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ShadowDraikana and other users, I have been an infrequent user (i.e., lurker) on this forum for several years. I encountered some difficulty today when trying to find Lego Chess installation advice. I found that I could not post anything to contribute to the discussion; it was a bit later that I found this thread with clarifying information. Some Ideas. I have no idea what recent events transpired. I would very much like to see this site continue, should that be possible (thanks, Shadow, for your efforts in keeping the site on life support). The previous poster provided some sage pointers for managing the site moving forward. It appears, however, that covering costs appears to be the biggest obstacle and concern. It appears if funding is the primary obstacle, well... the solution is to find funding. Maybe one or a few users would be willing to bear the brunt of the costs, but judging by the state I found the site in, that is not a likely solution. Another possibility is crowdfunding, which could defray the costs of website maintenance. If the costs are something like $906 + some Cloudfare costs per year (see Shadow's latest post), they could be split among all continuing users who pay a nominal premium to continue using this site. Even something like $1 per member per year or some barrier to entry for non-members (e.g., some of the most important threads, e.g., installation how-to threads, as preview-only and locked unless one becomes a subscribing member) might produce sufficient cash-flow to cover or defray the annual costs. Better Notice. In any case, the forums are frozen at the moment. Can you please make a more conspicuous announcement of this fact so that users like me do not waste time trying to figure out what is going on? Perhaps put a post pinned to the top of the forums, titled "READ FIRST: FORUM LOCKED" with your last post.

Bruh. This forum being an archive is just lazy. Why not fix this forum and make it a safe place instead. Now people are moving somewhere else without solving anything regarding this issue. This issue can happen everywhere unless the website is better protected against issues like this. If you really want to aim pushing Rock Raiders United forward, try this instead of freezing this forum for no real reason: Make a plan to protect everyone. Add features to this website to protect the users. For example: Reputation based system allowing users knowing the forum rules to post. Reliable moderators and admins to keep the forum safe. (Try getting this forum better under control based on plans) Use something like an onboarding feature to guide users through the forum rules and how the forum works. Reward users for positive contributions on the forum. Give them a reason to behave. Get active/caring mods and admins to make this forum healthy again. I came up with these fixes pretty much in minutes. Instead of being silent. How about you fix this issue in the first place. It is not impossible to improve safety to this forum and its users. The lack of change this forum got shows the staff is not interested in solving the real issue here. Letting this forum die out instead of keeping the forum up-to-date and fresh is not the solution. It is just lazy.

Hello, I wanted to share something on discord, but there is no discord, so I wanted to post it in game discussion, but I can't, for some reason. Only place I can seem to be able to post is here. Anyway I patched Lego LOCO to run in 32 bit color mode so we don't have to use compatibility patches anymore! I did this in about an hour and barely tested it, it runs but seems to have some glitches. It's a start I suppose. Here's the EXE I patched : https://www.mediafire.com/file/ej631ovkkyy3s01/loco.exe/file It's taken straight from the installation provided from this ISO here: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/lego-loco-bc2 Here are the exact patches I did: The function 0x406680 handles checking for video capability and exiting early with an error if video requirements are not met. I named it 'CheckVideoCaps' At 0x4066BD it exits early if the color count is -1, which on 32 bit color systems, it is. So I nopped this part to prevent the jump out in case of incompatibility (wrote 0x90, 6 times, from 0x4066BD to 0x4066C2) Next around 0x4066F0 it exits early again if the window/Screen is too big. It expects it to be under 1280 pixels and then 900 pixels I think. So I changed those two checks to jump directly to the success condition and bypass the checks entirely. I turned the JGE at 0x4066F4 into a JMP (0xEB) and the JNZ at 0x40671F into a JMP (0xEB), both relative 8-bit. This effectively makes the game ignore those video limitations and run. hooray! The main menu is glitchy and all black, but if you navigate your mouse around you will manage to find the "play" button (bottom right corner) and get ingame, at which point the game looks pretty much normal. We could probably do more patches like this until the game run smoothly Have a nice day and hit me up if the discord comes back up

Hey ShadowDraikana! Thank you for the response. Hopefully your internet situation will improve. I have a few questions about your reply: My MOC topics are currently really reliant to editing, because I prefer not having to fully complete the topic first before posting or having to reply to my topics for updates. Is editing going to stay removed for everyone? Is it possible to grand some people edit rights based on what they want to do on this forum or some other way? I really like the way my MOC topics are structured and want to keep doing it the way I do it currently. These are the MOC's I am talking about. I am also planning to submit a LEGO island 1 topic, but it would not be 100% complete when I want to post it. Am I still able to post zip files for my MOC topics and am I able to edit them overtime? The four changes mentioned changing the forum. Are these going to stay or are they temporary?

