What's New
Off Topix: Embrace the Unexpected in Every Discussion

Off Topix is a well established general discussion forum that originally opened to the public way back in 2009! We provide a laid back atmosphere and our members are down to earth. We have a ton of content and fresh stuff is constantly being added. We cover all sorts of topics, so there's bound to be something inside to pique your interest. We welcome anyone and everyone to register & become a member of our awesome community.

Hello there

prophet

prophet

Elite Member
Elite Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2009
Posts
156
OT Bucks
448
Hey, I haven't visited any forums in over 5 years probably and just so happened to see an email regarding this forum. Seems I joined in 2009 probably from whenever theezy was running or shortly after running ForumAdvertiser or something similar. I used to visit ZetaBoards forums quite often and haven't touched any forum software or anything of the sort since it's closure/merger into tapatalk. Only saw a few familiar faces whenever I recovered my account but figured I'd say hello.

I've previously went by prophet, blackout, Seth, Noah, or Elijah at some points and probably even a few more than that, but most commonly prophet.

Not sure entirely if I'll stick around as I just don't see forums as enticing as I previously had, but figured I could potentially reconnect with other people that I've talked to in the past. I've helped with a few large ZetaBoards forums in the past and previously did GFX art but that was long ago. I still occasionally open Photoshop and mess around with some things but nothing too big now.

I was on the Graphics Team at GraphicForce and AtriumForum. I was a Trainee at one point for OutlineForum and helped recreate JustGFX as an Administrator (all ZetaBoards forums). I was staff a few separate times over at Forum Promotion and a few other promotion forums on ZetaBoards such as Antiquus and whatever other forums Cedric/Aerodynamik had as well, but all of these were years ago. Just figured I'd pop in and say hello and as previously mentioned, reconnect with other old faces that I may recognize. Not sure if any old ZetaBoarders are still around after the merger.

Previous GFX work: (anywhere from 6-10 years ago for some of these)
dalhbgb-49fd38c1-8473-43dd-9185-daf2263a8990.png


dam0wqf-7e548e53-a337-49a8-bcaa-1072779016a7.png


d83ek52-3d2af8f2-5eea-4595-82e1-d61c161e1770.png


d6826zg-7678a291-1b86-4fa7-99d8-878deb69c851.png


d681xuv-304bbcfa-b112-4807-8896-71243cebeb3a.png


d68vnuf-2fbb2a0a-5573-4004-ab64-d962b6d7c00c.png


dalhzkg-90bcedb8-6c7f-43f7-b8be-ac4f67e1e583.png


dalhbg3-9476e23f-34b8-47aa-b013-03ca77945522.png
 
Welcome to the forum. It's good to see a veteran from the forums old days.
 
Signatures,that does bring back memories😎,I believe I still have some old work saved Interface style was my thing back in the Zeta days.
 
Nebulous said:
:w2: I remember seeing you around! I think we do have a few Zetaboards peeps around @Bluezone777 & @Phossix have recently been posting here (for example).

Nice work on the graphics! You’re very talented. Do you still make graphics?
Click to expand...
I haven't done anything forum graphic related since probably 2017-18 but I've made some company logos for family and colleagues in the past couple years. The drive just isn't there anymore and unfortunately GFX forums, etc. were/are a dying breed. I don't think any of them are alive anymore so no point in doing so. Eventually it felt more so like a chore than anything at one point, but thank you for the welcome.
 
Welcome back.
GFX forums may be a dying breed, but NFT's are the new buzz thing and you can make a lot of money if you are a talented digital artist.
 
Moonface said:
Yes, I am ex-ZetaBoards. I was part of the Support Team on the official support forums until the service ended, and was part of some of the forums @prophet mentioned in their OP.
Click to expand...
tumblr_nb753cFdER1qff20bo1_500.gifv

I thought I recognized you, @Moonface.... :) *hugs*
 
Moonface said:
Yes, I am ex-ZetaBoards. I was part of the Support Team on the official support forums until the service ended, and was part of some of the forums @prophet mentioned in their OP.
Click to expand...

Any behinds the scenes gossip you can dish out from the support forum?
 
