GooRoo
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I luv Gruntz!
Posts: 7,425
Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Dec 9, 2003 15:30:01 GMT -8
FriedGruntzaholic found Monolith's telephone number and other information, including the fact that they are located about 50 miles away from me!
I made contact with Monolith Productions, Inc. yesterday ... but at too low a level to really get anything accomplished. My name and telephone number were taken down, however, and I was assured that "someone would get back to me".
What we (Gruntzerz, unite!) are trying to accomplish are manifold tasks: 1 Obtain the rights to the Gruntz domain. (Would become our hot-linkable storage site.) 2 Obtain permissions to use Gruntz screenshots, sounds and bits of images (Custom Avatars, for instance). Without it (or specifically, if denied permission) the screenshots and sound bites we are using now will have to be removed. 3 Arrange a licensing agreement whereby Gruntz CDs may be created and sold, profits split between Monolith Productions, Inc. and ourselves (not necessarily 50-50). 4 (Pie in the sky!) Purchase Gruntz; source, development tools, GLE source, etc., graphics database ... in other words, everything required to make "Gruntz 2".
The above are listed (approximately) in order of achievability. (1 and 2 may be interchangable.)
I will post replies into this thread as I find out more.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 9, 2003 19:00:03 GMT -8
I also sent a message via e-mail to the webmaster expressing the desire for the rights to the gruntz.com domain name. I meant to carbon copy the e-mail to their contact e-mail (responsible for PR and the like) and also to their sales dept. (responsible for licensing, etc.) but I hit the send button before I realized I had forgotten to add their respective e-mail addy's. But I will keep you posted if I hear anything back as well.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 10, 2003 20:32:20 GMT -8
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GooRoo
Administrator
Owner Administrator
I luv Gruntz!
Posts: 7,425
Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Dec 10, 2003 22:17:05 GMT -8
To me, that sounds as if there will be access to the Gruntz features for the foreseeable future. That is definitely a good thing! Then the question becomes "What is the value (future) of a Forum such as this?" No one will doubt that I am biased on the subject: I much prefer the features of this system to the Monolith Gruntz Forum system. Threads are continued for the life of the board; on a 'hot topic', there will be on the Topic banner line, page numbers (1 2 3 ... 360) that a viewer can click on to navigate. On a free-form Forum, such as this one, the most recent Topic appears at the top of the list, under any 'sticky'ed Topics. Old Topics without activity scroll off into la-la land after a certain period of time (which may be set by Administrator (Admin) and Global Moderator (GMod) types). That scroll-off 'feature' is the reason Gruntz Level Topicz are all 'sticky'ed ... so they will never scroll off. Admins and GMods can always delete threads, whether 'sticky' or not, when there is a consensus that the thread(s) no longer serve any useful purpose. Another advantage of this system over MPI is the ability to modify (your own) posts. Make a mistake here; you can correct it, possibly before anyone else ever sees it. Make a mistake on MPI, and it is a mistake forever. And there are the aids here, for bolding, italicizing, underlining, changing colors and even the size of your text! Aren't these emoticons nicer than the winks and sad, (even crying! ) etc. things on MPI? Everything above is left-justified. This is centered! And this is right-justified. What I would hope to have happen is to use the MPI site as the 'hot-link' storage, and the selection of "Gruntz Forum" or "Gruntz Level Editor" bring the visitor here. IMHO, that would be the best of both worlds.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 11, 2003 3:33:53 GMT -8
As touching the value and/or future of this forum, there is absolutely no question that this forum is of great value inasmuch as we're concerned and that there is a central place for it in the future. This type of user-controlled forum with all of it's features is something that we all have dreamed of having for some time. All having the license to the gruntz.com domain name will do for us is to make it easier for new Gruntz players to find us.
If the suggestion of passing control to us becomes reality, then everything that is now currently on the site assigned to that domain goes away. We will be left with a blank sheet on which we can write anything we want. What I see in the future for the gruntz domain is not only a storage site for images that we want to hot-link to, but we can retain the same basic structure that it now posesses. We can have a main page with a button that links to this forum, a button that links to a downloads page where players can download the GLE and the patch, links to other Gruntz sites (primarily Paul's page), and, if a licensing agreement to sell the game can be worked out, there can be a means to sell the game online. The future of gruntz.com should MPI relinquish control of it to us is up to us.
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Gamer
Retired Moderator
Posts: 331
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Post by Gamer on Dec 11, 2003 14:10:08 GMT -8
I think we need to do more than just protect the forum if the actual gruntz site is going away. There are plenty of things there that are of importance other than the forumz.
Personally, I would be like "Thanks lots! But no thanks!" if asked if we wanted to continue with that forum. I would also like to thank the Monolith people for being so nice to us and not all icky like some corporate providers I know.
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Gamer
Retired Moderator
Posts: 331
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Post by Gamer on Dec 11, 2003 14:17:07 GMT -8
Anyway, I have been on the forum for 3 1/2 years since my "return", so if it goes I will be sad Who was "first" on the forum out of the people that still visit anyway? I don't know that I can see it in the archives; I don't know that they kept everything correct and proper there.
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Bea
Retired Moderator
Posts: 146
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Post by Bea on Dec 11, 2003 15:36:31 GMT -8
I think that I, Idle Al, Jean, Sue (she posts occasionally), Silverlady and Xeno are about the longest standing members at the moment. Whatever happens I also believe that there is a place for this forum. For a long time we have tried to improve the Gruntz forum , get moderators on it to get rid of spammers and offensive posters and try to organise it better. We haven't been able to, but now we have this forum which is improving all the time. I believe that if we are given the opportunity to take the domain on we have to take it. After all, it is the link through the game now that gruntzgoo has gone. I would look on it as the front page linking to the forum we have here, as well as to Paul's and other sites that we know of as well as possibly with a link to Real where you can download the game etc.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Dec 11, 2003 18:43:57 GMT -8
Further information concerning the gruntz.com domain. I just received a second e-mail from a Monolith representative, this one in response to a second e-mail that I sent Tuesday. According to her, Monolith intends to renew the domain for another year and keep the site up for at least that long. Furthermore, she said that when the time comes they would be more than happy to arrange a transfer to a designated member of the fan base, which should be somewhere around late 2004 or early 2005. There you have it folks. The gruntz domain should be ours inside of a year.
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Post by oldone on Jan 11, 2007 19:22:28 GMT -8
Gaby was just reading this again, and she and I were talking about it. What's the status on this?? Just curious, but sure would be neat to have this.
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Post by FriedGruntzaholic on Jan 29, 2007 21:43:05 GMT -8
Gaby was just reading this again, and she and I were talking about it. What's the status on this?? Just curious, but sure would be neat to have this. Apparently, Monolith is content to continue operating the Gruntz Forum for now. They still get a fair amount of traffic, although a good bit of it is in the form of nuisance posts. They know GooRoo is here, so I don't think they really are at a loss as to what to do with the domain when they do decide to pull the plug, although abandonment is usually what happens to such domains. All we can is wait and watch.
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