Fate of CDGroup / CDG & TBX

Sir Lawrence

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 26, 2003
Messages
4
Location
Jacksonville, Fla.
Does anyone know where to find these folks. I am playing the "balancer" scenario and they have added lots of new stuff. The Civilopedia is incomplete on many items and the scenario says they can be found at the above address. My computer can't seem to find that address. This scenario really adds a different flavor to the game. Thanks if you can help.
 
Thank you.

DCArmyGuy, welcome at CFC. [party]:band:

Look out! The posts you are referring are about 5 years old. The site of cdgroup was given up lot of years ago after severe hacker attacks. So this was a great site at its time for Civ 3, this site was closed officially long ago cause of the danger of viruses installed by those hackers. :assimilate:
 
DCArmyGuy, welcome at CFC. [party]:band:

Look out! The posts you are referring are about 5 years old. The site of cdgroup was given up lot of years ago after severe hacker attacks. So this was a great site at its time for Civ 3, this site was closed officially long ago cause of the danger of viruses installed by those hackers. :assimilate:

Okay, thanks.

I saw the date right after I posted, but I decided I might as well try it out. Thanks for informing me.
 
Thank you very much Plotinus for reopening that thread, so now Eludicus can tell us the truth about CDG and this all in the same thread. :) Civers who have this question from time to time now have a better chance to find his answer. :goodjob: I sent Eludicus a pm that now the thread is reopened again.
 
It will probably take me about a week to put everything together as i am in a lot of pain and on a lot of pain medication. It also depends on what you guys wnat to hear. The end of CDG or how it all began. It was alkl a very interesting story and one I can tell in an interesting way. It used to be posted in the history section over at CDGroup. I'll leave that up to you guys. Let me know. I will check back later after i write some notes down on how I remember everything.
 
Hi Eludicus,

the main questions that arise from time to time in these forums are:

What happened to CDG (what´s about that hacker attacks on the first site)

and

what´s about the dead links and how to find these folks (like the first post in this thread).

An additional question that comes up from time to time:

When I log in in the first CDG site (what could be possible via internet search machines) is there a special risk to catch any viruses there by hackers?

Best regards
Civinator / Blue Lion
 
I kept CDG alive all of these years. I switched from PHPbb to Vbulletin for security reasons and I was hoping to bring the site back. Maybe not exactly as it was before but some along those lines an outlet for creative types like myself. It is more secure now than it was during all of those attacks. Most of the attacks have been stopped at the server ands in fact only one attack ever got through our secruity the others were just messing with the display pages. All that was taken care of.


More to come tomorrow, I promise. The wife is calling.
 
Subscribing...
 
Well for starters nothign I say here is meant as a bad on any website mentioned. Not Apolyton, Civfanatics, or any of the moderators. There will be no insults or anything. I have nothing byt respect for everyone.


I like to write so you guys will get the whole story. Forgive the typos, the meds I am on make me see double a lot so it is hard too type the keys right, I try and reread to fix it but again hard.


It all began when a guy name Monkspider was working on a mod for Civ 3 he called the balancer. He was looking for some help with the wonder images. If you recall they had to be exact sizes, have certain aspects of their pallets certain ways, and stuff like that. This I can remember, but what i had for lunch yesterday, I draw a blank, go figure. Anyway i was an amatuer image manipulator, that is all I was. Not a graphics artist or anything. One of the ones he was looking for was the statue of liberty. I had it done in like two or three days. I was very excited so I asked if I could help in any other way as this was still non playable really and still in its infancy stage. He gave me a few more to do, gave me some civilopedia write ups and things like that, before I knew it he was calling me his partner and giving me credits along side him. I was proud of my work, best and most passionit thing I ever did. But one day, he vanished. Disappeared, I didn't hear from him. So after a month I decided to continue the project on my own.

I begane to turn it into what I imagined Civ should be, I tried many things and most of them failed. Civ3 just didn't have the capability to do most of what i wanted. A lot though I was able to work around it limitations and do thing Firaxis had never intended.




