OFFICIAL Legacy GMC Archive Is Being Deleted

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gnysek

Member
As mentioned above, mainly because they don't want to maintenance it anymore, and as this is removed from google search results, it have only value to the oldest GM users. Sometimes.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
it have only value to the oldest GM users. Sometimes.
I'm one of the oldest active GM users (given a large enough sample size, at least) and my cursory exploration of the old GMC to see if there was anything worth salvaging from my past basically was a clear no. All games I've posted (the ones I care about, at least) are backed up elsewhere, a lot of context died thanks to image hosting sites (and file hosting sites) going down or purging old data... a lot of my game design discussions have no value without the original posters' intent to react to them, the programming Q&A replies are outdated, and my profile data is a monument to the depression I just want to forget ever was a part of my life.

Being able to move on is a vital skill in life. Sometimes the only way you can move on is to burn the past to ash, and use it as fertilizer to grow a new future.

Or in other words...
 

O.Stogden

Member
I've used GM since 2006 and I've only ever visited the old GMC archive once, which was to try and find a game I made back in 2007. And I found some horrible 13 year old with a terrible attitude who made a terrible game. I quickly left and never went back to that dark place.

Things like this happen constantly, every day in fact, on the internet, out-of-date and older websites are deleted. Geocities for example, that took 38,000,000 web pages with it when it shut down. Smaller forums shut down constantly, it happens, and has happened several times to me personally.

If something we did was important to us (In this case I would imagine only GM Project Files could possibly fit into this category), it's our responsibility to back it up on our own personal storage, it's not YYG responsibility to hold onto all our project files for all eternity, they have to go at some point.
 
It was a physical machine - the forums need a fairly meaty setup at peak times, lots of RAM SSD etc. But they were slowly migrating most things to the cloud, which might be another reason it's getting dropped. If it is finally moving to the cloud, why migrate something you don't want to keep going, it's an extra hassle and expense on top of maintenance problems.

Basically loads of reasons to drop it....
Sure, YYG's itself has every reason why *they'd* want to dump it. Early versions of GM were made by Mark Overmars. Much of the early pioneering and championing of GM was not done by YYG's either. There's no reason why YYG's would want to keep anything that reflected that.
 
H

Homunculus

Guest
Sure, YYG's itself has every reason why *they'd* want to dump it. Early versions of GM were made by Mark Overmars. Much of the early pioneering and championing of GM was not done by YYG's either. There's no reason why YYG's would want to keep anything that reflected that.
What's your point exactly? The legacy GMC has always been about versions of GM maintained by YoYoGames. Even if it did contain references to Overmars, why should YYG try to hide that?
 
What's your point exactly? The legacy GMC has always been about versions of GM maintained by YoYoGames. Even if it did contain references to Overmars, why should YYG try to hide that?
I mean, it's the nature of the internet to misunderstand people, but I didn't say YYG's are trying to *hide* it. If you'd been following the conversation from the beginning you'd understand the context a bit better: Basically, there's the people who viewed the old content as *trash* (for various reasons, but mostly because it's about legacy/unsupported versions of GM, and it's a bit of a nuance for YYG's with helpdesk tickets, maintence costs, etc.) Then there are others who are making the point that the community forum has value outside of this: Historical, old-GML references, etc, and the characterization of all this as 'trash' is tactless at best.

The point that Mike(and others) are continually falling back to is that it's basically just trash content, and a waste of space. We (Mike and myself) are at the point were we're pretty much accepting we're going to have to agree to disagree: I agree with him that YYG's has very good reasons to delete the old forum. The content does *zero* for them: Even the so-called 'history', which people like myself would point out as interesting and of value to the community, doesn't do anything for them as a business.

The point of this post is to attempt to bring back some common sense to the conversation: When Mike characterizing the old forum as simply posts about 'User simpebob123 wants to create an MMORPG', it's an oversimplification, and trivialization of the content we're actually trying to talk about preserving. There's actually content there that is good! :)

Obviously, it's disappointing that YYG's don't hold any value in the old forum: Not that I, or others don't understand their reasons.

