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No, I didn't purposely intend on bringing the board down. Shyper, our lovely (now former) host decided to suspend my account for using too much CPU, which we all know is a load of BS. That's why this was down for about two weeks. I signed up with GoDaddy instead and we have more than enough resources now as well as reliable hosting. TSP is also hosted on the same account - it is just a separate domain from SH, so it will be sharing the same disk quota, but no worries, there is plenty to go around - 100 GB to be exact. Unfortunately, Shyper thought they gave me a "complete" back up of my site (whatever that means in their books). The guy must have figured I just meant I wanted my database only and a *few* of my files from my server because I only had about 10-15% of my files. Luckily, I keep local copies of my files anyway, so I was able to restore most of the site, and it least he DID give me the database because I haven't mad a DB back up in a while. Unfortunately, that means that the only part I don't have is stuff that you guys uploaded. Uploads, avatars, etc. from the board are gone now, so you'll have to reupload your avatars.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but that is what happened. We're restored now, and ready to go. |
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Project Launch and Update |
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An update you say? Impossible! Well, here is one, right before your very eyes! This announcement tackles my new website as well as the future of the Sonic Hangout. This is a very important announcement, so make sure to read carefully.
Now, as I have stated, I began working on a project almost a year ago that was more recently revealed to be a Halo-oriented website. This website is officially called The SPARTAN Project. It is a fan site dedicated to the Halo universe - the games, the story and everything in between. With the upcoming release of Halo 3, there's not a better time to start a website so I can closely follow the news that seems to break almost daily in the world of Halo. My site will be part of the new D+Pad Network. D+Pad is a site dedicated to the next-gen approach to old-school gaming. Flame's site, Street Fighter Headquarters, will also become part of the D+Pad network, as well as one of Sonic Hangout's affiliates, Sonic World. D+Pad is slated to launch tomorrow, April 15, which is why I'm bringing you this announcement now.
You can see The SPARTAN Project at http://sonichangout.com/tsp/ . You can also visit D+Pad at http://d-padnetwork.com. Finally, SFHQ is located at http://sma.d-padnetwork.com/sfhq/ .
You may be asking, "That's great and all, but how does this affect the Sonic Hangout, if at all?" Well, I have an answer to your question that you may not be willing to hear, but you'll have to hear anyway. After working on TSH for over 4 years, I've realized it's just become as struggle. The first and most deterring problem of all is the fact that I have no motivation to keep this place going. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that, after over 4 years, 3 with a message board *winks to Amy*, I thought I'd have a larger community base than I have right now. I'm not saying you guys are a terrible community or everything, but there are so few of us and the inactivity really makes the board a dull place to be. Most of it could be blamed on myself, but still, I would have expected more to come along by this point. Secondly, I can't stand Sonic. I made this website out of an obsession with Sonic, but anymore, the series is in extremely tarnished condition. I know that's really great for all of you to hear that coming from your LOYAL WEBMASTER, but the series has been run into the ground with recent games, and I personally don't think it has a hope of coming out. That adds to my lack of motivation - the fact that the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, right now, is an absolute abominating shithole of a mess. I really wish Sonic Team hasn't been the company it has been in the recent 2-3 years. It has made some horrid mistakes, and it's irreversible with even the most dedicated fans at this point. The general public has expressed annoyance with the new games as well. When next-gen Sonic came out last fall, only about 10,000 copies of the game were sold off of store shelves. It has scored ratings below 40% on most major review websites. The game was widely criticized for it's loading times, awful camera work, and lack of that Sonic "fun-factor". That is absolutely horrible for a franchise like Sonic the Hedgehog. This game was slated to be the 'rebirth' of Sonic, but it has done nothing really but show how awful a video game can be developed.
With all of that said, I am making a very crucial decision in the fate of this website. As of today, April 14, 2007, the Sonic Hangout will forever be an archive website. There will be no further content updates to the main website itself. It will stay in the condition it is in for however long I decide to keep paying Shyper $10/month. AGAIN, THIS WILL NOT TERMINATE THE SITE BY ANY MEANS, ONLY MAKE IT AN ARCHIVE. Whatever content is already there will stay there and still be accessible by everyone. There will just be no new updates. Secondly, THE SHMB WILL REMAIN AS IS! I have no plans whatsoever to get rid of the message boards any time soon. I think we all share the same feelings about this board, the few of us that are here, and I'm not letting it die out into oblivion. The message boards will still be around and I will still maintain them, just not as frequently. They will be around so we can continue to talk to each other as well as preserve memories and milestones of this website.
I'm sorry that I have to do this, but it's for the better. This site was going nowhere fast. I just don't see Sonic as the coolest thing anymore and that's why it's so hard to keep updating. I haven't made a solid update on this website probably since last year at this rate. It's just not fair for me to keep making promises of content and then come months later nothing happens. So I've decided to cut that out since I can no longer deliver the updates that I promised I'd deliver.
My last announcement is that I have a new email address. You can now email me at artisoracle@gmail.com. Please avoid using shadowsrevenge96@gmail as I will no longer be checking that account.
