Hey Folks, this is the first time I ever attempted a project of this magnitude, any suggestions would be appreciated before I get to deep into this and realize I made a mistake.





*I spent ALL day creating templates (I made 5 for Gamer's Handbooks, each a different color), I have enough to make almost any MSHRPG pet project look professional. I even tracked down templates to do box covers, adventure modules, Marvel comic covers, DC comic covers and several other odds and ends. What I could not locate I took the time to cut, clip, paste and paint until I did have it.

I'm immediately considering several handbooks, a couple adventure modules and maybe one day a boxed set. So, I'm eager for help suggestions and comments from someone more experienced with this type of thing....

One of the things I see already that could be a problem, would be compressing the finished project to a zip folder to E-mail, I have no idea how the art would hold up or what I could do to help prevent losing the image quality....

My current plans of today will be to scrap this project and begin again in the future after I have had a chance to transition into new and alternative resources. The current project has come up against a roadblock as Photobucket has decided to hold all uploaded images of its users for ransom under a new business plan that requires it's users to purchase a $399.99/year subscription service to be able to link their photo images with third party hosting. This plan was unveiled a few days ago and the users were not given any advance warning.

Even if they were to rescind this decision, I will not be using their services any more. This really came out of nowhere and they pretty much have all of the images I had planned to use for the project in a hostage situation. So, if anyone was looking toward this netbook then I apologize.

I didn't realize it was even happening until the Skycutter E-mailed myself about my images disappearing. By the time I had caught up on Photobucket news, it was much to late to rescue any of the images I had stored there.

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Necromancer
My current plans of today will be to scrap this project and begin again in the future after I have had a chance to transition into new and alternative resources. The current project has come up against a roadblock as Photobucket has decided to hold all uploaded images of its users for ransom under a new business plan that requires it's users to purchase a $399.99/year subscription service to be able to link their photo images with third party hosting. This plan was unveiled a few days ago and the users were not given any advance warning.

Even if they were to rescind this decision, I will not be using their services any more. This really came out of nowhere and they pretty much have all of the images I had planned to use for the project in a hostage situation. So, if anyone was looking toward this netbook then I apologize.

I didn't realize it was even happening until the Skycutter E-mailed myself about my images disappearing. By the time I had caught up on Photobucket news, it was much to late to rescue any of the images I had stored there.

Sites like photobucket I think all have that kind of plan waiting in the background for the right time to strike. They want you to get hooked on the service, feel dependent on it, then hit you with the 'we're now going to charge for everything'. I remember when Microsoft did that years ago, it had groups like yahoo, complete with photo posting, then some of it started costing if you wanted to access some content, then ALL of it began to cost if you wanted to access anything that wasn't simple comment posts.

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Nightmask

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Necromancer
My current plans of today will be to scrap this project and begin again in the future after I have had a chance to transition into new and alternative resources. The current project has come up against a roadblock as Photobucket has decided to hold all uploaded images of its users for ransom under a new business plan that requires it's users to purchase a $399.99/year subscription service to be able to link their photo images with third party hosting. This plan was unveiled a few days ago and the users were not given any advance warning.

Even if they were to rescind this decision, I will not be using their services any more. This really came out of nowhere and they pretty much have all of the images I had planned to use for the project in a hostage situation. So, if anyone was looking toward this netbook then I apologize.

I didn't realize it was even happening until the Skycutter E-mailed myself about my images disappearing. By the time I had caught up on Photobucket news, it was much to late to rescue any of the images I had stored there.

Sites like photobucket I think all have that kind of plan waiting in the background for the right time to strike. They want you to get hooked on the service, feel dependent on it, then hit you with the 'we're now going to charge for everything'. I remember when Microsoft did that years ago, it had groups like yahoo, complete with photo posting, then some of it started costing if you wanted to access some content, then ALL of it began to cost if you wanted to access anything that wasn't simple comment posts.

It is a unethical and inexcusable way to do business. They should have at least given prior warning to their users that they were going this route instead of locking everyone's images behind a sudden paywall. There are so many illegal things about this type of business practices and the damage they do to online businesses. This Photobucket thing even went so far as to affect other businesses such as E-Bay and Amazon. From what I gather, Photobucket ownership is not within the jurisdiction of the United States or its laws, which is why they probably are not facing legal reprimands for this action but I'm almost willing to bet that Photobucket just sacrificed their business.

