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Jul - Display Case - Jul MotM for September: Xkeeper New poll - New thread - Thread closed
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— Anya —

Trudging Scribe



Post 10513/23359
Posted on 09-01-09 03:01:07 AM Link

Jul MotM: Xkeeper


First off, this month's MotM interview ended rather quickly due to certain events.

But at any rate, congrats to Xkeeper for being the newest Jul member of the month.

Anya: Congrats on being Jul's MotM for September. Let's start off with the usual question: the story behind your user name.

Xkeeper: I guess I may as well go into more detail, eh? Even if the origin is a bit lame.

A lot of people know (or should, with how many times I've said it) that it's really just × ("times") + keeper, combining to mean something along the lines of "time keeper". As anybody who had seen my room circa 2005-2006 would know, I kept a lot of clocks/watches/misc. gauges; and it shows on the board, too, given all the doom timers and other graphs...

Going back a bit further, though, the idea was actually my mom's, if only because that would've been when I was 11 years old. The original name was "xkeepr" (AOL had a 6-letter limit for screennames), then with how much I got bounced between custody (and the canceling/reopening of accounts) had various numbers/letters attached, then eventually dropped.

The more you know.

Anya: What originally brought you to Acmlm’s?

Xkeeper: Ah, a fun one! The first step was opening up the issue of EGM our middle school library had. Inside, there was an article on fan translations (page 2) ... if you look closely, you might notice the blurb at the top has a screenshot of Strange Mario Bros.!

That was back when Challenge Games was still alive and well... I followed the URL in that page to their website, and a few links later had ended up on Acmlm's ROM Hacking Domain. I was a complete novice when it came to emulation (along with some embarrassing mistakes when trying to patch a "ROM"), but after a week or two I finally registered.

Not long after, friend of mine followed, and I was quickly a regular. (Of course, I wasn't active until much later.)

Anya: Most of us know the story of how Jul came to be, but why? Why make a new message board? And why have you kept it going?

Xkeeper: Time to go back into the first Justus League's archives, way back when.

As you can probably tell, the name was a pun on both "Justice League" (a group of the elite peacekeepers) and "Just us", since, well... that's what it was; it was mostly a hangout for the staff and a few selected other friends of mine to hang out on, since the general board back in 2005 was a rather unruly mess; we hadn't quite perfected the art of moderation yet, and most of us were fed up with the main forum.

After a while of us improving, we eventually got the main forum under control enough that most of us migrated back, and JL mostly sank into the void of the forgotten. Outside of the occasional post, nobody really knew what it was.

Flash foward to Acmlm's Board II; sensing a bit of distrust amongst some of the staff, JL2 opened up, and it was more of the same JL1 was. It was something of an "expanded staff forum", much like Jul's Member + category was (or rather, is).

A few weeks later, after the huge blowup on July 21st (22nd?), JL2 went public. Forums in the open were created and it was good. After a while, JL2 slowly changed into Jul, the general populous migrated here, and, well, here we are.

Some people might be aware that there's actually circles higher than Member +, but for the most part these aren't really involved with the board as much as they are... extracurricular cliques.

The nice thing about Jul is that, underneath it all, a lot of us still are one big family, and I think that's really one of the things the prior incarnations were sorely lacking. Now if we could all just loosen up a bit...

Anya: Are you surprised on how well Jul has been doing and that it hasn’t fallen curse to (too much) drama and BS that Acmlm’s had?

Xkeeper: The biggest reason Jul is successful, I think, is because of our really strict no-trolling policy. That was a problem that really plagued other boards (and still does), where the mods don't really take notice of when people are being dicks to others.

Am I surprised, though? Definitely. I really figured it'd probably hang around the 100-150ppd range forever (or at least a lot longer), but it picked up pretty quickly in the last few months. The biggest thing I still think would help, though, is if people just loosened up and invited their friends / made threads. If your friend doesn't like it, no big loss; it's still one more potential member. As for threads, we're... really not as strict on that as we used to be. As long as you can keep it sane elsewhere, nobody's going to kill you for the binge threads. Provided it doesn't get out of control (where those threads are the only ones being posted in) nobody's going to really trash it... I mean, we've had the Pub and What's On Your Mind threads for how long, now?

Anya: Besides running Jul, what are some of your hobbies?

Xkeeper: Most people probably know of at least one of them; making Lua scripts for old games. Other hobbies of mine generally include programming, general computer stuff, and gaming... things which most people here are probably no stranger to.

I also moonlight as an admin on Sonic Retro (though not nearly as much as here), and occasionally help out elsewhere whenever things conspire to make it so.

I used to be into pixel art, but in recent years (2005-2007) I stopped and haven't really touched anything besides the occasional pixel since.

Anya: Thinking of using your knowledge in computer programming and the likes as a career?

Xkeeper: It's really been on my mind. The biggest problem I've found is that there's really no decent starting point; I can't really go to college (requires money or scholarships, neither of which I have) and nobody I know has any experience with peddling such skills.

Of course, that didn't stop this from occurring, but the less said about how that site came into existence, the better.

Anya: What is your all time favorite game, and why?

Xkeeper: Link's Awakening (DX), no contest. Back in the day I really only had a few systems; a NES with SMB1-3, Zelda 1, and a few selected other (usually crappy) games.

On the Gameboy the story wasn't much different; the first few games I had were mostly the early ones, like Super Mario Land, Motocross Maniacs, and a few other occasional games... then we got Link's Awakening used at some store.

