Post by Hoist on Aug 26, 2013 3:08:59 GMT -5
Total Transformers Message Board was created at the end of August 2002, with a bit experience already of running a couple of message boards it was always inevitable that I would start my own as I - like many was there at the beginning of Transformers.
The year was 1984, and I was eight years old. Here in the UK we had Saturday morning shows for 2 - 3 hours that would show kids cartoons/shows and live audiences of kids for the show. In general they were hosted programs, not only showing kid's shows but also having lots of crazy fun, competitions and stuff. On our third terrestrial channel they had this a show like this but very early in the morning. One presenter would introduce shows, there was no live audience, but there was still crazy fun etc. It was on this show - The Wide Awake Club/Wac-A-Day that they showed the original Transformers cartoon every morning. Even though the working week at school was done and I could lie in, I still woke up religiously to watch the Transformers cartoon every Saturday morning when I discovered it. I was 8 years old, what boy wouldn't be impressed with a cartoon of giant robots in a war against each other, coming to Earth, and continuing that war but disguising themselves as Earth vehicles etc.
It was this love for the cartoon every Saturday morning that also got me into the UK Marvel comics, who ran their own UK stories whilst intermingled with stories from the U.S. comic strip. So much so that I got my mother to order it, so that as well as the cartoons every Saturday, I also had the pleasure of waiting for the latest Transformers comic to be posted through the door. So it when from the cartoons to the comics to the toys. Unfortunately my parents divorced when I was 5/6 years old so we were a single parent family and couldn't afford much. As a result I wasn't lucky enough to get all these call Transformers toys like my friends did and generally just ended up with the Minibots, I think I may have had bumblebee and beachcomber, I definitely had the likes of mostly the second wave - Warpath, Powerglide, Cosmos etc, no Cliffjumper/Gears/Windcharger/Brawn. I always wanted one of the bigger, regular sized Transformers as my mate had all the cool ones like Megatron, the seekers and his neighbor had Optimus Prime. The two leaders I desperately wanted but never got and would be the staple of my "Most wanted" in adult life. I think it was one Christmas therefore I received Hoist from my father, my first and only regular sized transformer, unless you also count Twintwist who I got another Christmas. I distinctly remember sitting behind the couch, transforming Hoist, applying the decals/stickers and being in awe of the figure, he got lots of play time. I loved that toy. The years came and went, we had the Transformers movie and Optimus Prime died, and by 1987 I was moving on. I was about to enter senior school, what you'd call High School in the US at the age of 11. I started to drift away from Transformers, in part because I didn't have the best time of it at both schools and because another UK comic my new friend was reading came to my attention. This comic was the long running UK cult sci-fi comic 2000AD, which if you don't know, you will know because of it's character Judge Dredd, especially now because of the 2012 movie. I I transitioned over to this comic and dropped the Transformers one (I guess), and this continued for the rest of my school life. Come the 90's, Transformers was pretty much dead as far as I knew and I was attending college. It was one Saturday that I went into a local newsagents down my high street and I saw a Transformers G2 comic. Surprised that it was still going, I had a look and brought the comic. (Which I still have!) but was deeply disappointed. The issue I picked up was one of the UK stories that was intermingled with the US run, and pretty crappy. The artwork was poor and it looked kiddy, especially with the "Find the G2 symbols" throughout the comic. I wasn't aware, then of the US comic version , so this did not impress me as well as the repaints of the original figures, like a blue Grimlock - my favourite Transformers character ever. There were also these new ones, cars with luminescent windscreens, it did not impress.
During that time, I was suffering more problems as my mother, the one parent I was living with, died from cancer. It was a week after my 18th birthday, so the rest of the 90's I had no contact with the Transformers franchise as I was too busy trying to piece my life back together. I moved into a flat (Apartment) on my own as my father only had a one bedroom flat with his partner, so I couldn't go live with him. Whilst trying to put my life back together, also quitting college in the end, I did see a bit of one episode of Transformers: Beast wars. Now I'm not sure if I knew it was Beast Wars, but at first but from the bit I saw I didn't like it - Transformers turning into animals. Ironic as I would come to love it as an adult, who didn't, but I was older and old enough to appreciate it then. I continued to try and pick up my life and in 2001 I got my first computer, actually it was my sisters old computer. And for many years whilst I was "Out of the Transformers loop" I used to have frequent dreams about those old Transformers comics. Finding them in an old newsagents, picking them up seeing the covers and the pages in my dreams, feeling them again.. They were very vivid and I could see what they looked like perfectly in my dreams. Clearly the impact of the comics as a kid was still impacting on me, but in my dreams. In 2001, when I got my sister's computer the first thing I naturally did was look for transformers sites, finding ones where I could read Transformers comics (The Internet was a lot more innocent then!), until the very early hours of the morning! Eventually I ended up joining the message board - Transfans and may some good friends. Even experiencing my first bit of roleplay as I took part in this mass board roleplay of a Gobot invasion of Cybertron. I would also join other sites like seibertron.com. Transformers @ The moon and The Axalon, becoming good friends with one female TF fan at seibertron.com where we would chat in messenger and just always ended up in banter and fun trying to kill each other, thus my first bit of chat roleplay as well. Although Grimlock is/always will be my favorite character ever and for always, I took the name Hoist after the love for that G1 toy rather than the character. As a point I've never had any problems signing up at TF forums as Hoist, because he's not a popular/favorite character. The Autobot maintenance bot with a geeky voice, not helped by the major stories involving him being Hoist Goes To Hollywood in the cartoon and comics. He was pretty much a background character like a lot of the ensemble cast of characters in G1.
Around this time I also started to get drawn into the world of Transformers toys again. One Saturday, (I guess it must've been a Saturday), I was in a neighboring town and in this very well known UK store called Woolworths, whose chain had been going for many years. As i passed the toy aisle, I wondered if Transformers were still going/about and had a look, gaining my first look at the RID line. Completely on the cuff and seeing a two-pack of spychangers, I brought a pack - after all I was a working man. (By then.) I started buying the two-pack spychangers like Rev and Hot Shot Crosswise and WARS as well as the singular packs. Unlike my childhood I could now afford the regular sized Transformers, the first from this line being one of the leaders - Megatron. Despite being £39.99, when I saw him and looked on the box, I simply had to have him. During this time I also made the grave mistake of applying for a credit card online, despite not really understanding the process of what that means, and run up a tab - one I've only just finished off paying this recently. The more I saw the more I wanted, especially when you have things like Ruination a re-colour of the G1 Bruticus, the build teams and great figures like Optimus prime and Ultra Magnus. (The latter two still being my favourite from that line.)
Online meanwhile I had my own - non Transformers board but voiced my intention on the Transfans forum to make my own Sci-Fi ProBoard. I got a favorable response and when ahead making it, making two Transfans members moderators on the board, despite only knowing them so well. (N00by mistake no#1) The forum ran when but dwindled after the first year before getting deleted, not helped in part by the huge spat I had with one of my moderators who had different ideas about the direction of the board to me. Also, a huge spat with a fellow sci-fi board admin on ProBoards. The latter was, both our faults in hindsight, and we did make up after many years, eventually with me later running his forum until it's end. I was a very n00by admin though, hot-headed and not making great decisions, the majority of these spats was my own fault admittedly. Six months after creating the sci-fi ProBoard The Last Outpost, (Originally called The Prime Directive), I decided to create my first Transformers board. Originally I was going to call it something like Iacon City, but thought it was too obvious. I was also still a member of forums like [@ The Moon] The Axalon and what would become Transformers: Civil War, making lots of new friends on both (Sonicron, Moffman, maybe Sharpshot and his brother on the Axalon) and on Civil war Jazz/latryx7, HeavyAssault, sunstreaker, Starscream, Perceptor et al. When I made the forum i made Ultimate Cheetor (now Trailbreaker) from The Last Outpost/Transfans a moderator, but much bigger things were happening at what would become Transformers: Civil War on ProBoards. At this forum I had become good fiends with Jazz and HeavyAssault and others, it was a transformers discussion forum and there was a lot of fun and banter. In particular a