The History of Elasto Mania (1995-2018)

[Abula]

UPDATED: 2024-05-23

==================================================

# Reader's guide

Thank you for helping - it's really appreciated! Grammar mistakes are the lowest priorities but good to know of course. Please report the issues in very clear format. You can also submit privately.

## Priorities

1. Technical problems
2. Unconvincing talk
3. Something missing?
4. Boring text
5. Grammar

## Unconvincing

Doesn't make sense? Too far-fetched?

## Boring

I'm not going to remove texts after someone reports it but maybe if more people points the same part.

## Something missing?

Some relevant Elma topic missing? Material or link?

## Grammar

When going through a long list of errors, it's surprisingly time-consuming to understand where is the error so please be as clear as possible. Something like this:

1) "this tetx has a mistake" > "this text has a mistake"


===================== Original post (2017-09-27) =============================

I've been promising to write an Elma article for some years and finally I got something to publish. After 29 hours of work the "The Across Days" chapter got published in 2017-09-26. A whopping 109 hours more was needed to get "The Prelude of Elasto Mania" public. That happened in 2017-11-11. After 165 hours more, Golden Era chapter is finished in 2018-02-21.

I need help. If you have information or can help in any of the requests below, please.

=========================================================================

REQUESTS

(RESOLVED)1. I want to show replays directly in the article. How to do this? Skint wasn't aware of any plug'n'play solution. Recsource + iframe isn't a good solution. Converting to webm format could be good but how to do it? An independent JS replay player would be neat but is it easy to add? All the time I need to use here is off from the writing.

(RESOLVED)2. Has someone a screenshot of Across level editor? I can't run my Across . Some big interesting looking level would be best.

(RESOLVED)3. Is someone able to record a video of mod.com replays in Across and put it to Youtube? I have the replays.

(RESOLVED)4. Can someone download the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-UkhapGw44 video and send it to me? My video downloader scripts never work... I would like to add the video to the next Elma Ultimate DVD.

(RESOLVED)5. Name the players in the Piteå group picture.

(MOVED)6. Any important fact or event missing?

(MOVED)7. Grammar fixes and text improvements are welcome too.

(RESOLVED)8. Screenshots of the two first Mopolautas? This current one is third. Urls were http://www.saunalahti.fi/~ptahk007/cgi- ... tion=intro and http://pub65.ezboard.com/bmopolauta? (Great find by bhz)

(RESOLVED)9. Any exact numbers how much more powerful is supervolt compared to normal volt? I think I have seen some calculations... (it was "three times stronger" viewtopic.php?p=22236#p22236)

(RESOLVED)10. Would be mega awesome if someone calculated nopoints.txt for WCup 3, 4 and 5. That would tell how many participated. In 1 and 2k we have those files.

(RESOLVED)11. I don't remember how did we catch mrDJ and Weird-AAL in the first place? Some of their cheated replays are obvious, yes, but were they public?

12. Would be cool to have statistics of Across WRs They would be incompleted but better than nothing.

(RESOLVED)13. The first evidence of battles I found is mrDJ's KOM interview in 2001-05-01 but I'm pretty sure the battles started already in 2000. If you IRC logs in 2000, please find by "battle" term.

(RESOLVED)14. An example replay of bounces is needed. I think Moposchool bounces combined would be neat but I don't know how to combine several levels to one replay. I guess I can use Jaws WR replay too if the combining isn't possible.

(ANSWERED)15. Multi WRs or TTs not public at the moment?

(RESOLVED)16. What are the official names of Elma Online 2006 and 2010 versions? I call the first version "ELMA ONLINE (2006 version)" now but it's confusing. Maybe I'll understand when I read about the 2010 version.

17. Sweden might have been the number one nationality in WCup 2000 but the points were never calculated. Also WCup4 team points are incomplete. And WCup 1 missing too.

(RESOLVED)18. Monthly results are missing in http://zebra.mbnet.fi/battles_battle.html

19. Barbapappa: can I change your nick name to old one? It's so confusing now. Your legacy is admirable.

(MOVED)20. The slesk replays end at 2003-06-01 so I'm missing all funny replays driven after that and before March 2006. I got Markku's no-volt Tricks Abound and dz's pipe replay in King Cup but if you have more sick ones from that period, please share.

