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Can't believe what I am reading over at Romhacking.Net

It seems they're closing their doors.. I can't believe it.
The owner has posted a lengthy news post about it and reasons why. :O
I can't believe people who stepped forward to take on the website only did it to serve such a dark motive.

Yeah, I've heard about this and have rather mixed feelings on the subject. On one hand, it was a site that I've visited and known about since its very beginning back in 2005. It was and still currently is the biggest site that hosts the largest amount of various translations and romhacks alike. If it wasn't for RHDN, I might not have found out about Dynamic-Designs and its many great translations. So from that aspect, I am a bit sad to see it go out like this. After all, it was because of RHDN that I became a member here shortly after hearing about the Burning Heroes translation effort, which was the first project that I actively took part in, along with Mystic Ark.

On the other hand, I definitely saw that something like this was going to happen to the site eventually, sooner or later. I've spoken to Nightcrawler privately about this in the past on a few occasions and told him that many of the current staff members and moderators there don't have the site's best interests in mind. Instead, they were only interested in tearing down the community as a whole by driving away many prominent and talented members and contributors alike such as MrRichard999, Tom, aishsha, paul_met, Pennywise and Kitsune Sniper, among many others, as well as pushing forward their radical leftist ideology. Many of these newer moderators, staff and other members in general there started using RHDN as just another social media hangout for alt-left "woke" lunatics to push their political agendas by constantly virtue signaling and harassing anyone who they didn't agree with or despised for whatever reason, our group and members included. In short, the site became nothing more than a leftist echo chamber.

This is what started changing RHDN from a site dedicated to romhacks and translations into just another generic leftist platform to launch their attacks from and push their political agendas, as previously mentioned. In turn, this obviously led to others getting upset over their mistreatment and seeking "vengeance" against the site and its toxic staff and member base. What else can I say rather than I told Nightcrawler and others there that something like this was eventually going to happen, and they didn't listen. RHDN started having an obvious double standard which was only getting worse and worse with time. Namely, that the many fanatical leftists there were allowed to be as rude and toxic as possible and get away with it while so much as even a small word of disagreement from any conservative or centrist person would result in their posts being instantly deleted and their accounts getting banned without question. Real contributors were insulted and chased away while people who provided absolutely nothing to the community got away with being as disrespectful and belligerent as possible. Because of this, obviously no serious romhacker or translator wanted to remain part of such a toxic, hostile and aggressive community anymore and moved onto other more welcoming sites. Hopefully, in time other sites such as romhacks.org will rise up to fill the gap left by RHDN.

The moral of the story here is: Go woke, go broke.

Nightcrawler told me in private many years ago he was only there pretty much in name and had little to do with the site at that point beyond paying the bills. This was back when that one guy was trying to attack everything we did and the staff other than Nightcrawler didn't care. This was probably at least 10 years ago. To his credit, even though he wasn't involved with the site by his own admission at the time, he did listen to me and finally fixed the issue I asked about even stepping on the peoples toes that were running the site in his stead that refused to do anything. He agreed what I wanted fixed needed to be fixed. I would hope he would do the same for anyone who is being attacked over whatever reason and I'm sure he would as his comments about Near suggest. That is the way things should be. Unfortunately, finding staff that can maintain that level of service can be tough. Maybe someone starts out on the right foot and things look great. Then after a while they let their ideals take over. Maybe they're a wolf in sheeps clothing just waiting for you to turn your back. However, his one downfall was keeping his head buried in the sand even when people pointed out to him over and over there were problems. I guess it got to the point where he couldn't anymore. It probably would have been better just shutting down when he no longer had time for RHDN back then. I understand the mentality of I've built a good thing here and I want to see it keep going, but finding just one person to do that to your own personal standard is tough, finding a bunch of them is nigh on impossible. The funny thing is, these people that invaded RHDN actually don't care about your stance on anything. It is simply you are part of the mob or an outsider.. And if they can't find an outsider, they'll push one of their own out and eat them instead. Want proof, just think of Near. He was celebrated for a while but he was introverted so he was an easy choice to shove out and target. For them, it isn't their ideals, it is just finding the next target that will succumb to them. And they don't like the ones that stand up to them. More productive to move on to the ones that can't. They're just sick people.

I appreciate what Nightcrawler built. It took a lot of sweat and tears to get RHDN going. And he did a great job. It just outgrew his abilities or any one single persons abilities. And finding the right supporting staff, especially for free, is just a tough thing to do. It had its hayday that was great, but when you start to turn away your core user group. That is when it is time to fix it or shut it down. And unfortunately, it took far too long to do one of those two things. But hey, once something is gone people tend to remember it fondly even if the end was terrible. Think of some good restaurants that might have been the best place to eat back in the day that are now closed. You remember how great that place was back when even if the last few months could probably have killed you eating there before they closed.