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the absence, it was simply not in my control due to irl circumstances. Lack of internet also played a role here, namely due to the fact I do not possess home internet access from living in a rural area, meaning I’m reliant on hotspots from a local library. It sucks but that’s the way life is in this area. These hotspot are not available constantly so there are long stretches where I *cannot* be physically around. With my personal life keeping me from being able to do anything with the site, in addition to various login problems I was having due to software issues and the aforementioned internet, I had to simply take a break and come back when I could. To answer this crystalizer, the rules I outlined should reinforce that things will be handled differently, as the rest of this post should clarify. I'm frankly not going to be as hardline on some grey area items but blatantly bad offenses such as criminal behavior? Instant removal. Plans for the site going forward will be detailed below. Lair, to answer your’s, the current backend owner who was paying is rockboy aka Frozen Snow. How this came about was I had been faced with Cirevam leaving and likely shutting down the site then and there with no further access. This was until I approached him and convinced him to leave it up. It was then clear that I was going to inherit the costs, which I could not do. I then in turn reached out to Frozen Snow and asked if he would be willing to cover costs as I believed he had the means to do so, knowing that he had mentioned having the infrastructure in place for hosting a site in the past. He agreed, and thus the site backend was transferred to him. Once the transfer was complete Cirevam hung around briefly to reply in his announcement thread but he has not logged in since. Your other points are also valid. If people don’t want to update their threads there’s quite literally no requirement for them to do so. Neither should they be discouraged from doing so, if that’s what they choose. It’s very clear that for some time a lot of threads weren’t being updated anyway, so there isn’t going to be much of a difference here. The reopening of the site was intended to let people continue to use and rebuild this community if they wanted to, with again no requirement that it happen. Frankly if the site's reputation is viewed as tarnished to the point of no return, then that's that and there's no further point in rehashing and debating this in a snark-fest. But, most importantly, the site was reopened to preserve its history, which leads into my next points below. The site is going to remain up for archival purposes, which at the end of the day is something everyone can agree on. This transitions into the newest points regarding how things will be going forward. Simply put, the current owner has stated he can no longer support the forum’s costs, and is stepping back from his role entirely. Due to the costs I cannot financially support this either, therefore I am looking into ways to convert the forum into a different software system to minimize this. Furthermore, I have been looking into a new host/ownership to be able to support the site with lower costs. This is to at the bare minimum preserve the website’s information and history. Current ownership made the final payment, which covers for another month. For those who are interested in knowing what kind of costs I am talking about here: Web hosting: ~$58/month Forum software license: ~$90 every six months Cloudflare: Unknown, but has been prepaid a few years by Cirevam before he left Domain Registration: ~$15/year per domain, so ~$30/year total for two domains In lieu of the current issues, I am revising the rules again, as well as implementing some changes that some may have noticed already. 1. New user account creation is disabled, those who wish to make an account will need to request one until further notice. 2. Edits have been removed to avoid vandalism (you know who you are). 3. New posts are currently not going to be allowed outside of this section of the forums (ie, announcement section of the forum) 4. Gallery access will be restricted to a limited degree. Due to software changes that will need to be made to cut costs, I will likely take the site offline and restrict access to select trusted users in a sort of archivist role while the site undergoes this entire process. Suggestions for handling a transfer are welcome, but I hope you understand why I have had my hands tied these last few months in dealing with all this. One additional point about the site going forward: there are a number of hidden sections that I would like to return to being public. However, there may be personal information within them so they must be checked/cleaned first before hand. These subforums and topics were displaced during the 2017 restructure of the forum and were never made public again/moved into proper homes, thus becoming an internal reference for moderators and administrators only. The process of sorting through these old topics has been appointed to Sadie Meowsalot and Lair, as they have experience in archival and preservation while being careful with personal information. If the site must be taken offline, they will hopefully retain access to continue their work. Once this process of sorting is finished, these particular topics and subforums will be made public again. Lastly, I will try to reply to posts here but due to circumstances, may not be feasible again. I will be making a further announcement if I am able about a site transfer if one is completed or not in time if I am able. Thank you again for your responses and time.

