This is it

[Techno 5.0]

Im done. as much as i want to love these forums they have utterly gone straight to hell.
i remember the old days when making games with this community actually meant something
but the people running this system (you know who im talking about) have turned this into a knock off of what it was supposed to be.

Politics has been issued throughout the forums, support is no longer offered if at all needs to be compromised. The Forums are not what they used to be and it was a pleasure getting to know all of you who actually mattered and actually contributed to this community instead of taking control with your creations.

i wish all of you a beautiful godspeed and farewell with your projects
if you need me for anyreason
email me:

[email protected]

please tell me who yu r in the email or i will not respond.

[Marsh]

I agree sites gone to shit.

[guzmanm]

@Ninja-Tech:

> **The Forums are not what they used to be**

Couldn't be more right. It's really sad how the forums have changed. I remember having fun with the community back in the days. I just hope the forums don't go worst than what it is right now.

[erkro1]

I agree with forums going to shit, but I disagree with 'no support', I mean take a look in the Q&A section, alot questions get answered.

[evilbunnie]

…And we all know how to fix it..

I'll miss you ninja.

[Robin]

People dislike change and now you're feeling nostalgic for the first couple of years the forum was active - something which would be impossible to replicate now because you were a kid back then. It was just a bunch of young teenagers dicking around making video games.

Then you grew up. You got jobs. People started to leave. Hell, you did the exact same thing. The reason the community isn't the same is because none of you are here any more. What you're feeling is perfectly normal. Everyone has fond memories of things when they were younger and they all have the exact same view - "It's not the same any more".

Lashing out at me because the forum wasn't frozen from 2007 onwards when the reason it changed so much is because people like you left for years at a time is simply unfair.

Still, I'm used to people blindly blaming me for all their problems so go for it. Obviously I'm the cold Tyrant who does nothing for any one else and simply wants to sit here in a position of power on the internet. Because, you know, I have nothing better to do than spend years developing software just so I can get a power trip over a bunch of 13 year old American kids.

Any real point you had about the state of the community was lost when you did what people so often do - blame the most prominent person in charge rather than the people who make up the system. Vandalising my profile was just pathetic, too.

Have a good life.

[Murdoc]

Yea, its gone to hell but what can we do about it. The reason its not like it used to be is because that's what happens to all trends. Nothing is like it used to be, hence the often used expression "its not like the good old days". If anything people are just ducking bored around here, so they got nothing better to do than spew bullshit everywhere. Were all guilty of that to some degree.

At one time every new idea, resource etc on eclipse was like an exciting venture. Now its like nobody gives a shit but the newbies. Thats why its gone to shit.

The only way it could be like it used to be, is if the whole concept of 2d game creating was still interesting to the majority. Its not. Alot of us are not even using the forums for what it was intended, while we inwardly envy those who actually give a damn about any of it. And it shows.

Hell, the only ones with any enthusiasm about eclipse 2d game making are the n00bs on the forums, and theyre soon shot down with "yea, that sucks.." and "why dont you do better you inadequate fool". Everyone else is sitting back going "seen it all before". So yea, its different and ducked. But what can we do about it really?

[DrNova]

Meh, I still like it here, for whateve rreason. Its not the same as th eold days, but its still a place I enjoy coming to bullshit with friends I dont really know XD

Stopped being about Eclipse for me here a long time ago, its just companionship

[Robin]

@Murdock:

> Yea, its gone to hell but what can we do about it. The reason its not like it used to be is because that's what happens to all trends. Nothing is like it used to be, hence the often used expression "its not like the good old days". If anything people are just ducking bored around here, so they got nothing better to do than spew bullshit everywhere. Were all guilty of that to some degree.

Honestly? The same people who want the forum to be like it used to be are the ones who do this the most. None of them are making video games and expect the forum to still be relevant and interesting.

@Murdock:

> At one time every new idea, resource etc on eclipse was like an exciting venture. Now its like nobody gives a shit but the newbies. Thats why its gone to shit.

Bullshit. That was down to nostalgia. Everything is 100x better as a kid. I can run a PS2 game now and think it looks like absolute balls. Back when I was 12 years old these things looked _amazing_. Same with films. I'd like anything when I was a kid but now I'm very critical about most cinema. As people grow up they become cynical. Hell, South Park did an episode dealing with this recently.

There are dozens of people who are still working on their games and having group discussions and debates about mechanics and story telling. It's just impossible to do that out in the open because of the amount of people who have no idea what they're talking about, don't even develop games in their spare time and still insist on giving their opinion on everything.

