The end of PlanetDescent.com ?

[TechPro]

For those who are interested ...

It would appear that PlanetDescent.com has come to an end. A recent corruption of the database forced all active content to be unavailable. Now it appears that GameSpy and/or IGN has shut down PlanetDescent.com as a site. If this is the end of PlanetDescent.com, those of us who relied on it will miss it.

Those of you looking for a friendly that is geared towards the youth friendly style that has always been a hallmark of PlanetDescent.com, I suggest you visit PlanetDescent.net, where many of the recent members of PD.com have migrated to. I suggest selecting the \"Dusky 2\" appearance theme. Of course, I also recommend this site where you've seen this message (you're here already, this is good) if it suits your fancy.

Those who are looking for the Descent missions previously hosted by PD.com, you can find them by going to http://d3fischlein.de/ (Descent3fischlein.de) and click on \"Levels\" (button along the left). You can select what language to display in (German or English, German is default) once you're on that page. (Thank you, Do_Checkor and Fischlein)

You can also find a lot of Descent missions at the Descent Mission Database

[AlphaDoG]

Thank you TechPro!

[Duper]

Thanks Tech!

I noticed that today. I went looking for a level and poofski!

We need to rebuild that database of levels and such. (to an extent that is)

Thanks for the heads up!

[Top Gun]

I'm not taking this completely lying down. I still have a few e-mails from my (mostly ill-fated) attempt to get in touch with Gamespy a good year or so ago. I figure it's worth seeing if anyone on that end of things can tell me something.

[Sergeant Thorne]

I'm going to talk to some people, and seriously consider launching DescentUniverse.com sometime in the near future. I'm hoping to figure out some kind of a content sharing scheme with a few of the popular Descent websites still running (DBB, ...), something that would be of mutual interest. I haven't wanted to just want to ride over the popular sites we still have around here, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is fairness to the folks that started them.

I think Descent may be due for a comeback in some capacity, and I've considered that a boost to the Descent community may conceivably boost our chances of seeing another game in Descent's genre. There's a lot of reasons for it--a lot of room for improvement and innovation (awesomeness), but there's a fair amount of time involved also.

More to come.

I'll go ahead and throw out few of the ideas involved, and you'll see why it's been on the backburner... (in no particular order)
->Better Pilot Profiles
->Completely new approach on Mission Database
->Forums (better, but hopefully in cooperation with DBB)
->Ladder (1on1, 2on2, ... maybe Clan)
->Tournament Platform
->All new Server on Demand (in cooperation with community server operators)
->Complete Descent modification downloads, how-tos, and tutorials.
->Large area devoted to level design also
->...

I don't have it all in front of me right now, but it'll give you some idea--this is an all-encompassing website, and I don't plan on going it alone by any means. It would obviously go up in stages, and ideally as fast as possible. I believe it could work, and I don't believe it would either deand too much off one site, or push many other sites out of the picture.

[Top Gun]

That's a pretty cool idea. I feel like having one site that can be viewed as the central hub of the community could be beneficial, particularly considering our size. (Past grievances aside, there's no practical reason whatsoever why a community this small should be split between two nearly-identical English-language forums.) I'm active in the FreeSpace community, and I think it's been a real benefit there to have Hard Light Productions as a large centralized resource for both community interaction and game/modding information (via a wiki system), not to mention the Source Code Project. There are one or two other prominent FS forums, including Sectorgame, that also host various projects, and the de facto community file-hosting site is on another domain, but HLP is is pretty much where most things happen. I don't have any technical help to offer, but I'd definitely like to try to contribute from the idea side of things, if you need it.

And just to clarify the situation with PD, it appears as though just about all of the Planet sites for no-longer-active game series (like Daikatana ) have gone offline, and the central hub for them on Gamespy's site now redirects to a newer IGN page. I'm starting to wonder if the bastards just didn't off all the older sites without telling anyone first as part of some new restructuring.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Crap, I had some tools on there that I needed. The MS3DtoORF tool for one.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ok, good news and bad news. Seems I managed to somehow delete a couple of my old D3U projects... I don't have a friggen clue how these files were lost but I did manage to find all my old conversion tools and my old models. Just not the recent files which REALLY REALLY sucks.


But D3U is still possible. I know, it is the neverending mod but I gather time here and there to still continue my work on it for fun. Anyone know of a good place I can upload my old conversion tool for safekeeping?

[Krom]

How big is it all?

[WillyP]

There is both a gallery and a files section at pd.net you are welcome to upload you conversion tool, or any other Descent related files.

I have a lot of the material that was at .com and will be uploading it over some time. If there is a request for any particular file let me know and I'll put it up right away.

[TechPro]

If your stuff was at PD.com at 3-10-2008 ... you might still be able to get it through the Wayback machine.

[Alter-Fox]

I just remembered I have the DCA (Descent Community Album), which was on PD.com. You'd never guess which people here were musicians... or that ThunderBunny made a song called Maniacal Killer...

[Sirius]

dfiles.de is still up I hope? They were pretty much the best option for downloading PD levels from.

[TechPro]

dfiles.de is still up I hope? They were pretty much the best option for downloading PD levels from.

Those who are looking for the Descent missions previously hosted by PD.com, you can find them by going to http://d3fischlein.de/ (Descent3fischlein.de) and click on "Levels" (button along the left). You can select what language to display in (German or English, German is default) once you're on that page. (Thank you, Do_Checkor and Fischlein)

You can also find a lot of Descent missions at the Descent Mission Database

dfiles.de is/was Do_Checkor's collection/archive/host/whatever for the PD.com files ... and http://d2fischlein.de is simply another database listing of those same levels (my understanding of what Do_Checkor has told me). Do_Checkor some time back could tell where PD.com was eventually headed so he and Fischlein put the d3fischlein mission database together (plus it was in their native German)

[Duper]

ahh, very cool. thanks for the heads up!

[flip]

I got:
1022 D1 Levels
1355 D2 Levels
170 D3 Levels

Where to upload them at?

[AlphaDoG]

Last I looked, I had over 1K D3 levels.

[TechPro]

Flip and Alpha,
PlanetDescent.net can host the files, but be aware that when SMF2 is out, that forum system will be upgraded (should be fairly soon, we hope).

It's also being considered to setup a separate domain for hosting the files and link to the files. Then maybe a file browser instead of the files section currently being used. There are still some things \"in flux\" with the site.

Either way, PlanetDescent.net is more than happy to host the files you have.

[MidiV]

I just remembered I have the DCA (Descent Community Album), which was on PD.com. You'd never guess which people here were musicians... or that ThunderBunny made a song called Maniacal Killer...

One track from that album is mine

It's a pity that PD was just shut down (it looks so) - there were lot of tools alongside with missions.
And nice forum too!

About new "central portal" idea - i'll be glad to help if i can.

[BUBBALOU]

Need any graphics for a new site let me know

[TechPro]

That's very generous, Bubbalou. Thank you.

We want to hold off on doing much more with the graphics of the site for now because we'll be upgrading to SMF2 after it's released (supposed to be happening soon). The styles and templates of the current version won't be compatible with the new version (though many of them are/have been ported to SMF2).

We'll keep you in mind. Thanks.