Repair of old posts

[madscientist]

Hello old Civfanatics!

Been a long time but still periodically check the site and stilla ctively play CIV V. Much to my horror I found all the pictures from my old Mad Scientist Role Play games have been blocked out by photobucket .

I can't let that happen and I found out how to repair them

However it appears to take time unless there is something I do not know

So I will be periodically repairing all of Mad Scientist's old Role plays, the original Mighty Kahn has been restored and I plan to move ahead in the order played (otherwise I would end up repairing the really well played games and "forget" the diappointing losses ). If you care, keep checking the stickied sample game directory, if you don't I will know by the crickets. At least until photobucket screws me over again

PS: As I am looking at retirement in the next year, perhaps I will restart this series with Civilization VI + what every expansion pack they have. I can learn that game while posting and making a fool of myself.

 

[lymond]

I’ve seen a ghost! (The Exorcist theme playing in background).

Spoiler :

 

[obsolete]

Hello old Civfanatics!
--still periodically check the site and stilla ctively play CIV V.

Woah, you still play that PoS?

 

[madscientist]

Yes I do! Very likely to switch to Civ6 post retirement.

Second RPC has been fixed, I am slow.

 

[Pangaea]

Is this the same madscientist from the Obsidian forums?

 

[madscientist]

Probably not.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Hello old Civfanatics!

Been a long time but still periodically check the site and stilla ctively play CIV V. Much to my horror I found all the pictures from my old Mad Scientist Role Play games have been blocked out by photobucket .

I can't let that happen and I found out how to repair them

However it appears to take time unless there is something I do not know

So I will be periodically repairing all of Mad Scientist's old Role plays, the original Mighty Kahn has been restored and I plan to move ahead in the order played (otherwise I would end up repairing the really well played games and "forget" the diappointing losses ). If you care, keep checking the stickied sample game directory, if you don't I will know by the crickets. At least until photobucket screws me over again

PS: As I am looking at retirement in the next year, perhaps I will restart this series with Civilization VI + what every expansion pack they have. I can learn that game while posting and making a fool of myself.

I feel your pain Madscientist.

I have 4000 posted pictures to fix in the next 11 months or they'll vanish. (100 hours of work?)
Photobucket, ARGHHHHHH

 

[Kaitzilla]

Tch, Photobucket just sent me an email offering 3rd party hosting for $99.99 per year.

An introductory rate, with the offer good for the next 7 days.


They must think I'm an idiot to trust them with forum pictures ever again!

$99, which I'd have taken 7 months ago, might shoot up to $999 at any moment.

I mean, that's not much more than I experienced, $40 to $400 in one year.

 

[Pangaea]

"Due to a human error, the comma/period (strike out as appropriate) was placed one place too far to the left. Sorry about that (evil laughter)"

Not giving crooks like that one cent. Certainly not $100 or 400 or whatever number they come up with next. But then I stopped using them way before this 'trick', as their website turned to crap and I found it really difficult to use it. Often pictures didn't work either. Better off storing them elsewhere - the few that I post.

 

[Anysense]

I pay roughly 100$ a year for the internet. Don't know what they are playing at, asking 399$ for photo hosting. That might be an attemt to squeeze as much as possible before abandoning/selling the service.

 

[ViterboKnight]

"MadScientist....... I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door"!!!! (a-la Indiana Jones!!)

VERY glad to see you again!!!!
And also..... hoping to see some good new threads from you.... as usual!!

 

[madscientist]

Wahoo!!! Looks like Photobucket stopped blocking the old pictures from my RPC games!!!!

Looking forward to moving to Civ 6 in January once I am retired. Once I learn the rules, perhaps RPCing Mad Scientist will be back!

 

[cseanny]

I don't remember interacting with you Mad but I definitely remember you . People like Obsolete, DaveMcW, Iranon, Tachy, Moonsinger, etc. Brings back fond memories for sure. Good luck in retirement

p.s., You should do a few Civ IV games too. Civ 5 and 6 are pretty crap imho o_^.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Photobucket locked me out of my account and downgraded my storage capacity to 2GB even though I paid my legacy price of $40 in December to hold my current 5.5GB of pictures.
That sounds outrageous but their policy says:

Modifying Your Paid Account: Photobucket has the right to change the limits at any time.

Still have 3rd party hosting for now, so at least they kept that part of the agreement.

I'm not kidding when I say locked out of my account.
No matter how I try to get in, delete photos to get under the 2GB new limit, or even modify my account, I only see one screen.
Give us more money and then you can access your paid account.
I can click on nothing else.

Spoiler :

===============================================

Here is how I'm going back and changing all 4000 of my screenshots a little each day in the forums from Photobucket to Smugmug.
First I search all the forums for any post by Kaitzilla.
It won't show all 7500 of them, just the most recent 197.

Spoiler :

Then I go to page 10 of 10 on the search results and click older posts.