Sorry this is so short, but I need a bit of a break, iw ill try to write more later tonight, I am beat. There is a lot more exciting stuff at least for me, even an invite from firaxis and the start of Creative Design Group.... Stay tuned.
 
I am not sure at what point Kingpin joined the group, I would like him to come on here if he can remember and talk about a little of ewhat he remembers. Right now he and I are working on a mod for Civ4. I know a few years late, but had to wait until we could get everything we want. :) I will have to wait a little until the meds where down before I can remember the next chapter in the CDG/TBX life. As you can tell my typing is pretty horrid.
 
Genetlemen As always happens, on top of my nerve problems in my neck I have the flu. I will put as much more information in the next ouple of days. Please don't close this, even if no one cares to read it, it is information I would like to get out there.
 
The saga continues. The number of testers began to grow as did the support for the mod, unfortunately it was 12 MB in size and too large to be hosted at CFC. I had to find another home.

First I did one of those geocities free sites, but that site quickly ran out of bandwidth. All the while the mod grew and expanded. At this point we fixed a lot of the balancing issue we had found and were expanding certain areas of the tech tree we felt were most deficient.

Well, that wasn't working so I tried a cheapo pay site. Topcities.com. I believe the full URL for our site was balancer.topcities.com. Funny enough you can find references to both here at CFC and at google. That worked out only for a few months as the Balancer began to grow faster than I imagined and I needed a way to comunicate directly with my testers and fans. I needed a forum.

So I eventually got my own server. I needed a name, and well I wanted it to represent something more than civ. I had hopes it would expand beyond just the one game. So I finally came up with the name Creative Design Group. Actually, I'm not sure if I came up with the name or if Desert Fox did, he was my right hand man throughout this part of the process. We had a bad falling out and he disappeared some years ago and I hope he is well today. That is all I will say on that.

Well CDG was born, now what do I do with this empty website? Those others had little crappy templates and stuff, but I needed a forum. I searched the web and found PHPbb or is it phpBB, lol. Anyway I had to figure out how to set up this little piece of software. Once I configured it and set up the forums every loved it. To me it was huge, we probably had 30 members. lol

I decided to ask this friend of mine Kal-el if he wanted some forums for his DyP mod. Not sure if anyone remembers that one but it was the best mod out there that I knew of. Kal-el and I often helped each other on things when we were stuck. That probably doubled or trippled our membership.

One day though, this guy named Omnimower MSN'd me. I didn't know this guy, but I talked to a lot of people I didn't know online so I asked what was up. He was mad about his entire team getting banned off of CFC for some NAZI content in a WWII mod. I check out the threads he showed me, which I am sure now was probably only half the story and there were heated words, CDG was a new site, I was a new admin and had this freedom of speech mentality. So I invited them along and told them as long as they don't start praising Hitler and stuff like that I am cool. Its a mod and they are passionate about that, I can understand that.

I found this blurb written June 2004 that is pretty much what people thought of CDG. People thought the Third Reich Team of Modders (of which Omnimower was a member and the above paragraph was about) created CDG. This is what the blurb says 'CFC's relative, the Creative Design Group, has a darker history. Many of the members of CDG were `modders' at CFC - they created custom graphics, animations and units to be used in Civilization. When they made a `Third Reich Team' that designed German units and gave themselves titles such as `Hauptman' and `Feldmarschall', other CFC members complained and the modders were told to change their ways. Godwin's law inexorably swung into effect, people said things they shouldn't have, and the modders left on an exodus to CDG. Kenton, CDG's team leader explains, "The two sites have serious long term issues, but in the ISDG we couldn't have been closer. It's because many of us at CDG are very good friends with many of the CFC people." It is from A clash of Civilization - a brief intermingling of all of the sites at the time. All I have ot say about that is if they did their homework they would have realized that the site was run by a very US patriotic military man (I mean look at our staff insignias). That and most of our members had nothing to do with the Third Reich Modders. This kind of stuff annoyed me.

