| Quick Jump/Link To: Streaming | Chat | Posters | Software | Outgrown Products/Services | Outlived Products/Services | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Streaming History | ||||||
| Start Year | End Year | DB Start Year | DB End Year | Driver Cam | Bus Cam | Notes |
| 2007 | 2010 | DB1 | DB4 | ustream.tv/desert-bus-drivercam | ustream.tv/desert-bus-buscam | Ustream (now IBM) has since deleted the saved video archive. |
| 2011 | 2011 | DB5 | DB5 | justin.tv/db_high livestream.com/desertbusforhope twitch.tv/db_high |
justin.tv/db_bus twitch.tv/db_bus |
Started on justin.tv, hit the international viewer limit, attempted to move to livestream which had a 1000 viewer limit, horrible quality, and constant ads, then moved to twitch.tv("tagging" the stream as "gaming") which avoided the international viewer limit Switch happened 2 hours 30min in to the DB5 run. |
| 2012 | 2012 | DB6 | DB6 | twitch.tv/db_high | twitch.tv/db_bus | - |
| 2013 | 2013 | DB7 | DB7 | twitch.tv/desertbus | twitch.tv/db_bus | Last year for bus cam. |
| 2014 | 20?? | DB8 | DB?? | twitch.tv/desertbus | - | Buscam was merged with main cam in DB8 |
| Chat location History | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start Year | End Year | DB Start Year | DB End Year | channel | irc network | Notes |
| 2007 | 2007 | DB1 | DB1 | #BusCam | irc.ustream.tv | People were very confused that they weren't using the chat associated with the cam with the people on it. |
| 2008 | 2010 | DB2 | DB4 | #desert-bus-drivercam | irc.ustream.tv | DB Survivors started at the end of DB4, when everyone just decided to stay |
| 2011 | 2016 | DB5 | DB9+ | #desertbus | irc.desertbus.org | Used for the run DB5-7 & shut down during runs DB8+ |
| 2014 | 2016 | DB8 | DB9 | #desertbus | irc.twitch.tv | Announcement about moving to: Twitch IRC chat |
| 2014 | 2016 | DB8 | DB9 | #DesertBusBunker | irc.chatspike.net | Setup for slower chat and a place for main to live during the run, as irc.desertbus.org was shutdown during the run. |
| 2016 | 20?? | DB10 | DB?? | #desertbus | irc.chat.twitch.tv | Twitch chat re-architecture moved to new server set. |
| 2016 | 20?? | DB9+ | DB?? | #desertbus | irc.dbcommunity.org | Non-Offical community network setup post DB9 after desertbus.org server shutdown. |
| Poster(s) History | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start Year | End Year | DB Start Year | DB End Year | Artist | Poster Type | Notes |
| 2007 | 2007 | DB1 | DB1 | Zack Finfrock | Crew Compilation | First ever poster image drawn for DesertBus Orig. Image Currently Missing! See: VST Data Recovery Project |
| 2009 | 2009 | DB3 | DB3 | EpoCALYPsE | Run Events | First poster containing only events that happened during the run |
| 2009 | 2009 | DB3 | DB3 | Lunsford | Crew Compilation | First poster drawn by Lunsford (who would later become the default DB poster artist) |
| 2010 | 2011 | DB4 | DB5 | Lunsford | Crew Compilation / Run Events | Start of the inclusion of run events, but maintaining static crew positions at the start of the run. |
| 2011 | 2011 | DB5 | DB5 | Zack Finfrock | Sub-Event poster | Comissioned by Steve Dengler, poster of the Dengler & Butts: They Fight Crime sub-event from the run. |
| 2012 | 2014 | DB6 | DB8 | Lunsford | Crew Compilation / Run Events | DB6-8 posters were pure run events but specific people were guarenteed a spot. |
| 2015 | 20?? | DB9 | DB?? | Lunsford | Run Events | DB9+ the posters were pure run events only with no one requried to be on the poster. [Source] |
| 2016 | 2016 | DB1 | DB2 | Lunsford | Run Events | Lunsford went back and made run-events posters for DB1 and DB2 for the DB10 10-pack of posters. |
| 2016 | 2016 | DB10 - Doc | DB10 - Doc | Lunsford | Multi-Year Run Events | Lunsford created a multi-year event poster for the DB10 Documentary. Due to production delays these would not be mailed out until 2017-10-19. |
| 2021 | 2021 | DB15 | DB15 | mangledPixel | Sub-Event poster | mangledPixel created the U.S.S. Tucson for Night Watch's running Star Trek theme for the year. Which was then turned in to a purchaseable poster and playmat mid-run. |
| Relevant Website / Software History | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Relevant DB Year | Software / Website | Description | Relevant Link | Notes |