Just to further prove my point, here are some of the discussions that I've had with some of the toxic "fan" base on RHDN recently:



I completely agree, this right here is what started tearing apart RHDN in the first place. Toxic alt-leftists really need to keep their political rants and "holier-than-thou" attitudes to themselves.

Really? What about the people who harassed, insulted and dogpiled on Tom over his Goemon translation until he left RHDN for good? What about MrRichard999, aishsha, paul_met, Pennywise and Kitsune Sniper, among many others who were also mistreated so poorly that they also decided to call it quits on this site for good? What about the people that insult Dynamic-Designs and our members each time we release a new translation? Meanwhile, the mods here did nothing because hey, we've got to support our own fellow leftists no matter how toxic and abusive they are right? Any of this ring a bell to you or were you keeping your head in the ground and ignoring everything that was going on around you? Let's face reality here, this is what began the downfall of RHDN, the rot from within its own community.

Top contributors were driven out while the SJWs that contributed absolutely nothing to the scene were applauded. This is what drove away most of the top romhackers and translators here. These kinds of things are exactly what led to people seeking retribution on RHDN and the sad downfall of the site. If only the mods and staff here were a little less biased and actually did their job properly, non of this would have happened in the first place. I'm certainly sad to see this site go, but I definitely saw this coming. This place should have stuck to its original purpose of being a romhacking/translation board and not a social media platform for alt-leftists and virtue signalers to push their political agendas and ideologies.

Great comeback, but you didn't exactly disprove anything that I said at all. My point is that this has been going on for years now and has only been getting worse which led to the eventual downfall of the site as a whole. How many translations or hacks have you worked on by the way, hm?

"I want to complain and shut down everything and everyone I disagree with while contributing nothing at all because I'm a completely untalented parasite, wah!"

Edit: Also, thanks for proving my point about how toxic people like you here drive away actual contributors while providing nothing in return. Why are you even here in the first place, to virtue signal? You obviously are neither a romhacker nor a translator. Nor do you seem to care at all about the hobby. Your only purpose is to troll and harass others while pushing your radical leftist political agenda. You just proved my point yet again.

That jab about Wildbill really pushed me over the edge a bit there. As you can see, radical leftists such as this "PZT" moron, among countless others are responsible for driving away the real romhackers and translators away from RHDN while providing absolutely nothing in return. They're just virtue signaling parasites that have no talent or interest in this hobby, thus proving my point as I've stated before.

Source (assuming it will still be there by tomorrow): https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=39406.0

Edit: Yup, they just started deleting my posts from that discussion, but not the toxic leftists'. I'm completely "shocked" by this double standard... Well, that was certainly fast and of no surprise at all. Good thing I at least copied and pasted it here for archiving.

Edit 2: Since my original reply was deleted, I posted this new one instead to address the newest sarcastic post by "PZT" who is now acting like a victim (note: it is above my post, but I won't copy-paste the whole thing because it is a huge and whiny wall of text):

Yes, and I would like to ask certain people to please stop trolling the users here who are actually trying to make worthwhile contributions to the site.

Edit: You also just proved my point again that you've made no actual contribution to the site whatsoever at all. You're just here to troll others, that's it.

I'll end this by saying that I've definitely proved my point that these SJWs that go around virtue signaling and harassing content creators by attempting to cancel them are by far the worst scum on the internet these days. I don't know why a person would dedicate such time and energy to constantly complaining about the things that they don't like or agree with online 24/7. What the heck is even the point of doing such a thing in the first place? Just move on with your life and ignore the things that don't resonate with you personally. Why on Earth do they even feel like it's their duty, job or "moral obligation" to police the entire world in the first place? Untalented losers are what they all are, that's the honest truth. They're not capable of actually putting in the effort to work on something constructive, so they instead focus all of their time and energy on tearing down and cancelling others. Truly pathetic people is what they all are, end of story.

Edit 3:

So how exactly would you run such a website? By getting rid of all the top romhackers and translators and keeping around only people who provide nothing in return to anyone? This type of mentality is exactly what led to the downfall of RHDN in the first place. You didn't disprove anything that I've stated. Bottom line, people work hard and for free to translate games, others complain and harass them over their translations instead of saying thanks, and you believe that this is okay? Wonderful. And no, I am not "hateful" as you so put it. Rather, I'm fed up by all the double standards that exist just about everywhere these days. I also noticed that you did not seem to comment at all about the other person's posts who was clearly just trolling and nothing more. Now, why is that exactly? You see the double standard?