Start building friendships with the developers outside the forum and you'll realise just how big this is.

@Murdock:

> The only way it could be like it used to be, is if the whole concept of 2d game creating was still interesting to the majority. Its not. Alot of us are not even using the forums for what it was intended, while we inwardly envy those who actually give a damn about any of it. And it shows.

Pretty much this. People come back after going away for years at a time and expect things to actually be interesting here when they're not even making a game.

@Murdock:

> Hell, the only ones with any enthusiasm about eclipse 2d game making are the n00bs on the forums, and theyre soon shot down with "yea, that sucks.." and "why dont you do better you inadequate fool". Everyone else is sitting back going "seen it all before". So yea, its different and ducked. But what can we do about it really?

The development community has gone underground around here recently. Rightly so, too. The most active community members don't make video games and don't bother offering support, yet we've still got a huge flow of new members coming in needing help.

Personally I just keep an eye out for those with true talent and drive and I mentor them through PMs and IM. After 7 years of watching the same kids come in expecting everything to be done for them I'm growing very old and very bored of copying and pasting links to my documentation and tutorials.

Maybe if other people actually bothered to learn the engine and give support in the Q&A section then we'd have more active discussions. But of course that'd be a solution to the problem and the people complaining don't want that. They just want to blame everything on me, claim that everything was 100x better before, say the forum has gone to shit then rage quit.

It's the usual cry-fest where people want to bitch and moan but if you suggest they lift a finger and actually help build the place how they want it to be they'll never do it.

[DrNova]

Just out of curiosity. In your opinion, Robin, why DO you rub so many people the wrong way?

[Murdoc]

@DrNova:

> Just out of curiosity. In your opinion, Robin, why DO you rub so many people the wrong way?

Robin "rubs" the right way lol (had to say it)

I'll let Robin answer for himself. But, my opinion is that the only people that get offended by Robin's honesty are the ones that can't handle it. If everyone on here was just as honest theyd have the same resistance. I'm not actively as vocal, but when I am I have the tendency to rub people the wrong way too, because I don't like tunnel footing around and pretending to think everything is cool all the time. If you don't care a lot about what other's think of you, this happens naturally. At some point people just gotta grow up, get a spine and stop being a tunnel about everything. This doesn't just hold true for eclipse. For example, if you had a partner that tells you like it is, and you go crying everytime theyre honest, the relationship isnt gonna last very long. That's just the way it is.

Edit:

By the way, the notion that there is some sort of political conspiracy going on in eclipse is complete bullarky. Robin has talent and has brought eclipse along way with his programming abilities. He was generous enough to offer his services, eventhough he didn't have to. No tyrant political leader (for lack of a better term) would ever do this, unless they were trying to get people on their good side only to screw them over in the end. And i mean, were talking about eclipse here, not the fucking government. The idea sparks an image of robin and his friends in suit coats, sitting in a dark room conspiring on how to take over eclipse….. its a bit ridiculous to say the least.

[Robin]

@DrNova:

> Just out of curiosity. In your opinion, Robin, why DO you rub so many people the wrong way?

Probably because I don't care about them and won't go out of my way to sugar coat anything for them. The people on this forum who are always complaining about everything I do tend to fall in to the category of idiots, thieves or people-who-don't-know-how-to-deal-with-change-and-nostalgia-in-an-adult-way.

They really are the minority, though. I've met so many fantastic people over the years. I'm still in touch with dozens of people from 7 or 8 years ago when I first started developing games. I've known them longer than most of my real-life friends.

I know how to make things work, I know how to make things look good and I know how to push people to maximise their own potential. Unfortunately, as in all things in life, everyone has a voice and the people who tend to use it the most are the ones who come under those three categories mentioned before.

I still get dozens of PMs and e-mails from people thanking me for releasing my engine. I've had people tell me how they started developing games using my software and went on to work for game development companies. Hell, my first ever game release got Rory in to game design back when he was a kid. I'm the reason he started doing graphical design for games and now he's doing fantastically in college and making a huge amount of money doing freelance web development and graphical design.

If I sat here caring about the opinions of those who just sit around doing nothing but complaining all day then I'd never get anything done. Over the last few years I've come to the realisation that I can't please everyone so I don't even try. As long as there are still those people who learn from me and push themselves to do their best because of my motivation then I couldn't care less what some whiny fucking teenager thinks of what I do.

