Goodbye Catacombs?

[eziam]

Hello everyone!

Glad to see FF still alive and kicking, unlike our beloved forum.

For those that don't know me (which I assume is everyone here), I am eziam or maize or maizy depending which pill I have taken. I was one of the original administrators (it was first an ezboard forum...old school).

Not to bore you wonderful internet personas to death but the website started around 1999 (from a wonderful 5mb charter communications account) and really took off 2000. Half-Life popularity and the wonderful internet made this multiplayer game an orgasm for us computer nerds. The membership grew from a couple of hundred to over 5,000 individual accounts (i suspect only 2,000 real people and 1 banned person with 3,000 aliases).

I was around for the golden years but decided that I should concentrate on life and became a recluse. The site was sold twice. Since we never made money on this (a community), the person that owned it was supposed to be the steward of our wonderful community. After a decade...the users were in the hundreds and finally in the tens (maybe 35). The forum sadly turned into its name "catacombs".

While I love what we had (a wonderful small knit community), the low user turnout made it impossible to sustain. Sadly, the lack of great leadership allowed the site to disappear. While I wish somebody would step up and resurrect it, I understand that somethings just need to die.

[NeonLight]

I agree something do need to die, but I don't get why he has to hold the archives hostage to something he really didn't even belong to. I mean who even really liked him besides knox..

[NeonLight]

Eh lets just hope he eventually changes his mind and at least sells it to someone in the community who's a willing buyer. As much as I didn't post there, the 8 years I browsed were amazing. Was really one of a kind forum, never found one similar.

[GenghisTron]

Just goes to show that people in positions of power are usually there for reasons that aren't evident at first glance.

[CaptainAhab]

TFC'ers heading over here to chill?

Sure, why not.

[KubeDawg]

TFC vet for over 10 years would love to see more TFCers playing FF!

Now if you'l excuse me, I'ma go knife some bitches.

[Thrash]

Originally Posted by eziam

I was around for the golden years but decided that I should concentrate on life and became a recluse. The site was sold twice. Since we never made money on this (a community), the person that owned it was supposed to be the steward of our wonderful community. After a decade...the users were in the hundreds and finally in the tens (maybe 35). The forum sadly turned into its name "catacombs".

While I love what we had (a wonderful small knit community), the low user turnout made it impossible to sustain. Sadly, the lack of great leadership allowed the site to disappear. While I wish somebody would step up and resurrect it, I understand that somethings just need to die.

I registered just to contend against this crap maizy. You were always the more level headed of the group, but seriously?

The first part of the quoted portion is the same apathetic dribble that Rasp used to justify his behavior and eventual dismissal of the Catacombs.

The second part is the directly related to the same nonsense and despite the attempts of many people to get The Catacombs from Rasp, directly or indirectly, he refused to give up his tiny grasp of power.

There were more than 35 active people. Sure it wasn't what it once was, and never would be, but it was still far from "dead". Dead is the Steam TFC Forums. That is "dead". There isn't much argument to that. Within the last 3 years I raised a grand worth of donation money for a tournament for TFC sponsored by The Catacombs. That alone is proof the forum wasn't dead.

It needs to be clear to anyone who cared, knew about it, or heard about it.. the community didn't die, didn't wither away into nothing. It was shut down by a bi-polar, petty nut job.



For those who are still curious, Rasp, as mentioned before, came to own The Catacombs for the last 7 years or so. He had no ties to the community, never played TFC or any variant. He was the first/highest bidder and ended up owning the community forums.

He toyed with shutting them down over the years just to get a reaction and each time I, and others, approached him to purchase The Catacombs. Each time he became condescending, dismissive and uncooperative. He refused to name a price, but said he wasn't going to sell it cheap. He refused to discuss it with anyone in the community but constantly did us the "favor" of acting like he would instead of selling it to a stranger.

The final time he made a forum post commenting about how he was going to shut it down, or sell it to an outside buyer. He made vague allusions to selling it within the community and I posted the following.

Someone linked me to this thread earlier.

You've been approached by myself, and others, last time you wanted to be rid of the horrible crushing burden that is The Catacombs.

I know in at least 2 cases, you refused to even discuss a price. You can claim things like "not letting idiots ruin this" (if you sell it, whats the problem?) or "they offered me like $5 bucks" (I know I asked you your price and refused to even name a number and I've heard I wasn't the only one.) but you're still dodging actually pulling the trigger to sell it at a fair price to someone in the community.

Sorry Direhit wasn't going to shut the forums down arbitrarily. You just happened to buy them before someone else did. TFC was active enough that someone else would have stepped in and bought them. TFC, and the Catacombs, was more than active enough at the time. Hell, I actually raised donation money for a Catacombs sponsored money tournament. We're grateful for you stepping in, but we're not naive, someone else would have if you didn't.

