On the Future of the Site

[Amethyst]

This will probably be the last site news post I make.

... Scary, isn't it?! But don't worry, I'm just being dramatic.
The statement is true because probably, at some future point, I'm going to retire this news section. The posts are infrequent, game announcements are better served elsewhere, urgent things have better notification systems... This is a vestige. Time to let this go. 

But the forums? The site?
Nah, they not goin' anywhere. 

Information is hard to come by right now.
Platforms are enshittifying left and right. Search Engines are worse because the internet is worse, genAI is inflating everything like a circus balloon, and there are one million ads on every site.
Hell, even we've had ads! And you know what, I'm sick of it. The income has been helpful-- even necessary. But by jove, at least one site on this godforsaken internet will be ad-free. I've just yeeted them from the site. Fuck 'em!

I think a lot of people are tired of the current state of the internet. And I can't help most of that, but I can help here. Forums are a bit antiquated-- all the cool kids use Discord, right? Discord is great, but not eternal, and many exchanges there stay there and in our memories only. 
So that's my goal for the site now: Longevity of information and community.
Maybe it's a bit lofty, but at least we can have one tiny island of peace amidst all the tumult of the modern internet.

But it would be nice if it would load faster, wouldn't it? Believe me, I've been trying. I'll keep trying. I'm pretty sure it's better now?? Not perfect, or even always good... But at least better.
It'll be work in progress.

Other changes: Shuffled some forums around. New banner. Trying a post widget on the side. Whatever, you can see for yourselves. 

Actually, this was going to be a more major forum upgrade, but there was some bullshit, so that's not happening.
Frankly, I have a lot to say about some of the stuff behind this extended maintenance. I've compiled a lot of stray thoughts into a free post on my patreon, A Postmortem of the Modern Internet. If you want to read in depth, you can there. It's half an essay.

But if you, heartful reader, feel so inclined to help us keep this place afloat, it would be most certainly welcome, and helpful. The patreon above directly supports both my development and the (rising, grumble grumble) server/hosting costs.

I've been running this forum for twenty years and I intend to run it for twenty more. 
Let's see what we can do to make it feel like home. 

[mcd]

Great to see that this Forum will stay; I personally prefer Forums to Discord, because here, Information can be gathered and immortalized for any, who will search the internet for solutions in the future

[Josef]

I would not have been able to enjoy Reborn as much as I have without the information that was shared between community members on this forum. I probably would have missed half the items and Pokemon and may even have missed plot and lore relevant details. So I hope the forum stays online forever. Without it the game would not be as playable, or it would require an update to implement more hints into the game itself on how to solve certain riddles. And that would probably feel kinda forced and hurt the experience. I think this forum is part of the game and vice versa.