Anna made a fantastic analogy a month or so back about how Eclipse isn't a school - Kids now-a-days feel entitled to have everything done for them. They believe they should be respected regardless of how they act and that other people should have the responsibility of making sure they do well.

My respect is earned. My praise is saved for the people who work hard. If I treated every talentless kid the exact same way then my words would lose their meaning and my respect would be worthless. As it stands if I say something is good it generally means it's amazing, and the person who pushed himself further than everyone else will know they're something special.

I'm here to nurture the talent of the silent few who are a cut above the rest, not to massage the ego of the self-entitled spoilt teenagers.

[Murdoc]

I almost shed a tear.. *applause*

I imagine its hard, or just annoying, being in the spotlight sometimes. On one hand people are grateful for what youve done. On the other, some are envious or even pissed that you have talent and have brought eclipse a long way. I gotta say, I wouldnt want to be in your shoes. But you handle it very well.

[Robin]

@Murdock:

> I almost shed a tear.. *applause*
>
> I imagine its hard, or just annoying, being in the spotlight sometimes. On one hand people are grateful for what youve done. On the other, some are envious or even pissed that you have talent and have brought eclipse a long way. I gotta say, I wouldnt want to be in your shoes. But you handle it very well.

Removed that huge quote. xD

But yeah, I used to care what people thought of me. It's only over the last few years I've really been able to realise that most of the people who are critical of what I do have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

It's absolutely amazing how many people have told me how much my guidance and help has pushed them to work hard towards what they want to accomplish. It really is a great feeling knowing that people are learning from what you do.

In the end everything I've done was recognised and now I'm a senior software developer designing systems used by the National Health Service - a position usually requiring a degree and 4 years professional experience. The rest of my team are in their late 30s, early 40s and one of them was the developer of one of the first multi-player RPGs for the ZX Spectrum.

Having some spoilt, white, middle-class American teenagers working at McDonalds complaining about how I run my life really means fuck all to me when I've got people like this who are seriously impressed by my work.

[Murdoc]

@Robin:

> In the end everything I've done was recognised and now I'm a senior software developer designing systems used by the National Health Service - a position usually requiring a degree and 4 years professional experience. The rest of my team are in their late 30s, early 40s and one of them was the developer of one of the first multi-player RPGs for the ZX Spectrum.
>
> Having some spoilt, white, middle-class American teenagers working at McDonalds complaining about how I run my life really means fuck all to me when I've got people like this who are seriously impressed by my work.

Congrats bro! Looks like your ambitions have really paid off :)

[ZoSo]

Im not sure how Robin prevents you people from doing fun games?
Its pretty retarded and pathetic to blame one person because you all fail at making games.

Robin just raised the standard, its your own failure because you cannot live up to that standard, all i remember in the past of Eclipe is that it was a community with piece of shit games with ugly gui's. Its just that you all used to think that was awesome…

[Marsh]

I didnt read the giant walls of text yet as i have to goto work.

Its not nostalgia. I personally think the site is wrecked because newcomers are seeing posts by robin and trying to emulate him. They just turn out mean or straight out retarded. It seems like a ton of the members of the site are just complete assholes now. When a stupid post was made we used to laugh comment anyway and carry on. Now it just turns into flamewars and people leaving.

We used to have tons of topics in off topic talking about life or anything. Now people are calling everyones shit stupid and asking why they posted it? Who cares? its Off Topic post whatever the heck you want. I am tired of going into threads and seeing responses of you "You suck" There is always going to be that newb but it just seems out of control lately.

Also i agree with the support. A ton of threads are just turning into people telling them to learn how to program or read a tutorial. While this is good advice its not the end all to half the comments in the question section. If you dont know the answer to the question just stay out of the thread.

Also this is a more personal thing but i really hate the ducking memes that are coming to Eclipse. Eclipse used to have a huge collection of awesome personal jokes. Now its just like a shittier version of 4chan.

tldr;
Stop trying to act like Robin. Your making yourself look like a douche.

[Robin]

@Marshy:

> Its not nostalgia. I personally think the site is wrecked because newcomers are seeing posts by robin and trying to emulate him. They just turn out mean or straight out retarded. It seems like a ton of the members of the site are just complete assholes now. When a stupid post was made we used to laugh comment anyway and carry on. Now it just turns into flamewars and people leaving.

Eclipse _always_ had people who were dicks. People just didn't care because they were dicks to other people. All the inter-community bullshit, DDoSing other engine sites, flaming anyone who was registered on another Mirage-based site. Other forums would get raided by groups of Eclipse members spamming, posting shit and generally being retarded.

