progression or until something happens. Code Blue is on the verge of succeeding, and I'm hoping to wait it out. And as I've explained to Liz, these are forumers that happen to role play: they aren't pure role players. If anything, they'll actually generate an active role playing forum as a side effect of their being here, but they're not coming here for the role playing.

And if Code Blue goes through, I'll have to put down S:A and devote my full attention to those Store updates (as I believe I've mentioned), which I'm sure will make all of you happy. (Not the Store updates so much as the fact that I'll be working on the Store, and there will be enough members to sustain a very healthy economy.)

Well, my take on this is that the forum still has no essential point in existing, so it's pretty much still doomed in the long term. There used to be werewolf and the store, now there's nothing. Werewolf isn't going to come back I don't think, since we have so few members. And without anything to post about the store has no chance either. We wouldn't have enough members for it either anyway.

I'm a little confused.

Code Blue Store Updates and S:A are not related? Will S:A have store updates in it?

No, S:A will not have Store updates in it. (Though it may contain future concepts that may one day become items.)

If it doesn't have a store function, or provide similar entertainment then it wont cause any change in the stasis quo.

But, if there's no posting going on, the store won't be worth anything no matter how awesome it might be.

See the above quote.

But what could possibly be more entertaining than fireworks?

Burning Buildings or possibly C4.

Or one inside the other?

How do you fit a burning building inside C4?

And Zen specified "similar" entertainment. I never said that S:A would be more entertaining than the Store. In any case, something may start going down this coming weekend.

Parts that made me burst out laughing:





And Lixyl being a big polar bear just gives me more reason to go "D'Awwwww!" at him.

1. Soon likes my PMs. Yep, he does. I swear. And he does not ignore them!

2. This is awesome stuff, very well written, Shaft. ^_^

You know, I did actually take some time to read this and ... it was pretty amusing. I love how you portrayed my uncanny trait of blindly making things work. I always stumble into things without the slightest clue what I'm doing, but logic and a little common sense gets me through most of the time. XD

@ Lixyl: ...I don't ignore anyone, so that's not much to brag about. The only people I've ever ignored are spammers, and even then I'll occasionally have some fun with them.

P.S- Don't tell R/C I was here! If he finds out that I took the time to read this (after all of his old FFs that I bypassed) then he'll probably kill me ... or try to, at least.

*begins to draw sword, but stops halfway, and yawns instead*

Nevermind. I'm too lazy. >.>

Yea. Nice one, Rift.

Fear not. I shall read your "HaX" fic if you get around to reposting it.

Sure you will.

lol

But seriously. This whole "Merger" Business has really affected the end of HaX. *has been scheming the final arc, to this day.* In a sense, it's actually made it better. Xo