[Edit] tidying attempts.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Sure, YYG's itself has every reason why *they'd* want to dump it. Early versions of GM were made by Mark Overmars. Much of the early pioneering and championing of GM was not done by YYG's either. There's no reason why YYG's would want to keep anything that reflected that.
Actually.... I don't think that's entirely true. When YoYo took over - and moved to Dundee, GameMaker was still a quaint little learning tool, that a few folk turned out some games from. But the number was very low, and there were only a handful that were remotely commercial quality. YoYo took that educational tool, and made it commercially viable, and brought a much larger audience in with it.

But at no point would YoYo "ever" try to hide what Mark did. He managed to make the basis of the tool we all use today. It's incredibly simple to use and pick up, and with YoYo's help, it's also incredibly powerful - and thanks to the cross-platform work, very commercially viable. Mark was one of the first to say his code in the runner and ide weren't great, but YoYo was also keen to point out that he actually did it, that his vision produced a great tool.

Killing an old forum would in no way dispute that.

But as to me saying "everything" in the forum is trash, not quite. there may well be the odd tutorial, or answer to a question in there that some would fine useful, but it's simply not worth keeping an entire forum for the handful of topics that may be worth keeping. And even then, they'd need to be updated.... If someone wanted to do that, then there was nothing to stop folk from saving it, updating it, and re-posting it. But "most" of the forum simply isn't worth keeping - especially to the newer folk that come by here.
 
H

Homunculus

Guest
@Desert Dog I have been following the conversation, I still don't get your comment about older versions of GM being made by Overmars, why does it matter in a legacy forum that has almost nothing at all about that? I'm not trying to provoke nor put words you didn't say in your mouth, maybe it's due to english not being my native language, but "There's no reason why YYG's would want to keep anything that reflected that" does seem to imply that YYG has an interest in deleting old history that's related to Mark (de facto hiding it).
 

drandula

Member
How one could archive or save specific threads for your own computer? I would like to do few just for memories without saving every HTML page separately.
 
Actually.... I don't think that's entirely true. When YoYo took over - and moved to Dundee, GameMaker was still a quaint little learning tool, that a few folk turned out some games from. But the number was very low, and there were only a handful that were remotely commercial quality.
Sure. For you, just a few folks who made one-or-two so-so games.But those were still the early champions of GM. If we're just talking about commercial games, the likes of rinkuhero(Immortal Defense), Hanako (Cute Knight), Snailfox with his crazy 65millionand1BC dinosaur game: They often made threads, discussing how their projects went, what went well, what to do differently, etc. Great content, great pioneer GM user. And lots more, too. Mr. Chubigans, Damaged, I even thing I remember xot sharing how his little commercial venture went.

Still cool to see Mr. Chubigans getting some love from YYG's these days.

YoYo took that educational tool, and made it commercially viable, and brought a much larger audience in with it..
That didn't actually happen until... 2011? 2012? At the time you and Russel came aboard, let's be honest. Even after YYG's acquired GM, it fundamentally didn't change through GM7, GM4Mac, GM8. During that time, there were many GM-users who innovated, and many users on these forums who championed GM. Only with GM-HTML5, GMS1, etc, did YYG's start promoting GM as a serious dev tool. And even then, it was helped by porting games made with legacy versions of GM that were ported, and helped promote GM's new capabilities: E.g. it was amazing to see 2dcube's games getting published (Karoshi, They Need to be Fed, etc).

But at no point would YoYo "ever" try to hide what Mark did. [snip]

Killing an old forum would in no way dispute that.
Wait, you missed my earlier reply. But no, not "hide". But sure, certainly they're not bothering to preserve it. And also, to be clear, we're not just talking about Mark, but the others that championed GM: Either as game dev's, or road breakers, who's work is documented on the old forum, (and which are constantly being dismissed as 'trash').