thread named "Decepticons Unite" in which all the Decepticon fans irl in fun would appose the Autobot fans. I answered the call and started my own thread - "Autobots Unite!" gathering all the Autobot fans on the forum, and all was good and fun. Good and fun until the admin of that board, then someone going by the name "Optimus Prime" deciding he wanted to move us, and not to a new forum software, still to another Proboard, for the sake of not knowing how to change the look of the forum. It was all fine and dandy until the day we came on and found alkl the content, all the threads, the banter, everything - had been deleted. We as the members, were furious. We refused to move over, and those of us that did didn't stay long with him. It was during this forum rebellion that member HeavyAssault said/or made a thread something about Renegade Autobots unite! The admin after all was "Optimus Prime" and we were rebelling against him/this forum move after what he'd done. This little aside from heavy, became however and idea. When Sunstreaker took over the board and wanted to develop it as a roleplay message board, he very graciously allowed us to create our own third fiction RP faction, The Renegades. I joined HeavyAssault, followed by Jazz, and the Renegade Autobots were born. The Decepticons couldn't organised themselves and the Autobots were constantly arguing among themselves. This is were we prospered as a third faction, keeping to ourselves and pairing the Autobots and Decepticons off each other. Each faction had their own private HQ board with passwords, so we very much kept to ourselves and stuck together, planned and made the other factions wonder what we'd do next. Over the years this "idea" of Renegade Autobots, from an aside Heavy made, became a living, breathing, proper idea for Myself, Jazz and Heavy. A full time hobby with Jazz coming up with an RP history for the group, a small website for it on Geocities as well as writing fan-fics. Together we sought out to make this idea a fully fledged legitimate fiction third faction.
Back with me and my new Transformers forum I decide on the name "Total Transformers", I can't remember why exactly but I do remember basing the URL for Proboards hosting the forum, of the latest cartoon series running at that time - Armada. Thus Total Transformers at tfarmarda.proboards.com was born. Although I would eventually change the URL. The first amazing five years at Total Transformers were a dream. Moffman from The Axalon (A great fun forum sadly no longer around), said/made a thread basically saying "Look at what Hoist has made!" and by which brought a good amount of members from the Axalon over. We were getting regular members and the forum was extremely active. One of those members - ravage18, was the first one to bring roleplay over to Total Transformers creating the very first roleplay character creation and rules over, working in conjunction with Jazz who was now a staff member of Total Transformers. Although Jazz would take this over eventually as sole contributor to our RP rules (With me contributing)and brought about revolutionizing it, Ravage 18 created the first rules - general rules, character creation, mini con creation rules, weapons and powers everything. Unsurprisingly as things died down at Civil wars and conflicts arose, we carried on out third fiction faction "The Renegades" at Total Transformers. This became the main story and the main roleplay lasting over 5 years. At TTF we were able to flesh out the Renegades and giving them a back story, starting at the very beginning along with Jazz's ideas from fan-fics he wrote.
Although things have slowed down a lot over the last several years, at the height of Total Transformer we massed members and had huge activity on the board and have now the privilege after 11 years to be the longest running Transformers message board on ProBoards. Yes we have had our troubles, including an attempted take-over from 3 members of a Transformers community/from a large well known Transformers fan website, but we weathered the storm and they didn't get anywhere with this thanks to Onix prime helping me out when our staff was down to just Jazz and myself, earning Onix a position on the staff. Unfortunately, it happened in the early hours of UK time/evening US time so I was actually asleep when it happened, but after many chances and after inappropriate pictures where posted, all three were banned and the content removed, despite trying to give then a chance to adhered to the rules. During the early years there was an early version of a Transformers website for our forum on places like Tripod using Bravenet services also a yahoo group for the forum, but come 2008, I decided to buy my very first domain name. Although I wasn't knowledgeable in html and making websites I brought the name totaltfs.com, which has now been running for 4 years. I do feel that because of social networking sites, there has been a decline in forums as the social sites dominate, and I personally feel it has affected Total Transformers. Those that grew into their adult lives with message boards in the 1990's, early noughties, are the ones that stick with them because they';re more accustom to them and social communities rather that an instant response on social networking sites. Or else they move on with their lives and unfortunately you don't get to see them any more. Whilst we do have a fan page on Facebook (facebook.com/totaltfs) to help promote the forum I hope the recent ten-year anniversary of the forum on August 26th will propel the forum on a little longer, at least another 5 years if Transformers is still going! Who knows maybe another 10 years!