(RESOLVED)21. Oldschool routes (aka no-shortcut) itnernals were created in 2002-05-31 but who was the designer?

22. Cup data missing:

Code: Select all

Start          Name                         Winner       Organizer(s)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2001-08-25     Elmaduel                     ?            Team Landlord
2001-08-?      GET Kupa                     MGen         GET
2002-02-03     Höylä Cup                    ?            ?

(RESOLVED)23. What is his nationality: "7. iob ? 988 4.34" - Top designer in #battle times.

(RESOLVED)24. Who won Talvi Cup 2010?

25. Some #battle stats missing:

Code: Select all

Annual statistics of battles in #battle:

Year     GAA Battler   Most points     Avg. pts         Won-%
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2003     -             Markku          Zweq (10.62)     Markku (59 %)
2004     Markku        veezay          ?                ?
2005     Markku        jaytea          ?                ?
2006     jaytea        jaytea          ?                ?
2007     Zweq          jaytea          ?                ?

*) must be in top-100 in total points to keep it somewhat comparable

(RESOLVED)26. Picture of Discord chat room?

(RESOLVED)27. Picture of Skype conference call?

(RESOLVED)28. Was there other Finnish meetings between 2011 Lousku and FEM13? I think I saw somewhere that there was MiE meeting in 2012 but what are the details?

29. Answer sheets of FEM Quiz 2014 and 2016? Question sheets of FEM Quiz 2015 and 2017?

30. EOL battle data incomplete.

Code: Select all

Annual meta statistics of EOL battles:

Year     Battles   Running    Players      Length    Designer
                            Avg.  Tot.(*)  avg.
-------------------------------------------------------------
2010      5811      38 %     ?     284     14.78     ?
2011     19843      56 %           563     15.54       
2012     18937      54 %           699     15.07       
2013     19150      56 %           654     15.28       
2014     17872      49 %           526     14.55
2015     17828      49 %           501     14.47
2016     13648      41 %           414     15.98
2017     11975      42 %           416     18.36

*) Total number of players who finished at least one battle

(RESOLVED)31. Playing many replays makes browser slow. Freeing memory needed with recplay. (update 2020-05-29: feels better these days? I updated the script so either Maxdamantus fixed it or my browser handles it better now)

32. Final results in countries section is missing data from EOL.

33. What's the idea of the Elma Forever CD files: battles.gif, battlesk.gif, battlesp.gif?

34. Anyone having an Elma related ICQ screenshot? The older the better. Looks like ICQ might have been used before IRC (https://media.pulu.org/palsta/files/60/ ... -07-31.txt).

35. Get px's old hard drive to a professional recovery company to find new old material (such as the ICQ screenshot [34] and original DaPipe.lev [37]).

(RESOLVED)36. Start day of: 2001-01-? Hungarian Cup Tibity PC Guru Magazine

37. Creation date of the first pipe level dapipe.zip (or dapipe.lev or DaPipe.lev)? (MOPCU016.lev)

ARTICLE

https://lev7.org/en/60-the-history-of-e ... -1995-2018

[Zweq]

amazing . I will read more properly and comment later

"We started to try the pipe by ourselves and eventually Ultra made it half way. That was a key moment in my life." <- najs key moment

[zebra]

Very nice! Very good writing. Nice to look back to Across times

Can't really find any mistakes except some small typos:
Uruguy -> Uruguay
definately -> definitely
defination -> definition
Alhough -> Although

[Abula]

Very nice! Very good writing. Nice to look back to Across times

Can't really find any mistakes except some small typos:
Uruguy -> Uruguay
definately -> definitely
defination -> definition
Alhough -> Although

Fixed. Thank you! I'll need more of your help when I get to later years .

Changed also the heading numbering: Introduction doesn't have number anymore but "1. The Across Years" is the first one.

I've been going through the Moponews and some other sources for the Elma era today. I think I'll divide it to three chapters: First year+ (2000 Feb - 2001 Jul), Golden Era (2001 Jul - 2006 Mar), The New Generation (2006 Mar -). This is max fun to make but takes so much time. "First year+" needs a better name.

