Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by DarkUni.
Kanati,
I wish you could understand the full story behind what happened with the Basement.
I did not walk away from it ... It was TAKEN from me. I cannot go into detail, because that would involve me verbally abusing the crap out of companies and people, and that just isn't right.
Let's see if I can explain it as politically correct as possible...
1) Blitz Basic was in the same situation that PB is now. Killer product, great people, but a well-kept secret. I communicate with the 'higher ups' at Blitz and let them know I would like to assist them in improving their documentation (since they themselves admitted they didn't have time or resources to do it). This I offered completely free, with no strings attached.
2) I created the documenation for BB. Made it web-based so people interested in the language could search the command database for the availability of features in the product they wanted.
3) There was a lot of disorganization within the community. They had a forum that was so slow that nobody wanted to visit it regularly. Online resources were simply not mature enough to attract the kind of play that any company wants for its product. So, I went ahead and created an OFFICIAL forum for BB (with permission and blessing) as well as started creating what would become the original Blitz Basement.
4) The original Basement was from MANY people's point of view, the perfect officially sanctioned mecca of Blitz information. It was fast, easy to search, officially endorsed so you got all the news and info immediately. The Blitz team needed a registration system to allow 'registered' owners to validate their identity. I created this for them - opening up all sorts of 'member only' support and features that would benefit the "I paid for it" community.
5) I took over many mundane tasks for Team Blitz. I maintained their documentation, remade the official website (I got paid for that - but that is it). I even built the installers and distribution files for Blitz updates.
6) I did all of this free of charge. I spent pretty much every waking, non-working hour doing this for nothing by for my love of Blitz.
7) I was asked by Team Blitz to create a Showcase community - with all the bells and whistles. I did this - free of charge.
Suddenly, something happened. Team Blitz decided it was open season on free speech on the forum and started editing posts, deleting threads that they didn't deem in Blitz's best interest (this thread you are reading would have been nuked on the second reply). Messages were edited Gestopo style.
9) We met some of Team Blitz at E3. It was fairly unpleasant for all parties. I won't go into details, but after E3 - the official relationship between Basement and Blitz was pretty much over.
10) The Blitz Showcase domain was owned by Guildhall. However, all the content, programming, etc. were mine. They demanded the domain. I said, that's fine, but the content etc belong to me. You can have the domain, but not the site - that's only fair. I even offered to help move all the user contributed content to the new OFFICIAL showcase they were planning. This didn't work out. So the Blitz Showcase gets nuked (not because I got bored or I was upset with the people). All politics.
11) Basement has to end its 'official' relations with BB. I wouldn't let them restrict, edit, and delete with extreme prejudice message board entries - so I voluntarily removed the official affiliation (that seems fair, right?). With that, the registered user system - the ENTIRE NERVE center of Basement - had to be removed. That gone, the Basement was non-functional. Completely. It had to come down. Again, not bored - not uptight - victim of circumstance.
12) With all the database stuff we still had available, we figured maybe we could create a new site ... offering something the Blitz community didn't have. A site for professionals (those people that didn't need to ask 'how do I make a sprite on the screen' - but for people that needed to know about pathfinding and stuff the average dabbler didn't) - where people could come and not read 100 threads of 'newbie' stuff, and just hang with other people looking at Blitz as a vocational tool, not a hobby tool. Hence came BlitzProfessional.com. A team of three of us spent hundreds of hours building this community - complex SQL stuff, functionality that everyone asked for - we put it in. We took the reigns off and said "If you could have anything you want, what would it be?" And we did it.
13) Since Blitz is quite a hobbiest language, BP.com didn't get near the traffic that Basement got. But we continued to provide what we could. When the official Blitz site cut off all non-registered owners from using their forum (!), we swallowed our 'pros only' approach and offered up forums for non-professional people (yeah, we're elitists all right).
Which is where we now stand. While I understand Kanati's statement - not knowing the full story - it should be plain that its not really true.
Yes, I left emulation because of the people. I was getting 100+ (!) emails a day (this is NOT an exaggeration) of hate, SNES emu style people that could do nothing but bitch (and about things I had no control over). When MAME would LOAD Super Punch Out, but not play it, I provided a romset for it on Insert Coin (my emu site). One guy actually wrote and threatened to hunt me down and kick my ass if I didn't provide working roms. Sure, that's the sort of thankless, psychotic people you want to provide a free, time consuming service for? BTW, Kanati makes it sound like Insert Coin was a 3 month site. Insert Coin was up in one form or another for 2 years. That's like 20 years in 'web time'. Considering the site lasted longer than most IT people stay at the same job, I'd say that's pretty good.
