Taking the time to rebuild...

[DarkValentine]

Hello all. Not sure where to post this, so I guess I could start here. On February 28th 2011, my home was vandalized. I was pretty busy with life before this incident, but the incident of my home being vandalized turned it upside down for me.

It happened while I was at work, and while my roommate was doing some work for my landlord. They we're the first two to discover that my home was broken into. They made it to my apartment about 4PM CST. I got the call from my roommate while I was at work, and I rushed home to survey the damages.

My home was literally a wreck. Everything was all over the place. My room was totaled, my laptop I had for 6 years was gone (mind you, at the time I got that laptop, it was a custom built $1500 laptop that I did ALL of my MUGEN based stuff from. And everything else for that matter). My new 360 slim that I had just got 3 weeks prior to the incident. As well as all of the backup hardware I had was wrecked & destroyed. My roommate was also it up. His laptop was stolen, as well as all of his things. The only thing that was left behind, was the Halo 3 Edition xbox 360 that I gave him, since I had got the 360 slim. Why was that not taken? I have no idea. But I was glad that it wasn't, because it allowed me to get in contact with a few close friends I knew for years, to help spread the word on my status.

A week later, the thieves we're caught, but come to find out, all of the things that have been taken from us, got sold on the street. God I wish I had LoJack for Laptops. That would have at least recovered those items back, sans the slim 360.

I was not able to get another computer until my Aunt came through sometime last month. A month ago today, was around the first official time I was able to return online. However, it's left me at a disadvantage. The computer is a complete farcry from what my laptop was, and it is EXTREMELY low end. And requires a lot of hardware upgrading to get it to normal standards. I was able to get half the things I need upgraded, but it doesn't take away the fact that I'm forced to start over on a LOT of things. mainly anything I've done up to this point in the MUGEN scene. This also includes putting an even longer dent in my video making hobby with my two currently running MUGEN Series of City Lights & Team DV.

I was in the process of having all my stages updated with correct parameters & make them all 1.0 compatible. As I had each stage rebuilt from the ground up, and made ready to showcase for both WM+ & 1.0. As well as prepare a special stage that was made specifically for InfinityMugenTeam forums. All of that is lost now, as the backups also got destroyed. The only thing I could salvage was a single external 500GB HDD that was not damaged, but it was one that I was saving for an emergency. I was planning on backing everything up to that, as all it contains is everything I had, before getting into MUGEN.

So, there you have it guys. The stage creator, is being forced to re-create a life that was taken from me. It's still difficult, and I find it hard to keep creating stages, because any ideas I get, become shattered by the reality that I don't feel safe in my own home anymore. Even if I move away, that won't change facts. I'll still be active in the community, but it will be some time before anything new is released from me.

DarkValentine

[Enso]

I feel sorry for you, man. I know it will be so hard for you get back to Mugen after your home is damaged and probably your files got erased.

I hate thieves. They keep stealing things from other places especially at my house.

[DarkValentine]

Yeah, pretty much will be hard enough on it's own. In the short time I was without a computer, and the long time my life took over, a LOT of things have changed, and many new things came about in the community. I am backtracking to the many updates on everything, since I was last active with a stage build in progress, in order to keep up with things.

I was also doing a redesign of my stages site, using the wordpress stuff on my server.

I was using one of the templates available, but doing everything from scratch. It can be seen in the image below



The date highlighted was to be the 2 year anniversary of my stages site. I was supposed to have long since finished it, but life got in the way. I will have to pick up on it soon. It was also going to involve everything I've updated as well. As stated in my first post, I have to start over now, and it's going to be difficult.

My files we're on the damaged hardware, as well as the stolen laptop. So I have to start completely from scratch. It's not a bad thing though, as it will give me a chance to start new with more stable releases and whatnot. However, it will still feel empty. I'll live.

[Tha Lando ( Le CROM )]

awww man sorry to hear about that homie DV. stuff like that gets under my skin and makes me wanna keep arms on me just in case i even catch a thief in my spot. i hope you get things back to the way you enjoy them man and i know its hard...i been there myself bro.. but try your best to be upbeat as best you can. Mugen will always be here bro and waiting for ya stages.


@ Enso.. who da Hellz is always breaking into your house! . you need an alarm or like national guard stationed inside on the sofa or somethin man. stuff like that is crazy.  i remember when my mom had her candy store on our back porch enclosed and locked up. i always warned her someday those greedy penny candy kids will try to break in. and one day they did...but they also ran into Sugar.. our part wolf part german shepard dog!  they made out with some candy, but wrecked the place tryin to escape from the wrath of the Jaws!

[DarkValentine]

I'm trying to be up beat about it. Sometimes, I don't like sleeping in my room, because in the 5 years I've lived here, not once was my home broken into. But it could have happened to anyone for that matter. I'm glad that I wasn't here when it happened. No telling what may have been...

In any case, I'll be on my feet with stage creating again. I just need to finish a number of things before doing so. Without my stuff, my priorities will be more focused on the stages site that has been in hiatus of rebuilding, as seen in the image above. Once I get that going, I'll just start over, and re-create the stages again......for the 3rd time.

[C.R.O.M. - Shadaloo Lives!]

Some people tried to break into my house last year, but got a dog's tooth in their leg so they ran away.

our part wolf part german shepard dog!

I had a wolf once. I had to give him away though because he hated anyone new. Real mood killer if a dog attacks your date.

