Hello all,
Unfortunately I have made the decision to end the forum comming April 2023.
The reasons are technical, financial and personal.
Technically the forum is not up to date to modern standards. Solving this is beyond my capabilities but also beyond the motivation I have left for maintaining it.
Why have I not much motivation left? Well, the scene has made some drastic changes since I started collecting in the nineties. And unfortunately these changes mostly aren't for the better.
- I HATE the way that prices have gone out of control and that it has gone from a hobby to a money grabbing business.
- The petty online behaviour of people nowadays is just sad and I am fed up having to deal with that
- The whole brasil scene is a complete cloud of mystery to me, it's so tiny but still they manage to raise wars amongst themselves and they seem keen on creating collectors items which are almost unobtainable for a reasonable price for the rest of the word
- The refusal to release rom's, which makes sure that most people won't be able to play all the games. I also collect C64 and they release 99% on roms.
- The whole fun hobby feeling is gone.
And that sums up a lot of my personal reasons why I'm quitting the forum.
I have basically stopped collecting, I think I have 99% of the stuff I want to have for videopac and prices have made me loose motivation to keep going on.
Financially, hosting prices have gone through the roof. I just paid a "nice" bill when the whole brasil fight started, I wasn't very motivated to keep the forum running in the first place but that sort of was the final blow. I decided not to act on instinct and give it some time for consideration but unfortunately that has not changed my mind.
So... the forum will stay online till April, if anyone is interested in taking over make me an offer. (yes this will be the only moneygrab I'll ever do for the hobby but after fifteen years of hosting, checking, paying, refereeing and putting out fires, I think I deserve that).
Sorry that that's the way it has to be, but I have made up my mind.
Please browse the forums thoroughly to collect all info that you find interesting because there has been posted a lot of that over the years and after April 2023 it will all be gone. I don't know how much you can trust the waybackmachine.
Cheers my Videopac/Odyssey2 brothers!
Janzl
I am really very sorry to hear that Robbert, but I understand you a hundred percent!
For exactly the same reasons I almost completely stopped buying retro games. I am not willing to spend so much time and money anymore. Ten, fifteen years ago the games were easier to find and much cheaper. Then came the greedy money grabbers, with WATA and VGA as the inglorious highlights of this insanity ...
Unfortunately retro game collecting transformed from a hobby to a business.
I am happy with what I gathered in the 1990s, 2000s and to a certain grade in the 2010s and I am enjoying my collection.
April will mark my two year anniversary in this forum. My apologies to the group for bringing the group down. ;) But thank you, Janzi for hosting this amazing trove of Videopac knowledge for as long as you have. I appreciate the time and effort (and money) you've spent doing this and I can understand that you're taking a step back.
I am, by far, the least accomplished Odyssey programmer on here, but I can say that I wouldn't have been able to get started O2 programming without all the info/examples/help from the Programming section. (Yes, I read every post in there before I wrote anything to the forum.). I am worried that without all those examples and information that there won't be anyone else coming to program.
From reading all of the posts from the last dozen years or so, I seem to miss the old days too--even though I wasn't on here back then. I feel like I have the energy and passion and excitement that most of you guys went through 10 years ago. I hope that there's a new place for us to go to keep the dream alive...and possibly bring in some new faces?
But secretly, I'm hoping that this is just an elaborate setup for the greatest April Fool's fake-out in the history of this forum!
Very sad to see it got, but I also understand all the reasons you gave and feel for the most part exactly like you ...
I would have loved to release Grid Defender with a post on this forum, alas I am not going to have it my way (sometime in the 2030s) ...
thank you for all the hard work/time/money you invested in the last many many years - it was very much appreciated and the forum will be missed (you will not be missed of course as we will stay in touch anyways ;-) )
Hi, i can understand you completely, and i am also very sad...
I got so much help here in the forum and there are so many technical / repairinfos here, that i hate to loose... without this informations it will be hard for future Videopac fans to get the help they might need...
I am very grateful for all your energy, work and money you have invested into this forum! BIG THANKS!
Cheers, TOM:0)
Your feelings are understood and shared.
Thank you,
-Chris
I have no words. Just sad.
It took me some time to realize what I read. I don't want to believe it until now, but it seems to be the bitter reality.
I can understand the reasons mentioned, but I am still infinitely sad. This will make my favorite hobby a lot more boring. Back when Dieter advised me to join the forum, I didn't know how many nice hours I would spend here. I met so many nice people who love Videopac as much as I do. With some I also have email contact outside the forum, but others I have known for years only through the forum and it hurts my soul to lose sight of them. It was quite normal to read about them regularly over the years and now they will disappear for me forever. That hurts. :'(
What's next? I can only think of Atariage as a starting point. I didn't really like the forum there. I was always happy to return here.
With all the bad news in the world, this is the highlight for me now. That was the only thing that was missing, because it is now directly affecting my hobby. And there I had so far a healthy carefree world...
It's the final blow !
The end of our european community !
I fully understand your decision, but I also feel this will kill the European community.