I have been following the conversation, I still don't get your comment about older versions of GM being made by Overmars, why does it matter in a legacy forum that has almost nothing at all about that? I'm not trying to provoke nor put words you didn't say in your mouth, maybe it's due to english not being my native language, but "There's no reason why YYG's would want to keep anything that reflected that" does seem to imply that YYG has an interest in deleting old history that's related to Mark (de facto hiding it).
Well, don't blame your English, as Mike read me that way, too: In your defense, my language is definitely intended to provoke a little extra thought to attempt to view the old forum as something beyond just a few lines of old GML, or topics about 'help me make an MMORG plz'.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Sure. For you, just a few folks who made one-or-two so-so games.But those were still the early champions of GM. If we're just talking about commercial games, the likes of rinkuhero(Immortal Defense), Hanako (Cute Knight), Snailfox with his crazy 65millionand1BC dinosaur game: They often made threads, discussing how their projects went, what went well, what to do differently, etc. Great content, great pioneer GM user. And lots more, too. Mr. Chubigans, Damaged, I even thing I remember xot sharing how his little commercial venture went.
Well, I can certainly understand this more. I still go back and read some of the old ZZap64 Programming Diary's, they were -at the time, inspirational.
That being said.... these threads can be saved by you if they mean that much to you, just as I saved the old magazines that had these diary's in them.
The forum hosting it means nothing, these "stories" are what means a lot to you - so save them off. But I stand by the "These few posts don't make keeping the whole thing worth saving."

Still cool to see Mr. Chubigans getting some love from YYG's these days.
Mr. Chubigans is a lovely chap - who I did finally meat in 2018 at GDC, and hope to meet up with again next year! :cool:

That didn't actually happen until... 2011? 2012? At the time you and Russel came aboard, let's be honest. Even after YYG's acquired GM, it fundamentally didn't change through GM7, GM4Mac, GM8. During that time, there were many GM-users who innovated, and many users on these forums who championed GM. Only with GM-HTML5, GMS1, etc, did YYG's start promoting GM as a serious dev tool. And even then, it was helped by porting games made with legacy versions of GM that were ported, and helped promote GM's new capabilities: E.g. it was amazing to see 2dcube's games getting published (Karoshi, They Need to be Fed, etc).
Yeah again...mostly true. 2010-2011 when YoYo were publishing users games, it did help not only raise the profile of users games - and the devs themselves, but proved the new engine could be used for commercial products, and do that cross platform. That - and GM:HTML5 laid the foundation of Studio. It was certainly a slow climb though....

Wait, you missed my earlier reply. But no, not "hide". But sure, certainly they're not bothering to preserve it. And also, to be clear, we're not just talking about Mark, but the others that championed GM: Either as game dev's, or road breakers, who's work is documented on the old forum, (and which are constantly being dismissed as 'trash').
Okay, that again makes more sense. But it's also something that's largely unimportant. In actual fact, if someone does want to preserve this kind of thing, the best thing to do, would be to write some kind of article/blog about it - which would be pretty interesting actually.... Form posts don't provide any kind of story or history, but a "history of" article that collates all the "bits and pieces" is what you really want.
 

gnysek

Member
How one could archive or save specific threads for your own computer? I would like to do few just for memories without saving every HTML page separately.
A very old tool which I used 17 years ago to dump gamemaker.nl is - http://www.httrack.com/ - however you need to setup it properly, as wrong setup may cause to download tons of things from other domains/websites which isn't required to work.
 

ceaselessly

Member
You know, this whole thread reminded me that the old GMC was already more or less eradicated once before, and the world seems to have gotten on fine without it.

Invision Power Boards forever.
 

Gizmo199

Member
Dang kinda sucks. Gonna have to screen capture and try to link capture all of my old posts. Alot of those where from when I was like 13/14yo. Over a decade ago. Would be cool when I'm like 40 to look back at where I was and how my game development has progressed since. My first game ever is there!!! :((((( ah! Okay just gotta get it done.

Also gotta get some classics to play. Need ark22, seklius, wubbly. So many classic community games that pushed me to want to make my games even better and improve my abilities. Such a simpler time, such a good time. Ah the memories... And the cringe.
 