I still remember, it had a few saved games on it that I played; mostly just terrible players (200+ deaths!), but with how young I was I couldn't even get the first dungeon's key. I played that game all the time, never really managing to beat the final boss. When I got my Game Genie, it opened up a whole new world of things I could do with it.

A few years later, I got the DX version, and it was everything I knew and loved about the original, just better. It stands out among the rest of the series (next to Majora's Mask) for not being set in Hyrule or dealing with Ganon, has a completely unique storyline and good characters, and overall is just... good.

Over the years, nothing's held my interest quite like it.




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— FPzero —
9590



Post 5804/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 09-01-09 03:08:11 AM Link
Congrats on MotM Xk. Seems weird that you'd get it but I guess we've got to remember that underneath the whole admin guise you're still a member as well.

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Sponty
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Posted on 09-01-09 03:09:22 AM Link





Congrats Xk! 'Twas a good read.

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— Colin —
Missing: One avatar. Will be restored at some point.

Post 3308/10052
Active 8.3 years ago
Posted on 09-01-09 03:53:31 AM Link
Hey, the pick can be anyone.

Great read too.

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Xkeeper

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Posted on 09-01-09 04:16:24 AM (last edited by Revya at 09-01-09 01:16 AM) Link
I personally like to think of it mre as a chance to let everybody know me a little bit better, since (especially lately) I've been pretty much nothing but a name and a few words.

But yeah, thanks I'm glad you guy senjoyed it.

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Higsby

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Posted on 09-01-09 08:00:56 AM Link
That was really fun to read. I think that it's interesting to find out more about the person that's running the place .

Congratulations Xkeeper




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Pandaren
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Posted on 09-01-09 08:10:23 AM Link
I'll have my trophy someday! Juuuuust yoooou waaaait!

Congrats Xk

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303darthbobby
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Posted on 09-02-09 01:00:01 AM Link
Congrats Xk.

I actually wish the interview was a bit longer. Bit of an enjoyable read.

____________________
IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS.

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Posted on 09-02-09 01:00:54 AM Link
Feel free to ask me anything here, then.

____________________
— Anya —

Trudging Scribe



Post 10550/23359
Posted on 09-02-09 01:41:57 AM Link
That's why we have an open thread here. I've always mentioned that anyone can ask a question that wasn't asked.

____________________

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Posted on 09-02-09 01:45:55 AM Link

That was an excellent read. What made you decide to make Jul?

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Xkeeper

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Posted on 09-02-09 01:46:42 AM (last edited by Revya at 09-01-09 10:47 PM) Link
Originally posted by Bitmap
That was an excellent read. What made you decide to make Jul?

Getting the knife in the back from blackhole89.


That and a lot of the community wasn't happy with what he did, so... most of them came here.

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Posted on 09-02-09 01:49:20 AM (last edited by Bitmap at 09-01-09 10:49 PM) Link

I am assuming you were an admin at one point in another board? Which that "Blackhole" user made you make a board here?

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Xkeeper

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Posted on 09-02-09 01:56:30 AM Link
I was the main admin of Acmlm's Board #2.

I blew it up in favor of downgrading to a codebase that didn't suck balls, which became Acmlm's Board #3.

The server owner (who was hosting it as a favor) and I got into a spat, so that split off into ||board (defunct) and Acmlm's Board II (AB #4), running Acmlmboard 2.

Blackhole89 (who was hosting it as a favor) decided he'd rather run it, and conspired with Emuz (long-gone former admin of the original board) and Ailure (ex-friend) to basically give me the middle finger.

Since then, board2 (as it now calls itself) has withered into a diseased cancer and Jul is still putting along as always.

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ReiNi
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Posted on 09-02-09 02:02:26 AM Link
Now with 60% more chance of spontaneous combustion.
----------------------------
Um, guess I may ask then... what was the first rom hack (that wasn't just a translation) you've played? Or the one that influenced you the most.
Just to know how did you get into rom hacking before you found about Acmlm... (Assuming the hacks of that site weren't the first ones you heard of actually)

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Xkeeper

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Posted on 09-02-09 02:04:23 AM Link
I was brought here by this blurb in an EGM article (notice the Strange Mario Bros. screenshot).

From there, the first hack I ever tried was ... Strange Mario Bros! ...3, that is. That would be why my first hack (which shall not be named) was based on SMB3 too.

Aside from that, I tried a lot of the dumb things on Zophar's, like ASCII Mario Bros and other silly things.

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Posted on 09-02-09 02:38:40 AM Link
Congrats on being MotM! It's always very nice to know some more about the person who keeps things running here.

One question that was on my mind when I read this: If you had the money to go to college or a university, which would be the one you would like to attend, regardless of where and how it is?
Xkeeper

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Posted on 09-02-09 02:39:41 AM Link
Where a college is usually has a lot of impact on a decision.

Though regardless, I haven't really considered anything, mostly because my chances of going to college are more or less nil.

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Pandaren
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Posted on 09-02-09 05:09:25 AM Link
Is Jul purely coded from a scratch?

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Posted on 09-02-09 05:14:10 AM Link
Acmlmboard - 06/11/2009 b378



Still based off of Acmlmboard 1.92, after all these years... though that was made from scratch (by Acmlm), so I guess so.

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Jul - Display Case - Jul MotM for September: Xkeeper New poll - New thread - Thread closed


Rusted Logic

Acmlmboard - commit 47be4dc [2021-08-23]
©2000-2022 Acmlm, Xkeeper, Kaito Sinclaire, et al.

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