Hell, I registered a new account here in '08 so I could request the various threads offering work stolen from me could be taken down. My graphics were ripped apart and so commonly used that the official release of Solar Eclipse had a plagiarised GUI in it. Just because people were dicks to people outside of the community doesn't mean they weren't generally dicks.

@Marshy:

> We used to have tons of topics in off topic talking about life or anything. Now people are calling everyones shit stupid and asking why they posted it? Who cares? its Off Topic post whatever the heck you want. I am tired of going into threads and seeing responses of you "You suck" There is always going to be that newb but it just seems out of control lately.

Yes, but the community used to all be on a single level and used to be heavily moderated compared to how it is now. We have only a few active moderators and no new people coming in to the team. There's an increasing gap between the majority of the active community and the oldies who stay in power and do nothing. If you want a community which is more homely then you need a moderation team which is an actual part of the community, not a bunch of people who log on every few weeks and hand out warnings.

@Marshy:

> Also i agree with the support. A ton of threads are just turning into people telling them to learn how to program or read a tutorial. While this is good advice its not the end all to half the comments in the question section. If you dont know the answer to the question just stay out of the thread.

We get way too many idiots posting this on genuine question threads, but we also get a huge amount of people who pose feature requests, team recruitment and thinly veiled begging as a question. "How can I make a guild system with inter-guild wars, tags, banks and instanced housing?" has a pretty obvious answer - by learning to program. Still, we get too many people who take my common answers and spam them across threads where it isn't appropriate. If people simply reported these posts and the people were warned then it wouldn't happen.

If people actually bothered to push themselves to complete feature requests then we'd be able to offer it as a service. As it stands I was literally the _only_ person who would complete these requests. One I retired and stopped doing it the entire subforum died out completely. That's a problem with the community hierarchy, not people's attitudes.

We have so few people who give out help now-a-days that we've got an entire generation of users who needed to push hard to learn anything about the engine. As such they're now pushing for the even newer generations to learn things for themselves as well. They're just not mature enough to do it in a proper way - one where you don't just copy my tongue-in-cheek attitude.

@Marshy:

> Also this is a more personal thing but i really hate the ducking memes that are coming to Eclipse. Eclipse used to have a huge collection of awesome personal jokes. Now its just like a shittier version of 4chan.

Inside jokes only work when the community members were active when they were created. There are only a few old members left and they're completely inactive. There are tons of new inside jokes that you simply won't get because they're made by the new generations.

@Marshy:

> Stop trying to act like Robin. Your making yourself look like a douche.

Why anyone would want to act like me is seriously beyond me.

[ZoSo]

One flaw ive always seen in this community is the retard moderators not cleaning topics.

I used to post topics here but they got cluttered with spam and off-topic arguments about something, i requested a topic cleaning but it ended up that i had to chase the moderators when they were online and PM them, even then some did not even care.

All the moderators do here is lock topics or act like total jerks. And shit posts should simply be deleted, so it does not exist, i mean fuck… comon

[Marsh]

Maybe i just miss the smaller closer community.

[Robin]

@Marsh:

> Maybe i just miss the smaller closer community.

It's just growing up, man. I get the exact same thing. Everyone used to have much more free time. We'd all spend hours just dicking around in the shoutbox, trolling people with censors and inside jokes and generally having a good time. That's what being a teenager is all about. I have the exact same nostalgia for all the old communities I used to hang around which have now died off or turned to shit.

People just grew up, got jobs and started families. New members came in but it's not the same for us because we're not a part of that new generation. As such there'll just be an increasing gap between the older generation of moderators and the newer generation of members. It's something which happens in all websites which get as old as this. It happens in real life. I bet none of us enjoy spending our time with 13 or 14 year olds now we're 20+. I can't stand being around those damn kids. It's called growing up.

I honestly cannot comprehend what makes people believe that they have any right to come back here after years of inactivity and preach about how everyone new here is a prick and how much better it used to be. Here's an analogy;

You graduated from high-school three years ago. You left to go to college and generally mature as a person. Then, when you finish your degree you go back home. After not setting a single foot in the place since you left, you march in to the middle of the assembly with the entire new school present. You notice that a new student body president has been elected. You notice how he's pushed for a re-decoration of the school. He's pushed for a replacement for the old heating system which didn't work properly.