Spoiler :

That gives me the next 197 older posts.
Tediously kept going to page 10 of the search results, clicking "older messages", and doing that and saving the URL's so I had a list of all 7500 posts.

Spoiler :

Then I found out those URL's only work when I am signed into Civ Fanatics account.
And they are only good for 1 day.
I guess the Civ Fanatics server doesn't want to keep search results forever.

Anyway, all my pictures up till 2011 are fixed now.
Once they are all on Smugmug I'm deleting my Photobucket account.

Their $99 teaser rate for 3rd party hosting months ago was just that, a 1 time offer that doesn't seem like it will be repeated.
I'm seeing their $400 account option being the only one offering 3rd party hosting still.

Spoiler :

Still a 60 or 70 hour project for me to fix in the next 6 months.
Tedious as hell, I've only fixed 200 out of 4000 screenshots so far.



*Edit*
Hey, hey, looks like Photobucket is now doing a new teaser rate promotion.

Spoiler :

Dare I buy that middle plan?
Does it have 3rd party hosting for only $70 a year? (Unlimited sharing! Post anywhere!)

Who knows, the fine print isn't there.
Unlimited sharing could just be with family and friends or link only or some nonsense.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Wahoo!!! Looks like Photobucket stopped blocking the old pictures from my RPC games!!!!

Looking forward to moving to Civ 6 in January once I am retired. Once I learn the rules, perhaps RPCing Mad Scientist will be back!

Good luck playing Civ 6 Madscientist!

It might have some spyware named Redshell in it.
Europe might do something about it with a lawsuit hopefully.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/20/17485762/red-shell-spyware-pc-games-controversy-steam

Photobucket is dead to me.

 

[6K Man]

Instead of trying to find a free Photobucket clone, I decided to create a tumblr for Civ4 images in my current S&T game.

It's not indexed, but if you are just looking for a place to host images to link from, it seems to work okay.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Hey, hey, looks like Photobucket is now doing a new teaser rate promotion.

So it turns out Photobucket really did kill off its $400 a year piracy act.
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/...cket-drops-pricing-that-angered-millions.html

May17th, 2018:

Photobucket’s experiment with being a $399.99 premium service is over, and so too is the tenure of the CEO who led it. The Denver-based photo storing service on Thursday revealed it has slashed its prices and restored millions of photos around the internet hoping to mollify millions of customers it angered last year.

“It’s the first step of many to restore the trust of customers,” said Ted Leonard, Photobucket’s new CEO.

He became CFO at the 15-year-old company in October, after it surprised users worldwide by starting to charge $399.99 for hosting a large number of photos and being able to post them on third-party blogs, ecommerce sites and elsewhere.

John Corpus, Photobucket’s CEO at the time, defended the change, saying a subscription model was necessary given the disparity between the online ad revenue Photobucket’s website generated and the expense of hosting billions of images its 90 million customers stored with Photobucket.

But the pricing, especially the $399.99 a year service that enabled posting images on third-party sites, didn’t convert a meaningful number of Photobucket users into paying subscribers, Leonard said Thursday.

“There’s not a one-plan-fits-all approach to image hosting,” he said. “We can build a subscriber-based business without charging more money than the perceived value of the service.”

Leonard became CEO in March. The company has spent the weeks since them coming up with new pricing and strategies to make 90 million customers happy and generate revenue.

The new prices start at $1.99 per month for 10 gigabytes of images stored and rise to $3.99 monthly for 20 gigabytes and $8.99 for two terabytes of storage. All the plans enable third-party hosting for a $2.49 monthly add-on price.

Photobucket on Wednesday also turned back on millions of users’ images that were still linked to around the web.

The move allowed the images to reappear in place instead of the stock speedometer image that had replaced them last summer. Leonard ruefully joked that speedometer might have become the most viewed image in internet history, though one linked to users’ anger with the company.

“This was weighing on us,” he said. “We wanted to see the images replaced and the internet to be put back together in a sense.”

Fired the old CEO, good!
Restore trust, impossible.

$6.48 a month to host 3rd party images is a good price point for 20GB, but it is far too late.

I know they had to wait a full year to do this to avoid pissing off the people who paid $399 immediately, but that 1 year wait gave their foolish customers plenty of time to switch to superior photo hosting competitors.

Leonard ruefully joked that speedometer might have become the most viewed image in internet history, though one linked to users’ anger with the company.

“This was weighing on us,” he said. “We wanted to see the images replaced and the internet to be put back together in a sense.”

Haha, yes I'm so angry I'm laughing.
Very good!

 

[DMOC]

Hi MadScientist! Good to see you still here (well, maybe?) and playing CivIV.

I panicked a bit upon reading your post, but scrolling through my last game, it seems like the screenshots are still there.

Then again, I signed up for 4 different PhotoBucket accounts ... wondering if there is a better way.