Nebulous said:
Any behinds the scenes gossip you can dish out from the support forum?
Click to expand...
Hard to come up with anything off the bat, but most notable stuff generally centers around Brandon and how too much rested on someone who was difficult to communicate with or collaborate with far too often. ZB's closure always sticks out as one of the worst cases because the staff privately told him to hold off on announcing the move to TT until every question we could pose to him was answered and placed into the announcement to try and cover as much as possible up front, and to adjust parts of the announcement to just sound better. Instead, nothing we asked got answered, he posted the announcement anyway with zero changes we pitched made to it, and then we never heard from him after. Staff were understandably upset by that, and had to work with very little to handle the incoming waves of questions and angry responses from any user of the service who came our way. Stephen is one of the staff I felt most bad for, because he had planned to step down long before ZB's closure but Brandon persuaded him to stay on and to my knowledge gave zero thanks to him when he cashed out with TT. No staff got any final message of appreciation, but for people like Stephen who stayed around for Brandon getting thrown under the bus it was completely screwed up.

There was also plans for ZB 2.0 which involved a completely new default theme and reworking a lot of stuff to be better and including more features. I can't remember much of the specifics though.
 
Moonface said:
Hard to come up with anything off the bat, but most notable stuff generally centers around Brandon and how too much rested on someone who was difficult to communicate with or collaborate with far too often. ZB's closure always sticks out as one of the worst cases because the staff privately told him to hold off on announcing the move to TT until every question we could pose to him was answered and placed into the announcement to try and cover as much as possible up front, and to adjust parts of the announcement to just sound better. Instead, nothing we asked got answered, he posted the announcement anyway with zero changes we pitched made to it, and then we never heard from him after. Staff were understandably upset by that, and had to work with very little to handle the incoming waves of questions and angry responses from any user of the service who came our way. Stephen is one of the staff I felt most bad for, because he had planned to step down long before ZB's closure but Brandon persuaded him to stay on and to my knowledge gave zero thanks to him when he cashed out with TT. No staff got any final message of appreciation, but for people like Stephen who stayed around for Brandon getting thrown under the bus it was completely screwed up.

There was also plans for ZB 2.0 which involved a completely new default theme and reworking a lot of stuff to be better and including more features. I can't remember much of the specifics though.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a big headache for everyone involved but Brandon. I wonder how much he got paid from tapatalk? His zetaboards software probably still exists out there somewhere on a hard drive or two. Its a shame he didn't release it as an open source free software like phpbb or MyBB. Should have offered forum owners an option to purchase a backup of their database and let them go the self-hosted route running zetaboards software on their own servers or a web host of their choice.
 
Nebulous said:
That sounds like a big headache for everyone involved but Brandon. I wonder how much he got paid from tapatalk? His zetaboards software probably still exists out there somewhere on a hard drive or two. Its a shame he didn't release it as an open source free software like phpbb or MyBB. Should have offered forum owners an option to purchase a backup of their database and let them go the self-hosted route running zetaboards software on their own servers or a web host of their choice.
Click to expand...
The trouble with the database for ZB was unlike IF, data was stored in a singular database per server I think, hence why user profiles were not given a URL of 1, 2, 3, etc. on a new board; the number allocated was basically whatever number was next for all user accounts across the entire server, so if a server currently had 50,000 users registered, the next registered user on any board on that server would be 50,001 (s#.zetaboards.com/BOARD_URL/profile/50001).
 
Moonface said:
The trouble with the database for ZB was unlike IF, data was stored in a singular database per server I think, hence why user profiles were not given a URL of 1, 2, 3, etc. on a new board; the number allocated was basically whatever number was next for all user accounts across the entire server, so if a server currently had 50,000 users registered, the next registered user on any board on that server would be 50,001 (s#.zetaboards.com/BOARD_URL/profile/50001).
Click to expand...

Wonder why they would do that? All the data was jumbled together in one giant database?
 
Moonface said:
The trouble with the database for ZB was unlike IF, data was stored in a singular database per server I think, hence why user profiles were not given a URL of 1, 2, 3, etc. on a new board; the number allocated was basically whatever number was next for all user accounts across the entire server, so if a server currently had 50,000 users registered, the next registered user on any board on that server would be 50,001 (s#.zetaboards.com/BOARD_URL/profile/50001).
Click to expand...
Unfortunate that ZB ended the way it did. The themes made for those boards were among the best I've ever seen or been a part of.
 
Nebulous said:
Wonder why they would do that? All the data was jumbled together in one giant database?
Click to expand...
I presume it was something to do with however Brandon coded the software. But basically yes, everything in each respective server was all together and the ID numbers of the contents were what were used to connect the data to the correct board.

prophet said:
Unfortunate that ZB ended the way it did. The themes made for those boards were among the best I've ever seen or been a part of.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't think any other forum network comes close to the level of theme making that ZB had. I know Cory and Helena have worked on converting whatever themes they can over to Jcink, with the most recent ones being worked on being themes made by Eccentric Feline as they managed to get in touch with her to get permission to convert the themes she made. So some of the themes did get to live on beyond ZB thanks to that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom