I thought just about everyone had heard the news through the support networks, but apparently not. I am no longer developing the Oblivion/2 Bulletin Board Software. There are 3 primary reasons for this decision. First and foremost is the lack of necessity. BBS activity has been declining steadily for over 4 years now, and its only getting worse. The internet offers faster, more efficent, and much more asthetic global telecommunications at a fraction of the cost. Newsgroups are much more informative and "fun" than ancient bbs networks, ftp sites offer more files than any single bbs could ever hope of offering, and the world wide web gives us a graphical interface much nicer than the pathetic colored blocks of the past. I've loved Oblivion/2 since the very beggining during my modding dayswith iLLness and Acidic, but the era is over. Eric and I are not looking for anyone else to pick up development so please don't ask.

Another major reason for my departure is the lack of cooperation from all the unregistered sysops out there. It's one thing to run it cracked for a few months, even I ran it cracked for 4 months before registering and eventualy taking over. But its ridiculous to see people running cracked copies for years, then having the nerve to ask me how to do something with the software. Of course I would expect nothing less from one of the lamest scene's on earth. We fully intended to commercialize the software with all the latest PD features such as the JAM message system, script programming, and V7 Nodelist support. But in the end it just wasn't worth it. Telegard offers all those features for free, so targeting the pd world would be pointless. Oblivion/2 will always be the best software for the ansi scene, and the features in v2.35 make it even better for that market. I'm just not going to waste hundreds of hours of my time coding something for people who don't show any cooperation.

My last reason is perhaps the strongest of all. Although it sounds like I'm in this for the money, that realy has nothing to do with it. Every since I learned how to use Windows 3.1 I've been learning about computers. I've studied different operating systems, hardware, programming languages, etc in an effort to prepare myself for a career in software development. DOS is a dead operating system, Pascal isn't even used as a teaching language anymore, and Bulletin Board software isn't exactly in demand either. The only way I can continue learning is if I stay ahead of the technology curve. I have no intention of falling behind in areas like Java programming, just so I can waste time with a dead end project. This may seem kind of harsh to all you die hard dos fans (coughmindcrime) but its true. For all my years of DOS coding guess how many jobs it got me? ZERO. Within 2 months of learning Perl I was coding CGI scripts for small commercial web pages. And 2 months after that I got a job offer at Walnut Creek CD-Rom.

If anyone is interested in registering Oblivion/2 don't feel that it won't be worth it just because I'm no longer developing it. The support networks are still alive and kicking, and you can send questions directly to the team at obv@acid.org. Don't let my personal opinions and predictions deter you from running a bbs. I don't mean to say that there's not a place for them in cyberspace anymore, there's just not a place for them in MY life right now.