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The development teams of Tiberian Sun: Reborn and Red Alert 2: Apocalypse Rising have formed a new group and launched a base of operations, called W3D Hub. The entirety of the teams has migrated there, so you can be sure you'll still be playing the Renegade-derived games you know and love. Discussions relevant to those two mods have been ported to the new forums as well, so you will not miss out on anything.

 

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Click here to see their forums and greet them.

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BHP is still there, APB is still in their hands.

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What does this mean for Bluehell Productions ad APB?

 

There shouldn't be much of a change in the goings-on over at Bluehell productions and APB. Some staffers will continue to contribute to BHP, while also joining this new community to help out on projects like Tiberian Sun Reborn or Apocalypse Rising.

 

APB servers will remain on the launcher, and there should be no impact on gameplay for regular players (if there is, be sure to report it so it can be fixed immediately!)

 

W3D Hub's doors will always be open in case Bluehell wants to join.

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W3D Hub went about it in such an ethically disgusting way, however. The database for BHP was literally stolen from BHP for this new website, and I advise that if anyone on this website has an account on BHP, you should reset your password.

 

Apologies if this seems to be a spam post or an attack, but I feel like everyone deserves to know that their information has been compromised.

Edited by Frashy

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Judging from the W3D Hub team's posts on BHP and W3D Hub forums, this was done to let the real creators of the games have control over them, lest they'd lose it due to shenanigans behind the scenes.

 

As for the passwords, there should be a mass password reset soon on W3D Hub, if it has already not taken place. This will be done to counter any theories of information theft.

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W3D Hub went about it in such an ethically disgusting way, however. The database for BHP was literally stolen from BHP for this new website, and I advise that if anyone on this website has an account on BHP, you should reset your password.

 

Apologies if this seems to be a spam post or an attack, but I feel like everyone deserves to know that their information has been compromised.

 

Passwords use the exact same encryption on W3D Hub and Bluehell Productions Forums. Both sites are equally trustworthy and run on licensed IPB software. Everyone's passwords are just as safe as they were on BHP, but as a precautionary measure they have all been reset.

 

The database was not stolen. It was legitimately copied by one of the owners. Only parts of the database pertaining to Apocalypse Rising and Reborn were copied. User accounts were copied to make a seamless transition and to keep all members on familiar ground. Whoever requests it can have their account removed, no questions asked.

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Actually, without prior discussion or announcement, the database was indeed copied over; including content from before the inclusion of Apocalypse Rising or the more recent acquisition of Tiberian Sun: Reborn. I am dismayed this was done without even warning users or other BHP staff ahead of time.

 

This "new site" include all sorts of "old" things; private messages, contact e-mail addresses, birthdays, moderator discussion, staffing and recruitment, even things like my own wedding planning process from an older hidden subforum that apparently became exposed.

 

When I was first informed that W3D Hub was going to be "a new place" for W3d mod discussion, I didn't anticipate it would be literally grabbing the old place in the middle of the night before rehosting it and handing the keys over to unknown parties.

 

Considering that I am actually in charge of BHP, let me make it officially known this wasn't done "legitimately" or with any discussion. If you're going to discard all of the user data, all of the previous posts, all the private messages, all the passwords, all the IP logs -- why go through the trouble of taking and rehosting all of it in the first place?

 

This was a serious breach of trust among fellow modders and a serious breach of trust of our fanbase.

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Excuse me for interfering, but I feel I need to comment on this.

 

Considering that I am actually in charge of BHP, let me make it officially known this wasn't done "legitimately" or with any discussion. If you're going to discard all of the user data, all of the previous posts, all the private messages, all the passwords, all the IP logs -- why go through the trouble of taking and rehosting all of it in the first place?

 

Wasn't OWA the co-founder of BHP? There must be a reason why this was done silently and abruptly and why your former right hand was involved. It surely wasn't just because they were on a whim. Elaborate things like this don't happen just because someone involved suddenly starts to feel like it for no reason. Take it from someone who's staff on a site that suffered several community fractures over the years.