The embedded replay player would be so important...!

[Schumi]

2000-2001: The early years
2002-2006: The golden era
2007-2014: Battles take over
2015-202x: The utopistic years

i am using this classification for a top secret documentary project, but i think it would fit to your story as well

[Maix]

sam things:

of about a few thousands players, the number of really active players being a few hundreds

mebe "few thousands/hundreds players" should be -> "few thousand/hundred"?

both in Finland and abroad

As the fact that you are finnish isn't revealed earlier in the article, this expression seemed weird for someone not from finland. "both in Finland and abroad", where one side of "both" is a single country and the other is the whole world. Maybe just "in many countries" or some other solution if you wish to emphasize that you are from finland.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foreword - mebe 'foreword' is not 100% correct header there

In the foreword section, two paragraphs start with "i Myself", which seemed a bit repetative.



Found some notes. Can look further later and send pm or sumthing if helpful, otherwise can go fuk myself aswell obv

[Abula]

mebe "few thousands/hundreds players" should be -> "few thousand/hundred"?

Fixed.

As the fact that you are finnish isn't revealed earlier in the article, this expression seemed weird for someone not from finland. "both in Finland and abroad", where one side of "both" is a single country and the other is the whole world. Maybe just "in many countries" or some other solution if you wish to emphasize that you are from finland.

Good one. Fixed.

mebe 'foreword' is not 100% correct header there

This is a difficult one because now it contains quite random stuff. I don't know if there is any correct header for this kind of chapter? Correct way would be to divedi it to "Disclaimer", "Foreword" and "Conventions" but I don't want to have 2 new chapters for this. So I just picked some generic header. Maybe it will resolve when more information must be added there.

In the foreword section, two paragraphs start with "i Myself", which seemed a bit repetative.

Good. Fixed.

Also got some notes from Tisk.

[Abula]

I've added some more data:

* Video of mod.com replays
* Mention of DOSBox
* Across level editor screenshot
* Mention of Ronimox/MopoGirl because she was active by herself (I've been reading some old Mopolauta topics)
* Some team page links
* Tumex TT list 21-60 positions
* Link to Blake's Level Designing Tips

Also some of the captions weren't visible.

I have also started the Elma part. 16 hours of researching and 4 hours writing done. Will keep on now and tomorrow. Next chapter is titled: "Prelude of Elasto Mania (2000 Feb - 2001 Jul)"

[Schumi]

someone has these levels?

http://moposite.com/archives/web_pages/ ... evels.html

[bene]

No mention of bene as always

[Abula]

I'm adding new material so the article is closed for some time now. Probably a few weeks.

[Abula]

I just got Maxdamantus' replay player working with a few additions: show/close button and checkboxes to select which replays are shown. Still some refactoring left though, maybe 3 hours.

All the good replays I'm planning to display on the page, need to be added and write captions etc. Maybe 5-10 hours for this.

Also some sub-sections of the chapter are missing because I got so bored with writing the text: Stuff (+ LGRs), Levels and Replays. Again 5-10 hours I guess.

Then More links and overall improving 5 h.

So maybe about 20-30 hours needed to get the next chapter, Prelude of Elasto Mania, ready. The upcoming week looks promising but I'm pretty sure this can't be done in less than two weeks. I have used 45 hours in October and 58 hours in September. Let's beat this in November!

[Abula]

The article is open again! Read the first post to know what I need help for.

All comments motivate me to keep on this damn hard and devastating job. 138 hours down and we have covered only 4-5 years out of 20. Not sure if I have energy to keep on now.

Across chapter got some changes too:

* Added diplomas of WCup1 and 2 - thank's Jokke and psy!
* Added a new paragraph to "1.2. World Records" to list some players
* Added price information to "1.1. Software versions" section
* Added a list of good Across levels in "1.13. Levels and replays" section
* Added a paragraph of Markku's joining to MC
* Larger images

[Schumi]

awesome Abula!

some mistake I found:

Luckily there are only two internal levels...

Actually there is 3, you forgot Bowling


Do we know more about the story of Hooked and Downhill? Was it created by Csaba or some other guy? Because compared to the other levels in across Packs both of these were extraordinary...

