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Zodiac Jr.Admin- Posts : 39
Join date : 2019-10-16
Location : The Jungles of North America 
A Kind Of Measured Explanation
Wed Oct 16, 2019 11:33 pm
Welcome to The Hidden Elect!
What the hell is this place?
Once upon a time, in the year 2007, there was a little cesspool of a community centered around Mugen, a fighting game creation tool, that was filled with stuck-up jackasses that hated the fact that people wanted to play with the characters they made. Sharing and hosting characters would get you labeled as a "warehouser" and would lead to complete community sperg-outs. One day, a legendary neckbeard named Zodiac decided he was done playing the same Doom .wads over and over and decided to make a Forum to stick it to the assholes of the Mugen world, and the rest was history...
...until some fat fuck named Laxxe23 had the site DMCA'd because they hosted his stupid Kirby character. Many clones came and went, but no forum could match the majesty that was The Hidden Elect. Tons of drama and shit-flinging, shit loads of leaked characters, and even secret Mugen projects that never saw the light of day; truly a watershed moment for the Mugen community. Since then, it's members have taken to all corners of the internet, but a few close friends from those days still remain. These gentlemen got together one night on Discord and said "Fuck it, let's bring it back to life!" and so it was!
Mugen?
Ah yes, I guess we should elaborate on this a little more. You remember old school fighting games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Marvel vs. Capcom? Well, what if you had a fighting game that allowed you to not only make your own version of those games, but make individual assets so that you can have characters from different franchises fight each other? This is what Mugen was all about. As I mentioned, Mugen is a game engine developed by a group/person called Elecbyte in the early 2000s that's primary use is to develop fighting games, though the amount of full games that have been developed with it can probably be counted on two hands. What most people use Mugen for is making and sharing individual characters, stages, screenpacks/HUDs, and so on. While this does sound like a fantastic concept, the big problem with this engine is/was the community surrounding it.
Since the content developed for the engine is developed purely by the community, as Elecbyte quickly abandoned the engine after it's creation and only sporadically came back to update it, you're naturally beholden to whatever the community creates. This makes crafting a balanced collection of characters nigh impossible since even characters based on those from preexisting franchises are only ever as good as their creators. There is such a wide quality gap between the characters of someone like Phantom of the Server vs. those developed by someone like KONG.
Regardless of the quality, most people just download and use characters to facilitate dream matches. Like if you wanted to see Captain America vs. Sub Zero, or to see Homer Simpson vs. Iori Yagami. However, the whole reason Mugen was even popular was that during the height of it's popularity, there was a dearth of 2D fighting games on the market while 3D fighters like Soul Calibur and Tekken were popular along with party games like the Super Smash Bros. series. This all changed once Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only real footprint left behind by Mugen in the culture of modern gaming is SaltyBet, a stream which uses Mugen to facilitate matches between random characters that viewers can bet on to see who wins. Basically, it's virtual cock fighting.
Warehousing?
Warehousing is a community term used by the Mugen community to refer to websites that exist purely to share characters, stages, and screenpacks. Because there were so many websites and communities surrounding Mugen, and many websites come and go, warehousing served the purpose of providing easy access to these items for people to download. Many creators however hated warehousing for a number of reasons, mainly that it was disrespectful to the creators and that it's only purpose is to satisfy the hunger of leechers; people who are only interested in downloading and playing with whatever the community creates.
The obvious issue with this is that these creators put these creations out on the internet with no notion of being paid for their work, and they're distributed through direct download links on public forums. To expect people not to share these creations is idiotic. Besides that, as I mentioned, websites come and go. The only "major" Mugen forums that are still alive are MugenGuild and Infinity Mugen Team. Everyone else has died out, including once major forums and sites like Mugen Infantry and Random Select. Then there's situations like the characters made by ReuBenKee, who tragically passed away in 2007 and whose website is no longer functional. The only place where you can find most of the creations by these people are on the Mugen Database Wiki and the Mugen Archive, which provides many of their entries with direct links. If we're going by 2007 logic, the Mugen Wiki is absolutely a "warehouse," but it seems that the community at large has cooled on the concept of "warehousing" being a problem, especially when we're living in a time where actual 2D fighting games are more popular than ever, and there are new ones being developed all the time. Why would I bother playing with someones shitty evil orochi edits of Ryu and Ken when I can play games like Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Skull Girls, Lethal League: Blaze, Persona 4: Arena, and so on? Hell, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's roster is on the road to being eclectic enough that it can rival most peoples Mugen rosters. Ultimately, warehousing served that same purpose that the wiki does now; to provide easy access and hosting for Mugen creations along with archiving them for future use.
Okay, but what is the purpose of this site then? Is it a warehouse?
Not really. In short, we're a tight group of friends that all met through the Hidden Elect back in 2007, and one night we just got nostalgic. We do have warehousing boards here for shits and giggles, but that's not really what we're about. This site is more of a monument to our own shitposting; which honestly was the best part of those old forums, and it's what we've been doing for years via Skype and Discord. This site is about recanting our own online history and providing a place for us to hang out and goof around. Hell, we also wouldn't mind some new friends joining our midsts either.
