We wish the site to continue (Y/N)

[urammar]

Mostly I see from the posts that it's all Newer people posting.
Probably can't do the work themselves and expect the Old Timers to do it for them.

Actually this probably isnt very far off. I joined not that long ago really, and was very interested in learning how to fish for myself, but all the responses I got were more or less here is your fish or lurk moar

I think its really telling why it feels like this community is shrinking. I didnt quote the other half of your post, but I would ask, directly, in what way have you helped this community grow? Whens the last time you explained how to decode an exe to a newbie?

You build the world you want to live in, or in other words, you make the bed you sleep in.

If xentax is doomed to die, its the fault of xentax. I really do appreciate all the help I got here, but it really sucks how impermeable its been made by grizzled veterans and their toxic outlooks.

All this said, this place is one of those last gems on the internet before its all just 3 websites owned by corpos. I really do want to see this place succeed. Im not sure how to help with that, but I i'll try if I can.

[Mr.Mouse]

it's always good to look at facts, instead of guessing stuff.

years_posts.png

30% of posts this year are done by users that are registered 6 years or more (check percentile 70% upwards).
The median is at 2 years of registration, meaning 50% of posts are done by users less than 2 years registered, with 40% done by users that are not yet one year registered.

users_year_a.png

Of all 825 users that posted this year, 30% are here for more than 3 years. 50% of users have not yet been here one year.

I do not think that this is different from the past years, though. Might be worth a look.

[urammar]

So that lines up with the assertion that tons of new people are indeed here, as was suggested. Interesting to know. So people are interested and finding the place no issues.

That raises the obvious question, why is revenue a problem. These people arent paying at the same percentages, clearly. Which begs yet another obvious question. Why.

That brings us back to my point, that I assert these new users are exposed to promises of cool game research, asset ripping, scripting, modding, but actually find toxic in-group culture hostile to their lack of experience.

What percentage of those new accounts ever post again after, say, 3 months? I think we will find that data will tell the whole story.

[Mr.Mouse]

I can't but help notice you appear to have an issue with people here at the forum.

If xentax is doomed to die, its the fault of xentax. I really do appreciate all the help I got here, but it really sucks how impermeable its been made by grizzled veterans and their toxic outlooks.

That is quite the statement to make. What is toxic in the outlook of these grizzled veterans?

That brings us back to my point, that I assert these new users are exposed to promises of cool game research, asset ripping, scripting, modding, but actually find toxic in-group culture hostile to their lack of experience.

I read you have been helped greatly with your requests for Startopia and Yager back in August 2022. You haven't posted since. One user did point you to the tutorials section, since you said you'd like to learn more. That section does indeed have nice assets to learn from: viewforum.php?f=29 But then you were silent.

You now ask 05SpeedMaster (AKA Privateer) what he has done to grow this site. He started his first account in 2011, together he posted about 210 times in all, and has indeed helped out other people, looking at the 50 times he got thanks from them.
So I would say he certainly did his bit.

I don't know what you expect to get at this forum, but you certainly got help. If you are looking to receive a free course on reverse engineering to become as experienced as these veterans you talk about, think again. That is not what the forum is about, although there is a lot people do explain to others without issues. And there is the tutorials section to take up materials and study. People will not hesitate to help if users come with specific questions that show they have delved into the subject matter and got stuck somewhere. But taking someone by the hand cannot be expected from anyone that is doing this stuff in their spare time. It takes a lot of effort to teach. And the majority of people just want a quick fix. 20 years of this forum has clearly shown that. Many of them "demanding" that they are helped to see the nude model of Link in the latest Zelda game. Since they are sadly unable to do it themselves, boo hoo, these poor people. You see, members have a way of getting grumpy when seeing the ungrateful post their requests time and again. They are allowed that much. But if that is called "toxic", then I guess the forum is not for the ungrateful.

[relight]

I've only glanced at the discussion, but I'll add my quick thoughts here anyway lol

XeNTaX is priceless, it would be a huge loss and disappointing to see it go.

If you have a Patreon or even just a PayPal, I'll contribute immediately, and/or on an ongoing basis as needed. I don't want to see this site shut down. (You mention there's a PayPal sign, is it still up? Sorry, I didn't/don't see it!)