[Tha Lando ( Le CROM )]

Real mood killer if a dog attacks your date.

AGREED!!!!

[DarkValentine]

On the bright side, I appear to still have everything that I did copy, tucked & locked away on my server, when it came to at least the essentials if I was going to jump start something again. Sadly, that backup doesn't contain any of the material I was going to use for the updates. Let alone the reworked material for the 1.0 version.

So, I'm still starting from scratch, but not in a complete manner. Just in a complete manner that I'll have to texture everything all over again, and get it back up to standard.

Since SoRR made it to Version 5, that was also to be part of my update schedule. I'll have to work around with that, and see what has changed, so I can make all the appropriate changes to the stages I do have.

So all is not a total loss. Just a lot of lost time on my end.

[Enso]

who da Hellz is always breaking into your house! . you need an alarm or like national guard stationed inside on the sofa or somethin man. stuff like that is crazy.  i remember when my mom had her candy store on our back porch enclosed and locked up. i always warned her someday those greedy penny candy kids will try to break in. and one day they did...but they also ran into Sugar.. our part wolf part german shepard dog!  they made out with some candy, but wrecked the place tryin to escape from the wrath of the Jaws!

I don't know. Just any random thief come to my house to steal things. Many of our stuff had been stolen since around my kid years. Until my teen years, I learned about some people coming to steal. There was one guy who used to come to my house to play videogames with us. But my maid had a bad feeling on that guy who was hideous in planning to steal something. I think it was because of his bad manner. Later, I found out that guy was close to the window, trying to break one of our windows. I forgot what happened next. Maybe he got down? I remember one of my cousins was beating up that guy who almost broke the window. Then he ran away.

Another story. I woke up around at 5:30 am. I was watching Raw in a Chinese channel. A bit later, I heard someone calling my name. I thought he was outside of my house. After I finished watching Raw around 6:00 am, I turned off the TV. Before I went back to bed, I saw and found out that the thief was coming from my room in a long colorful towel. I walked behind him and dragged the towel out and then he ran downstairs out from my house. Probably he removed his towel he was using. I chased him but he ran and slammed the door from me. I ran from my house to the road and saw my cousin across my house on my right side. The guy who put his towel on was revealed to be a thin guy. He might be from my town but I don't know his face. I walked right to my bed. Suddenly, my brother complained that I made a big noise, which I didn't. He started to beat me and I shouted, "Stop it!" He ridiculously said I was shouting like a girl when I screamed. I said an F word and he got mad to beat me and I shouted. My uncle next door came to my room 'cause he thought I was being beat up by an assailant. My brother stopped beating me and my parents showed up. They said they heard a noise. Then I told them the story of what happened. After I told them, then my brother apologized.

You know what's good, Lando? We have several latches so that no one can break in to our doors here. And yes, Lando. I wish I had a surveilance or any device which can track fingerprints of whose stealing what.

[Spidermew]

Dude that is horable.

Man thiefs suck.

[Slivern]

*does moment of silence for the things lost*

Dark...I don't know what to say. After reading all of that, I just...man. I'm more than sorry for your losses dude. We need to help you out somehow...If there are any stages that you've hosted a long time ago, maybe you might be able to list them and perhaps we can salvage these stages from other people in order for you to continue where you left off.

Sorry ain't enough for me.

[DarkValentine]

*does moment of silence for the things lost*

Dark...I don't know what to say. After reading all of that, I just...man. I'm more than sorry for your losses dude. We need to help you out somehow...If there are any stages that you've hosted a long time ago, maybe you might be able to list them and perhaps we can salvage these stages from other people in order for you to continue where you left off.

Sorry ain't enough for me.

My website has not gone down, my stages are up & 100% active. here is the link if you need to see my stages site.

http://generation-now.net

I do appreciate the offer though, and I'll keep it in mind, in case anything happens.

I was working on a number of things related to the 40+ stages I already made, as I did state in this thread. However, the updates never got finished, because of the vandalism & theft. So, everything you see on my site, is exactly as I left it, since the update on 8/26/2010.

The current front page update you see on my site, is mostly noting that I will be updating the site, moving away from HTML, and going directly to a wordpress setup. I designed the website in pure HTML mostly with Notepad++, Programmer's Notepad & HTML Tidy. With HTML Tidy being something for me to use, to test the coding, before making it go live.

The site itself took a year of on & off work to build, because I was tired of jumping from host to host. So I got my own server, and the rest is history. Generation-now.net has been around for now almost 2 and a half years. So I'm good when it comes to the safety of all the stages I made. I can always re-download them if need be. My losses are severe at best, as I was the only one who had the updated files and whatnot to the upgrades for the stages. So for now, I'll have to use what I already created, as a template to start over with the upgrade process. Both parameter correction & visuals.

To give you a general idea of how I planned to make changes to my stages, I used three of my stages as main templates to upgrading them to a more quality struck standard. Those three stages are Double Dragon 2 Arcade Mission 3, The Renegade Lounge & Broad Street. Moon Beach 2009, Duke's Lair Revisited & Inglewood Flatlands we're created to be the starting base template. From there, I could build the stages in any fashion that was deemed fit & playable.

Converting 40+ stages to 1.0 is enough of a daunting task. But I won't make them 1.0 ready, until I've upgraded them in WM+. Since the stages themselves we're designed to work with WM+. Once I'm back on my feet, expect it to look different.