Oh and the map of original HOOKED.LEV and DOWNHILL.LEV could be included in the article
http://elmaonline.net/statistics/level/99186 Hooked was different originally

[Abula]

Actually there is 3, you forgot Bowling

Oh, yes!

Hooked was different originally

Didn't remember that! Also Downhill doesn't have the ", Dylan" text anymore in Elma

[Schumi]

It means that Downhill was probably made by Csaba Rózsa (just remember his WCUP 6 level: http://elmaonline.net/statistics/level/241791)

Quote from README.txt - Across 1.0

Dylan Cooper gave me linguistic help, gave all the levels their names

[onlainari]

Interesting! Haven't read the article yet.

On 12.: I think Nostrada (and mrDJ) decided to reveal on #across that they cheated and then did so by telling about it and sharing the replays but I am not sure. Maybe if find #across logs from around march/april 2001 first and then someone looks into it.

Not that these details are not of much importance but my cheat was such that someone had just taken a WR on warm up, and then another guy whose nick I forgot (oizo or some nick that includes a sound or synonym for "bear" (animal)) had 0.01 worse time or same time as WR on it. I managed to get his rec either for free, or for some cheap trade. As the timer always doesn't end exactly at the right hundreth, I noticed that it could be treated as 0.01 faster than that current WR. I then sent it as WR to the next table with h0m0rider nick or such and waited what's going to happen. It got through and I enjoyed it for a while and then I guess I told that it was me and xiited.

Maybe I rememeber more stuff after I read and think about old times, but my recollection could be quite bade

[Abula]

...

On 12.: I think Nostrada (and mrDJ) decided to reveal on #across that they cheated and then did so, but I am not sure. Maybe if find #across logs from around march/april 2001 first and then someone looks into it.

Not that these details are not of much importance but my cheat was such that someone had just taken a WR on warm up, and then another guy whose nick I forgot (oizo or some nick that includes a sound or synonym for "bear" (animal)) had 0.01 worse time or same time as WR on it. ...

Thanks! You could remember something about battles at least. StIkKyBeAr?

[Schumi]

From: acpack01.zip
Filename: LEV#01.DIZ

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
downhill.lev Downhill Csaba Rozsa
Hungary
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
hooked.lev Hooked Csaba Rozsa
Hungary
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Levels were stored on: 1998.03.20

STORKED!

EDIT: As I see, Across 1.2 was released in 1998.03.23, these levels were probably made for this version, but for some reason they were left out in the end.

[Zweq]

I went through like 90% of the article, and it's quite a lot of text about 1999-2001 i can almost sense someone is being a bit nostalgic about old times

I think it would be logical to divide post 2001 like this:
2001-2006 "golden era" as you described
2007-2009 belma era
2010-2015 eol era
2016- dead era

some main points, happeninks, events of each era:
2001-2006
- multiple active top internalists at all times, massive competition and tt drop
- centered camera
- alovolt button (you already mentioned it though)
- multiplayer online pt.1 (the 2006 EOL by milagros, it sparked discussions about belma which ended up revolutionizing elma)

2007-2009
- belma and online battles (I would really emphasize hard ff battles like teajay uphills in becoming a better player. Being better obviously helped finding harder styles in internals)
- uphilling
- spinning
- fps limiter and prebuffering (possibility to play with low fps on any machine without keypress delay was a massive thing and made it fair to everyone similar to alovolt patch)

2010-2015
- EOL aka improved belma
- official EOL level pack
- multiplayer online pt.2
- saveload (I would emphasize this for style finding, it made stylefinding more enjoyable, you wouldnt have to tediously create training levs).
- bug bounce TAS aka theoretical speedrun without arbitrary limits
- utilization of 30fps and wheelpops in internals (wu, ff, hangman)
- wcup 6

2016-
- stylefinding seems to finally have been saturated, saveload to be blamed (although personally I think there are still tons of styles unfound, it just seems like there's a longer recession going on than ever before, (did you guys quit because i quitted? ))
- TAS chain wheelpop with switching fps between 999 and 30
- wcup 7

I hope this quick rough sketch will give you some extra motivation again, or something.