Honestly, Recca, I wouldn't have put so much energy into going back and forth that guy. You must be exhausted

No matter which side of the political aisle you find yourself on, or even if you don't really give a hoot politically, the fact is that people on the internet REALLY love arguing about petty things and seeing how you react to having your buttons pushed.

Honestly, I knew of problems already in RHDN, no debating that.. but wasnt aware RHDN had a major part in what happened to Byuu/Near, I thought it was mostly that "OTHER" website who are well known for doxing/cancelling people that had issues with him. I know RHDN hjas had it's fair share of probolems and even it shuttiong down MANY years ago once before, but then returned, even Zophar has said as much.

MY answer to "RHDN gone too far", it's never too late, there's solutions to stopping toxicity.
For starters, it's an hacking community, you don't need pages upon pages of Forums for trolls to exist, you just need to cut access to the problem, and that's the forums. Whilst my solutions would be harsh it would sure sort out those trolls. Sure, they might start bitching and moaning about it elsewhere BUT who cares? it's NOT on RHDN anymore and thats the aim, to remove the toxicity on RHDN's forums from people, they can go moan else where. It would send them a clear message and it would clearly work, though it would cut access to those people who are legit there just for access to the hacks/patches, but then if that's all they are their for they DO NOT need access to a forum really, jsut the patches, which they'd have from the project page.

1. I would have started by removing comment sections on every project page, 'cos lets face it, they are (supposedly) only there so people can give a review that hackers really ain't THAT bothered about and reviews can do more harm than good, as D-D is well aware with the SSMS drama that unfolded there.

2. Removed the ability for anyone to create forum posts. Forum section is ONLY reserved for the hacker group thats doing hacking on a game, a mod creates the forum post then grants special access to the hacker leader and those in the hacker group. This would enable people to read whats being done, updates, testing, whatever but they can't comment in there themselves. Kinda like how DD has sorted their forum out into game list but no access for commenting to regular people/visitors. IF a person's added to the hacker group say for 'beta testing' then they are granted access to THAT specific hacker group's game forum page, that's it. RHDN Mods then monitor forum posts in these project groups, if they trolling then the group gets access removed for posting, entire group, this ensures every group member does their best to keep to the rules, no group wants access taken from their project page 'cos of maybe 1 person being toxic.

But yeah.. it's harsh, but it would be a solution where apparently there is none, just remove access to forum posting, and commenting on project pages, simple! That would end toxicity on RHDN for good, and let's face another thing, it's all mostly crap on the forum any hows, other than project pages that give progress/updates and such.

Any ways, MY point in OP is that it's a damn shame RHDN is going down like this, I just hope it's NOT removed off the net completely and people still have access to it's thousands of Hacks/patches. I know there's RHDO but it's not a very active hacking site, limited patch resources, then there's the whole thing with "CDRomance" and RHDO's owner and people having issues with that.. so that presents a whole other set of problems on a different site, people wont use it just for that one reason, OR upload their patches there.

it sucks that toxicity ruined RHDN i am mostly centrist on nearly all issues except LGBTQ rights i am a firm liberal on a fourm should try and take a middle approach then just be on one side and forget the first rule of discussion be calm collected and don't be a dick i keep my rage directed at policy makers and people who start nuclear before the first word is said both the left and the right are awful just in different ways both are right about some issues and horribly wrong in others i can see both view points . The reason the world has gone to crap is because people stopped talking to each other and debating in a healthful way blanket statments and calling an entire group monsters by the actions of the few we need to compromise work with each-other talk think with compassion and reason . i dont go around calling all people of a certain religion scumbags i recognize that an amount of people of any particular religion or lack there of can be monsters anyone of any walk of life can be a hidden monster and predator .I just wish people could come to an understanding more and be nice and articulate with disagreements. I am in Independent with more of a left leaning due to welfare and lgbtq rights economically i believe the answer is in the middle tax cooperations the most ETC ETC. I keep myself calm and try to be the best and kindest person i can be and fight for the 3 issues i feel the strongest about but i would never go reply to someone calling them every horrible name in the book . It seems RHDN did not take treat everyone fairly and let calm and polite discussions happen but stop hate from both sides from turning the place into a sewer . God bless all of you and i hope somethings people stop acting like dicks.

@Draken: Yeah, I'm pretty exhausted after all that actually. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best use of my time on the weekend. You're most likely right that this person was certainly nothing more than a troll trying to push my buttons, as you've said. I probably shouldn't have allowed myself to get caught up in such an obvious "bait" type post, but it bugged me when they started taking shots at Wildbill over our Super Shell Monsters Story translation which was released years ago.

