Posted: February 14, 2009, 04:55:53 PM by Roph

Tell us about what gifts or messages you gave and/or received 

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Posted: February 07, 2009, 10:29:28 AM by Roph

The last time a news post was made with a title like this was RMRK, its finances and you, just over a year ago, so it's a good time for an update.

RMRK's running costs have infact decreased since then. This is down to a few things:

- Resource usage; switching to a more advanced searching method more than halved the daily average load (almost as much activity from members' actions are from guests/members searching). Also of help were some database tweaks (switching the heavier tables to InnoDB, for the nerdier crowd) and the setup of eAccelerator.

- Our server provider beefed up their offerings for each particular price point, you may remember a news post about how we lowered usage and at the same time ended up with more available on a lower option. I might write a praise post about them sometime in the future.

RMRK has always been totally free for anyone. As free as possible. Members get everything other sites would prefer to restrict to paying members only, like PM space, attachment priviledges, forum access. Things that are restricted are done on your merit, and have nothing to do with whether you pay anything.

Also, we prefer to have as little advertising as possible. You may have noticed that for a while now, RMRK has been totally ad free. You can vote on that here if you like. Of course, this has the obvious downside of next to no income, but no ads are nice.

It seems the community recognises and/or appreciates that; as our honors list shows, you always come through to keep RMRK up. RMRK is truly a site owned by its users

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I hesitated for a long time on writing this next part, but eventually decided I would. People from other sites, communities and games will be directed to this news post. It will save me having to repeat many times to different people. In short: my PC is dying. But that doesn't sound very dramatic, and of course is lacking many details.

This computer has had many transplants and patches here and there, but if I had to apply a solid date to it, I'd say 2002. And most of those parts have been in near constant operation since then. However, stuff wears out, and this has become very close to dying completely. Again, still doesn't sound so dramatic, so I'll elaborate. Here's a list of what's wrong:

RAM is bad (both sticks of my ram fail memory burn-in tests and memtest86+ diagnostics. Some times applications just crash from memory errors)

Motherboard is bad (Visually, numerous capacitors are bulging, also the thing is just old, running for years and years)

Hard drive is bad (it's got to the point that every few hours or so it chokes, stops, stalls, whatever. This takes down the whole PC and a power cycle is needed)

Since the most critical/central parts (namely the board) are on their way to the grave, a whole replacement is the only way.

What does this have to do with RMRK? (Or gff, m2 and so on for other readers). Along with how I talk to, work with, play with and interact with you all, this computer is pretty much the birthplace of the modern RMRK. What you are looking at now was designed, developed and tested here.

Currently on hold due to these problems are a move to SMF 2.0, rewrites of the current mods and a port of RMRK4 to SMF 2. Also are new unreleased additions; a revamped tutorial system on the main site, a breath of life to the resource system, and upgrades to the main site itself.

RMRK is safe (at least as for uptime) for now till the end of March. However, this (and I) won't be around till then unless something amazing happens. If you want to see what I put together, look no further than this Roph's cheap PC build thread. I've built many PCs for friends or RMRK members, I finally worked on putting together a cheap one. A complete replacement ends up at £258, though with VAT (15% tax) and Shipping, £297.

If you want to help with this cause, just click below:



I'll update this post as anything happens, and answer any questions. I hate looking like this and asking for help, and I guess I've postponed this as long as I can, but it's crunch time 

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Posted: February 02, 2009, 10:32:44 PM by Anski

Miss KitKatKan is now a moderator of the Anime and Manga board.

:*

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Posted: January 11, 2009, 09:15:10 PM by Roph

This is essentially following something pointed out by our collegues over at RMXP.org, the original thread for which you should read here.


While my own personal stance is a preference for non-commercial (or at least free as in speech, not beer) or "hobbyist" game, resource, music and so on making, those who feel differently and would someday imagine possibly going commercial would be good to tread carefully on where you initially submit your resources for either critique or sharing.

It's worth pointing out that RMRK is essentially the exact opposite of this above case. To quote our "About us" page on our wiki:


I definitely believe that this is a much better way to work in the hobby/indie game creation scene than the above and other mentioned site's chosen policy. RMRK has no commercial interest in your property, and you will never find us claiming ownership over something you submit. Or, even chasing after people who then download and use your work for litigation against them using "our" (your) work.