There was a point in time in early 2019 that I decided to sort through the assets of this game for all the unused content. The goal was to reduce the initial starting size of my mod while also retaining an unused asset tree to draw from. Well, fast forward to present. I had drafted up a topic about this unused assets collection but never posted it. So, I'm fixing that now. Archive download: https://www.rockraidersunited.com/files/dl-r397/ If you find any issues with this, such as game files you think are unused that I missed, or any files in here that you believe are in fact used, please do bring it to my attention. This should be entirely complete, though. Anyway, enjoy

All - I would like to take this opportunity to respond to the video posted on September 23rd, 2022, by an anonymous user on YouTube. I will not link the video here, but to summarize for those who have not seen it, the video accuses myself, other forum moderators and admins, and the community as a whole of protecting a former user who was convicted of criminal wrongdoing. This accusation is not true. Allow me to state what should be clear in case there is any ambiguity: Rock Raiders United (RRU), its staff, and myself do not support or condone acts that are criminal in nature of any kind. This has been true from the beginning and remains true now. It is our intent for RRU to be a safe place for all of our users to discuss LEGO and other related topics. I want to begin by stating that the video is based on a lie. It suggests that the account of the user in question, ftgSarge, remains active and unbanned. This is objectively false. Below is a screenshot from the admin control panel on the forum. In it, you can see the red banner stating that he is banned, and listed on the right is the date when the ban took effect: June 4th, 2022. IP addresses and e-mail addresses have been redacted for privacy. The confusion surrounding this point seems to have been caused by two things: that the ban was not announced publicly and that there is currently no graphical representation applied to banned accounts to indicate their status to other users of the forum. First, moderator and administrator decisions are not discussed openly due to their sensitive nature. Just as other public websites and social media sites do not advertise when they ban users, neither does RRU. The other moderators knew I had banned ftgSarge because I told them, and some of those moderators privately told regular members about the ban. This is how bans have been typically handled in the past and how it usually happens on other websites on the internet, including major social media sites. Second, in the past, banned users have had an identifier listed on their profile to display their banned status. Unfortunately it appears this feature was removed by upgrades to the forum’s software. I did not know this and only as a result of this video discovered that this was the case. Understandably, with no way for regular users of the forum to verify the ban, this gave the impression that ftgSarge’s account was still active when in fact, as of June 4th, 2022, it was not. The video mentions that ftgSarge disappeared from the official RRU Discord server’s member list the day after the court documents were released but claims this is not proof that he was banned. In truth, he was banned from Discord on June 1st, 2022. Once the court documents were uploaded to the official RRU Discord - which, and I will go into detail on this later, was the first time I had ever seen them - I read them over and verified that they were real. I banned ftgSarge the very next day. The forum ban came three days later (June 4th) after I had investigated ftgSarge’s private messages for any evidence of note that would have needed to be passed to the relevant authorities. I found nothing substantial and banned him shortly after. To address the main complaint of the video, that I was aware of ftgSarge’s legal situation and did not take action, this is likewise false. I had no explicit knowledge of ftgSarge’s situation before the 2019 court documents were shared on Discord. Rumors of some potentially criminal misbehavior related to ftgSarge did circulate around 2015. I still knew of no concrete evidence and certainly did not know of anything happening on RRU that was either in violation of our forum rules or that was illegal. As is the case for many websites, RRU cannot ban anyone based on rumors alone. We try our best to be fair and impartial, which is why provable violations of our forum rules are the only route to a ban. It’s also important to note that I, like many other forum users, do not know the real names of most RRU users. As is the case with most websites, this information