@SylarDean: You make some very good points and might be right about the idea of allowing only project members and beta testers to participate in discussions regarding the romhacking/translation project that they are currently working on. As you've mentioned, it would be rather harsh to turn off all outside discussions in this way, but it would definitely prevent any trolling or abusive behavior that the team might experience. A long while back, I remember speaking to Wildbill and Taskforce about something very similar and one of them mentioned that it might have been best if Nightcrawler did away with the forums in general and kept the site as merely a library and news site for various romhacks and translations. This probably would have been for the best.

@minspi: I understand and agree with a lot of what you're saying. Finding balance without favoring one side or the other is paramount in keeping the moderation of a site unbiased, fair and just. I myself am also a centrist, but a bit more towards the conservative side of things, center-right if you will. I've always opposed extremism on both sides of the political spectrum, be it the alt-right or alt-left. Radicalism and extremism never leads to anything good, and should thus not be encouraged for the sake of a unified and civil nation. People should ideally be able to openly debate such issues with each other in a civilized way and without resorting to personal attacks, threats or insults. After all, people have different needs and opinions on just about everything and a "one-size-fits-all" solution to everything simply won't work in most cases. There are both good and bad points when it comes to both liberalism and conservatism. The secret is finding a healthy way to balance both types of ideas and policies in an ideal society.

I wanted to end this message with my latest post from the currently ongoing debate over on RHDN. This is getting a bit tiring, so I'll probably end it here (assuming I don't get reeled back into a debate there again.) Note, this a direct response to a post by "PZT":

I guess that I must have mistaken you for trolling when you wrote this: "please let me put slurs and rants about government healthcare in my translations or I will cry"

That was definitely NOT trolling by any means, and very mature of you by the way. What exactly gives self-entitled people like you the right to dictate to others what they should or shouldn't include in their respective works? What exactly makes you the "authority" on this? Who cares if a group didn't want to include subtitles in their translation? It's their business, not yours. If you don't like it, just don't play using their translation then. Learn Japanese and either play it that way or translate it yourself.

Your long wall of text proved absolutely nothing yet again. It basically boils down to: "Liberals good, they say what they want and Conservatives bad, they get silenced." Don't even try to deny that it's not true when you referred to the admins at RHDO as "right-wing creeps" in your first post here. You are the one that is trying to silence people, not me. I believe in open discussions among different groups, you're just an alt-left troll, it's as simple as that. And yes, it absolutely is a double standard to allow toxic leftist trolls to spam, but delete every other response to their posts. Furthermore, I know all about being a moderator on a big site, as I've been an admin at Dynamic-Designs for over twelve years now.

So many words, so little wisdom. Once again, you have proven my point that those who only focus on complaining and nothing else, contribute absolutely nothing to the scene. This is a romhacking/translation board, not an alt-leftist hangout. You can go to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or literally any social media platform which all welcome alt-leftists such as yourself and shuns everyone else. I'm getting really tired of having to repeat the same points over and over again. I sincerely hope that you all take the time to read my posts very carefully before jumping to conclusions. I'm a centrist first and foremost and am firmly against extremism on both sides of the political spectrum, as nothing good ever comes out of radicalism.

Latest and hopefully last post because this uneducated moron is a huge waste of my time:

Okay, I'm going to make this very clear for you one final time:

1. There is no contradiction, open discussion means stating your opinion on something, not harassing people. You can say what you want about a translation or romhack, but once the author has explained their reasoning to you and has clearly stated that this decision is final, it's time to move on. And yes, there is in fact such a thing as an extremist liberal or conservative. Regardless of left-wing or right-wing politics, a person can certainly take things too far and can thus be considered an extremist either way.

2. Are you sure that I'm the one being ignored here, because it seems to me that no one is taking you very seriously. Case and point:




3. You never answered my original question all this time. Namely, what exactly have you contributed or offered to the community here? I've been a member at RHDN since 2008 and have submitted many translations over the years, written numerous reviews and fixed quite a few pages by providing the relevant information and making corrections where needed. What exactly have you done for this site besides writing nonsense in this thread and then patting yourself on the back for it? Face reality, I'm a translator and top contributor here and you're just a virtue signaling troll. You're the one being laughed at and ignored, not me. I hope that you can at least comprehend this fact for what it is.

Another one of my replies:


It means that he doesn't want to give in to pressure or pander to people like you who only want to virtue signal and interfere with his translation for the sake of your leftist politics. Especially if no such liberal themes existed in the original Japanese version, which is usually true of most older games. Once again, your post is basically "liberals good, conservatives bad" and nothing more than this. You demonize those that don't agree with you and want them silenced, that's pretty much it.

