Jun 27, 2007, 8:23pm

[MayImilae]

Most users online was 87, Jun 27, 2007, 8:23pm

I see it all the time, and I have always wondered, why that date? What the heck was going on that June night that had so many users online at once? Even when MML3 was announced or when Inafune quit there wasn't that many on, not even close! I would appreciate it if some long time MMLSers could come by and explain what is so special about that date.



*theorizing to himself* By 2007 MMLS had been well established, having existed some 6-7 years by that point, (if I'm not mistaken), so then it wasn't the usual OMG NEW MEGAMAN SITE flock of the early 2000s, where most sites had their peak (2003-2004ish). And it was in 2007, a generally bad year for megaman fandom. If my memory isn't way off, 2007 was before MM9, but after the failure of MMZX Advent, and after the shut down of PMM and the Megaman Community and related interests. Generally a time of fracturing and moans of agony for the fanbase. Could that by why there was so many on that date? All the rest of the megaman community joining with Legends in cries against capcom? .

[TheJorsh]

IIRC, Mir@k explained that he'd been on a compy in a school or something and it somehow decided that all the computers on that network were connected to MMLS.
I dunno.

[MayImilae]

Users. Not visitors or guests. To log 87 users, one would have to be online with 87 different computers and signed into 87 different user profiles. I suppose he could do it if he tried really hard, but it would take a while to create all those users. Not to mention keeping people off said computers, otherwise they might close the MMLS window and screw up the count. It might be possible to sign two usernames from one computer, I've never actually tried it myself, but still, registering 87 times would be rather involved, and you would have to keep the window of all the previous logins up... Most school computers had IE6 at the time, so no tabs. 80+ windows? Imagine making that work.

[Pitch]

Dec 9, 2010 13:00:08 GMT -5 MayImilae said:

*theorizing to himself* By 2007 MMLS had been well established, having existed some 6-7 years by that point, (if I'm not mistaken)

Actually you're a bit off. It was only about four years by then.

I don't think that number means that that many registered users were online at the time. It probably accounts for guests as well. I always assumed it was just a bug in the system that recognized bots as guest users that counted toward the users online. Since then they've probably learned to filter them out. Or something. Just my guess.

At that point in the fandom, Inafune had just given his “I really want to make Legends 3, but it would cost me $15,000,000.00” interview which had set off the hype around here like crazy, as I recall, so that may've also been a factor.

Incidentally, here's our stats for the day Legends 3 was announced. Notice the numbers are obscenely high; the only thing is, it wasn't all at once.

Users online (2010-09-29): 6 Staff Members, 55 Members, 353 Guests, 2 Invisible Users

[MayImilae]

Huh. I assumed "users" meant "members", as that is the common defintion. But I guess it could be anyone. Though, if that "users" stat included everyone, it would probably have been surpased on MML3 announcement day. I'm not a webmaster by any defintion, but it wouldn't be evenly spread out, it would have a peak, around the time when most people got the info, say a certain time after a big major site broke the news. Surely a peak within the time of hundreds of people showing up would break 87, if it counted everyone. Then again, guests wouldn't really hang around... So, hmm. I guess I get to look it up....

Edit 1 - First result, every board with "most users online" on it's page. i.e. every proboards ever. Ugh, not helpful.

Edit 2 - How to cheat it XD. support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=codedatabase&action=display&thread=70503

Edit 3 - Screw it. I'll join the proboards support forum and just ask.

[Pitch]

The day Legends 3 was announced I was actually watching for that weird record to be surpassed. (Not rigorously or anything, but every now and then...) I don't think I ever saw it happen, personally. I really don't believe we've ever had 87 registered users logged in at the same time, though. I don't know if we've ever had 87 simultaneously active users at any point in the forums' history. We barely had more than sixty registered users show up on the forums all day on the day Legends 3 was announced, and that included a lot of old members who came by just to celebrate.

[MayImilae]

support.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=support&thread=376344

Well that answers that. Users = members + guests. You were right Pitch.

So uh, back to the question at hand. What caused a whole bunch of members and guests to show up all at the same time on that date?

[Pitch]

Here we go. Found a topic from the time, buried way back in this section. Apparently it was 80-some guests with nearly the same IP, varying by only the last digit; and a few repeat IPs; and one strange, completely different IP. If I had to guess, I'd say they were bots. Like Jorsh said, Mir@k mentions something about being 50-some users at once thanks to his school's weird internet, but that's after the fact. Go check it out, but please don't reply.

[MayImilae]

Ahh. Dashe said that the IPs had "just a change in the last digit, some repeats", but Mirak said that all the school's computer had the same IP. And in my experience, it would work that way, like a house on cable internet, several computers online at once, same IP. Working on a single computer wouldn't send up a "bazillion computers online!" flag, they would have to all be going to MMLS. ...Which I suppose Mirak could do if he was bored. But even then, wouldn't their IPs be the same?

*asks chiz


Edit: "just a change in the last digit, some repeats". Some repeats. Hmm. So I guess that means different users can have the same IP.

[Pitch]

Right, they should definitely be the same IP if they're coming from the same place; and that's why I don't think it was anyone's school's internet that caused that. That's why my guess is that they were bots. If they were, whatever company or person that had them out crawling the web could reasonably have several IPs in the same range. I also have vague recollections of seeing a bunch of bot accounts on other forums I was modding on around the same time. (but my memory's not perfect by any means)

In any case, nothing interesting had happened that day. Sorry to disappoint, but nearly all of those 87 users on the boards that day were just some strange, harmless anomaly.

[Loken]

I've been wanting to ask that myself but I was afraid I would be hit with a stick!