History of Abandonia?
 

Hello everyone.
As is probably quite obvious, I'm quite new to this site--or at least, this aspect of it. Mainly, I would come, snatch a few interesting titles, and scurry away, with few thoughts about the site where I found them. Only recently have I registered and started to look at it fully.
And what a place it is. I hadn't realized the vast, unseen community dedicated to making this site the resource that it is. And so for the last few days, I've been most intrigued as I delved through the old threads and posts, learning of the labors and good times this mass effort has facilitated through the years. And that, I think, is a story worth documenting. The site does have a vague history page, giving important dates and numbers through the last 10 years. And for the average user, thats all that matters.
But it seems this numerical, milestone-based approach to the site fails to give credit to the element most responsible for its success: The dozens of dedicated individuals and their countless hours of dedicated labor, without which the site would be...well, nothing.
We can study history as a series of dates and numbers, and that does carry import, but there is always so much more, so many human stories responsible for those numbers.
That's something this site seems to lack. There are vague footprints, traces of past members hidden deep in the forums, and countless stories in the memories of the present users. That's the thought that most fascinates me. In this group and in these countless threads, there lies the full Abandonia story, one that seems every bit worthy remembering.
In short, I'm thinking that Abandonia has a story worth telling--many stories, in fact--and I was wondering if anyone else agrees. If so, perhaps slowly these disparate pieces of history could be woven together, and the hidden history of the site made visible for all who come after.

Hi,

I'm one of the earliest members of the new site, though I'm a bit disappointed to see I was left out of the 'original crew' list. I was, among other things, the first updater of Abandonia Reloaded and worked with Tom (Henrik) on a number of projects. I believe Tom joining was a turningpoint for Abandonia.
Before that it was mostly Kosta and 'The Niles' (then The Picard) who ran the site at a leisurely pace, but Tom joined up and really started pumping out reviews. The site really grew up when Sebatianos joined and started updating as well.

I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the milestones of this place. I remember the creation of Abandonia Reloaded which, at the time, caused a bit of tension as the members of the old site saw Abandonia Reloaded as a bit of an imposter, stealing certain games and reviews and putting it in a shiny new site. I also remember that AR used to do much more than just review games, such as interview the creators of the game, but that appears to be in the past now. I also remember the creation of the new layout, but I believe I left the site after that. I left partly out of frustration with the somewhat flagging efficiency of some of the senior members and the dwindling contact with Kosta (who no longer appeared online even on my msn list, and which made coordination difficult). I know Seb left to pursue personal goals, as did I as I went to university. I suppose the other members of the old team left for the same reason.

What else do you want to know?

You may find this thread interesting which features a number of older members reminiscing about the old days. I'm mentioned a couple of times on the first page (one reference to a big argument I don't even remember having) and on another page I am remembered especially for my 'attitude'... I can't quite remember what 'attitude' i had but I may have been short tempered by the end of my career at abandonia.

Yes at the time when Sebatianos joined the site it certainly was in the changes. Though at the time it was still kind of a holding together "family" from a time before that, but piece for piece it was falling apart the more members were joining.
There came a time when ESA dealt a big strike on Abandonia, somewhere around 2004 I think, which in turn resulted many games that were previously freely downloadable to become removed from the download option and made the site appear being much shrunken. At that day it seemed pretty grim for Abandonia as I remember, but it grew up even much better after that anyway.

Stroggy is in fact one of the very oldest members of the site who still remained here, but many left in the times already long ago. There've been Puffin (who changed her nick many times to a different one) who was held for a boy at first, and Kiddiarni who both joined long time ago, the latter one spamming many threads with a dancing banana smiley while the rules for spamming weren't that strict yet. Due to some arguments with the founder of the site, Kosta, Kiddiarni was banned for the first time and few times more later after which he didn't return anymore. Kind of lost a piece of the forum after that...
Tom Henrik later made a dancing brown apple or something like that smiley during the times when he experimented with pixel painting, but it wasn't used as much, hardly fitting somewhere due to a bit big size.
There was also Wendymaree who was a great reviewer and uploader for many games for quite some time before certain events on the site made her slowly retreat from the forum. She visited occasionally still after that but now she's all but long gone.

so biased :p

Also, Wendymaree has been active quite frequently over the last few weeks.