is not required when signing up for an account on RRU. The video is correct that ftgSarge’s real name was embedded within the URL of a posted podcast in 2010. As this was years before the rumors surfaced around 2015, if I saw the name and recognized it as one, there was absolutely no reason for me to make note of it. It’s more probable I thought it belonged to the poster of the podcast, not ftgSarge. The video is also correct that ftgSarge’s real name was, at some point, added to the social media links on his profile. The moderation staff and I do not actively monitor what members of RRU add to their profiles, nor are we automatically alerted when profiles are modified. RRU has thousands of members, and the moderation staff does not have the time to review profiles as they change constantly over time. The only instance when we review a user’s profile contents is when another user flags it, which makes it appear in our reporting system. However, had I or another administrator or moderator seen the documents or been provided with them in 2012/2013 or 2019 and been able to make the connection (through knowing the ftgSarge’s real name), we would have taken action then and there. There is absolutely no question. The video perpetuates the idea that documents surrounding the user’s 2013 arrest and even their real name were, and I quote, “public and general knowledge.” As this topic relates to the public disclosure of a user’s real-world information, it would have caused immense amounts of discussion on RRU and be easily findable (and memorable), especially in 2013 when the forum was much smaller than it is now and especially within the moderation team. I have not been able to find any references to the documents or any associated revelations. You will note that the only piece of evidence this anonymous poster provides to prove their assertion that this information was widespread is a single post in a word game topic thread from 2015, the exact time when the rumors were circulating. MrBuilderman’s post on Discord on May 31st, 2022, was the first time the moderation staff and I were presented with verifiable evidence of the situation surrounding ftgSarge. With those documents in my possession, I acted immediately, banning ftgSarge from both the official RRU Discord (as the video notes) and RRU a few days later, as explained above. I acknowledge that the deletion of MrBuilderman’s post without subsequent explanation - especially given the seriousness of the alleged issue - was handled poorly. The deletion most likely should have been followed by a brief response that included reasoning and a message to any concerned users. MrBuilderman’s post was deleted not, as the anonymous poster claims, to hide information but because it violated Discord’s Terms of Service (https://discord.com/terms). MrBuilderman’s post contained personally identifiable information about the user he was targeting - MrBuilderman “doxxed” him, in simpler terms - which is disallowed as harassment under Discord’s terms of use and community guidelines (https://discord.com/guidelines). Had I not removed the post and Discord had been notified, it’s very possible the privileges of the server and my account may have been revoked. It was also explicitly against RRU’s community rules prohibiting the same (https://rockraidersunited.com/topic/4132-global-forum-rules/). Further, MrBuilderman was known to myself and the moderation staff as a user who had historically caused issues on RRU, though under different usernames. He tended to provoke conflict and purposefully derail conversations and threads. He would also attempt to circumvent bans by creating new accounts (MrBuilderman was one of multiple aliases), which is expressly prohibited under RRU’s forum rules. I hope it is clear from the public way in which MrBuilderman presented us with this information and his phrasing that his effort was not in good faith. Had MrBuilderman (or his alias username on RRU) contacted us directly, we would have scrutinized the documents he provided in the same way and taken the same action. This leads me to one last point regarding MrBuilderman. In his post, he also posted a screenshot of a Discord message (from a server of which I was not a member) from a user of RRU, in which they claimed that ftgSarge was a known predator years prior (the message was from 2020). To date, I have not received any information outside of the 2019 court documents that corroborated the rumors heard in 2015. This user may be referring to the rumors, not tangible proof, but I cannot say for certain as I was not a part of that conversation, nor did this user present said tangible evidence to me if they had it. I do not know ftgSarge on a personal