Oh and by the way, so what exactly have you contributed to this site? Any romhacks or translations or anything at all really...?

Oh man, this just went from annoying to funny very fast with this moron:

Um, weren't aishsha's posts and those of his teammates deleted? And yes, I've also had many of my posts deleted before in the past as well, including one from this very thread, yet your insults are allowed apparently. Such things were actually much more common then than now, so at least there's that. Besides, it seems to me as though you certainly would like to silence those that you disagree with.
Oh, and great comeback again. You once more disproved nothing of which I've said. So, what are your contributions to this site because you seem to refuse to answer. Now, why would that be exactly...?

Hahaha, oh my, how lame! Is that the best you've got? What a sad little display. Well, I'm certainly done here then, seeing as you can't disprove anything that I've said and can't even seem to answer what your contributions (read: none) are to this site. Have fun writing lame one-liners and then patting yourself on the back for it. What do toxic leftists' always say? Oh right: "Educate yourself." Perhaps you can learn from that.

The coolest character in Final Fantasy 7? Okay, I'll take it! Bye then, Dan Hibiki!

You make an excellent point here. This is exactly what Tom said about his Goemon translation and people still harassed him by saying something along the lines of "It doesn't matter if that word was used in the original Japanese script, you should have changed it anyway!" Which is of course, sheer and utter nonsense. Again, fan translators have no reason to pander or give in to the demands of others to change things as they see fit. You can certainly leave such a suggestion, but once the author said no, that's final.

And I'll leave you all with this one final thought on the matter: Who contributes more on a romhacking/translation board? It is the romhacker? The translator? Nope, it's neither. Why, it's the virtue signaling SJW of course! Such nonsense... Ah, what a complete and utter moron that leftist troll was...

Your first mistake was going to RHDN knowing what it has become and expecting something different. As you've said, you could have found far better uses of your time. Your only response probably should have been, if you don't like it, don't play it and/or retranslate it yourself. If you don't have the skills to do that, then too bad for you. Whining isn't going to change anything. But feel free.

You are of course, 100% right, Taskforce. In retrospect, it would have been much better and far easier to simply tell such individuals to simply not play it or translate it themselves if they wish and leave it at that, as you've said. However, the problem lay in the fact that I was not just speaking on behalf of our own translations, but rather those of every group that was ever driven away from RHDN by people there such as those that run amok and do nothing but constantly complain and demonize the ones that actually put in the effort to release romhacks and translations in the first place.

I was also stuck in a loop in which I was constantly accused of being tolerant of right-wing messages in translations, but not left-wing ones, which is not at all what I said. What I tried explaining to these people was that no one has the right to berate or harass a group for what they choose to put in their romhack/translation. For example, pressuring Tom to change a certain word in his Goemon translation was wrong, as was attacking Wildbill and our entire group in general over a message placed within the Super Shell Monsters Story translation. Which by the way, wasn't no where as big of a deal as some people made it out to be. Sure, it might have broken character a bit, but it was funny to see. Besides, what was so bad about it anyway? People these days sure get offended easily over nothing.

But yeah, I probably should not have allowed myself to sink down to their level. Simply ignoring and not engaging with such people is usually for the best, but some might see it as though you've "lost the argument" if you do so. Instead, I tried explaining my point to them as best as I could, but some were just not willing to listen to reason. Seeing that one fanatical leftist saying that they contribute more by virtue signaling and complaining instead of actually working on romhacks/translations themselves sure was laughable. These self-entitled type people really vex and put me in a bad mood, especially considering that they seem to be just about everywhere these days. So, I'll leave it at that for now. I see that the thread in question has now been locked at RHDN, which is probably for the best at this point, seeing as it devolved into nothing more than a back and forth trolling session by the end of it.

Edit: I also forgot to mention those that harassed Aishsha and the rest of his team about adding subs to the intro of his PoPoLoCrois translation, not just on RHDN, but also on his own site as well until he finally snapped at them. Then these people acted as it they were the victims and as those Aishsha and rest of his group were the unreasonable ones. And as usual, a large group of these leftists then went on to accuse him of being "ableist, racist, sexist" and just about everything else -ist in the liberal dictionary of false accusations and pandering narratives. Because hey, if you don't like someone or something, call them a horrible thing and then get them cancelled, right? Yeah, that's the leftist way! These kinds of people make me sick...

Regarding Tom's situation: https://forums.libretro.com/t/losing-tom-the-translator-from-online-bullies/26254