GameHippo dead

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eMTe
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GameHippo dead

Post by eMTe »

http://www.gamehippo.com/

Admin forgot to pay for domain or is it the real end of one of the classics?
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

Chroelle wrote an interesting article about this theme in the news section:

http://curlysworldoffreeware.com/displa ... ery_mode=9

If you ask me, I think it's the end of a great site... :(
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Post by eMTe »

Would be nice to add link to this thread and attach pic, just in case gh will be back. :D

Gh seems to follow Underdogs' path:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=2167.0
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

I stumbled on it just before I wrote the article, and it seems it has drawn some attention. I think I will try and dig deeper into this to see if I can figure out what exactly happened. Let me know if you stumble on any articles.

It seems the site lives through IP alone:
http://216.92.35.228/
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

Just wrote another article. :) I like being a reporter, so I might try and dedicate some time for this too. I didn't think I would earlier.
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

There's a comment of the administrator/owner about GameHippo's situation over at their forum:

"Guys, I'm aware what's going on here. Real crisis, if you want an explanation, I'll write the novel in this forum. Site's not going anywhere, forum's not going anywhere, just going through a tough spot here. Hopefully I'll have the site back up tomorrow."

So there is still hope that the site will come back...
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

Where did you find it? I cant seem to find it, and I really want to follow up on this.
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
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Pater Alf
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Post by Pater Alf »

Just look here...
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Chroelle
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Post by Chroelle »

I went and wrote an invitation for them to drop by here. Hopefully they want to.
Currently testing Life version 2.9 (With added second child)
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Jetstar
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Post by Jetstar »

I saw your post on GH, Chroelle. This seems like a nice site and looks 100% better than TIG or whatever.

I'm sorry to say, but GH is probably going to fall and never recover. To me it seems like the golden age of freeware is over and less inventive games are being created with tools instead of programming (Me being one of these people). We've seen this downfall coming miles ahead and it all comes down to an admin that can only make empty promises.

We had a small uprising thanks to a user named Jared Bloom, but he fell off the edge of the earth and never posted any more and the site fell once again. That was probably the last time GH truly had a chance.

Now everyone just hangs out in the IRC channel.
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Post by Maz »

Glad to see you around Jetsy! :)
And I generally like to hear your opinions about the state of the freeware, but I somewhat dislike how you gave an impression that games made with tools are not as good as games written from scratch.
I agree that many tools may limit your possibilities what comes to the game, but if you really try hard, you can fill the gaps by inventing unique plots etc. Writing a game without tools is a pain. (Well, perhaps you could write decent game with Java - without spending eternity coding it). Believe me, I know what it is alike to work with low level languages... I write C/C++ for my work...

But I see some possible dangers in the way of freeware. Nowadays shit loads of games is created and published under the flag screaming "This is FREE ware". This includes tons of lousy packman clones, millions of demo games and generally lots of boring crap. BUT there's also plenty of great games done - both with tools and by programming from the scratch. What we need is sites which bring up the gems. That's why CWF exists (although it was started from the ashes of oldgames.nu).

Unfortunately it seems that most of the websites that are in directories or brought up by search engines seem to be more interested in making money than helping this cause... Most of those seem to offer anything from demos and shareware, to total, utter crap. And the adminstration seems to be unavailable. This kind of publicity really gives bad name to freeware. I bet people's opinions about freeware would be quite different, if instead of that crap those sites were offering games like Warzone 2100 (freeware nowadays), The battle for wesnoth, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, ...

And finally, you had a sharp eye for the IRC thing... I've seen that phenomena - and even been partly the cause... IRC can be fun, but it really gets the forum activity down.
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Post by eMTe »

I wonder what is this irc-thing you talking about? ^^

Game made with tool will be, in 95% of cases, worse than programmed from scratch. Is this why golden age is over? No. Golden age is over, because freeware developers decide to go commercial. Sites like IndieGames and TIG and various "independent games" festivals help them establish their position.

Is it bad? Partially. Wrong thread to talk about. Is it bad for freeware world? Yes.
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Post by Jetstar »

Going to go off topic a little to spare a new topic: I do feel that games made with tools are prone to many cookie cutter games (Sonic fangames, Pokemon, etc.) I still use GameMaker and have promised to not stop using it until my last game, Zonerunners, is done. I have spent many hours insuring that making that game was as code-focused as possible. Through this method I have eliminated the need for the GameMaker GUI (I still use it however). It seems like more and more tools are being released that try to simplify things that don't need to be simplified either game-wise or programming-wise. Things like player movement should be done 100% by the creator and not by some built in function. Programs like MMF2 and TGF2 encourage "Click and create - that's all!", but all of their games come out the same with a few interesting effects repeated over and over and called a game.

Sorry for the rant.
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eMTe
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Post by eMTe »

Coming back to topic for a while.
Jetstar wrote:it all comes down to an admin that can only make empty promises.
Is he in any way connected with gaming community or has he just come from nowhere, bought the site and forgot everything?
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Post by Jetstar »

eMTe wrote:Coming back to topic for a while.
Jetstar wrote:it all comes down to an admin that can only make empty promises.
Is he in any way connected with gaming community or has he just come from nowhere, bought the site and forgot everything?
He came from out of nowhere and started telling us he was going to make GH a better place. I guess he was surprised by how many people visited the site so he placed ads everywhere and broke the site layout just to make some quick cash. After that he just disappeared only to come back every month or so to tell us he was "working on it."

I do have good news, we're moving the site! What's left of the GH community is trying to buy the original domain back and start another site based off the same idea. I can't give any more details at the moment, but there's a topic on GH about it.
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Post by eMTe »

Good news.

Forgetting small differences, I feel like having deja vu. I was once part of the community which was in the same situation. Actually, I can say "we were". ;)
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Post by moshboy »

Golden age of freeware over? Sorry but I strongly disagree with that. Actually I don't even think that such a thing really exists. Whenever people talk of a golden age, it just usually refers to the period that contains the best memories for them. I don't think the standard of freeware has ever been higher and the bar just keeps rising. New developers are quickly prototyping concepts and getting them out there in very short spans of time.

Ofcourse there's a bunch of crap to wade through.. there always has been and it always increases over time. That goes for any type of meda. Sure, GM and MMF have made it a lot easier for developers to create 'just another crappy Super Mario clone' but no-one is forced to take notice of these and they have also provided countless gems that would have otherwise not have existed (the list for GM especially is very long). Just look at developers such as cactus, 2D Cube, Pug fugly, nifflas and darthlupi, not to mention a whole range of totally under appreciated developers in all the different communities that exist.

As far as Gamehippo is concerned.. I'm glad it went down in its current state. It was in bad need of a site overhaul in my opinion. I wish you luck in buying it and updating it.. because I do think it is an important part of freeware history and it would be great to see it re-invented. I just think it was getting somewhat outdated.
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Post by Jetstar »

Very well put mosh.

Currently the new GameHippo is up at http://misterworm.net/
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Post by Chroelle »

It sounds like it is starting up again in a nice manner. Video-reviews sounds immensly cool. That is indeed the way forward. Maybe we should consider doing something of the sorts too at some point (when it is the way of the past - and we actually get the time).
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Post by Mr. Worm »

Hey what's happening?
I'm the guy who did a coup-d'etat on the previous owner of Gamehippo (Dan).
I just want to let you guys know that Gamehippo will not die while I'm around. We're working on the site software right now...we'\ll I'm working anyway...and it's moving steadily.

You guys seem pretty cool. I read some of the other threads (especially the one about freeware site cooperation) and I want to assure you that we are not asshats. Jetstar is pretty much that sort of character you'll find lurking around GH.
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