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The Death of Flash and the Future of Board Culture


Iver

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Adobe Flash Player is dying in about 2 months. I can still fondly recall the many hours spent watching animated comics and Flash movies on this website. Rather than have these artifacts of our history fall into the void of time, I would like to see these relics preserved. I would now like to direct your attention to this video on Flash game preservation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oICOAbreOiU&ab_channel=TwoLeftThumbs

tl;dw:

There are three apparent methods of Flash preservation: Conversion, Emulation, and Collection. I'll outline them in bullet points below.

  • Conversion: The creators of Flash content take their old Flash files, and convert them into newer files that will run on modern software like HTML5 or Unity. Some creators have found success with this, but it is a tasking process and requires the original files.
  • Emulation: This involves emulating Adobe Flash with an emulation software that will run in your browser. There are a few different groups trying to do this, but the most promising software at this point is Ruffle.
  • Collection: The most fail-proof option. This involves downloading the game/movie, then storing it elsewhere where it can be downloaded for personal use. There is a group called Flashpoint, and they are borderline obsessive about storing Flash media.

So, in order to save our Flash media, we ought to follow these steps:

  1. Contact the original creators of Flash content on BZP, and ask them to help save their games/movies.
  2. Download games/movies from their hosting sites and store them on something like Flashpoint.
  3. Pray that any unsaved content will run on an emulator and that the webpages they are hosted on don't disappear.

Let's save our history.

"You humans are absurd, Rook. Furious when you're not in control, terrified when you are. Pull it together."

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  • 2 months later...

Ruffle does seem like a promising solution for "modern" machines.

Tangentially, to those interested in the broader topic:

Don't forget that there's a whole stack of layers going on here. This applies to anything software. In the case of Flash, I still have old physical discs with the necessary software to create and run Flash files, but although they "work" on modern systems, they're increasingly finicky (don't understand high-dpi screens, etc.). In a few years they likely won't work on a new PC.

With modern web/subscription services, you don't even have that fallback.

Keep your old machines around! Many things are the product of weird, duct-taped hardware + software that are unique to their moment in time.

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2015 Sets: 18/18 + 3 • Polybags: 1/2 • SDCC x2, NYCC Clear MoF, Trans-MoF
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  • 4 weeks later...
8 hours ago, masterchirox580 said:

The internet has been dying since 2013. Now we're stuck in this increasingly colourless, centralised, and curated web that is run by only a few companies. 

Not strictly true, there's always going to be places that spin off from the bigger picture.

~ CHTrilogy

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On 1/27/2021 at 7:31 PM, CHTrilogy said:

Not strictly true, there's always going to be places that spin off from the bigger picture.

they're getting smaller and more insular all the time. the days in the mid-aughts where you could come on bzp and see like 800 people online? that's gone forever and we've replaced it with twitter and reddit, which are both awful sites that i hate but continue to use because i've become addicted to content and they're the only place i can get my fix anymore

  

On 1/28/2021 at 12:59 AM, Master Inika said:

I'm just here looking for the easiest possible way to play MNOG and play the Piraka Online Animations.

you can play mnog on bluemaxima's flashpoint. don't think it has the piraka animations though

Edited by Canama

man remember when no one would dream of making a forum site without signatures

 

 

that was tight

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/3/2021 at 8:54 AM, Canama said:

 

they're getting smaller and more insular all the time. the days in the mid-aughts where you could come on bzp and see like 800 people online? that's gone forever and we've replaced it with twitter and reddit, which are both awful sites that i hate but continue to use because i've become addicted to content and they're the only place i can get my fix anymore

  

I completely agree. Reddit rewards conformity through its user curated post system based on points. The communities will always upvote posts that confirm their biases the hardest. This in turn leads to a stifled environment in which dynamic conversation no longer occurs. Even the old Lego message boards had more freedom of expression (and that required mod approval for every post). People as recently as the early 2010s used to bash on fandoms for having constant arguments which could sometimes become very aggressive. But honestly, I miss that. I would much rather be insulted every day on the internet if it meant I could hear a discussion between multiple people with multiple different opinions. Simply put I will always prefer environments like BZP because here you aren't rewarded for conforming nor are you punished for not conforming. It's an equal playing field. 

It's time to move on.

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