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m0zzy

Member
This thread reminds me when we were clearing out the kids bedroom when they had left home,.. found loads of Xmas and Birthday cards from them, they were just old cards,.. but I couldn’t throw them away...
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
Just a reminder that The Wayback Machine has much of the site saved, so not all is lost. You can even give it specific pages to archive.
Do note that only the snapshots from around 2017 were good. Sometime between then and now, session IDs started cropping up in link URLs, and those all led to blanks. Example:
Also gotta get some classics to play. Need ark22, seklius, wubbly. So many classic community games that pushed me to want to make my games even better and improve my abilities. Such a simpler time, such a good time. Ah the memories... And the cringe.
Notice how every one of these classic GM games are still available on various download and/or review sites, many not even GM-affiliated.

If there's anything to learn from this, it's that having staying power means posting outside the GMC and being just a game instead of a GM game.
 
Well I am pretty disapointed with this news... removing the sandbox was a big kick up the behind for me as it was a huge part of my childhood. And this announcement feels the same. I have felt for the past 2 years game maker (software and in someways the community) just hasnt had the same feel to it as it did when I was a kid and thats okay things change. its just not for me anymore. I cant describe it.

I know alot of people will disagree with me but i find GMS2 one of the worst most horrible game editors ive ever used and have actually removed all traces from it on my machine. I use gm8.1 and 1.4 for development and after the bad experiences i had with GMS 2 i will not touch it with a 20ft pole haha. I could still use GM 1.4 however as history has shown here on this forum the past is always forgotten so gms 1.4 and all its topics will soon follow suit thus FORCING me to use GMS2.

I have spent the last few months moving onto making games in C++ and its probably better to focus my energy there now, rather then a language where i dont know where support will be in a few years.

Either way this will probably be my last message on these forums apart from distrubuting a few freebe codes ive developed for GMS 1.4 over the years as a goodbye and goodluck token to this forum.

I will be deleting my account on the 17th and moving on from game maker for good as a response to this. All good things must come to an end sadly. All the best to you all and thank you for all the great times while they lasted.
 
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There are some neat things made in Gamemaker 8.1 on that old forum that can be used in studio 1.4, but not in studio 2, so those posts are ****ed.
Yep exactly, and for me thats the final straw with using game maker, On the 17th im fully switching to C++ (started a few months ago in it) and not touching game maker again.
 

j123

Member
What time (in London UK Time) will the forum be deleted on December 17th, 2019? It would be fun to livestream it, so I want to be on time! :)
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
What time (in London UK Time) will the forum be deleted on December 17th, 2019? It would be fun to livestream it, so I want to be on time! :)
It's your choice whether to go ahead with that, but chances are YoYo won't add any ceremonial element to it closing down. It'll probably be just an auto-refresh bot that suddenly goes from 200 to no response. So if you're expecting something along the lines of what Ceefax did when it shuttered, you'll likely be disappointed.
 

Gamer (ex-Cantavanda)

〜Flower Prince〜
I made a little PDF of the "Legend of Cantavanda" topic, since it's one of the only topics remaining that has kid Cantavanda in it, since it wasn't made by me.
I remember when I got accidentally flagged as a spambot so all of my posts and topics disappeared... sadly, so there's not much more for me to lose in the deletion of the forums.
https://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=560870
I wish I could revisit the "Nocturne for President" or "What is MILF?" topics I made, or my huge forum fic, or see my old Jam entries, but these are long gone because of that already.
 
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Appsurd

Member
Are there are particular tutorials / examples / discussions we would like to keep? There's only one day left...
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Sort by number of likes and scrape as much as possible, perhaps? The most liked content feels like the stuff that was the most useful (except the 8-year colors thing, I guess)
 
I'm starting to save all the pages through HTTRack, It's got 70,000 pages I don't think it will be done in one more day. At least what's still important at the moment is still there.
 
M

Misty

Guest
Well I am pretty disapointed with this news... removing the sandbox was a big kick up the behind for me as it was a huge part of my childhood. And this announcement feels the same. I have felt for the past 2 years game maker (software and in someways the community) just hasnt had the same feel to it as it did when I was a kid and thats okay things change. its just not for me anymore. I cant describe it.