Now speaking of resources, we'll admit that our Resource database has been a little dry on the update side lately. To help with this, there will be a new usergroup coming soon which users may apply or be nominated for, and this group will be able to add to, manage and modify our resource database.

A full script section and expanded/enhanced tutorials index is also underway. Why not start off 2009 great

Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions.

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Posted: January 08, 2009, 08:18:08 AM by Roph

It was planned, but it was so short I didn't think anybody would notice 

I took the opportunity to do some updating of various things, most obvious of which to users will be that spellchecking support is now back. It's currently a bit dark on the RMRK4 theme, will get on that right now :mad:

I'm doing a full backup of literally everything right now so things might be a little sluggish for an hour or so, and then back to normal 

[edit] Updated CSS, if you still see a dark unreadable page for spellchecking, press CTRL+F5 to force your browser to hard refresh the CSS 

Speaking of the RMRK4 theme, and because I love open source, those interested in checking out how RMRK4 works or who would like to create derivatives can check out our free SVN access to RMRK4 

[edit] Our Ventrilo server, Teamspeak server and both Shoutcast servers back up and running

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Posted: January 04, 2009, 07:11:16 PM by Roph

Both useful for RMRK addicts


Firstly, our online IRC chat is no longer a java applet, and has been replaced by a mibbit AJAX IRC widget. This was due to a few people reporting problems with the Java app, and because Java sucks :mad:

The URL is the same, and it will still auto-suggest your RMRK name for the nickname. A link on the web chat page to launch a popup of just the chat so you don't have to keep a tab (or window, stop using IE) open will come shortly . Still, using an IRC client like XChat or Pidgin is recommended over web IRC, and you can find us on irc.rmrk.net (port 6667), in the channel #crankeye.



Secondly, RMRK now supports Windows Live Alerts. Think of it as turning your Windows Live Messenger (or another supporting program/device) into an automatic RSS reader for RMRK. Every now and then (about one every 1-3 hours, you won't be spammed with them, don't worry) you will see a little notice similar to the one above when people do things on RMRK. Of course, you could always just use our regular RSS Feed with a suitable reader

If you want to try out the RMRK Alerts for windows live, click here to signup to them. A proper permanent link will appear soon in an upcoming theme update 

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Posted: January 01, 2009, 01:45:29 AM by HaloOfTheSun

Congrats to Nouman, who is now an administrator. 

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Posted: December 25, 2008, 11:46:21 AM by Roph

RMRK is now approaching being 7 years old, hard to imagine


I remember this ;_;

Merry christmas everyone

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Also, those who hadn't previously decided to join the public testing of the new theme will probably have a little surprise today, as now it has been made the new default. Now Crankeye.com, Crankeye.net and RMRK.net are all unified in layout =).

Most bugs have been squashed, but if you happen to find any more bugs or errors, feel free to leave some feedback in the RMRK4 Theme topic

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Posted: December 19, 2008, 04:10:36 PM by Roph

Following our application, poll process, and subsequent bitching in the mod hut, we now have our new moderators!

Leventhan is now watching over the RMVX board and its subforums.

Black Shadow will now be messing with your posts in the RMXP board and its subforums.

Nessiah will be keeping an eye on the RPG Maker 2k/2k3 forums.

Revo now moderates Game Creation General Chat.

Chewey and Strike Reyhi now command Video Games.

And last but not least, ahref quite deservedly now has power over Computing and Technology. 

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Posted: December 05, 2008, 12:24:26 PM by Roph

A great way to help keep a board you visit often running smoothly and also gain a foothold onto the RMRK staff ladder is by starting off as a single board moderator. Usually the positions are offered to members chosen by the current mods, super mods and admins, but this time it's going to run a little different.

This time around, if you think you have what it takes for a particular board, you can apply. After a while, there will be a set of polls and the RMRK community itself will decide on the new moderators.

Post in this thread if you're interested, say what board you're interested in and why you think you should be chosen for it.

The boards are:

The Auditorium
Community
General Chat
Elitist Debate
Video Games
Computing and Technology


Game Creation General Chat
RMVX (and subforums)
RMXP (and subforums)
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 (and subforums)

So, let's make history folks!

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