Now, after all this - perhaps you can understand a little bit more where I'm coming from - being upset at this hostility. When I was working with Team Blitz, the users loved and appreciated our efforts - it was people on top that didn't and it hurt and angered us. Now we hope to be useful to a community, and the people on top want us around, and the people don't (seemingly).
The last thing I want to address before putting this to bed ... and hopefully we can all just get along after this...
Why do I want to do my 'own thing' vice joining up with the existing stuff and helping that way. I'm sure I'll piss SOMEONE off with this, but since it needs to be addressed, I will do so as best as I can.
First off, I have a hundreds-of-hours-engine sitting at BP.com basically playing to a half a dozen people who consider Biltz professionally. I see this as something that should be getting more use after all the time it took to make. There is some REALLY COOL stuff in the engine that we spilled blood to get into it. Stuff that PB Resources (as cool as it is) doesn't have. That the official site doesn't have. That's Skunk's site doesn't have. Stuff that could send signals to 'professionals' that the language is worthy of their time. I don't mean that to sound elitist like "I can do it and you people can't, so I am ultimate - worship me plz". Let me tell you why ...
I want a language that is capable of meeting every need I have. Blitz was close, PB is closer. I want to see it, as a product, grow and develop. Fred needs cash (unless he's independatly wealthy and does this for fun - I don't think so tho) and nothing spawns development time than lots of cold hard cash. To get cash, we need more people to buy it. This means marketing, search engine presence, complete and utter professionalism to help people that are looking at VB.net and saying "There is no way in hell I'm doing this ... What else is there?" This guy goes to the search engine and types in "basic programming language". They get 2 dozen sites for Blitz, 3 billions sites for VB, and 2 sites for Pure Basic. Will the professional take the stance of "Puer Basic must be leet" and visit and learn of its power? Maybe. Once he gets here, he starts looking for resources and finds one. The professional leaves.
If Fred doesn't make money, he is going to be less interested in developing a language I'm fastly learning to love. Then I'm stuck with an orphan language that doesn't develop with the times. Therefore, it is in MY (and your) best interest to do everything you can to make a product LOOK mainstream even if it really isn't. Projection of Power (or something).
Now, professional developers are used to a certain level of support. Searchable knowledge bases. Dynamic online support documentation that is FAR more up to date than the included docs. A searchable, dynammic well-indexed code library. Working samples for each command with hyperlink references to related keywords. This is what they come to expect as a MINIMUM from a development package.
While PB Resources is doing a great job for the community as it is, I want to attract people OUTSIDE the small group and attract people that can make Fred $100,000 a year in sales. I think that what we are doing with Pure Basic Basement will fill the niche that the 'programming professional' expects to see with a kick-ass language like PB.
I make web applications for a living. That's what I do. I centralize information, I bring it together in usable ways. I use whatever technology I need to make this happen. I'm willing to spend every waking hour to do it.
Paul, how much time a week are you willing to put forth into PB Resources? Are you willing to spend 6 hours a night developing SQL datastores and writing PHP code to help achieve the goals that we have set? Spending all weekend developing working examples for all 400+ commands? Can your server handle 20,000 visits a day? Do you have a SQL store available with admin rights? Can your server run PHP or ASP? Do you have admin rights on the box to allow custom, file system level stuff to run?
This I have and am willing to do. 'Joining forces' doesn't make a lot of sense in the big picture of things. We have similar goals, but we have two very different ways and tools of doing it. This is NOTHING to feel competative about. This is nothing to think "jeeze, now I have to visit TWO sites" about. We serve very different needs. I visit 3 classic gaming sites a day because each siteop offers slightly different news and information - this is GOOD. Its not a burden - and its crazy for me to ask Vintage Gaming, Retrogames, and ClassicGaming.com to 'join forces so I don't have to visit more than one page'. That's like asking Yahoo Auctions and Ebay to join up so I only have to seach for G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip ONE time.
I hope this all helps - although it will probably make it worse. I've already promised Paul that he can tap our resources anytime - and I'll sure as hell tap his when I need to. If he can write PHP code, I'd even work with him to get hooks into our stuff so you folks that don't want to check two sites can get some of the info on his site too.
Dare I say "group hug"? nahhh...
Thanks for reading.
Shane R. Monroe
Dark Unicorn Productions
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