I'm not a fan of Discord or social media such as Facebook. They can get overwhelming to participate and stay active in, and they just don't have the organization of a great forum. And others have made really great points in this thread as well. If you aren't able to maintain accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc, I don't see it as a loss. I don't see those as being necessary to having the site and the forum.

Just the other day, I Googled a game, immediately arrived at the appropriate thread in the forum, and found what I was hoping for. (I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but the resource was there for me, along with a couple dozen pages of discussion to read through lol.) And that's always been my experience with Xentax. So Google is definitely still relevant to bring people to the site.

I joined almost 13 years ago, but I haven't been active because I don't have as much time as I wish I had. However, I'm grateful and loyal to this site knowing there's this massive resource whenever I want to check out game files, including textures, audio, video, and text (and I know I'd get into 3D models too if I had more time). I'm sure at least some others are the same. They visit when they're looking for something, but they might not have the time to participate more actively. So yes, I guess I'm in the "quick fix" category, but I'm not the demanding type. I don't have the knowledge to build tools (or the time to learn about it), but I'm not going to demand tools from anyone. I don't think I've ever been ungrateful, I haven't looked up my old messages to see though lol.

If the forum is archived and closed, it wouldn't be ideal because people would still come to the threads and may have questions, and it would cease to be a place to share new tools and discussion. If you just rounded up all the attached tools and dumped them somewhere, it also wouldn't be ideal because of all the discussion in the threads, which generally aids in using the tools.

I would love to see the site and forum continue, and I hope that you'll let us know how we can help that to happen. All the rest (social media, etc), I wouldn't be concerned about. Getting down to the essentials, maybe it would be less effort required on your part. I've built a number of sites over the years from scratch with PHP, just hosted through shared hosting, I'm sure there's others with similar skills, if at some point in the future, you're looking for someone to take over the site. And as far as the costs of the site, I'm sure there's people who would be willing to contribute on a regular basis, maybe especially if you post a goal as others have mentioned. So all depending on what you need, I'm sure there has to be members who would be willing to contribute. But it would be a shame to shut the place down.

[Moff]

And Discord is a blackhole for information, you can't google it (content only visible with registration) and you are limited on how many you can join. And being able to find information is important.

Yep, that's what my biggest issue with discord is as well. And not only you can't google it, internal search in discord is not much help either. It does ok when searching for a single keyword, but if you need to search for multiple keywords, you run into problems because everyone and they dogs posts ~10-word per message. And the search engine will not analyze strings of messages, so if your keywords ended up in separate messages, you're not going to find them.

[05SpeedMaster]

I didnt quote the other half of your post, but I would ask, directly, in what way have you helped this community grow? Whens the last time you explained how to decode an exe to a newbie?

I do NOT decode exe files. I have almost always worked with the RAD Games GR2 file format.
I have posted MANY 010 Scripts concerning the GR2 files (Mostly as Privateer), Helped work the SWTOR version of the GR2 format, and gave advise to Jayn23 as he worked on his Plug-in. So I may be one of the most knowledgeable members here for the GR2 files.

I don't recall many people asking me direct questions as to the exact format of the GR2 files since SWTOR or Jayn23.
There's a few threads that pop up now and then that I do answer as best I can.

Mr. Mouse has also answered you concerning me. What more do you expect from me?

There are many Members here that I admire that do General work on many file formats! And I see how many people request THEY do the work for them! Yes. That ticks a bad box for me. There was almost no one to help me understand the structure of the GR2 files! So I took the time to figure them out!
I have over 13 years invested in a file format, and it's various forms! Can you match that time investment?

I have worked with UbiSoft's Silent Hunter 3 - 5 since 3 came out around 2005. I am the expert at animations for ALL 3 version.
I helped create MANY TOOLS for those Games. And I saw the same thing there. I explain how to do it, People EXPECT me to do the work.
I did all that while I traveled the USA, did a full time job, bought a home, ran Multi-Million dollar job sites, and kept my family happy.
I'm not a young Kid hanging out in Mommy and Daddy's basement!
I also owned and ran the first ISP in my area! Come back and tell me what you have done.