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AR and TSR were both brought on later in each project's development. My right hand(s) were PointlessAmbler and TruYuri; that this was done in secret appears to have been fueled by some sort of paranoia about retribution. When I first heard about this whole thing (my phone buzzing incessantly), I thought it was fine to see a new W3D project site start up with some fresh blood and new ideas, and did not understand the concern players and testers and staff were expressing.

 

If you may recall your C&C modding history, we previously had Reborn join with us at a point in the past during an uncertain period for that project, and when they had found their footing, we split them off without incident -- so, I thought there was no cause for concern here and that there was an overreaction.

 

I didn't realize that the "New Thing" was announced by suddenly redirecting users via the game launcher to a direct clone of the pre-existing site, or even that the BHP site itself and all user content and personal information had been taken. And I didn't find that out until late last night, and it wasn't from OWA.

 

e: I suppose I can see why, if you were planning to do something so unethical, you would not want to announce it in advance. This doesn't suddenly make it become ethical, though. I'd like to see all of that content removed immediately, and this includes all user-created data and account information.

Edited by Chronojam
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That's a lot better; there was never any reason to copy people's forum profiles and registration/account information and history at all.

 

I see they've removed the "Licensed to Bluehell Productions" notification from the bottom of all the pages, too. Again, I'm not against a new site at all -- but the incredibly unethical way in which a "new community forum" was birthed by directly cloning the existing BHP forum instead of simply purchasing a new installation and IPBoard license really left me troubled and saddened.

 

If you want 68,000 posts or whatever and an active userbase, go ahead and get some users to come make content -- don't copy/paste users and content wholesale in the middle of the night and act like everything's on the up-and-up. We had actually that happen before with some crazy guy named "Sargeant" (who simply scraped the forums instead of abusing database access) and at the time, everybody mocked him; this deserves no less scorn.

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Has long has no one from Reborn waste productive modding time by working on the W3D joke that is 'Apocalypse Rising', hopefully both APB and Reborn can make some progress to add future content that will improve both mods.

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But why make a move to a new forum without involving W3D's biggest mod?

That's a good question.

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I'm trying to remain neutral on all this, I don't want any one to think myself or CNCNZ.com as whole is taking sides. But I get this spooky feeling of deja vu from the old days where it was APB versus Reborn. Personally I always felt the best chance for success for likes of APB, TSR and AR was to all be under the Bluehell Productions name. Wasn't Reborn floating in limbo before Bluehell Productions took control of it?

 

Regardless of where either of these games call home, CNCNZ.com will still cover their major news and releases as we have done in the past. Nothing changes on our side.

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Not trying to start up a flame war here, but there are some false allegations being thrown around. OWA (One Winged Angel) and CJ started BHP together. So the whole "Stolen Data" is a lie, OWA had admin access and full right as co-owner of BHP to remove his content from the website. There were passwords and members profiles copied, but everything was encrypted and we as a group had no malicious intent.
We had every intention of getting rid of those profiles but we were forced to rush to go live, so that oversight was our mistake. The primary goal of the database copy was to obtain 6-7 years worth of OUR design discussions and attached assets that were contained on internal BHP forums. We did it this way because of disputes with the web host and the producers of TSR (TeamWolf) and AR (OWA).

Due to the web host’s past actions, we could not take the chance of losing our development content, so that is why the community appeared to pop up as a clone to begin with..

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So the whole "Stolen Data" is a lie

 

I do not mean to start a flame war either and I am aware that I have nothing to do with this matter, but your statement kinda worries me, as a webmaster. The 'stolen data' really depends on the point of view. In my point of view, as a webmaster, I do not think that the 'stolen data' is a lie, as you claim. It is really stolen and I would be very pissed off if the same situation happened in any website that I am part of. At the moment you make their database public in another location, you are indeed stealing their data.

 

Really, the database data from Blue Hell Productions... or any other site... belongs to the site itself, not to the founders or admins. That data has been built by a collectivity who visited that place and that includes guests, members, hosted mods, moderators, admins, etc.

 

And to make things worse, your actions did do a serious damage at the Blue Hell Productions. It's not wrong to start another community because you are unhappy with the politics in your community, but you shouldn't harm others when you do that.