Check Stroggy's link for more memories and details.

If Strogggy is one of the oldest members still around, then I guess that I am also part of that group. I joined not too long after him if I look at the date.

I am however not known for my incredible ability to retain information, so if you guys want to know something then you'll have to be a little more precise on what you want to know. :p

huh?

So far, this is better than I'd hoped. I'm glad there are still people around with at least a passing memory of whats been going on the last 5 or so years. I guess I'll just float a few vague questions, and see if anyone can recall them...
So Abandonia Reloaded, it seems, was a tense time for this site. Why was that?
And I've picked up that Kosta is no longer active with the site. Tom Henrik's name seems to come up a lot as a sort of second founder--who was he?
And I've read a few different stories on the dissidents-were they a voluntary group, or were they some banned users who Kosta allowed in on their own forums?

Kosta set up Reloaded with the intention that freeware would go on Reloaded, while AB still focuses on abandoned games. It was supposed to be 2 different sites, concentrating on 2 different areas. But some people don't like the idea that freeware should go to Reloaded now. That's what caused the tension. :)

Tom Henrik was Kosta's 2nd in command for a while. He was an excellent admin, both here, and on Reloaded. Very active and hard working. Sadly, he is no longer active. :max:

i feel like im reading the dialogues of an RPG game LOL

* joins the story circle around the campfire *

So what about Sebantinos, what about him hijackin' the site mister?

/me joins the group, a hot mug of soup in his hands, to listen to the tales

Heh. The tale of Sebatianos seems to be one that is still...well, a charged issue. I think I have some bit of clarity, given a few recent inquiries, but theres still a great deal about that I don't quite get. Chiefly, who was Romano? I see he was something important, but apparently things went bad with him. I assume it's linked to Sebatianos and the dissidents...

..reading all this, Fubb's right, it sounds like a video game story. XD

Kosta's father and part of the Abandonia staff for a while.
Also an anarchist, notorious liar, mythomaniac and the person who instigated Sebatianos to do what he did in December.

From my point of view, the importance of the Sebatianos event seems really inflated by the members who were active at that time. arete even gives him some villain characterics. The only thing missing is the moustache and the "Muhahahaha!!!" and we'd have a complete Evil vs Good movie.

What's important is, after the "incident", AB finally begun doing what it was supposed to.

Romano is Kosta's father.

The best specific memories I have of this site is the "post count war" which was raging on when I joined, the great teamwork most of the regular members shown when multiplayer games like Kingdom of Loathing and Urban Dead poped up. And of course the competitions. :)

I never understood the reason behind most of the other harmfull events, especially when some long time contributors was banned for a reason or another. It was however clear for me that whoever have any intention to harm this site or wish to destroy the work done by himself and especially others, whatever the reason, is commiting an unexcusable ofense. Whoever that is, whatever the amount of work or contribution already done by him/her. The name of the person doing stupidities like this never even mattered to me... I could not care less.

It is for this reason that I tend to simply shun and shrug off such things... And thus hardly remember them.

you're an idiot horseman, no offence. no respect without no reason

he's not a liar and he didn't "instigate" sebatianos to guess your password on abandonia

You forget to mention that I'm also a notorious alcoholic :D

"Kosta is coming back in October"
"Abandonia will return to his full control in October"
"Forget about Studentis"
"Kosta will make major changes to the site and the staff in coming weeks"
(the last two were posted in Chatbox on January 1st)

The incident I was referring to was Sebatianos locking all admins out of the site controls. Or have you forgotten?

Some people think he had a vaguely legitimate reason to do this.

But can we please drop this Seb stuff? Renault, you were told already that this issue pisses people off and divides everyone. If this thread does nothing but bring up old arguments (which we worked hard to get over) I'm closing this.


(Also, 10 years, not 5 :D )

When I joined AB it's popularity really started to pick up, it was obvious the site was growing etc. Then some time after Reloaded got up, things started dieing, first the server didn't work half the time so we weren't able to update, then we got the new buggy design and we didn't know if Kosta was still taking care of the site etc. But since then things picked up again so I hope for the best.