They are just trying to ransom money from online businesses who use their service for image hosting without prior warning. Without image hosting these business cannot display any images they may have had on their sites, such as buy adds on E-bay or Amazon. The free accounts that they offered were paid for by advertising from other companies and the site was notorious for it, so the little guy who uses their site with a free account more or less just saw Photobucket try to charge for advertising from companies and still try to ransom peoples images/photos on top of it.(2x the Extortion).

Most online users and business owners I have seen come forth on it have already denounced the company and are seeking a replacement company for their needs instead of paying the ransom. I commend them for their display of ethics and being willing to face downtime for their E-Business while they switch to a new service. The fact that the only plan that Photobucket offered with 3rd party image hosting was the highest subscription plan they offered at $399.99/year was a direct targeting of business entities. No average user with non business dealings would even consider paying that much just to post a picture on occasion.

Photobucket also owns TinyPic so I urge anyone to avoid them both. The parent owner has demonstrated they are without any type of ethics and use questionable business practices that border on being illegal within the United States itself. I set my account to delete itself 2 days hence.

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Nightmask

Sites like photobucket I think all have that kind of plan waiting in the background for the right time to strike. They want you to get hooked on the service, feel dependent on it, then hit you with the 'we're now going to charge for everything'. I remember when Microsoft did that years ago, it had groups like yahoo, complete with photo posting, then some of it started costing if you wanted to access some content, then ALL of it began to cost if you wanted to access anything that wasn't simple comment posts.

Well the service does have some value. I'm not advocating it should be totally free. The main issue is with the way they chose to implement this plan and not allow anyone an opportunity to protect their business website and the fact that they interfered in business of sites such as E-Bay and Amazon in addition.

I doubt anyone uses these sites for online storage in the age of technology we currently enjoy where your average PC comes with a 1TB or 2TB hard drive built in and external Hard Drive storage is reasonably affordable. The Photobucket site's image editors normally are not as nice as a $10.00 photo factory program from everyone's local Dollar Store. Really, image hosting was the only thing they offered and their plan to get $399.99/yearly from it's users is exorbitant, for that price, a person can operate their own website and save money every year.

It becomes even more criminal in appearance when you realize that the only way to get image hosting is by taking a subscription to the highest paid plan they offer. This subscription currently must be paid in full with no monthly installment, it averages out to $33.33 per month just to post a picture with image hosting to third party websites; this will affect most bloggers and forum posters more than any business and may be a form of business passing on their digital storage costs to other users who just want image hosting.

My thoughts:

1. They could have allowed users the opportunity to remove their images before implementing a paywall

2. They could have offered image hosting on every plan and adjusted the value by the amount of online storage a user subscribed to which is the main expense (Digital Storage) for Photobucket and most website companies.

3. The whole purpose of company advertising on the site was to pay for the free accounts but they had their images kidnapped and ransomed as well. Why not just ban free accounts or limit their storage space even further?

4. The subscription cost of $399.99 for the ONLY plan that offers image hosting is more expensive than the yearly cost of operating your own personal website and acquiring a small server for your own storage needs which is why I believe this scheme will fail. Unless some people are just determined to save their images or their E-Business is at the mercy of these images and they cannot be replaced (which is what makes this very criminal in nature).

5. If Photobucket succeeds in this scheme then other free services such as Flickr or even YouTube will follow in their steps. I understand that not everything can be FREE and I understand that image hosting is a nice feature worth some value however it is not worth $399.99/year minimum (2x the cost of operating your own personal website) to any user who wants to post an image nor is it acceptable to kidnap people's images and photos until they pay the ransom.

Luckily for myself, it is not such a great setback. I can reacquire images and move to another site that offers reasonable image hosting to suit my RPG needs and desires. Many businesses will not be so fortunate. The bad thing is what acts like this entail for the future of personal websites and small business.

P.S. to persons who asked about my view on this in personal messages.

These represent the state of my current thoughts on the issue and will probably (hopefully) be my last comment on the issue. Best advice I can offer is to just not use the services of Photobucket and TinyPic.

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Necromancer
I'm immediately considering several handbooks, a couple adventure modules and maybe one day a boxed set. So, I'm eager for help suggestions and comments from someone more experienced with this type of thing....