If you don't want to sell to JohnWild, MasscrE, Merkin or Halo... sure. I can understand that considering some of their instabilities and your dislike of the others. But whats so terrible about discussing this with me, someone who has stronger legitimate ties to this community than you ever did? I don't mean that negatively, I mean it to illustrate the legitimacy of my interest both previously and possibly moving forward.The only negative thing I've ever done to The Catacombs is have a personal quarrel with you. That's certainly not a unique situation. Outside of that, I've done what I can in the past to maintain some of what generated interest in these forums, to the best of my abilities. I can't speak to anyone else, but have you bothered to discuss this with Una, Janus, Maizy, Doombringa, Thrash_head? They all had various levels of interest last time also.

Having pointed this out on this multiple times, I fully expect this post to be deleted and/or banned. Or maybe, you'll just try to dismiss me with some condescending statement. Or ignore this outright. Regardless, I'd be more surprised than ever before in my life if this garnered a positive response. Try it out, you'd be surprised how quickly your issues will be resolved.

Within two hours he shut The Catacombs down.



For what it's worth to the few of you I know and played with, I had fun guys. It was a spectacular community with a ridiculously rich history and variety of characters.

GG.

[eziam]

I am not defending Rasp, I don't agree with what he did. I have been trying to convince him to let someone else take over. However, there is nothing I can do honestly.

If you really want to, start up your own catacombs forum. I would support you 100%. Nobody seems to take the reigns. Seriously, go buy catacombs.net and put up a vbulletin. I would support that 100%

[ian.de]

Thanks for posting that explanation Thrash, I was out of town for a few days when Rasp made his final thread and when I came back it was all gone.

I would personally drop $4k to get those forums back, that's how much The Cats meant to me.

Originally Posted by eziam

I am not defending Rasp, I don't agree with what he did. I have been trying to convince him to let someone else take over. However, there is nothing I can do honestly.

If you really want to, start up your own catacombs forum. I would support you 100%. Nobody seems to take the reigns. Seriously, go buy catacombs.net and put up a vbulletin. I would support that 100%

Good to hear from you maize!
The vault archives are the history of the community, and there's no point in starting a new forum because no one would be able to find it. And I remember checking the daily visits, up until the week the forum was taken down, and there were at least 150-200 registered users logging in every day (not to mention lurkers).

[Thrash]

Originally Posted by eziam

I am not defending Rasp, I don't agree with what he did. I have been trying to convince him to let someone else take over. However, there is nothing I can do honestly.

If you really want to, start up your own catacombs forum. I would support you 100%. Nobody seems to take the reigns. Seriously, go buy catacombs.net and put up a vbulletin. I would support that 100%

The problem with that is the more casual people who helped form the backbone of the community. Sure, some would only pop in once a week, or month, but they were a known part of the community.

A new forum, with new database, new names, new... everything. It'd be spread by word of mouth, with no original page redirect. That'd just fail. It's not that I'm opposed, I'm just aware it'd be a failed venture.

The Catacombs needs to be The Catacombs, domain name, database and all. It doesn't need to be in his possession, it doesn't need to be changed. If I had bought it, I would have used it as a organizing point for Natural Selection 2.

[WiFiDi]

shame to see something like this happen.

unfortunately these things happen all to often.

[Bully]

http://tfcommunity.com

[ian.de]

fuck yeah! Thanks man

[YomMamasHouse]

And nothing of value was lost.

[ian.de]

Originally Posted by YomMamasHouse

And nothing of value was lost.

Just ten years of history from one of the oldest gaming communities ever.

[Features-]

You know what I don't post on forums much nor do I care to, but what Rasp did was wrong. I was a 'lurker' I suppose. I browsed random image threads and stupid threads made by knox or halfbreed. I was there when kulite donated money to massacre for his stupidity for going to jail for shooting I think ducks.. who RIP kulite for overdosing, and all the other members who died while being active in community.. redneck was one of the only ones I remembered. Hell I grew up on those forums got flamed for 'bodybuilding' when I was younger, etc etc. But it was a great experience being on those forums over the ~9 year (2003 I think is when it started).

It is petty drama and pretty much a dick move to do anything of the sort. Even if you don't have ties to a community and have no consequences for doing something like dropping the database you surely have a fucking conscious to know what it meant to certain people, and people like that deserve to die. Mr. Rasp the bakery gun holder douche bag who was full of himself.

[aleXtric]

Fuck rasp, hes the OT Scuzzy of thecats. a fucking nobody old guy who spends $ and gets power in a video game community.

[ian.de]

Originally Posted by aleXtric

Fuck rasp, hes the OT Scuzzy of thecats. a fucking nobody old guy who spends $ and gets power in a video game community.

They are in the top 10 Power-trippers of the century.

[squeek.]

The funny thing is Scuzzy would never do something like this.

[moosh]

Is there an echo in these forums?