[Abula]

I went through like 90% of the article, and it's quite a lot of text about 1999-2001 i can almost sense someone is being a bit nostalgic about old times ...

Yes, well, I guess that was my most enthusiastic period after all . But also many concepts were iniated and largely evolved at that time! The text is long but I don't think there are too many irrelevant sections..or? Everybody probably thinks that the section X is not interesting if he didn't himself participate in that sector of the community. But for sure, that's even my intention, Moposite from the web development's point of view has some more focus than it should have "objectively".

[bene]

- TAS chain wheelpop with switching fps between 999 and 30

Fairly certain this was invented in 2016 and not 2015?

Edit: Earliest time I have record of it done is 2016-08-10

[Zweq]

earliest chain pop i know of is from 16th dec 2011 18:40:37 EET
earliest 30-999 fps chain poping is most likely from the date you mentioned (and the one i meant in my sketch)

[Hosp]

i was gonna read teh with morning cofe but is https://i.imgur.com/bE7YVRt.png not there, sad
(i typed in across then the PW and it worked yesterday but now it's gone)

[zebra]

Amazing, Abula! Very thorough article. Read about 50% of the new stuff. Have to read more carefully later

Some typos/grammar mistakes which I found:
Moposhool -> Moposchool
to not figure out -> not to figure out

[Abula]

i was gonna read teh with morning cofe but is https://i.imgur.com/bE7YVRt.png not there, sad
(i typed in across then the PW and it worked yesterday but now it's gone)

Use the direct link in the first post. Then type the username and password and it should redirect you to the article. It's not visible in the lists because not finished.

[Hosp]

yeah I did didn't work earlier but now when I clicked I came straight to the article not having to write PW :O
very sick fun read btw reminds me of when Internal Memories came out and I was very much in to elma history

[Abula]

Thanks! Max more rewarding and motivating to push this when you know that someone actually enjoys reading it

[Schumi]

I know it consumes more space but older and iconic images would be awesome to see. Only hard to decide which one do we call unique or iconic...

Would be megaawesone if this is finished to release in an ebook format with a well designed cover and also with some never-seen materials

[Abula]

Moposhool -> Moposchool
to not figure out -> not to figure out

Thanks! Fixed these.

[Sla]

Very interesting article and info that i didnt know of. Cant wait for the rest and see what u have to tell about present (and future?) of Elma.

To fix: "Uruguya" --> Uruguay

Thank for sharing and effort.

[Abula]

"Uruguya" --> Uruguay

Fixed.

Tisk calculated nopoints.txt:s for WCup 3, 4 and 5. So now we know that 208 players participated WCup 3. In WCup 2000 246 btw.

Thanks to both!

Made some small changes:

* Split "New tricks" to "Bounces" and "Supervolt" sections. Sexier.
* Changed "Boys of Kastelli" to "Sepot" (inside joke)
* Battle section was improved to tell what's the battle all about.

Other than that I've been researching the next era for a few hours. I'm taking some break now. Travelling to Paris in a month .

[Schumi]

nice nice!

do you happen to have those leikkiXX levels Abula? cant find them anywhere...

[Abula]

do you happen to have those leikkiXX levels Abula? cant find them anywhere...

Yes, what would be a good place to upload them? Maybe Kopaka's contest page? I guess two packs could be added: Kisma and Leikki. There can be duplicates though...

[Schumi]

contests section is absolutely fine

[Schumi]

Just a minor suggestion: Balázs Rózsa is officially "Rózsa Balázs" (according to Hungarian name usage). I know that the article is English, but in Hungarian texts we never swap the last and first name of a foreign person compared to the original usage.

[Schumi]

2018 -

Stepping into the new era.

[Abula]

After 165 hours of working, Golden Era chapter is finally ready. But I decided to postpone its release after the entire article is ready. I'm at March 2006 now but I think the writing will speed up now because I wasn't active anymore myself. Depends on how deep I bother to dig.

I updated the first post's questions.