What were your ideas for the various handbooks and such? I'm currently working on the following projects (in various stages of completion)
- The Collector's Guide to the Universe (MA5) - updated version of David E. Martin's netbook.
- Realms of the Occult (two-books of info on occult and magical stuff - similar to the cancelled Ghost Rider and the Midnight Sons boxed set)

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hawkeye

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Necromancer
I'm immediately considering several handbooks, a couple adventure modules and maybe one day a boxed set. So, I'm eager for help suggestions and comments from someone more experienced with this type of thing....

What were your ideas for the various handbooks and such? I'm currently working on the following projects (in various stages of completion)
- The Collector's Guide to the Universe (MA5) - updated version of David E. Martin's netbook.
- Realms of the Occult (two-books of info on occult and magical stuff - similar to the cancelled Ghost Rider and the Midnight Sons boxed set)

I had imagined a Gamer's Handbook for Godzilla as an introductory to teach myself about the process of creating a netbook ( I may just flat out abandon this one).

Others include a Gamer's Handbook to Pre-Cataclysmic Atlantis and the Hyborian Age which I had already started working on but not progressed very far with. It will be easier to restart from scratch then the Godzilla one wherein I was halfway through the project which means fewer images I have to reacquire.

I also had commenced work on a module, Midnight Massacre 2 which I hoped to finish and make available by Halloween. A continuation of Marvel Comic's Midnight Massacre event.

The other project I was working on was a "currently no working title" resource similar to The Weapons Locker, which would feature previously undeveloped resources and technologies for building characters in non uniform ways. This small source book would have featured things like Promethium, Neveranium and things such as the 4 versions of the Transmode virus.

I am lucky that I had all of my created templates for covers, page entries and various page art stored directly on my Hard Drive, so I don't have to recreate those. My current focus will most likely shift to The Midnight Massacre 2 module so as to attain a Halloween release date.

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Necromancer
I am lucky that I had all of my created templates for covers, page entries and various page art stored directly on my Hard Drive, so I don't have to recreate those.

I never stored anything exclusively online. Never know when a site is going to go down or out of business or whatever. The only reason I would upload images for hosting is to link to them on sites that do not have a direct upload feature. Always keep backup copies on another hard drive, a flash drive, or even burn a CD if I have a large enough group of files to merit it.

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Necromancer
My current focus will most likely shift to The Midnight Massacre 2 module so as to attain a Halloween release date.

Looking forward to it.

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Thrudjelmer

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Necromancer
My current focus will most likely shift to The Midnight Massacre 2 module so as to attain a Halloween release date.

Looking forward to it.

Then I hope I don't disappoint you As of this evening the working title has been changed to Midnight Massacre: Reloaded.
Calling it part 2 didn't feel right with the original story never seeing the light of day in the MSHRPG.

No pressure. I'm just happy to see new stuff.

If I could get off my butt and finish my unofficial Realms of the Occult "boxed set", it would make a good add on adventure to it!

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hawkeye
If I could get off my butt and finish my unofficial Realms of the Occult "boxed set", it would make a good add on adventure to it!

I know that feeling. I realized I have to force myself to sit down and do some work on it every day. I also noticed that the more I focus on it the more productive my work load becomes over time. In the beginning I would spend 2 days just to get half a page, yesterday I managed to push out 2 pages in just a few hours.

Even if I finish it early I still plan to hold it back until October.

I would love to see that boxed set. A good set for creating urban adventures and material on Marvel's supernatural genre is largely missing from the game. Most of the material available is at the Avengers and Galactic power level. With that being said, I also recognize the raw size of your project, an entire box set following the Midnight Sons original outline you released in your previous thread is a massive project. I do look forward to seeing it however, I would love to have source material for creating adventures and characters at the level of Daredevil, Cloak & Dagger or the Midnight Sons. That would be just completely frackin' awesome!

I'm going to drop this PDF preview of the cover here if anyone is interested in it. I'm taking a break from it for the day but I am nearing completion of Chapter 4, so progress is commencing. Slowly.

Ahhh, excellent! The Darkhold! Nicely done!

Keep that up, and I may be inspired to finish my stuff up. Make for a doubly spooky Halloween!

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hawkeye
Ahhh, excellent! The Darkhold! Nicely done!

Keep that up, and I may be inspired to finish my stuff up. Make for a doubly spooky Halloween!