WHy is Zophar's still alive?

juef · Post by **juef** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:44 pm

Speaking of things that shouldn't be alive anymore... Anyone else noticed the irony on the UltraHLE homepage?

August 18th 2003

No, it hasn't appeared then disappeared

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:03 am

What the crap!?? I just went to UltraHLE's site...I find that one weird, too, just like Zophar's.

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:18 am

oOoOoOoooOoo Time Warp! spooky.

corronchilejano · Post by **corronchilejano** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:38 am

Hey, the guy at Zophar basically said "Fuck this shit" and this is open just for kicks. UltraHLE says "Hey, Im not dead yet". Two different messages, one basic ending.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:45 pm

Panzer88 wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:Perhaps there's a need to create emulation.romhacking.net?
is that a joke or are you serious.

A little of both.

We have the system and code base in place to do it. The RHDN 2.0 framework has proven to be stable, flexible, and well scaling for a file archiving, news site. Given somebody made a layout (I would expect it to be distinctly separated from RHDN to keep everyone happy) and gave an outline for the sections, categories, and what not we would need for database cataloging of emulation files, it could be launched in several weeks time.

I've considered doing it before. However ROMhacking.net already drains all of the bandwidth and space I'm willing to pay for. Adding an emulation branch would surely meet and/or exceed the bandwidth and space RHDN uses. Zophar's Domain was way more popular than RHDN could ever hope to be since the emulation community is far bigger.

So, we'd have to have some way to foot the bill. A dedicated server would probably be a must if it took off. Finally having a real general emulation site, Zophar's Domain replacement would be nice. I don't think any emulation sites since have covered all the material Zophar's did. From savestate archives to game soundtrack archives to emulators to news on all.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:17 pm

I don't think it's really necessary... there are other sites where you can get most of that.

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:56 pm

I have difficulty finding one as comprehensive as Zophar's used to be, though.

Post by **badinsults** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:01 am

Nightcrawler wrote:
So, we'd have to have some way to foot the bill. A dedicated server would probably be a must if it took off. Finally having a real general emulation site, Zophar's Domain replacement would be nice. I don't think any emulation sites since have covered all the material Zophar's did. From savestate archives to game soundtrack archives to emulators to news on all.

I think that was one of the reasons that ZD failed. It was trying to do too much. Although it is great that they had these large savestate and soundtrack archives, it probably distracted from the main focus of the site, which was emulation news and archives.

Panzer88 · Post by **Panzer88** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:54 am

creaothceann wrote:I don't think it's really necessary... there are other sites where you can get most of that.

you know of modern day Zophars? links?

I know you can find all the bits at other places but a one stop collection place and community is pretty awesome.

The extention idea Nightcrawler would be cool, but it would take someone doing and paying for it, and I doubt that'll ever happen. Not a lof ot proactive people just floating around.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:15 pm

badinsults wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:
So, we'd have to have some way to foot the bill. A dedicated server would probably be a must if it took off. Finally having a real general emulation site, Zophar's Domain replacement would be nice. I don't think any emulation sites since have covered all the material Zophar's did. From savestate archives to game soundtrack archives to emulators to news on all.
I think that was one of the reasons that ZD failed. It was trying to do too much. Although it is great that they had these large savestate and soundtrack archives, it probably distracted from the main focus of the site, which was emulation news and archives.

I disagree. The reasons Zophar's Domain failed in my opinion:

1. The backend system was terrible. Every staff member I've spoken to personally said it was difficult to update anything.
2. The site could only be maintained by staff and thus suffered death based on staff bottleneck. All the work relied on staff. When staff was thin or unmotivated and quit caring, the site stagnated and died.

The large amount of content simply compounded those two issues exposing fundamental holes.

RHDN was created to combat both of those issues because they are common reasons why sites die. RHDN is so easy to update, anybody can and does do it. RHDN aims to reduce staff members responsibilities to simply act as screeners to strike a balance between a wiki and typical staff controlled sites. All of the maintenance, news, and other content is user provided. Eliminating that staff bottleneck is the key to success in my opinion. I would apply the same concepts to a Zophar's Domain replacement and I believe it would succeed for many years and not suffer the same fate regardless of how large of a site it was. When the workload is split up amongst everybody, it's easy to use an maintain, and has no staff bottleneck, it theoretically should last until everybody stops caring. If that point is reached, either the site is not needed anymore, or somebody somewhere else created something better. Either way, that's a successful end in my opinion. Nothing is eternal. I don't believe that happened to Zophar's Domain.

I'm not saying I have the definitive answer to success. But I do have my own philosophy on how to do things differently to potentially achieve it. RHDN is an experiment to see if if my ideas have merit. Only time will tell.

As for the distraction issue. Who knows. Maybe some people prefer a stricter emulation focused site. However, being that according to Swampgas Zophar's domain still gets huge traffic even today, it seems there IS still a need for a all encompassing emulation site under one umbrella. From a code and back end perspective, the amount of different archives should have little effect other than increased numbers of submissions.

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:40 am

long live..., i mean, Long Lasting Zophar !!

i remember back then, most of my emu-geek-i-ness came from Zophar, such as my thousands .rsn archives that i teleported (leech) generously from Zophar, thank you Zophar for being great sites back then.