When you are able to HAND EDIT a GR2 file in Hex to produce something like this video? I'll listen to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgR26wQAKPg&t

I'm also a 3D Artist and BUILT 3d Assets! Not steal them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgTOFqvkuNY

[urammar]

Right there, if you are looking for it Mr. Mouse. Riiight there ^^^^^

[05SpeedMaster]

Clearly you just don't get it do you?
Someone tells you to study harder and THEY are "toxic"?
OK. Fine. I'm just one Guy but you claim there are many creating this "Toxic Enviroment". You want to point out all the "toxic" members here? Please do so. Post your list of Us Evil doers! I expect to be at the Top of that list. Then see how many on that list will help you down the road.
It's easier to make enemies out of friends then to make a friend out of an enemy!

I'm done with you as your additude tells me all I need to know so I Thanked you.
Oh. And please let us know when some of your original work is copied into updates of Games and the Project Manager of that Game series flies half way around the World to meet you.

[Bigchillghost]

From what I've seen there are hardly any comments discussing the essential problem here: what's the purpose of this forum? You have a big banner on the home page claiming that this is a "Game Research Forum". So, I'll roughly divided the ordinary members in such a community into 3 types of roles:

• researchers: people with enough skills in reverse engineering of game resources and regularly publish their outcome to the forum;
• requesters: people with bare knowledge in reverse engineering and mostly requesting help for specific games or topics, and those here looking for existing tools;
• site moderators: people who maintain the site and ensure its normal functionalities.

What kind of interactions among members of different roles could occurred and possibly be beneficial for such a community? For interactions among researchers and requesters I can think of the following:

• researchers to researchers: discussion and exchange on technical aspects, creating/sharing new knowledge with the community, etc.
  There's in fact a section called Code Talk which might be the closest case to what I'm trying to describe here, but after a rough glance on the topics this section appears to be polluted by user requests though it still seems to be code-related. Anyway, this might not be a common sight that you can see every day, especially when the top experts tend to work on their own projects and don't communicate with others very often. But at least I don't see any obvious obstacles that can dampen people's motivation to do so.
• researchers to requesters: researchers releasing tools/tutorials to the community, handling queries from their users or audiences.
  This is the main aspect where researchers contribute to the community, and apparently what most users came here for. There are a lot of tools and tutorials published over the years and there might be more in the future. Only problem though, what's the major motivation for the authors to keep doing so? For tools release, I think it might be because they have an interest and pursuit in game technology, or because they keep getting positive feedback from the community and become addicted to it. But as a matter of fact, usually the author only gets 1 thank out of every 20 downloads of the attachment or even worse, which however is a common ailment of the Internet, not just here on XeNTaX. They just take, and don't care. As for me, I'm way passed the stage when such interaction can entertain myself as I find it unworthy and pointless to waste my time in exchange for getting my efforts mostly exploited by ungrateful a-holes you don't even know who they're. For tutorials it might be a different story as the way I see it, even though it could cost a lot of time to write a well-organized article, it also enhances your skills and abilities in archiving and summarizing things properly. And I do enjoy the pleasure of immersing myself in logical thinking during writing. On the other hand, the readers must undergo intellectual activities to understand and absorb knowledge in order to internalize it into their own skills, and such effort is worthy of recognition. There is one frustrating fact though, you don't get many audiences nowadays. Or maybe I've just underestimated their ability of comprehension, hence the lack of feedback.
• requesters to researchers: requesters posting new requests regarding games or topics they're interested in, looking for assistance from the researchers.
  This is usually where it begins for a beginner to grow into an expert. People without decent knowledge of reverse engineering game models came here looking for help, after getting the first mesh entirely on their own, acquired an interest in game resource researching. They learned things along the way and even assisted others to walk on the same path. It's the circle of kindness, which also should be the most effective way of ensuring the sustainability of the forum. But we all know what reality is like. Indeed, you can't expect everyone to repeat the same trajectory, but please note that it is not an excessive requirement to ask you to contribute to this community to the best of your ability, coz every one of those dedicated to the forum had done their part and it's unfair that you take advantage of their efforts without contributing anything.
• requesters to requesters: requesters helping each other by sharing information they acquired from the Internet or other forums, or the common sense that experienced people don't usually repeat.
  Though mostly this should be solved by doing a couple of forum searches or googling, I think we can have a little tolerance for that and trust there to be scenarios of proper use.