As a teaser, here's the outline of the Golden Era chapter:

Code: Select all

III. Golden Era
1. Unofficial versions
2. Golden Apple Awards (2003-2005)
3. TorInge, Zweq et al.
4. Revolutionary WR styles
5. Slesk replays
6. Vsync tuning
7. Cheating (3rd wave)
8. Brutal volt, deadbounce...
9. Pipe Kings
10. World Cup 4
11. World Cup 5
12. Mopobattles
13. #battle
14. More contests
15. Moposite is under construction
16. Community
17. Meetings
18. Flowertouching Men
19. Art
Summary of the chapter

[Arzenik]

not work

[Abula]

not work

It shouldn't work as I stated twice.

[Arzenik]

a oke sry

[nick-o-matic]

Sick stuff, very appreciated! :)

[Kopaka]

21. Oldschool routes (aka no-shortcut) itnernals were created in 2002-05-31 but who was the designer?

That was GuyB, and hosted on his site, you can still find the table there http://elmadk.vk0.dk/ under stuff in the menu, if you mean those.

[Abula]

21. Oldschool routes (aka no-shortcut) itnernals were created in 2002-05-31 but who was the designer?

That was GuyB, and hosted on his site, you can still find the table there http://elmadk.vk0.dk/ under stuff in the menu, if you mean those.

Max! I've tried to find GuyB's old DK site without success! How long it has been like this layout?

There are only levels up to 23. Circuitous?

[Kopaka]

21. Oldschool routes (aka no-shortcut) itnernals were created in 2002-05-31 but who was the designer?

That was GuyB, and hosted on his site, you can still find the table there http://elmadk.vk0.dk/ under stuff in the menu, if you mean those.

Max! I've tried to find GuyB's old DK site without success! How long it has been like this layout?

There are only levels up to 23. Circuitous?

Only ones to considered having major shortcuts I guess, at the time. First records in the interactive system is added March 2004, so I think since then.

[Abula]

Looks like FEM05 was the last old open FEM. Then:

2006: invite only FM meeting (many same players as in FEMs + Petri [SSC], Ari [ahf])
2007: invite only FM meeting (+ vender, Ismo, Orcc, kimitys, Stini)
2008: skipped (Juzam tried)
2009: no discussion in Mopolauta (?)
2010: skipped (Ville_J tried)
2011: invite only Lousku meeting
2012: no discussion in Mopolauta (?)
2013: open FEM again (?) (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9597)
2014: FEM is back!

[Abula]

2007-2009
- belma and online battles (I would really emphasize hard ff battles like teajay uphills in becoming a better player. Being better obviously helped finding harder styles in internals)
- uphilling
- spinning
- fps limiter and prebuffering (possibility to play with low fps on any machine without keypress delay was a massive thing and made it fair to everyone similar to alovolt patch)

2010-2015
- EOL aka improved belma
- official EOL level pack
- multiplayer online pt.2
- saveload (I would emphasize this for style finding, it made stylefinding more enjoyable, you wouldnt have to tediously create training levs).
- bug bounce TAS aka theoretical speedrun without arbitrary limits
- utilization of 30fps and wheelpops in internals (wu, ff, hangman)
- wcup 6

This is good, thanks! I'm trying to figure out the next era and where to put the end. EOL 2010 would be obvious but after doing some research it looks to me that EOL was "just" better Belma. People were already battling 24/7 but now we got better stats and everything better but same? Belma didn't have inline chat or no? People seems to have different memories here.

Another milestone could be somewhere near 2012 when EOL ppl found the old Elma legacy and they started to, kind of, repeat it but in new way. WCup6 was in 2013, FEMs started 2013? Elma Done Quick 2012, EOL2 started in 2012. Spef first WR (well, three) 2012-01-19. Saveload in 2012. Balazs met . Just an idea but doesn't really convince me either...

Looks like this era was also Zweq's max dominance, lots of WRs and also mastering battles.

It's harder to see the relevant events that shaped the world as it's today when the events are in closer past.

So I'm thinking about naming the era as something like "Elma Online" from Belma to X when something totally new begins. But is that totally new EOL or something else?