The year was 1984, and I was eight years old. Here in the UK we had Saturday morning shows for 2 - 3 hours that would show kids cartoons/shows and live audiences of kids for the show. In general they were hosted programs, not only showing kid's shows but also having lots of crazy fun, competitions and stuff. On our third terrestrial channel they had this a show like this but very early in the morning. One presenter would introduce shows, there was no live audience, but there was still crazy fun etc. It was on this show - The Wide Awake Club/Wac-A-Day that they showed the original Transformers cartoon every morning. Even though the working week at school was done and I could lie in, I still woke up religiously to watch the Transformers cartoon every Saturday morning when I discovered it. I was 8 years old, what boy wouldn't be impressed with a cartoon of giant robots in a war against each other, coming to Earth, and continuing that war but disguising themselves as Earth vehicles etc.
It was this love for the cartoon every Saturday morning that also got me into the UK Marvel comics, who ran their own UK stories whilst intermingled with stories from the U.S. comic strip. So much so that I got my mother to order it, so that as well as the cartoons every Saturday, I also had the pleasure of waiting for the latest Transformers comic to be posted through the door. So it when from the cartoons to the comics to the toys. Unfortunately my parents divorced when I was 5/6 years old so we were a single parent family and couldn't afford much. As a result I wasn't lucky enough to get all these call Transformers toys like my friends did and generally just ended up with the Minibots, I think I may have had bumblebee and beachcomber, I definitely had the likes of mostly the second wave - Warpath, Powerglide, Cosmos etc, no Cliffjumper/Gears/Windcharger/Brawn. I always wanted one of the bigger, regular sized Transformers as my mate had all the cool ones like Megatron, the seekers and his neighbor had Optimus Prime. The two leaders I desperately wanted but never got and would be the staple of my "Most wanted" in adult life. I think it was one Christmas therefore I received Hoist from my father, my first and only regular sized transformer, unless you also count Twintwist who I got another Christmas. I distinctly remember sitting behind the couch, transforming Hoist, applying the decals/stickers and being in awe of the figure, he got lots of play time. I loved that toy. The years came and went, we had the Transformers movie and Optimus Prime died, and by 1987 I was moving on. I was about to enter senior school, what you'd call High School in the US at the age of 11. I started to drift away from Transformers, in part because I didn't have the best time of it at both schools and because another UK comic my new friend was reading came to my attention. This comic was the long running UK cult sci-fi comic 2000AD, which if you don't know, you will know because of it's character Judge Dredd, especially now because of the 2012 movie. I I transitioned over to this comic and dropped the Transformers one (I guess), and this continued for the rest of my school life. Come the 90's, Transformers was pretty much dead as far as I knew and I was attending college. It was one Saturday that I went into a local newsagents down my high street and I saw a Transformers G2 comic. Surprised that it was still going, I had a look and brought the comic. (Which I still have!) but was deeply disappointed. The issue I picked up was one of the UK stories that was intermingled with the US run, and pretty crappy. The artwork was poor and it looked kiddy, especially with the "Find the G2 symbols" throughout the comic. I wasn't aware, then of the US comic version , so this did not impress me as well as the repaints of the original figures, like a blue Grimlock - my favourite Transformers character ever. There were also these new ones, cars with luminescent windscreens, it did not impress.