Enjoy your time here while it lasts, fuckers!
What the hell is this place?
Once upon a time, in the year 2007, there was a little cesspool of a community centered around Mugen, a fighting game creation tool, that was filled with stuck-up jackasses that hated the fact that people wanted to play with the characters they made. Sharing and hosting characters would get you labeled as a "warehouser" and would lead to complete community sperg-outs. One day, a legendary neckbeard named Zodiac decided he was done playing the same Doom .wads over and over and decided to make a Forum to stick it to the assholes of the Mugen world, and the rest was history...
...until some fat fuck named Laxxe23 had the site DMCA'd because they hosted his stupid Kirby character. Many clones came and went, but no forum could match the majesty that was The Hidden Elect. Tons of drama and shit-flinging, shit loads of leaked characters, and even secret Mugen projects that never saw the light of day; truly a watershed moment for the Mugen community. Since then, it's members have taken to all corners of the internet, but a few close friends from those days still remain. These gentlemen got together one night on Discord and said "Fuck it, let's bring it back to life!" and so it was!
Mugen?
Ah yes, I guess we should elaborate on this a little more. You remember old school fighting games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Marvel vs. Capcom? Well, what if you had a fighting game that allowed you to not only make your own version of those games, but make individual assets so that you can have characters from different franchises fight each other? This is what Mugen was all about. As I mentioned, Mugen is a game engine developed by a group/person called Elecbyte in the early 2000s that's primary use is to develop fighting games, though the amount of full games that have been developed with it can probably be counted on two hands. What most people use Mugen for is making and sharing individual characters, stages, screenpacks/HUDs, and so on. While this does sound like a fantastic concept, the big problem with this engine is/was the community surrounding it.
Since the content developed for the engine is developed purely by the community, as Elecbyte quickly abandoned the engine after it's creation and only sporadically came back to update it, you're naturally beholden to whatever the community creates. This makes crafting a balanced collection of characters nigh impossible since even characters based on those from preexisting franchises are only ever as good as their creators. There is such a wide quality gap between the characters of someone like Phantom of the Server vs. those developed by someone like KONG.
Regardless of the quality, most people just download and use characters to facilitate dream matches. Like if you wanted to see Captain America vs. Sub Zero, or to see Homer Simpson vs. Iori Yagami. However, the whole reason Mugen was even popular was that during the height of it's popularity, there was a dearth of 2D fighting games on the market while 3D fighters like Soul Calibur and Tekken were popular along with party games like the Super Smash Bros. series. This all changed once Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only real footprint left behind by Mugen in the culture of modern gaming is SaltyBet, a stream which uses Mugen to facilitate matches between random characters that viewers can bet on to see who wins. Basically, it's virtual cock fighting.
Warehousing?
Warehousing is a community term used by the Mugen community to refer to websites that exist purely to share characters, stages, and screenpacks. Because there were so many websites and communities surrounding Mugen, and many websites come and go, warehousing served the purpose of providing easy access to these items for people to download. Many creators however hated warehousing for a number of reasons, mainly that it was disrespectful to the creators and that it's only purpose is to satisfy the hunger of leechers; people who are only interested in downloading and playing with whatever the community creates.
The obvious issue with this is that these creators put these creations out on the internet with no notion of being paid for their work, and they're distributed through direct download links on public forums. To expect people not to share these creations is idiotic. Besides that, as I mentioned, websites come and go. The only "major" Mugen forums that are still alive are MugenGuild and Infinity Mugen Team. Everyone else has died out, including once major forums and sites like Mugen Infantry and Random Select. Then there's situations like the characters made by ReuBenKee, who tragically passed away in 2007 and whose website is no longer functional. The only place where you can find most of the creations by these people are on the Mugen Database Wiki and the Mugen Archive, which provides many of their entries with direct links. If we're going by 2007 logic, the Mugen Wiki is absolutely a "warehouse," but it seems that the community at large has cooled on the concept of "warehousing" being a problem, especially when we're living in a time where actual 2D fighting games are more popular than ever, and there are new ones being developed all the time. Why would I bother playing with someones shitty evil orochi edits of Ryu and Ken when I can play games like Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Skull Girls, Lethal League: Blaze, Persona 4: Arena, and so on? Hell, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's roster is on the road to being eclectic enough that it can rival most peoples Mugen rosters. Ultimately, warehousing served that same purpose that the wiki does now; to provide easy access and hosting for Mugen creations along with archiving them for future use.
Okay, but what is the purpose of this site then? Is it a warehouse?
Not really. In short, we're a tight group of friends that all met through the Hidden Elect back in 2007, and one night we just got nostalgic. We do have warehousing boards here for shits and giggles, but that's not really what we're about. This site is more of a monument to our own shitposting; which honestly was the best part of those old forums, and it's what we've been doing for years via Skype and Discord. This site is about recanting our own online history and providing a place for us to hang out and goof around. Hell, we also wouldn't mind some new friends joining our midsts either.
Enjoy your time here while it lasts, fuckers!
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