Freedom Force Forever

[Tomato]

So. Not going to delve too deep into this, but I have officially purchased new hosting (25 gb worth, fff was at about 18gb so that gives us a good amount of space). I'm at best an amateur at this, so expect some growing pains while I try desperately to figure out how to do cat's old job. Right now I'm uploading the main FFF site and Heroforce, once those are up and running for sure I'll switch gears to the Litterbox and Tommyboy's site, then the rest as I can. Anyone who wants site access to their site stuff PM me.

Not linking yet because we are in VERY early stages of getting things up and running, but I will say that the original domain WAS unavailable, so I got one that's very close, for better or worse. Some inventive among you might find it if you try hard enough, but please do NOT link anything until I give the go ahead.

Edit: For convenience:

Freedom Force 4Ever

[Randomdays]

Thanks Tomato for bring these back online. Altogether, its such a large group of resources for the game it would be a shame if they were lost.

Even though its such an old game, I still see new people discovering it and getting 'energized' by it.

[spydermann93]

It's gonna be Freedom Reborn Forever, isn't it?

Seriously, though, Tomato, thanks for finding a new home!

[Tomato]

So here's where we're at rn. I have a few of the plans up, but the ssl plan i purchased did not cover the sites properly (it only covered the main site, not any of the subdomains). I am currently clawing that money back from godaddy, and I have to wait for that (and probably another few paychecks, frankly) before I can go back and get the right security.

For context, the plan I got was 3 years for about $200. I attempted to get the "right" plan for 2 years at $160, but because of how confusing the site is, they had redirected me to the basic package again. I now have refunds going for both, but it's the 5-7 business days deal. Once that's done, I have to decide on what to do about the security... Godaddy's plan for "Wildcard" plan is ~$800 for 3 years, which is... oof, but while there are cheaper plans available elsewhere, I'm not sure I trust them, plus if I go through the same site I'm hosting through it's easier to set up.

It has been suggested by GG and others that I just host everything on the one site (X.com/HF) which is fair, but I like the separation of the subdomains, and the security plan I had didn't cover a bunch of other stuff also. I'd rather eat the money and do this right, if that makes sense. However, given that this is... 3-5 times the price as the whole rest of the website, it might be a bit before I can set the money aside for it.

In the meantime, most of everything IS hosted. I don't trust the unsecured websites enough to post links publicly, but if someone wants access to specific portions via PM, I can provide that. And if anyone wants to provide help (I've gotten a few offers privately) my paypal is mygreyhulk100 AT hotmail DOT com, but please do not feel obligated to do so.

[bearded]

I'll send what monies I can. When you get it up and running, I'm just going to download everything.

[Randomdays]

Ditto with Bearded

[style]

I would like to help where I can as well

[deanjo2000]

Same here 👍

[WyldFyre]

Count me in to help as well. May be a week or so, but I'm sending aid.

[BentonGrey]

It's going to be a little longer than I anticipated, as we just bought a new house and had an unexpected and large repair bill hit us, but I'm going to chip in too, as we discussed.

[SickAlice]

Tis the season for new houses and of course with it bills, eh? Good on of course for keeping it all going. I'm in your debt.

[Tomato]

Wanted to get a few housekeeping things out of the way while I wait for paychecks and a few unrelated bills to hit next week to see where I'm at (I had... *so much* overtime at work these last two weeks) but I think we're on the home stretch. I've got everything uploaded, I've updated a few things behind the scenes, which I'm very excited to show off sooner rather than later.

A few updates for anyone interested:

-I've reformatted the index page to make it a bit cleaner, easier to read, and easier to add to/update (at least for me, since I'm taking over editing duties on it). The links back to the main page and to the DOD have also been removed. The first because it's wholly unnecessary, and the second because the site was removed from the server, likely by the original creator. I was hoping to be able to restore everything, but there was nothing I could do in that case.

-However, for those like me who had trouble loading it when we were all dumping the websites, SHJ's Skinventory has been redone using iframes instead of php, so the site is now fully functional on the new servers.

-I have a website for the FF Museum on the server, but not currently linked. Wyldfire, was there anything you didn't already have from the old site? I can pm you the link to where I've got it.

[WyldFyre]

As a matter of fact, I couldn't save Copper's stuff before it went down so that would be great!

I think I missed the anniversary page as well.

[bearded]

Tomato, have you considered a patreon to help with the constant financial maintenance?

[Tomato]

So I don't think that's necessary, in part because I'm actually paying for it for 3 years in advance in order to keep costs down in the long run. It's hurting up front, but once this is done we've got until 2026 to figure out setting money aside and the like.