You stand up on the stage and lecture the entire school about how the school was _so much better_ when it had the old wallpaper colour. You try and convince them that the old heating system which didn't work was _so much better_ because even though it was broken, you knew exactly where the kick the thing to make it work for a few minutes.

You then continue to denounce the new student body president, comparing him to Hilter and Stalin. You claim that every single thing which has changed, in your mind for the worse, on this one person. You say that everyone who's new that you don't even know are total pricks and that people aren't acting the same way they used to do when you were in school.

Then, finally, you announce to everyone that you're finally leaving the school and you're never coming back because of how it is now run - after three full years of absence in front of a community of people who have no idea who you are.

This is the absolute definition of a dick and I honestly don't understand why people think it's acceptable to do it on the internet.

[Anna Comnena]

@ZoSo:

> One flaw ive always seen in this community is the retard moderators not cleaning topics.

You act like that is an easy job. It's not. Even when the community was a lot smaller than it was now it was quite the task to keep everything clean. Because then what standard do you have something being cleaned? What if the topic OP thought it should be cleaner than what a moderator thought? Or less clean?

The organic nature of communication means that there will always be threads where the topic goes off-course. Accept this. With reasonable people engaged in the conversation you can steer it back to the topic you'd want it to be at. Backseat moderation was always a bigger problem than moderation or lack of moderation; making posts about moderation or lack thereof, from members who don't have the ability to do moderation tasks, just clutters everything up. This was why old forums like the recruitment center had to been locked so harshly.

@Robin:

> There's an increasing gap between the majority of the active community and the oldies who stay in power and do nothing. If you want a community which is more homely then you need a moderation team which is an actual part of the community, not a bunch of people who log on every few weeks and hand out warnings.

This. Even people like Ninja, who were part of the newer group of moderators, hasn't been that active in the community recently. Most of us if we are still active just chat here to keep in touch with everyone and mess around. A new crop of moderators who are actually active in the current community wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Dark Crusade]

I've been around a while now, sadly the forum doesn't mean as much to me as it used to. I guess I've grown up, I'm at university, got a job, etc. I used to be a flaming troll and visit all the time. Although I did make some members upset and got on the nerves of administrators and moderators- you have to admit, we had a lot of fun.
I'm still trying my absolute hardest to work on a game (Elandor Chronicles), but truth is, I have such little time nowadays. I have been working on bits and pieces when I can, and the goal still stands for me to finish it. I do agree that the community was more involved when the veterans of Eclipse were all communicating and collaborating and working on a game of their own. The people who know the most about Eclipse also offer less support because they've been doing it for years now, and answering the same questions. And of course, less interested in helping because of the above issues.

[JeffSventora]

Not too long ago, I remember when people were complaining about the Mirage Community and about how it wasn't the same. Shortly after it met it's fate. The best community I can remember from this scene was most definitely the Elysium Diamond community. ED had an active community with a bunch of people making crap games (including myself), replicating other engines and just overall, having fun. I didn't join Eclipse to use Eclipse, I joined because it's the closest to that nostalgic feel from ED years back.

The best part about it is that, I was one hell of a noob when I joined ED and that's what made it fun. Learning, applying, and learning some more. Now it seems that most of the vets are growing older responsibilities are kicking them in the ass making their favorite hobby of sitting on their ass all day far more impossible. What I see here is Robin trying to revolutionize as did Pingu, where as everyone else wants to maintain their same status they gained in the past. Take a look around… the only people complaining are the ones who have been here for a while. Being a noob was all about fun but now, with experience we should all be teaching and exploring further opportunities to keep places like this alive.

Mirage had a great community, filled with loads of talent all put to rest because everyone had the urge to measure dicks... if the same happens here, Genesis2D will be crowned king of the VB6 MMO Scene, and _none_ of us want that.

[ZoSo]

@Anna:

> You act like that is an easy job. It's not. Even when the community was a lot smaller than it was now it was quite the task to keep everything clean….

Im not pointing towards anyone in particular, im saying for me, generally when ive been needing moderators, it has not worked.

In the end when i did get a moderator to do something, he'd lock my topic off and i have seen the same thing happend to countless of other topics like newbs posting bad art and people bashing and spamming his topic to the end.

I get it that its a hard job to keep track of all topics, thats why you get more moderators (in different forum sections aswell). Its just that ive seen so many moderators locking threads instead of deleting posts and cleaning topics. Usually i find that to work much better against the trolls and spammers.
You cant say cleaning a topic is hard… then you're a lazy moderator.