I know alot of people will disagree with me but i find GMS2 one of the worst most horrible game editors ive ever used and have actually removed all traces from it on my machine. I use gm8.1 and 1.4 for development and after the bad experiences i had with GMS 2 i will not touch it with a 20ft pole haha. I could still use GM 1.4 however as history has shown here on this forum the past is always forgotten so gms 1.4 and all its topics will soon follow suit thus FORCING me to use GMS2.

I have spent the last few months moving onto making games in C++ and its probably better to focus my energy there now, rather then a language where i dont know where support will be in a few years.

Either way this will probably be my last message on these forums apart from distrubuting a few freebe codes ive developed for GMS 1.4 over the years as a goodbye and goodluck token to this forum.

I will be deleting my account on the 17th and moving on from game maker for good as a response to this. All good things must come to an end sadly. All the best to you all and thank you for all the great times while they lasted.
Imo sandbox games have an equal amount of bad games that are on par with shovelware from itch.io or gamejolt. It seems like saying "the games are crap" isn't a valid excuse for deleting our childhoods and what we hold dear and precious. Most indie games are garbage but yet we aren't petitioning all the other indie sites to delete their websites. Do you think itch.io wants to delete itch.io just because majority of the games are crap? No that would be ridiculous.
 

HayManMarc

Member
I'm trying to HTTrack the Completed Projects and other WIP threads. Hopefully I can get them in time. I'm afraid I started too late.

(Also, I never used HTTrack before, so I don't even know if its gonna work. Worth a try, I guess.)
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
Are there are particular tutorials / examples / discussions we would like to keep? There's only one day left...
There's no 24-hour rush yet to save tutorials and examples. The task lists on the GMC Celebration of Life tutorial jam have all their URLs, and web.archive.org still has everything on file, except for the outbound download links.

And for the discussions, with most of the people involved gone, I don't expect them to be of much value unless you were involved.

Imo sandbox games have an equal amount of bad games that are on par with shovelware from itch.io or gamejolt. It seems like saying "the games are crap" isn't a valid excuse for deleting our childhoods and what we hold dear and precious. Most indie games are garbage but yet we aren't petitioning all the other indie sites to delete their websites. Do you think itch.io wants to delete itch.io just because majority of the games are crap? No that would be ridiculous.
If this is your childhood and something you "hold dear and precious", it's not all that dear and precious if you didn't care enough to keep safe copies of it.

Companies shutter. Authors leave the trade or die. Websites go unmaintained or are forced offline for various reasons.

You are old enough to know this, and complaining about it won't stop it from happening. So do what is within your control, and back stuff up if you give a crap about it.
 

HayManMarc

Member
10GB and 34,000 files later, HTTrack is still running --- and that's just the Completed Projects forum. I hate to ask, but I wonder if we can get another extension on this? I understand if the answer is no. My bad for not figuring this out and finding the time to do this sooner. (@Nocturne )
 
Well from what I can tell they removed the forums :(, so as i said, i am moving on from game maker. goodbye everyone! im outta here! Thanks for everything :)
 
I understand you were still posting on old forums :squirrel:
Nope but i used them alot as i still use gm 8.1 and gms 1.4 alot. I will never use gms 2 ...yuck. Anyway as i said. I have moved onto other languages like C++ that the parent company wont just purge legacy data and builds. After this i know gms 1.4 stuff is on the chopping block. Anyway my mind is made up and i dont want to buy gms 2 or give yoyo anymore business.
 

rIKmAN

Member
I will be deleting my account on the 17th and moving on from game maker for good as a response to this. All good things must come to an end sadly. All the best to you all and thank you for all the great times while they lasted.
Yep exactly, and for me thats the final straw with using game maker, On the 17th im fully switching to C++ (started a few months ago in it) and not touching game maker again.
Well from what I can tell they removed the forums :(, so as i said, i am moving on from game maker. goodbye everyone! im outta here! Thanks for everything :)
I will never use gms 2 ...yuck. Anyway as i said. I have moved onto other languages like C++ that the parent company wont just purge legacy data and builds. After this i know gms 1.4 stuff is on the chopping block. Anyway my mind is made up and i dont want to buy gms 2 or give yoyo anymore business.
We get it - you don't like GMS2 and are leaving the community and going to use C++ - good luck I hope it goes well.
Oh and you deleted your account yesterday....
 