During that time, I was suffering more problems as my mother, the one parent I was living with, died from cancer. It was a week after my 18th birthday, so the rest of the 90's I had no contact with the Transformers franchise as I was too busy trying to piece my life back together. I moved into a flat (Apartment) on my own as my father only had a one bedroom flat with his partner, so I couldn't go live with him. Whilst trying to put my life back together, also quitting college in the end, I did see a bit of one episode of Transformers: Beast wars. Now I'm not sure if I knew it was Beast Wars, but at first but from the bit I saw I didn't like it - Transformers turning into animals. Ironic as I would come to love it as an adult, who didn't, but I was older and old enough to appreciate it then. I continued to try and pick up my life and in 2001 I got my first computer, actually it was my sisters old computer. And for many years whilst I was "Out of the Transformers loop" I used to have frequent dreams about those old Transformers comics. Finding them in an old newsagents, picking them up seeing the covers and the pages in my dreams, feeling them again.. They were very vivid and I could see what they looked like perfectly in my dreams. Clearly the impact of the comics as a kid was still impacting on me, but in my dreams. In 2001, when I got my sister's computer the first thing I naturally did was look for transformers sites, finding ones where I could read Transformers comics (The Internet was a lot more innocent then!), until the very early hours of the morning! Eventually I ended up joining the message board - Transfans and may some good friends. Even experiencing my first bit of roleplay as I took part in this mass board roleplay of a Gobot invasion of Cybertron. I would also join other sites like seibertron.com. Transformers @ The moon and The Axalon, becoming good friends with one female TF fan at seibertron.com where we would chat in messenger and just always ended up in banter and fun trying to kill each other, thus my first bit of chat roleplay as well. Although Grimlock is/always will be my favorite character ever and for always, I took the name Hoist after the love for that G1 toy rather than the character. As a point I've never had any problems signing up at TF forums as Hoist, because he's not a popular/favorite character. The Autobot maintenance bot with a geeky voice, not helped by the major stories involving him being Hoist Goes To Hollywood in the cartoon and comics. He was pretty much a background character like a lot of the ensemble cast of characters in G1.
Around this time I also started to get drawn into the world of Transformers toys again. One Saturday, (I guess it must've been a Saturday), I was in a neighboring town and in this very well known UK store called Woolworths, whose chain had been going for many years. As i passed the toy aisle, I wondered if Transformers were still going/about and had a look, gaining my first look at the RID line. Completely on the cuff and seeing a two-pack of spychangers, I brought a pack - after all I was a working man. (By then.) I started buying the two-pack spychangers like Rev and Hot Shot Crosswise and WARS as well as the singular packs. Unlike my childhood I could now afford the regular sized Transformers, the first from this line being one of the leaders - Megatron. Despite being £39.99, when I saw him and looked on the box, I simply had to have him. During this time I also made the grave mistake of applying for a credit card online, despite not really understanding the process of what that means, and run up a tab - one I've only just finished off paying this recently. The more I saw the more I wanted, especially when you have things like Ruination a re-colour of the G1 Bruticus, the build teams and great figures like Optimus prime and Ultra Magnus. (The latter two still being my favourite from that line.)
Online meanwhile I had my own - non Transformers board but voiced my intention on the Transfans forum to make my own Sci-Fi ProBoard. I got a favorable response and when ahead making it, making two Transfans members moderators on the board, despite only knowing them so well. (N00by mistake no#1) The forum ran when but dwindled after the first year before getting deleted, not helped in part by the huge spat I had with one of my moderators who had different ideas about the direction of the board to me. Also, a huge spat with a fellow sci-fi board admin on ProBoards. The latter was, both our faults in hindsight, and we did make up after many years, eventually with me later running his forum until it's end. I was a very n00by admin though, hot-headed and not making great decisions, the majority of these spats was my own fault admittedly. Six months after creating the sci-fi ProBoard The Last Outpost, (Originally called The Prime Directive), I decided to create my first Transformers board. Originally I was going to call it something like Iacon City, but thought it was too obvious. I was also still a member of forums like [@ The Moon] The Axalon and what would become Transformers: Civil War, making lots of new friends on both (Sonicron, Moffman, maybe Sharpshot and his brother on the Axalon) and on Civil war Jazz/latryx7, HeavyAssault, sunstreaker, Starscream, Perceptor et al. When I made the forum i made Ultimate Cheetor (now Trailbreaker) from The Last Outpost/Transfans a moderator, but much bigger things were happening at what would become Transformers: Civil War on ProBoards. At this forum I had become good fiends with Jazz and HeavyAssault and others, it was a transformers discussion forum and there was a lot of fun and banter. In particular a