level, nor do I have a friendly relationship with him. Yes, I did happen to play Planetside 2 with him sometime between 2012 and 2013. I’ve played many games with all sorts of people over my many years, including members from RRU. As I mentioned, this was before the rumors surfaced around 2015. That he stayed on my friends list is simply a fact of having lost interest in Steam and not going back to prune it (on top of entering adult working life). I am sure many of you also have many people on your friend lists (potentially even on social media sites) that contain people you added from such a long time ago that you couldn’t even remember who they are. As to my friends list on Discord, as someone running a public server, I’m in the position of needing to accept all kinds of friend requests, most of which are from people I do not know nor will ever know in any substantial way. That ftgSarge found my profile on Reddit is also not surprising, given the uniqueness of my screenname. You may notice that the posted video alleges much but very rarely provides support for its assertions. Its language is hyperbolic and extreme. As I’ve mentioned many times above, it was posted anonymously, and the poster took care to hide their voice. For those that know me, I am not a person who is easily offended or slighted and would never really care to retaliate even if I was made so. I can only infer then that the individual who made this video is masking their voice not to protect themselves from their target but to prevent themselves from being discovered by the public at large. To address the state of RRU and the official RRU Discord: in the aftermath of the video being posted. I was extremely taken aback by having myself and this community targeted so specifically and by the quantity of the baseless accusations and their gravity. I was overwhelmed, and I panicked. I decided to take the forum offline temporarily while I processed the situation (which has been done in the past for various reasons). I knew I didn’t want to delete it since the research and tools stored here are too valuable to be thrown out altogether. I would never jeopardize the hard work of everyone who has contributed to such a treasure trove. And though I was not rash enough to delete the website, I was rash and deleted the official RRU Discord in my panic. When the original video was uploaded, nearly all of the people I am close with and would usually consult for advice were offline. Those that would have counseled patience were unavailable, and I shut everything down without being able to think clearly. I did not realize that Discord will not restore deleted servers under any circumstance (I sent a support ticket the following day, and they told me it was gone forever). It was not my intent to delete everything related to the server permanently. This is my fault, as it seemed like the only option in my panicked state at the time, and I sincerely apologize. It was the wrong decision. There will be changes to the forum going forward. For now, most of the site is in read-only mode, except for this thread which is open for feedback from existing members. I want to be clear that nothing was deleted, and you can verify that with your own eyes. I will also be stepping down from any sort of moderation duties. I never enjoyed having the responsibility on my shoulders, and I will not have that responsibility going forward. The moderation team may change over the coming days, and I will have little, if any, input in those decisions. For the moment, Slimy Slug is the acting administrator of RRU to allow the site to continue operating during this transition period. I hope that we can return to RRU’s roots, where people were excited to change and improve the games they loved without any drama. Just people getting together to do what they enjoy. If you wish to talk to me to gain further insights or to discuss what has happened and have ideas on how I can improve beyond the ideas I mentioned before, please don’t hesitate to reach out. This thread is dedicated to discussing the current situation and is intended for an open, honest, and transparent dialogue. Please remember that doxxing or breakage of the Community Guidelines is not allowed. However, I do encourage anyone with questions or concerns to engage with myself and other users here. I thank everyone for their patience in reading this far. I hope that the above information, in combination with the relationship I have built within this community for over a decade, will speak for itself.

It is unfortunate I am unable to create my lego island 1 topic. I got pretty much a full collection of anything in the game now. Really enjoyed showing and sharing them on this website.