This started a sort of revolution as we began to host forums for mods of all types. We had a ton at one point. We became huge for what I was trying to do, just fill a niche'. We were up to almost 4 million hits a month, I am sure CFC or ACS gets that in a week, but I was and am still proud of that. Especially, since I promised to never have pop up or pop under ads. I lived up to that promise though I had one amazon ad at the bottom of the site that apparently no one every saw. I gave the modder something they could not find anywhere else, with no pop-ups, and at no cost to them. That's right absolutely free; now I sound like one of those infomercials, well it is the middle of the night here so that is okay. No one, and I mean no one would give a forum to some joe so he could help develop his mod and hosting files, that was asking for a miracle. No, one, not CFC, ACS, Gamespot, IGN, and a million other sites nowadays that do it to just do it. None of that existed back than and I like ot think since CDG ws the first we started a revolution. It may have happened without us had we not been there, ut maybe we helped it happen sooner. I know other civ sites came around after a few years.

There were some people that took advantage of our generosity and stored other things there, which quickly disappeared. We did accept donations, to date three people donated money to helping us run the site; one was anonymous, one was a staff member who did it once, the other was a staff member who made a recurring donation monthly until probably years later he ran into some money problems and had to stop. We had a little pay pal icon on their, I guess not big enough.

I handled my staff probably unlike any other website. I ran it like a military organization. I had been in the military for about 10 years at the time so it seemed like natural fit We had moderators of their own forums, those were the modders themselves and who they appointed, then we had moderators for each forum and it went up the chain until it got to me. Kentonio became one of my most trusted admins alongside Kingpin, the other who helped me in The Balancer's Infancey. I also offered free web services to my staff, very few took advantage of it, a few still have site's hosted there at no cost (Yes CDG still exists but it is not the site it once was.

There was a sort of cold war with CFC and a lot of our staff wanted to steal away their members. I wanted to act honorably, but you know how it is some people will always do first and ask for forgiveness later. I remember Chieftess was like a liaison between the two sites sometimes. I only spoke with Thunderfall a few times and when it did I felt like I was being talked down to, it was probably a misunderstanding as we worked it all out (as far as I know), I mean I have never been banned from CFC, something I think most of my old staff can't say.

Along the way when Play The World came out we made TBX, cleverly named The Balancer Expansion or some such thing. I was on the Play the World beta test team with Firaxis so there I went burning my candle at both ends.

It was probably about this time that we tried to expand our forums to reach other strategy games, I didn't want to be a civ site alone I wanted to help modders everywhere. But that was a mistake and failed miserably.

Around the time C3C came out Roger, myself, and Gary B, Ross/Enigma (he changed his MSN name midway who had been a great help on TBX...we all decided to make TBX-R The Balancer Reloaded. I thought it was clever. I started off with some design things but this is when my health began to deteriorate. I became merely a concultant for TBX-R and it became Roger's pet project. He did an outstandging Job and he coudln't have done it without Enigma either. I am very proud of them both and I think they exceeded everyone's expectations, even their own.

I dropped out of the beta tester thing for C3C as well, which means they told me I didn't participate enough. I tried to explain, but unlike Barry Caudill the head of the testers on Play the World, the publishers of this one were more micromanaging. I think he was promoted to producer of pirates and executive producer of CIV4 so great on him. I hope his career is going well. We became somewhat close in email over the years I tested for him. I probably got closer than he, I make a lot more internet friends than I do real ones anyway.

As for my health problems the idiot military doctors, actually a nurse called me on the phone and told me that I had a brain tumor and probably had about 6 months to live. They told me this over the phone while I was at a going away luncheon for a friend of mine.

They were obviously wrong, what they saw was scar tissue from severe migraines, I am talking 3-5 days a month I did not have a severe migraine. It took me four months to find that out, so in the meantime I left everything at the site in kingpin's hands. In fact, it was on its decline before that because my migraines kept me from doing anything almost everyday. So for four months I thought I was going to die very soon. Let me tell you the pain with the depression, I did nothing all day. And between all of the work I did with the mod, the beta testing, and working on the site, then the grouchiness from my migraines, and then finally being told I am going to die my marriage died. My ex-wife and I are still very good friends and she even gets along with my wife very well.