M

Misty

Guest
Nope but i used them alot as i still use gm 8.1 and gms 1.4 alot. I will never use gms 2 ...yuck. Anyway as i said. I have moved onto other languages like C++ that the parent company wont just purge legacy data and builds. After this i know gms 1.4 stuff is on the chopping block. Anyway my mind is made up and i dont want to buy gms 2 or give yoyo anymore business.
Is GMS2 really that bad... If you don't like it so much you can just use GMS1.4 then import your project to GMS2... it mostly works. Idk how you find C++ easier than this...
 
I'm sad to see it finally gone, but I took screenshots of my profile and the greatest thread, and I still have a tab for that thread open on my browser. I'll enjoy it until something accidentally happens to it.
 
Or in other words...
@Yal Oh yeah, I 'member when that was the official GameMaker logo! I love to 'member that!


10GB and 34,000 files later, HTTrack is still running --- and that's just the Completed Projects forum. I hate to ask, but I wonder if we can get another extension on this? I understand if the answer is no. My bad for not figuring this out and finding the time to do this sooner. (@Nocturne )
How'd that go @HayManMarc? Someone who isn't me grabbed a few million pages before the first extension. Depending on how your program was configured: The two archives might be different... perhaps there's some way to compare/merge them?
 
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gmx0

Member
I've been using GM since 2004. I would be more okay with this if GMS2 actually has reached the usability and accessibility of the earlier iterations that I'm not forced to used them, and I'm still sticking with 1.4. But every time I load 2 up, it just feels like bloatware with programmer-centric workflows, rather than the "everyone can make games" ethos that more people feel the earlier ones have. It is undeniably more "professional", at least in aesthetic, and definitely more features, and I get the appeal of that, especially with competing with Unity or whatever, but a fundamental step back in other places covered by the aesthetic, and that aesthetic used to justify really high prices. Earlier GM struck the perfect balance between the seeming childishness an ease of Construct and the more robust engines. I believe GM could have retained that balance while adding on all the new bells and whistles of GMS2. But it hasn't.

The deletion of the old forums to me represents the loss of that ethos and balance.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I feel like the new Ctrl-T "jump to anything" menu and code completion really helps speed things up once you know what you're doing. I definitely miss the simple ///function_name(arg1,arg2) comments and the slightly less clunky graphics editor (normal copypaste, more filters, less steps to set up sprite size / origin), but the ctrl-T menu basically made the resource tree redundant in my workflow (except when I need to add a new resource and want it in the right subfolder right away). There's definitely polish left to be done, though.
 

HayManMarc

Member
How'd that go @HayManMarc? Someone who isn't me grabbed a few million pages before the first extension. Depending on how your program was configured: The two archives might be different... perhaps there's some way to compare/merge them?
I got a lot of the "Made with Gamemaker" forum, but we had a power outage that shut down the process. I haven't checked it yet, so I don't know what I got, or if it even worked. I'll let you know when I get around to checking it.

However, I've moved on with the changes. Sad to see it go, but I've accepted it and I'm fine with it. Bring in the new era!
 
I got a lot of the "Made with Gamemaker" forum, but we had a power outage that shut down the process. I haven't checked it yet, so I don't know what I got, or if it even worked. I'll let you know when I get around to checking it.

However, I've moved on with the changes. Sad to see it go, but I've accepted it and I'm fine with it. Bring in the new era!
Yeah, same. I got a lot of the Announcements, and tutorials... but haven't had the heart to take a close look at it. On SWIM's hard-drive I've got a few hundred gigabits of other people's memories, which maybe one day we can merge... but the thought of starting over made me realize how ridiculous I was being.

I can't but wonder what became of the server that used house the GMC Archive... did YYG take it out back and shoot bullets at it (Old Yeller, much?) or simply re-format and re-purpose it?
 
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