(For context, 1yr of this security plan is 450, 2 is like 700, and 3 is 800. If I can afford to just pay for 3, it's effectively a free year.)

[Tomato]

Today was payday, got something like 200 in overtime+extra pay, so... that helped a lot. I've got the purchase made now, dunno if I'll have time before my weekend (sun+mon) to fuss with setting it up. Everything else is ready to go, just need to set the site security up before I post the link.

[Randomdays]

That's great Tomato.

I've gone some money pending going into paypal. As soon as it clears I'll send it over. Its not much for now, but hopefully it will help a bit. More later if/when I can.

[Tomato]

Everything SHOULD be ready to go. LMK about any broken links, if you get any "THIS SITE IS NOT SECURE" notices, or general nonsense, but... it's up you guys. First post of the thread is edited.

The only site not *currently* available is The Litterbox. The old site is technically up, and SA has said I can link to it for now because while they do plan to overhaul it, they're not anywhere close (especially since SA's not feeling well rn)... but I had already made the joke links and don't feel like fixing them, so i've decided to leave them in place for a bit. I'll set it up properly eventually, but for now that's effort I don't want to expend.

[cranlox]

clap clap clap!

[SickAlice]

I finished up my site. Not really the overhaul I wanted to do but I'll do that later this year when I have more time. For now I fixed any bugs and changed things, updated every link and so on. I'll work on my site announcement thread here later as well. Anyways it's the weblink in my profile now. Anyone who has visited it before may want to refresh/clear the cookies, I was having an issue and the index page should look different with banners that weren't their before. FYI Tomato you have your old link in your profile on this site as well.

[Podmark]

Thanks for doing this Tomato! It's great to see Freedom Force and everything people have created for it sticking around.

[oktokels]

Kinda late to this, but thanks for keeping the sites up 

[Tomato]

There's been a bit of a discussion on the discord that I want to bring here. PG has mentioned potentially having a few additional mods for the Mod Graveyard, and while I'm fine adding those myself (the site is, by design, very basic and easy enough to update) there's been a push to better archive our history, and mods are a part of that. The thing is though... Aside from one kinda but not really mod I did years ago (which just added some forum avatars and voicepacks) I don't mod. I don't really play with mods. Aside from DCUG and Marvel Adventures (which I know via Benton osmosis) I don't know about mods that are being made, were made, or are otherwise deserving of hosting.

What I'm basically saying is, I think having a more robust Mod Graveyard is a great idea, and I wouldn't mind handing the reins over to someone who actually has a better knowledge base, and motivation to update it beyond just "Hey Tomato, add this". But I am, for a number of reasons (mostly because I just do not have the energy to be invested in it long term) the wrong person for that job.

[WyldFyre]

Actually, as I have been working through my files for the Museum, I have thought about (and actually started) making pages for both FF and FFvtTR mods. My intention is to host the old mods there. I have *almost* all of them I think. I know there are a few which are lost.

So, I guess what I mean is - if anyone else wants to beat me to it Huzzah! My RL puts quite a strain on my time, but I am slowly working on getting things put together and uploaded and eventually that will be mods as well.

[crosspotts1.0]

can you make money form avertisments i cant pay but im fine with seeing an ad on the side of the page or at top and bottom to give financial support and thank you for getting it back up and running

[Tomato]

Hey so I happened to be looking at HF the other day and noticed a ton of broken image links, the issue is that I guess new host is less forgiving on folder/file name capitalization? I'm going back and fixing what I see, but anyone who notices similar issues just let me know.

[Tomato]

Minor thing, I just got informed some back end security stuff is happening. It *shouldn't* impact anything whatsoever, but with my luck the update will break tommyboy's site or sommat. So if someone sees something, just lmk (preferably on the discord because that gives me an alert)

[John Jr.]

Thanks for all your effort, Tomato. These sites are an important part of our history and it would be a shame to lose them.

[Neros Urameshi]

So. Not going to delve too deep into this, but I have officially purchased new hosting (25 gb worth, fff was at about 18gb so that gives us a good amount of space). I'm at best an amateur at this, so expect some growing pains while I try desperately to figure out how to do cat's old job. Right now I'm uploading the main FFF site and Heroforce, once those are up and running for sure I'll switch gears to the Litterbox and Tommyboy's site, then the rest as I can. Anyone who wants site access to their site stuff PM me.

Not linking yet because we are in VERY early stages of getting things up and running, but I will say that the original domain WAS unavailable, so I got one that's very close, for better or worse. Some inventive among you might find it if you try hard enough, but please do NOT link anything until I give the go ahead.

Edit: For convenience:

Freedom Force 4Ever

Site's still not working, even after clicking on it.

[spydermann93]

Strange, it's working on my end.

I'm on Firefox.