So, there was some big news in this announcement, but at least now you know. Thank you for sticking with me the past couple of years and know that the SHMB will remain for as long as possible. |
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| If anyone still pays attention here, I'd just like to let you all know that I will be on vacation this week, from the 18th until the 24th. I'll be on a cruise (go me!). I'll see you all when I get back. |
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Now, I know this site seems to be a bit neglected anymore but it's just due to the fact that Sonic keeps getting these really bad games. Next-Gen Sonic scored barely a 40% in some of the reviews by major gaming sites, and this is a huge disappointment for a franchise of Sonic's caliber. I promise you updates here will be on the horizon... eventually... sometime in the future. All hope is not lost YET. *cough*
But right now, I want to update you on other things not related tot he Sonic series or this website. Does anyone remember that project I mentioned a few months ago, that was something totally secret? Welp, you may all now know what exactly that project is. It's a new website - a Halo website (big surprise there), named The SPARTAN Project (named after the SPARTAN-II project in the series). This will be a Halo fansite centered around the trilogy as well as other games and elements. It is a part of the new D-Pad network that will launch later this winter, possibly early spring (no launch date has been set as of the time of this post). You can preview what I have already done at http://sonichangout.com/tsp as well as follow my progress and see what things I'm going to include on the website. I will try to set up a subdomain for this at a later point.
Unfortunately, this means that more of my attention and focus is going to be going into this new project over the Sonic Hangout, so I may not update here as much has I used to. I will try to maintain both sites, but I have a lot on my plate in the next few weeks. I'm trying to balance drivers' ed, bowling, ski club and the school play all on top of homework/school, so tending to things online may become a little bit out of the question for the next few weeks. I can try to be on, but I can't guarantee it, and when I am on, it won't be for long, and I will be focusing more on getting this Halo site done.
That's the update for now. I hope you all enjoyed what I have to show you. Hopefully I will really expand upon what I have right now and turn this into something big. |
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| It was officially 4 years ago today that I started the Sonic Hangout. It was a small site with only a few pages, and it hasn't changed much since then, I guess. We just have a much better layout. Ah anyway, happy birthday to us! Hopefully we will go somewhere soon! |
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Sonic Site Awards Results |
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| Unfortunately, the Sonic Hangout did not fair very well. We came in 5th place for impressive layout (out of 6 nominees), with 29 votes. Hopefully, we will still get something out of this, though! At least we were mentioned! |
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The Sonic Stadium is having their annual awards ceremony, appropriately named the Sonic Site Awards. This is to give awards to websites that have come far lengths as well as a bit a bit of recognition. This year, the Sonic Hangout is entered into the Most Impressive Layout category. PLEASE VOTE FOR US! This could mean huge amounts of traffic for our website, something that we've definitely needed. In order to vote, you'll need a TSS Account. You can get one for free and go ahead and vote. When you see the voting box after you log in, click the drop down box on the top and select "4. Impressive Layout". From there, you can check out the different options and vote for us. The voting part of the awards lasts from now until DECEMBER 15 with the winners announced on the 17th, so you'll need to vote soon! I will be posting a global announcement on the whole board so that everyone will be reminded. That is all for now! Stay tuned!
VOTE FOR THE SONIC HANGOUT IN THE SSAs |
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Since the holiday season is finally here, I plan to do a few site updates this weekend including the addition of a few more game pages and more. I'm going to also design a Christmas banner for the site and (hopefully) for the board as well. But as I've mentioned before, my time online has really been cut into with all of the things that I have going on, so I'm going to try my best to keep up with updates and keep watch over this place (if anyone ever comes).
Also, a bit of something for you all. Remember that project I talked about a while ago? I haven't forgotten about it.
http://sonichangout.com/project (for lack of a cool and original name)
You'll see that rolling around for this Christmas. That is all. |
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Many Sonic Games Released |
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| This last week, the Sonic world has been abuzz with games. Sonic the Hedgehog (for 360) has been released, along with Sonic the Hedgehog (GBA), Sonic Riders (PC), and Sonic Rivals (PSP). However, most of the gaming reviews on all of these titles have been negative. I'll be getting Sonic 360 sometime within the next few months, so hopefully we can get a whole section on the main website going. |
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Sonic Hangout: State of the Website |
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First off, I'd like to apologize once again for being down, and I cannot guarantee that it will be up all the time the next few days. I will try and fix what's wrong so we don't go down again. The reason we've been going down is because Shyper has no billing info or record of me paying for the hosting. Therefore, they suspended my account, even though the billing info was never removed, which makes it an error on their part, not mine.
Second, I'm not completely sure what it is. I'm sure the downtime has had an effect on it, but this board has been the most inactive I think I've ever seen it the last week or two. It may be a bit of my fault for not really advertising well, but we now have SMA and I thought for sure that it would be a huge pull on traffic, but it hasn't been. In addition to the music archive, yes, I have been working on the main site here and there, cleaning up game pages and adding new content - it just wasn't enough to make a fuss over it. But I'm making progress. There is a problem though. Since Sonic started as a video game, the gaming section of the website is going to be the largest and most central part. Therefore, I need to have a lot of content and coverage there. One of the largest obstacles in my way for really working in-depth on that section, though, is the fact that I no longer have a video capture card in my computer. Video capture cards allow you to hook up your video game console, cable, DVD player, whatever to your computer and have the computer act as the screen. The reason I need one is because I need to take screenshots from my games, and a capture card will allow me to do that. So I'm going to try to find one and hopefully we can do something about the game section, because I firmly believe that is the core of this website.
Third, lots of things are coming up. I actually have a life now, so there's a possibility that in the next few weeks I will not have nearly as much time on here as I've had in the past. I will be participating in bowling (if I make my school's team) as well as ski club, and that on top of homework and karate leaves me not much time in between.
Please try to help me out if you can. There's a donation forum, and it is always open to donations. I also would like everyone to try and help out the site. Recruit new members. Advertise. Whatever! It all helps. We have a great community, and I'm sure most of you would agree with that. Our site has content and a great layout. It should deserve some praise, don't you think? I just ask for you help in all of this. Also, the Sonic Stadium is holding its annual Sonic Site Awards event, and SH has been entered into a few categories. Please show support for us in that. Links will come soon.
That's all I can think of for now. I'll see if anything else comes up. |
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