ding dong, DBB .com is dead

[Burlyman]

Nice to see it die.

Thoughts?

[Top Gun]

My only thought is why you're attempting to start pointless drama bull★■◆● and failing miserably.

[Burlyman]

Whatever

[Krom]

Also it happened quite a few months ago now and hardly anyone has noticed, so pretty difficult to start drama over it.

I just renewed the web hosting for this place for 4 years (for about $580), KB maintains domain so as long as he keeps that up to date this place will be around for at least that long.

[vision]

I just renewed the web hosting for this place for 4 years (for about $580)...

Damn, that seems unnecessarily expensive. I guess GoDaddy takes care of all the OS and Databse updates? Trying to figure out what you could be paying that much money for other then convenience...

[TigerRaptor]

I think Punisher had planned to shut down the .com at some point. I'm kind of surprised this place is still around, one few relics from the golden days of Descent.

[Krom]

Damn, that seems unnecessarily expensive. I guess GoDaddy takes care of all the OS and Databse updates? Trying to figure out what you could be paying that much money for other then convenience...

That is only for the hosting through JustHost at about $12/mo, KB pays for the domain registration from GoDaddy separately. It is possible to get a host for less, but you have to jump to a different host every time it comes up for renewal because like anywhere else the advertised rate on the site is always the introductory price that goes up to $15+/mo afterwards. Also migrating it would be a huge ordeal, because there are multiple domains and sites hosted on it and transferring a database as big as the DBB (~500 MB) takes days because it has to be broken up into like 1 MB pieces manually or php/sql times out trying to upload it.

[vision]

It is possible to get a host for less, but you have to jump to a different host every time it comes up for renewal because like anywhere else the advertised rate on the site is always the introductory price that goes up to $15+/mo afterwards.

Maybe. There are a lot of hosting options these days. I have a server with several domains pointed to it from RamNode and I pay something like $80 a year and that price hasn't changed since I opened my account in 2015. And since then they've added even cheaper options. Two years ago I set up a Wordpress site for my friend in a container and it was $15 for the whole year. Of course, it's up to me to administrate the server, and sometimes that's a pain in the ass. Too bad DBB is locked in to the current system, running a low disk/low bandwith site like this is practically free these days.

[D3Alien]

So is this the only "active" Descent spot anymore? One by one it seems most of the various other sites closed up. It's probably remarkable there's any traffic at all for a 2+ decade old game. I haven't played in years and years, but I get nostalgic thinking about it every once in awhile. Every few years it seems there's another 6DOF game that looks interesting, but probably isn't quite the same. Not that I have hours a day to commit to it anymore, unfortunately.

[Nosferatu]

FWIW, I am still hanging around. As long as here is a active tracker out there (tsetsefly.de) I'll keep my "Ari's Stable" servers up and running. I know DO_CHECKOR is around and still runs his servers, but I don't know if he plays any more.

[TheWhat]

I had fun typing useless bs from my cubicle on the dbb.com
The whole way it came about was pretty hysterical. “You stole my color theme! You may only refer to your pee-pee in a way I deem appropriate or you will be shamed by daddy and be banned.”

[Burlyman]

Adam why did you change your name to something so weird? Oh yeah, I forgot, I can just call you Adam.

[TheWhat]

Biggie Smalls and Method Man. Also, it was necessary to change names all the time so you could maintain a 87% on PXO playing Am Arena against a bunch of pancakes because chicks dig a guy who never loses at video games. Chicks really dig that.

[D3Alien]

Yeah, but if you wanted to be a big bad demigod you had to stick to one name in particular. Something lame like "Xeon" or "{ROX}Hostile" would do. And then you had to "take a break" when any anonymous anti-stat padder who could do 40%+ on you would enter.

[TigerRaptor]

What lame thing did Xeon do again? It's been so long I don't remember anymore.

[Krom]

I stopped taking rank seriously when an update to PXO reset mine, and honestly it was good to just let it go. Play the game for itself instead of chasing stupid numbers. It probably also had something to do with me basically abandoning defense/dodging in my play style and just going all-in all the time. Plenty of times in games I'd have the most deaths by a comfortable margin, but I'd also have the most kills by an even more comfortable margin. For the few people that made it to demigod on an alias, the number I liked to laugh at was their kills per hour. Some of them would be in the 20 KPH range, where I could reliably approach 200 and in some of the more packed games I have gone over 300 (that is blowing up someone's ship every 12 seconds). They might have reached a higher rank by putting in a lot of time and effort, but I can guarantee I had more fun in day to day games by just embracing the chaos.

[TheWhat]

I was to Descent 3 what Joe Rogan is to comedy: no real natural skills - just pure addictive personality and willingness to get the ever living ★■◆● beat out of me to even get to above average. :] I never understood that whole being all precious about getting clipped. It seemed to only foster a runner/cherry picker tactical mentality which would be understandable if it were to survive in real life, but I played games to get lost and blow off steam.

I only played on lan one time for a couple of days and got just shredded by the real players. I think I did actually win a game of anarchy but I think Krom was on a lunch break.

[D3Alien]

What lame thing did Xeon do again? It's been so long I don't remember anymore.

Well he was basically the king of doing what TheWhat was talking about, spending all day in levels like Amateur's Arena trying to get as high an efficiency as possible pounding newbs into dust. I think he was the first person to reach the "demigod" rank, and then did it several more times with other pilot names. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't guilty of it myself to some degree. I preferred to do it in Varicose Veins, where at first I had cameras set up and roamed the base, loading up on secondaries and waiting like a trap door spider to ambush anyone trying to take the flag. Some games it was incredibly boring though, where you could end a 2-hour game at 30-6 or something like that.

I stumbled onto the Krom method after I improved, got a new computer and video card, and then started playing defense in the other team's base. It was ecstasy at times to camp their own energy center, sometimes string together a dozen or two kills in a row, and while they spent all their effort trying to dig me out of there my team was free to cap the flag over and over. I made far more progress on PXO rankings doing that than pure defense because the KPH was so much higher. Then I'd take a ranking and ego hit when I'd play Halcyon and Krom and other aliased D3k would come in and 80%+ eff wasn't in the cards anymore. It was worth it though for the challenge and skill upgrade.

"Lame" is pretty relative though, it's a video game where you try and experience euphoria by mashing some buttons more effectively than other people. Everybody just had a slightly different way to have fun going about it.

[TigerRaptor]

Ok, it's coming back now. I do remember having quite a few games with him, rijruna, and one other aussie player back then in a 4 way anarchy battle.

[Vander]

I stopped taking rank seriously when an update to PXO reset mine, and honestly it was good to just let it go.

I started using aliases pretty quickly in D3 because of PXO. I had more fun being a random player than a "known" player. Less baggage for whatever reason. It did make for some laughs when I posted a list of all my aliases here one time, though.

[Burlyman]

Don't be so quick to be disrespectful. That amateurs arena pilot Xeon used wasn't his first Demigod. He first got it under his own name and then rekt everyone while he was staying in the USA.