Maybe we can figure out some succession... Start a new forum (while preferrably carrying ovrr the existing content) or just keep the current forum and transfer to a new ownee / host. I also assume that at least some core users are willing to pay, so I was wondering what are the annual maintenance cost?
I stopped collecting over 10 years ago. Sold off any stock I had and then exited the community. People start to take the piss. Sad to hear the site is closing.
Quote from: Tom Beck on September 23, 2022, 09:48:35 PM
I didn't know how many nice hours I would spend here.
The answer is: you've spent 1470.2 hours here with exactly 1200 posts, according to the forum stats.
Quote from: Tom Beck on September 23, 2022, 09:48:35 PM
What's next?
Over the years, we've been following the "will they/won't they" drama between you and Rafael. The last we heard was the annual birthday wishing, but in June when you wrote "I would be incredibly happy if we both would meet once...". I propose to the group that we use this last bit of time here to make sure this meeting gets scheduled and is the forum's final post. It's the happiest way we could close this out.
Hello Janzl!! I know exactly how you feel!! I lost my shine a couple of years ago as well... I'm from Brazil, friends with everybody here and tried to help as much (little) as I could. But with the Brazilian Odyssey Wars, I almost completely lost interest, only bought stuff from Marc (whom I hold very dear on my heart and I am very, very thankful), I even started to build a website that was very visual and beautiful with details from every game and box... and then I lost my will to do it and left too. But this forum was the only thing that gave me hope and it's very sad to hear something like that. It's where I started, it's where I got to know Rafa, Marc and everybody and I'll have that forever. I do hope someone would follow your legacy. I would even do that if I wasn't so hopeless.
All the best to you and everybody on the scene.
Love you guys
Leonardo
This is so sad to hear. I remember when I first met René vd Enden on Marktplaats when he was looking for old cartridges for homebrews. We came to talk about videopac-stuff and he told me about thus forum. So I introduced myself to this forum and then the nice journey began. Since then I learned a lot of Videopac and nice rare items. For me it is nostalgic, because I grew up with Videopac in the 80's. I met members who shared the same feeling, like especially Marc and Thomas. They helped me so much with stuff I was searching for, like rare Jopacs. I hope we can still stay in touch somehow. I wanna thank Marc for all the nice homebrews he released and the ones who programmed it. They spent a lot of time on it with all their hearts. I will enjoy his products for ever. Most of the videopac-stuff (Odessey) today is such an overkill for me and has nothing to do with my nostalgic feelings anymore. So I decided to do nothing with that commercial stuff and, I think, most of the makers of it not even lived in the 80's. Maybe I'm wrong, but for me it feels like that. Thanks Robbert!!, for this forum which I enjoyed and helped me a lot on my collect-journey. Thanks Marc and Thomas!! We will keep in touch, I'm sure, let's keep on helping each other with collecting the real old stuff and non-commercial homebrews. Thanks to all the members who share the same nostalgic non-competition feelings.
Beautiful words Elias. And I have to agree with you 100%.
Without this wonderful forum I would never have found so many like-minded people who have enriched my hobby and me personally immensely. Whether this is Marc who I think almost everyone here in the forum is well known and can always help you in a fantastic way, or our friend PickAxe Brad, who always spreads a good mood and is still relatively new here (too bad that from April everything is over for him here again), or Rafael the Grand Master of our Homebrews who has always been extraordinarily friendly to me. For him, like me, Videopac(Odyssey) is more than a video game. For him, it is a philosophy of life that he bravely tries to defend, or you Elias who has also become a very good friend to me. We will definitely stay in touch.Or our unforgettable Rene, who unfortunately had stopped much too early here in the forum. When he wrote something, it was always something very special for me, because he knew Videopac like no other here. I still miss him infinitely today, there are so many others who have made my hobby even more beautiful. That's what I'll miss the most. For me, Videopac nl was more of a dating app where I made a lot of friends.
I can agree with most of Janzl's reasons. The O2 community is not exactly what it used to be.
Thanks for the ride Janzl, it has been fun (for the most part).
Too bad news... I really appreciate this forum and the community involved in it. I am not a real Videopac fan as I haven't got this system at the time (I have the Intellivision system) but I have truly discovered this system by this homebrew side (even I have played this system at the time, a friend of mine's had it) and specially the revival studios release (mayhem, mage...). Also the prototype like flashpoint or the CCC releases are really great to know more about the history.
Since this time I always reviewed the VP/O2 new games in retrogaming magazines and really love the new creations, generally original, not "copy" of existing games. And since some years I have launch a project about this aspect in Videopac history and it will come in 2023 in the form of a book and a new game from Rafael in bundle, with Côté Gamers.
I have just discussed with Côté Gamers and we would be pleased to maintain this forum. The goal is not to get our hands on the VP/O2 community, far from us this idea, but to continue the effort. I can make the parallel with Vectrex community about freeware game releases: mark shaker steps down to john dondzila who steps down to Packrat VG actually. and it is an excellent thing in my opinion as the games are always available to everyone.
