«

[Chryseus]

Well this is the first time I've really revisited Abandonia in years since being very active in the early days, from what I've seen so far Abandonia has really gone down the drain.

The most noticeable and in my opinion worst thing that has occurred is the terrible state of the website, the advertising is so bad it literally breaks the layout, thank god anyone with sense uses adblock, seriously get rid of them they make the website frankly look like trash.

There also appears to be a distinct lack of games being added, I don't know if this is due to lack of reviewers or just general laziness.

I remember the days when abandonia was a fun place to be with a great community and a lot of active members contributing to the site (myself included), sadly all that seems to have largely died away and been replaced by greed.
You ask for donations yet you give us a website that is cluttered up with adverts and no real push towards getting more games added.

All I can say is thanks for the good memories because this Abandonia is not the one I remembered and enjoyed.

[Tracker]

The problem is, that the world has changed since the old days. Abandonia is currently being owned by a company which intends to run the site in very "specific" ways, limiting the room for improvements. There are very few volunteers because what we do is not only not rewarding, but very demanding - we need to spend a lot of time of our own for the benefit of people we don't even know. We, the community, do not own the site, which means we don't have any kind of control over the advertisement's, or their quantity.
And there are no games because all the old games have been put up with a few exceptions, and even most of those are sold. That means they are protected by the law, the current distributor solely owns the rights to make them available to the masses (for money). They can't be on this site anymore.
But I'm sure you knew all of the above.

[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Chryseus

Well this is the first time I've really revisited Abandonia in years since being very active in the early days, from what I've seen so far Abandonia has really gone down the drain.

The most noticeable and in my opinion worst thing that has occurred is the terrible state of the website, the advertising is so bad it literally breaks the layout, thank god anyone with sense uses adblock, seriously get rid of them they make the website frankly look like trash.

There also appears to be a distinct lack of games being added, I don't know if this is due to lack of reviewers or just general laziness.

I remember the days when abandonia was a fun place to be with a great community and a lot of active members contributing to the site (myself included), sadly all that seems to have largely died away and been replaced by greed.
You ask for donations yet you give us a website that is cluttered up with adverts and no real push towards getting more games added.

All I can say is thanks for the good memories because this Abandonia is not the one I remembered and enjoyed.

Now now, hold on a bit there, will ya. I'm also one who can claim to have been here since quite early days of Abandonia (never mind the join date on this account), and yes, it has changed a lot.
However there are some points you're wrong at, or aren't aware of the current circumstances. First of all, the ads are not added by the crew which is working day and night at Abandonia, but by the host of the site server(s) whose (as much as I'm aware of) alone will it is to keep Abandonia alive and going. The crew of Abandonia is doing good work at keeping as little of them here as possible.

Second, there might be not as many games available alongside of their reviews as one would wish, however that is strictly checked and double-checked on their status of being sold somewhere under any copyright holding, or not. If it is completely abandoned and nowhere to buy, it is available for download here. Any other option could, and probably would, result in quick shutdown threat for this site if a request by a copyright holder to remove a game from download is not followed.
Also there are full CD ISO versions of many games downloadable through links, which are posted in the ISO Cellar subforum here on the forum. Not all of those are available for download on the main page.

Third, the community here is still great, alive and fun, which you can notice soon enough if you give it a try and look a bit more around. Same goes for members contributing to the site.

[florianix]

The point that I also agree to is that the advertisements seem to be more than necessary to host a site like this.
For me the combination of the fact that there is a company behind it (usually with the aim to earn money for someone), so many advertisements and then asking for donations - that left me with a bad feeling.
There a a lot of people spending a lot of time and doing a great job contributing to the site. And that should not happen to generate profit for a company without beeing clear to all those.
For me this is not clear enough as the imprint or statement that its a company seems to be hidden quite well.

[TheChosen]

I'd like to point out that there are 11 pages of approved games on the Request section. There's no lack of games, but the lack of reviews. No one just bothers to write any.

[The Fifth Horseman]

What happened was that Kosta decided to sell Abandonia to a company named Studentis Group.
He then worked with them on a new version of the site - which is more or less what we have here (except replace the ads with bugs), an old (then reasonably new) version of Drupal, hacked to hell and back with no effective documentation.
Shortly after getting that operational, he ceased any contact with us.
Took us a while (and several major dramas) to sort out the mess.
Then it turned out that everyone responsible for producing this train wreck no longer works at Studentis, and they left NO project documentation whatsoever.
Then Studentis went bankrupt and was bought out by Abovo Media Group.

Without the ads Abandonia would be operating at a loss, and they'd shut it down sooner or later (probably sooner). Unfortunately, we don't get to choose which ads are displayed - much less where are they located.

There is a lack of game updates, yes. We've been running out of reviews for quite some time, and now we're out, period.

It's a train wreck, some parts ought to be nuked from the orbit... but we're still going, and that means things can get better.

[TotalAnarchy]

Running out of reviews, that would be a big lie. For one, my review is still not up on the site.

[Lulu_Jane]

Cool, I'm going to upload your review word by word so we have content for a few months then.

[Tracker]

Probably someone who's familiar with them, should make a list of the approved games that need a review like red_avatar used to do it. Or maybe there's such list, it's only hidden somewhere under a pile of topics or somewhere else.

[TotalAnarchy]

Originally Posted by Lulu_Jane

Cool, I'm going to upload your review word by word so we have content for a few months then.

I thought I told you guys before as well - I'm not reviewing another game until I see the current one on site. Plus I am aware that there are at least 4 reviews ready on the FTP.