As I said they were obviously wrong and the nurse got in a lot of trouble for what she did, at least thats what I tell myself. With me out of the picture and most of the staff needing guidance almost constantly the site began the final stages of its life. THose that stuck around were my truely great friends, Kingpin, FortyJ, and Kentonio, to name a few.

Right before this (I know out of chronological order) is when the falling out happened with Desert Fox and the attacks started on the site. He always threatened me he knew hackers and stuff, I guess he wasn't lying. I wish we never fell apart, and you know I shouldn't have accused him of hacking the website. He was a great help with the mod and the site, but the friendship ended on very bad terms. Despite all of that I hope he is doing well these days. He started a website with his son, and I hope it is doing well, if I knew the URL I would check. There would probably not be a CDG if it weren't for him. Dave if you are reading this I am sorry for everything.

So around the time all of the attacks happened, my memory is fuzzy probably because of all of the medication, but I upgraded to vBulletin. I invested another $170 into this site to make it more secure. Well conversion failed or I decided against it I forget which so we started from scratch. I let friends use the site for whatever creative projects they want these days. One is making his own game, i tried to run a D&D game online but that didn't work and I am writing two stories on their myself. One about an Orc trying to make it in a man's world and the other about aliens attacking the earth. The last one is based on XCOM.

Oh after about a year of tests and trial medications I finally found one that stopped the migraines. I still think they started because I was burning my candle at all three ends...thats right mine has three.

Now my medical problems are actually helping me create a mod for Civ4, afterall if I lay back a certain way I can use my left arm and my keyboard and with the time the Air Force is giving I didn't have before a new mod is born. Different medical problems from before, I forget what its all called, but basically the discs between three of the vertebrae in my neck ruptured and they have the do some surgery. It causes sever pain down my left arm most of the time even on the meds. The surgery is done all of the time and I don't fear much for my life, but the slightest problem after recovery and they are talking about ending my career. I have been in the Air Force for over 15 years, its just hard to accept as a possibility. I know a guy who didn't recover the feeling in his leg fast enough (his was in his lower back) so they medically retired him.

I just want to point out that none of this is embellished it is how I remember it so it is not exactly right either, but with my life I have never had to embelish things.

Sorry for the sob story at the end, I just like to end on an up note. Well here's the up note, I am happily married, I think I found my soul mate this time, we have an 8 month old and an 11 year old from my last marriage. The best part is my 11 year old and my new wife get along great, they fight but it is never the your not my mom fight, I think he did that a few times at first. Also he loves playing with my younger son. There are a few problems here and there but regular family problems. There, that is my up note. Sorry you got a bit of my life story with that one.
 
Thanks for letting me tell my story. This was perhaps the greatest thing I have done for people. sad to reach your greatest achievement at 33, well I was probably 29 at the time. Moderator can you rename this thread to The Fate of CDGroup / CDG & TBX Thank you.

The new mod Kingpin and I are working on is called Destiny of an Empire. Everything is still on paper and I am working out some balance first. I have modded the SDK somewhat in the past, another thing I have to self teach...myself. So it took longer, if they would comment more it would make it easier. I have of course messed witht he XML, again if they commented what each thing did then this would have been a heck of a lot easier than trial and error. We are starting with the World of Civilization module pack and expanding from there. I asked to be a tester there because i can break things really well. Its like my calling, too bad you don't get paid. You do sometimes get free games though. I wish everyone well and if you want to chat me up any time especially with me being out of work for the next few months my MSN and email address are both the same my name here @ cdgroup.org
 
Sorry it became more about CDG then TBX, maybe it shoudl be moved, somewhere. I can't imagine where. Maybe I'll just put the link in my signature, it still says hosting for your forums. :D Not so useful anymore. Also would anyone mind if I combined the whole thing into one big post in the first post? Mods? Any issue with that?
 
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