It must be the same for this forum as it is part of the history of this system and contains lots of informations that will be dramatic to lost in my opinion (it is also the reason why I make efforts to write books about that: for the knowledge but also for the preservation!). So if Côté Gamers and I could help to maintain this so cool forum, we would do that with pleasure.
Janzl and other people here, discuss and consider this suggestion. We have time between now and april 2023 but time flies you know...
Keep up the very good work and I always take pleasure to come here even I am not really regular. I am not very "socialite" ;)
Côté Gamers has had an excellent reputation for me since Frozen Fort was released. I was very pleased that just as much care and love went into this game as for the other much more popular systems. This is not a matter of course. And the fact that with Videopac has been planned even more is wonderful.
I am personally very grateful for the suggestion that the forum might be taken over. Since the announcement to end the forum, there is a black shadow over my hobby, which clouds my joy in it a bit. You only notice when it's gone that something is missing. And I would really miss Videopac.nl.
So I would be very grateful if someone would continue what has grown for years. And if that someone were Côté Gamers, that would be more than ok for me.
Thank you very much for this suggestion.
I see :(
maybe someone wants to continue the forum somehow ???
Hi everybody,
I am responding in general to all the people who have reached out to me considering the ending/takeover of the forum.
I'm really pleased with the kind responses I have received here and in private. And I'm really pleasantly surprised that no one has called me a fascist, or something similar, and I haven't had any death threats. Apparently there's still hope for the internet :D
I am still considering what to do and a couple of future events will determine my final choice incuding a meeting I will have at the the end of november. So at least until then I will make no furhter decisions.
Again, thanks to everybody who had responded and please be patient.
Quote from: Janzl on October 11, 2022, 01:53:15 PM
... I'm really pleasantly surprised that no one has called me a fascist, or something similar, and I haven't had any death threats. ...
Of course we wouldn't do that! If we started there, we'd have no where to go as April got closer. This way the tension can build...
We'll just make oblique references to your untimely demise for a while. :P
And it's likely that we all are suspicious that this is just an elaborate April Fool's Day joke, so we're just playing along.
Quote from: Pickaxe Brad! on October 11, 2022, 09:29:06 PMAnd it's likely that we all are suspicious that this is just an elaborate April Fool's Day joke, so we're just playing along.[/size]
:D
I rarely post, but I lurk quite a bit. Thanks for providing this service for so many years.
Some decade when I have more free time I hope to try programming for the O2. I hope all the knowledge here is preserved somehow.
Sorry to hear about your decision, Janzl. I'll echo what others have said - I understand your reasoning behind it. Hopefully someone will step forward and take it over, because the O2 community here is very much a community, much like how the newsgroups used to be. The escalating prices and values for games are across the board - both home systems and arcade machines. It might level off at some point, but I don't see it dropping any time soon.
Quote from: Tom Beck on September 23, 2022, 09:48:35 PMWhat's next? I can only think of Atariage as a starting point. I didn't really like the forum there. I was always happy to return here.
Atariage's forum is pretty much a catch-all for everything, with a section for most everyone, but the vibe there has always had an unappealing side to it, and that's reflective of the owner and the people he chose to moderate it. It's run like a business because that's exactly what it is for the owner - something to make money from.
Just dropping in. I also lost a bid of drive for collecting, because it went from hobby to business with those prices. That's the reason i hardly post anymore on most of the forums i used to visit. I'm happy to have met the people here, some in person. Thanks for the ride, Robert.
I had missed this thread and I am totally sorry.
I absolutely subscribe to all the words of support that have been said here, and I hope someone takes over.
The truth is that I have entered the forum with the intention of giving you what I consider good news, and I have come across this. :(
Joined a while back but not really been active enough. I still have a bunch of games I want to do and this forum would be the place to get them out. Anyway, unless somebody is willing to take over, it'll be missed.. I might be interested but it really depends on time and cost. I'll send a PM to get some ideas..
Regardless, my very very first console was a G7000 as Atari was way outside my / my parents' budget... So yeah, fond memories!
-Mux
Just my luck. When I begin to make something for the first console I had in my life, the #1 resource is closing down :-X
I'm also a lurker here for quite a while - never posted anything because O2 programming seemed way too complicated for me, until last week when I got an animated sprite moving on screen ;)
I am the same SLotman from MSX Files / Icon Games, who made several MSX games over the years... and yet, even knowing Z80 ASM, I still find O2 programming daunting!
I have no idea what went on with Brazilians (even me being one) - the only thing I saw was on Facebook: a fight over the "Odyssey" brand registration here, which made me decide to stay clear from those guys.
I truly hope you reconsider closing down the forum. If not, maybe preserve it as a 'read only' resource somehow?
Anyway, thank you for all your work over the years!
Sorry to hear that Robbert but understandable.
Maybe Atariage is a good alternative or VCF but that is probably not the right place since they focus on old computers mostly but it might be worth a shot to ask if they can open a space for the Videopac/Odyssey.
It's officially May 2023 and the forum did NOT expire in April of this year! I'm so happy we're all still here.
An excellent April Fools' Month joke!