thread named "Decepticons Unite" in which all the Decepticon fans irl in fun would appose the Autobot fans. I answered the call and started my own thread - "Autobots Unite!" gathering all the Autobot fans on the forum, and all was good and fun. Good and fun until the admin of that board, then someone going by the name "Optimus Prime" deciding he wanted to move us, and not to a new forum software, still to another Proboard, for the sake of not knowing how to change the look of the forum. It was all fine and dandy until the day we came on and found alkl the content, all the threads, the banter, everything - had been deleted. We as the members, were furious. We refused to move over, and those of us that did didn't stay long with him. It was during this forum rebellion that member HeavyAssault said/or made a thread something about Renegade Autobots unite! The admin after all was "Optimus Prime" and we were rebelling against him/this forum move after what he'd done. This little aside from heavy, became however and idea. When Sunstreaker took over the board and wanted to develop it as a roleplay message board, he very graciously allowed us to create our own third fiction RP faction, The Renegades. I joined HeavyAssault, followed by Jazz, and the Renegade Autobots were born. The Decepticons couldn't organised themselves and the Autobots were constantly arguing among themselves. This is were we prospered as a third faction, keeping to ourselves and pairing the Autobots and Decepticons off each other. Each faction had their own private HQ board with passwords, so we very much kept to ourselves and stuck together, planned and made the other factions wonder what we'd do next. Over the years this "idea" of Renegade Autobots, from an aside Heavy made, became a living, breathing, proper idea for Myself, Jazz and Heavy. A full time hobby with Jazz coming up with an RP history for the group, a small website for it on Geocities as well as writing fan-fics. Together we sought out to make this idea a fully fledged legitimate fiction third faction.
Back with me and my new Transformers forum I decide on the name "Total Transformers", I can't remember why exactly but I do remember basing the URL for Proboards hosting the forum, of the latest cartoon series running at that time - Armada. Thus Total Transformers at tfarmarda.proboards.com was born. Although I would eventually change the URL. The first amazing five years at Total Transformers were a dream. Moffman from The Axalon (A great fun forum sadly no longer around), said/made a thread basically saying "Look at what Hoist has made!" and by which brought a good amount of members from the Axalon over. We were getting regular members and the forum was extremely active. One of those members - ravage18, was the first one to bring roleplay over to Total Transformers creating the very first roleplay character creation and rules over, working in conjunction with Jazz who was now a staff member of Total Transformers. Although Jazz would take this over eventually as sole contributor to our RP rules (With me contributing)and brought about revolutionizing it, Ravage 18 created the first rules - general rules, character creation, mini con creation rules, weapons and powers everything. Unsurprisingly as things died down at Civil wars and conflicts arose, we carried on out third fiction faction "The Renegades" at Total Transformers. This became the main story and the main roleplay lasting over 5 years. At TTF we were able to flesh out the Renegades and giving them a back story, starting at the very beginning along with Jazz's ideas from fan-fics he wrote.
Although things have slowed down a lot over the last several years, at the height of Total Transformer we massed members and had huge activity on the board and have now the privilege after 11 years to be the longest running Transformers message board on ProBoards. Yes we have had our troubles, including an attempted take-over from 3 members of a Transformers community/from a large well known Transformers fan website, but we weathered the storm and they didn't get anywhere with this thanks to Onix prime helping me out when our staff was down to just Jazz and myself, earning Onix a position on the staff. Unfortunately, it happened in the early hours of UK time/evening US time so I was actually asleep when it happened, but after many chances and after inappropriate pictures where posted, all three were banned and the content removed, despite trying to give then a chance to adhered to the rules. During the early years there was an early version of a Transformers website for our forum on places like Tripod using Bravenet services also a yahoo group for the forum, but come 2008, I decided to buy my very first domain name. Although I wasn't knowledgeable in html and making websites I brought the name totaltfs.com, which has now been running for 4 years. I do feel that because of social networking sites, there has been a decline in forums as the social sites dominate, and I personally feel it has affected Total Transformers. Those that grew into their adult lives with message boards in the 1990's, early noughties, are the ones that stick with them because they';re more accustom to them and social communities rather that an instant response on social networking sites. Or else they move on with their lives and unfortunately you don't get to see them any more. Whilst we do have a fan page on Facebook (facebook.com/totaltfs) to help promote the forum I hope the recent ten-year anniversary of the forum on August 26th will propel the forum on a little longer, at least another 5 years if Transformers is still going! Who knows maybe another 10 years!