 

 

Due to the web host’s past actions, we could not take the chance of losing our development content, so that is why the community appeared to pop up as a clone to begin with..

 

You could have made a private copy of their database and transferred the important posts to your new forum (copy and paste text, export posts as RSS and import them, etc).

Edited by Banshee
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So in your words when CJ did the same thing to Crimeson when he changed web hosts, he stole her content to start Bluehellproductions.com?

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I don't know exactly how BHP was created, so I cannot say it for sure. But if they've used the database from another site without the consent of those who ran it, then yes, stolen is the correct expression.

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Maybe its different in the data world but I've always looked at it as, when you rent a building from someone (unless it comes fully furnished) then you provide the contents in that building for your business,living or whatever. The renter owns and maintains the building while the contents inside are owned by the one renting. You move out, you take your contents with you.

 

Also in a business scenario when a business splits, the company and its content are split between the CEO's or business owners. In this case two out of the three parts of this company split off. But instead of the greater part of the company retaining the name, it chose to take what was rightfully theirs and started a new company.

 

I'm sorry I just can't see your logic in a web master owning a company's assets.

Edited by Wallywood

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Chronojam was in charge of RA/APB back when BHP was founded, it was Crimson that owned the domain name and redirected www.apathbeyond.com to Aircraftkillers portfolio website. This is a different matter. This is stealing a database instead of creating new forums from scratch and importing some certain topics or subforums if required, which no doubt would have been done willingly if there was a discussion about the split, instead of a cloak and dagger operation.

 

Specially waiting for nighttime in Australia so the BHP webmaster would be asleep. I have seen the posts of the discussions of how all this was to happen on the W3D staff forums, don't try to justify your actions which you knew were childish and wrong.

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As I said, it is not the webmaster who owns the data. It is the company. In this case, BlueHellProductions owns their forum data and not their admins or any other person. If you want to use the database data outside BlueHellProductions you do need the authorization of the company, which is something that did not happen when W3DHub was created.

Edited by Banshee

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Chronojam was in charge of RA/APB back when BHP was founded, it was Crimson that owned the domain name and redirected www.apathbeyond.com to Aircraftkillers portfolio website. This is a different matter. This is stealing a database instead of creating new forums from scratch and importing some certain topics or subforums if required, which no doubt would have been done willingly if there was a discussion about the split, instead of a cloak and dagger operation.

 

Specially waiting for nighttime in Australia so the BHP webmaster would be asleep. I have seen the posts of the discussions of how all this was to happen on the W3D staff forums, don't try to justify your actions which you knew were childish and wrong.

If i could quickly clarify the apathbeyond.com > bluehellproductions.com site move -

 

Crimson wasn't giving up the domain - the site wasn't ripped, it was migrated, kept under the same company, just with a different host.

When Crimson finally gave up the domain, it was transferred into BHP account holdings and is registered for the use of Bluehell Productions.

 

The Posts, Users, Launcher were Stolen from Bluehell Productions, not migrated, the remaing staff at BHP had no idea what W3D were about to do. As W3D is in no way affiliated with Bluehell Productions, the data on their forums is illegally obtained.

Edited by Catalyst

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So in your words when CJ did the same thing to Crimeson when he changed web hosts, he stole her content to start Bluehellproductions.com?

 

 

I think it bears repeating that the site and staffing was actually kept intact when we changed hosting in the past, even if the primary domain name and actual server configuration was adjusted from time to time; whether or not you reached the page via APathBeyond.com, Bluehellproductions.com, or Bluehell.Productions it was the same site and services provided by the same organization, with fairly consistent terms of use and licensing.

 

Users have been very conspicuously left confused and upset-- I've fielded many complaints about the launcher suddenly changing, funneling players to a cloned site where their profiles and content mysteriously appeared, republished without their consent. A couple of very upset users confirmed to be using the FB authorization system have actually also contacted me today, alleging that some of the information disclosed by this breach has already been used by to connect their forum identity to their associated Facebook pages, leading to harassment.

 

This is all very troubling, and heightens my own concerns about the fact that many moderators now in place at W3D Hub were former moderators that were discharged from the BHP forums for repeated misconduct.

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