I like the term "new generation" which was first time mentioned in 2011-05-11 by roope (viewtopic.php?p=191666#p191666) because that is quite the truth. FEMs, WCups etc. don't happen without dedicated ppl. So the era after EOL could be named like "New generation in charge" or something... But what's the month/event that is big enough to be "start" a new era? Elma Ultimate DVD came 2011-02-13 but I guess it's unrelevant. On the other hand it kind of "closes" the previous generation... like Elma Forever CD did in "Prelude of Elasto Mania" chapter... hm... Maybe I actually take that date, Ultimate DVD, because it's similar to Forever CD and it kind of summarize the saga up to this date. It's also easier to write about the stuff of the era via the more interesting/unique term "Ultimate" than under boring "Stuff".

[Zweq]

Ok some backstory why I thought 2007-2009 is "Belma era" and 2010-some year "EOL era"

beisikally belma was originally max raw prototype released in february 2007 by mila that proved out to be mega fantastic awesome and popular. There was major problem though that it was just using ftp for file transfer and there were no user accounts.

So mila started planning new version which would have a database for statistics and user accounts. Sometime later he released that new version. skintor was supposed to create a website for all the stats and user management and stuff, and he did some beisik version which we used for a while (I think we are in late 2007 now or 2008).

However skint got max bored with cheaters and whinge and said fuk u al nabs and quitted all work and shut website down. This is where we went back to ftp and zworqy's server.

Around here berh started being awesome and started raping server like deleting all files from ftp so current battle lev couldn't be loaded and learned what kind of data packets to send to the server to get 0.01 time in battles.

Mila ofc wasnt hapy with the situation and also wasnt happy with belma code so he started rewriting the code from beginning and that's beisikally how EOL was born. This time he would also add role system for posibility to ban players in the area where they make retard stuf, if you talk rus in chat you get a chat ban for example (well nowadays it's just a theory it seems).

Alongside roles a lot of new features were added, such as
- many new cripple combinations(not sure what exactly were new compared to belma, sorry, maby wiki has them)
- battlemodes (apple battle, multiplayer, flag tag, 1htt, 24htt) (actually not sure if apple battle and 1htt were in belma, again maby wiki has a list)
- .lev improvements (250 objects, increased vertex and polygon limits)
- general features (donga lev ingame with ctrl + f4, speedometer, last picked apple time, play shown to team only, palette fix buton, win7 fixes, eolconf improvements, startbattle improvements etc.)

So the point of 2010+ starting EOL era was that it actualy has lots of new features or somthink duno anything sory for writing this text

[Abula]

Thanks, the Belma era is better formed in my mind now! Max great thing that milagros improved the game and added so damn many new features! The list is overwhelming: http://wiki.elmaonline.net/New_Features

Do we have a screenshot of skint's page? Is it this? https://web.archive.org/web/20110830164 ... nline.net/

The date of EOL (2010) is big and it made things much better but I'm still not sure if it was a big "cultural" shift in itself.

I would argue that Belma and especially EOL were so big things (even bigger than Elma was for Across) that it started, well kind of a new community, new generation is a better term. Many old active players had went inactive and there was room to reshape the community and it happened, of course, around the online versions. I don't know yet all what happened but I think Kopaka, roope, nom, skint, ramone, 8-ball, Lousku etc. at least were taking role and put effort. First the new generation took max out of the new patches but then also "repeating" some old Elma things, WCup, FEM, I don't know what.

Btw, I hope I will find a way to understand this 2010+ phase - must be the maxest time of the whole Elma saga.

Of course all these happened at the same time overlapping each others but when making chapters, you just need to cut somewhere .

There is one story-driven reason too. If I explain Belma first, how much should I say max max max because it's not easy to repeat the max max max max with EOL (2010) if you already explained the revelant things in Belma chapter.

[Abula]

https://web.archive.org/web/20110830164 ... nline.net/

- 2011-04-10: 1 hour TT battles
- 2011-06-28: Open registration and search box
- 2011-08-10: Official Release Party
- 2011-08-12: Official releas

This makes things easier for me I guess. The chapters will be most likely:

I. The Across Days (1997 Feb - 2000 Feb)
II. Prelude of Elasto Mania (2000 Feb - 2001 Jul)
III. Golden Era (2001 Jul - 2006 Mar)
IV. Elma Online (2006 Mar - 2011 Aug)
V. New generation (2011 Aug -)