@cpt renault: it's not possible to create a coherent story of AB, what we (the crew) did here was an attempt to celebrate this place adding milestones and a trace of the path done by the site. Funny thing is that we can't know every event or the story of every user that joined this place. Every person has his personal version of facts and knows bits of info about this place, hence it has not been possible to add everything there.
To not talk about the nature of the forum, as every forum on the net this place is like a Matrioška doll, so it's easy to have a distorted version of events. That's why we decided to talk about the site and spend only few words about users.

@Stroggy: I'm sorry for this but you can't blame us if your actions went lost with time. After site changes we have lost many info about the first crew, an example is the first shoutbox, all the content is gone. To not talk about old admins that left this place (even the owner), they aren't here to tell us what happened.
The positive thing is that we are still working to make this place better, we are recruiting again if you are interested ;)

As I understood actually, the Original Crew image didn't have at least half of the staff, and there are more non-crew members there. I think they used only photos posted in the forums.

The original crew photo was much smaller than this one, something like 10 members, including some people who aren't present on this bigger photo, like Wendymaree.

I'm afraid I don't have the time to moderate a forum or write reviews. I'm currently studying for my Masters degree in law at Cambridge and then intend to start my trainingcourse to become a barrister [note: barrister, NOT barrista].

I will add that my work on Abandonia helped me get a job once with the European Commission, translating EU legislation, so I must thank the old site.

I don't know what happened to Seb, I think I wasn't here back when that happened.

Tom Henrik did not found the site, in fact he joined after I did, but he did MAKE this site what it is today.

THIS just keeps getting better, Seb was Kosta's FATHER?

i want more of the notorisously DARK history of Abandonia!

Fubb. No. Romano is Kosta's father. You silly bugger :)

oh.

:oh:

We forgot Taikara.

Tai and Tom were in sweet sweet love. :lust:

That was a funny saga.

Both great members of the forum of ol', that did a lot for the site and other members. Is a shame they are not active on the site anymore.

I wonder if they ever read anything? Well, if they do... Hello! to them.

One thing that defined the old Abandonia for me, was the 'Art' forum. With 'battles' between Myself and Swiss. Embarrassing to look at now, considering how hot-headed I was!

As well as the work of Michael Gry, Moogle, The Void, etc

Free Games were what brought me here. The community, and the art forum are what kept my interest.

I´m not a member since the begining, and by some personal problems i was out some time, but i can tell that when i come here at my begining in AB, thid was a very cool forum, one of the best at the time. And if i remember the pics off the crew, are there only pics of the ppl that send the pictures them, too put there, also many ppl may have different ideas but to me Romano is not like it was told in here, but every ppl have different ideas. And i remeber before i begin to write reviews to AB, The sports section it was so low in sports games:wall:, but i can tell that i spend here so greats momments....:thumbs:

When i joined the site, i did a few contributions w/o wanting credit for it... I think Colonization was the first one i was credited for (before it was lost again in the upgrade).
After i while i sugested to Kosta to drop the "Guestbook" we where using and put up a real forum.
I was the first admin of the forum, and i'm responcible for alot of the topics ("Blah, Blah, Blah" is my doing).
After a short while, Tom Henrik Aaberg joined the site, and we started messing with eachothers profiles and generaly mocking about. Good times.
We compeated in making the best Ban-nuke to everyonces amusement, mostly spambots beeing the target, but the occacional user was also the subject to a spectaculare makeover.

About the time Kosta announced Studentis getting involved, i dropped off and went into lurkmode. Lately however, i've started to return into some form of acitivity as we need to deal with the new ownership, and theire HQ is 70 km from my place....

Short summary of my doings.

btw, i'm not on the "greater crew"-picture, and i realy don't mind... i usualy end up with my picture in all sort of places, so it might just be good to not have it somewhere else... I was listed in the previous editions of Abandonia with picture and name, in the Crew-list.

EDIT: I'll be damned.. Found the old crewlist from 2006 :)

Hey there, Titan.

i was seing Titan link, in that time i had 28 years old, now i have almost 32, the time is so short, but at the same time, it was almost 4 years ago:whistling:

Bruno, Bruno...
I'm worse than it was described here :D
My only credit is that I kept Abandonia alive for almost one year in cooperation with Sebatianos, Marko_River, Geezer and Ermuli mostly!
My apologize if I forget to mention somebody else.
Nice to see you again :)

I remember the good old days...