Helloooo

[Abeguy]

Fair, it's pretty wild to see how the landscape of socializing on the internet has changed over these past ~20 years. I think the only thing that I regularly still visit forums like these is looking up bug fixes for code or the like.

For myself this place filled with cozy nostalgia, one that I've come to attribute to older houses full of knick knacks, quilted doilies, the smell of mothballs...

If y'all haven't had a chance to check out Oddworld Sligposting over on Facebook, it gets a few posts regularly. It also has around 2,000 members already, so I may be preaching to the choir.

[Phoetux]

Fair, it's pretty wild to see how the landscape of socializing on the internet has changed over these past ~20 years. I think the only thing that I regularly still visit forums like these is looking up bug fixes for code or the like.

For myself this place filled with cozy nostalgia, one that I've come to attribute to older houses full of knick knacks, quilted doilies, the smell of mothballs...

If y'all haven't had a chance to check out Oddworld Sligposting over on Facebook, it gets a few posts regularly. It also has around 2,000 members already, so I may be preaching to the choir.

I hope it's better than the OWI official facebook group.
Since this site is going to die apparently, you guys should also check OWF's discord server. Everyone is there.

Also before the forums die, can someone tell me who's this guy?

[OddjobAbe]

Also before the forums die, can someone tell me who's this guy?

Hobo. Who else?

[Varrok]

You could've figured it out by hovering over the image.

[Auriel]

gotta love how Hobo's welcome back thread turned into an early funeral ceremony for the forums altogether.
so um, there are plans to move all the files from the Mods&Hacks forum to a repository before they're all gone, right

[MA]

so um, there are plans to move all the files from the Mods&Hacks forum to a repository before they're all gone, right

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

sure. sure there is.

[RoryF]

so um, there are plans to move all the files from the Mods&Hacks forum to a repository before they're all gone, right

Hate to disappoint, but seeing as Megaupload and Filesmelt are RIP the levels on them pretty much are as well.


That said, I have at least the very first one I made back in 2010 - it's absolutely shit but we have had a laugh at it now. I might have another one somewhere amongst my backups but I'd have to have a proper hunt.


Generally the only hope is whether anyone has any backups left. Would be nice to check out classics like Chubfish's Oddysee Hard Mode if they ever turn up again.

[Havoc]

so um, there are plans to move all the files from the Mods&Hacks forum to a repository before they're all gone, right

If you're referring to things that were uploaded with the posts, Alcar should have access to those even if the forum stops working. He could easily grab all of them and just make them available for download where ever.

But this is Peter we're talking about, so good luck with that.

Have you tried to load OWF on Wayback? Because of the way the forum produces links (with POST variables rather than sub-urls) it mostly doesn't back threads up.

Luckily for everyone I've downloaded a copy of the OWF archive, since I expected this place to fall over dead years ago. So everyone can rest assured that the dumpster fire known as OWF will be preserved so future generations may read our collective dumbfuckery.

[Varrok]

but why

[Havoc]

because

[Connell]

Man, I miss the Mods & Hacks section. Some people made some excellent levels. I tried my hand at one, I think I made about one screen before I packed it in.

[RoryF]

Luckily for everyone I've downloaded a copy of the OWF archive, since I expected this place to fall over dead years ago. So everyone can rest assured that the dumpster fire known as OWF will be preserved so future generations may read our collective dumbfuckery.

How much archive are we talking? I sometimes find it interesting to read old threads with speculation (especially the old .lvl files thread) knowing the stuff we know now.

Man, I miss the Mods & Hacks section. Some people made some excellent levels. I tried my hand at one, I think I made about one screen before I packed it in.

Certainly a lot of vapourware though - remember BlackVenom's Photoshop levels? Hard to believe it has been like 10 years since Jango started the custom levels megathread...


Maybe I'm too optimistic, but with Paul's (and Varrok's) work on reversing AE, logging bugs and whatnot there might be the possibility of making better levels in future (as much I can comment on from the backseat, Soon(TM) ).



The sheer amount of limitations on the original game engines made it difficult to do anything more complex than a single level edit. I remember Paramonia being virtually uneditable because it would instantly crash if you adjusted anything at all.


That said... LegnaX's edits of SoulStorm Brewery recently were really cool and had a lot of interesting uses of some of the game objects. Probably way too hard for me to complete because I am rusty as hell at AO/AE now.

[Connell]

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but with Paul's (and Varrok's) work on reversing AE, logging bugs and whatnot there might be the possibility of making better levels in future (as much I can comment on from the backseat, Soon(TM) ).

I had no idea that's something that's occuring, I'm totally out of the loop. How are they getting on with it?

Never would have thought there'd be another way to get use out of the original games. Do you know if this could this potentially open it up to being played at higher resolutions etc.?

[Auriel]

Sorry for diverging even further off the topic, but while we're on the subject of mods, is there any type of "best of" collection that has been compiled from what was submitted to the mods forum? I'd imagine there's a handful of must-play mods that really shine above the rest.

[Havoc]

How much archive are we talking? I sometimes find it interesting to read old threads with speculation (especially the old .lvl files thread) knowing the stuff we know now.

It's about 900MB, basically everything from http://www.oddworldforums.net/archive/index.php

I really want to do a proper backup of the entire forum, but that's a wee bit more complicated because technical reasons.

[RoryF]

I had no idea that's something that's occuring, I'm totally out of the loop. How are they getting on with it?

Never would have thought there'd be another way to get use out of the original games. Do you know if this could this potentially open it up to being played at higher resolutions etc.?

Pretty good I think, though you're probably better off asking them as I admittedly haven't kept up on it as much as I should (despite being a Patreon for Paul ). I think they have a relatively good build of AE now with the game pretty much playable.

https://github.com/AliveTeam/alive_reversing/

Sorry for diverging even further off the topic, but while we're on the subject of mods, is there any type of "best of" collection that has been compiled from what was submitted to the mods forum? I'd imagine there's a handful of must-play mods that really shine above the rest.

No one had the foresight to archive like, any of them, so I don't think any such compilation exists. Varrok did manage to download a couple but I expect the majority are gone because file hosts are dead.


I don't have the link to LegnaX's mod but it is worth checking out if you can ask someone else who has it.

[Varrok]

Man, I miss the Mods & Hacks section. Some people made some excellent levels. I tried my hand at one, I think I made about one screen before I packed it in.

they made extra sure to upload them on some niche website that's now dead