All these circumstances more or less exist in this forum and there might not always be a clear boundary among different cases. With all that being said, what I'm trying to emphasize here is, the prerequisite for the sustainability of a community is to ensure those who contribute get the respect they deserve, receive positive feedback and affirmation from the community, and make sure their good deeds to not be abused.

Even though building such a community is a long-term and arduous task, but if there are significant amount of like-minded folks, I think the question we should be asking then is, why we even think of closing the forum.

So instead of worrying about losing the existing contents hosted on the forum, I think we should be focusing on more fundamental issues, as once you ignore the people that actually created these contents, you're very much likely stepping into a dangerous abyss, clouding your judgement of where the future of this forum might be.

[PredatorCZ]

Following lines are only my opinions.

User problem:
I registered in 2014, my registration reason was only so I could be puny lurker who could download tools attached at user posts.
This "unique feature" still affects user metrics to this day. Users register only so they could lurk around and download attachments as well and then leave possibly never coming back.

Forum liveliness:
I noticed it as well, and I visit now and then. The cause might be IMO closed door modding Discord servers. They usually have only a few members and keep everything to themselves. I'm not saying it's a new problem, but might contribute to overall problem.
Another cause is main Discord server. Before, people asked here on forum, I think majority moved to Discord. Now they just join Discord and post something in general (abv.). Not saying to delete Discord or anything.

Money:
Not a problem, today's world uses wonderful and terrifying ways to get them.

MultiEx Commander:
Seen the new version post, but is it open source? I mean sure, 99.9% of users are running Windows OS, so seeing WinXP screen of app might give them retro feels. Others might be chased away by it and stick with tools like QBMS. I haven't used it once because of that. I won't tell you whenever to release source code or not, it's your app, but it might attract those, who would like to work on it in a future.

Site maintenance:
Gather a team who would willingly maintain the site. I won't speak about maintenance politics, it's a sensitive topic especially with DBs, but gather ppl who you can trust, we are not getting younger you know?
All I can tell for myself is, that I completely understand you, the more older I get, the less time I have for all of this.

I think that's all I can think of for now.

[zardalu]

I will gladly donate to keep this forum alive. I have been visiting here daily for years; it is one of my favorite online places.

I don't like discord and will never use it.

I host my own unrelated site and am familiar with the costs. My site costs me a couple of hundred a year... how much would help you? Ideally I'd like to be able to contribute enough that people could join for free in order to keep the community growing and the ideas flowing.

I'd take over to host but I can't afford the time to babysit a forum. I tried and it was a nightmare. I don't know how you do it, but I appreciate every moment.

Let me know how much and how,

Cheers

[CharlieV]

As far as I can tell there is no Discord "Invite Invalid". So that's not much of an alternative or helping anyone is it... (also it isn't and has nothing to do with social media, no idea why one person mentioned facebook etc) Most people who incorrectly use the word and cry 'toxic' are the constant flow of entitled beggars who ask 'can someone do the work for me like a servant and send me these files?' which is not what the forum is about. It would be nice to have more resources for newcomers to actually learn some reverse engineering etc if they so wish for games which do not have existing tools. At a minimum the site needs to be archived, remember facepunch an incredibly huge loss and xentax would be the same, dealing an incredibly huge blow to the community who have interest in this stuff as a whole. Also hosting/data has never been cheaper, is it really so difficult to get one or two hundred in donations? Or put banner ads on the site to help, who cares we can handle a few.

[mariokart64n]

I do peak back in every so often and try to help others with their projects as long as its something I can do over the weekend. If the website does go away I will certainly miss that.

But logically speaking its probably time to let old things die, as AI becomes a larger part of how people search for information we'll see less and less people searching and joining old websites. Consider as well the larger the internet grows the more options people have to keep themselves occupied, soo user engagement will eventually dwindle.

The thing is the information on this site is extremely invaluable, to the point it would be criminal to lose it.

The forum and wiki need to be mirrored or maybe consolidated on a platform like gitHub where the data can be freely accessed.

Anyway it's been a great honor, and shout out to chrrox for spending all his time teaching the community here and else where.

[Bladers]

I will support the site with whatever it takes.