| 2010-04-15 | DB4 | GoogleDocs | Google Docs Multi-user editing becomes avaliable | https://drive.googleblog.com/2010/04/a-rebuilt-more-real-time-google.html | This is the ability to have a collaborative spreadsheet. |
| 2013-11-30?? | DB7+ | GoogleDocs | Bug Encountered by the DB7 VST team with the revision log | Unknown, link / bug report could not be found | Google Docs Revision log limit/bug raised past 1.7 million revision log entries. This being fixed prevented the VST from having to create a new spreadsheet mid-run during DB8 |
| 2014-06-25 | DB8 | GoogleDrive / GoogleDocs | Google Drive multi-user was added | https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2014/06/dedicated-desktop-home-pages-for-google.html | This allowed better organization of the VST spreadsheet archive |
| 2014-08-06 | DB8 | Twitch | Twitch adds overzeallous VOD muting | https://blog.twitch.tv/important-changes-to-audio-in-vods-35939b33ee2a | VOD muting (30 min per-detection) for an undisclosed list of "songs" meant the VST could no longer use Twitch's Highlighting system, and thus had to start using independent capture boxes. |
| 2015-08-30 2015-09-08 |
DB9 | Twitch | Twitch implements a 48 hour stream broadcast limit. | Unknown, link / "feature" add page not found yet. | This limit just makes the streamer re-connect after 48 hours (really 47h 59m 50sec). Implementation of this "feature" happened between 2015-08-30 and 2015-09-08. This is almost assuredly in response to several Twitch Plays Pokemon VODs that were 193, 140, and 212 hours in length, and their VOD player messing up after a VOD is over 72 hours long. (The final 212 hour VOD starting on 2015-08-30, and 48h only VODs starting on 2015-09-08) |
| 2017-03-07 | DB11 | YouTube | YouTube implements a secret 99 videos per-channel per-day limit. | https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/35919708 | This prevented the VST from being able to finish uploading the DB11 run until Dec. 4 2017 (the run ended on Nov. 24) |
| 2018-11-09 | DB12 | GoogleDocs | GoogleDocs implemented a "feature" that prevented formulas from running when 30+ people are in a spreadsheet. | Unknown, link / "feature" add page not found yet. | This broke the sheet transferring at the beginning of the run, all formulas were moved to transfer sheet to solve this. |
| 2018-11-10 | DB12 | Twitch | Twitch implemented a previously unknown 24 hour continous watch limit. | Unknown, link / "feature" add page not found yet. | This caused both wubloaders to miss Alex and Ash's entrance at nearly the same time since they both hit the limit within 30 seconds of each other. An entirely new wubloader was written to combat this problem, with custom HLS capture. |
| 2019-11-08 | DB13 | Twitch | Twitch breaks 3rd party stream viewing clients. | Github link for StreamLink on the issue. | This caused multiple people's captures to fail, and caused a mad scramble with the VST capture to fix the problem before the nodes had to re-connect after the next stream drop as this happened ~3 hours in to the DB13 run. |
| 2020-10-08 | DB14 | YouTube | YouTube removed the "Auto-add to playlist" feature (among other things) because ease of use is for suckers. | Archive.org link of Youtube documentation warning. | This broke the Day # playlist auto-generation as well as auto-add in to the RDP playlist, the VST had to write their own playlist manager to compensate. |
| 2021-08-16 | DB15 | Python | Python 2.x's EOL started becoming a problem. | Github link for VST Wubloader on the issue. | Python 2's age & EOL meant things we use are no longer being tested for compatability which broke a lot of things, thus causing Ekim to port all the wubloader Python 2 code to Python 3, this took almost a month. |
| Services/Products Desert Bus for Hope / The VST / Chat have used and outgrown. (Services/Products that Desert Bus for Hope, The VST, chat, or Child's Play Charity have used for hosting/creating content that have been removed in favor of 'better' products.) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Used during | Service/Product | Software / Website type | Description | Replaced By | Notes |
| Crew used Services/Products that have outgrown | |||||
| DB3 -> DB? | Camtwist | Multi-Camera video switcher and video effects (filters) | Used for camera switching and video filters (Mainly during dance parties.) |
OBS and ATEM video Switcher and Millumin | Slowly replaced / phased out over multiple DBs: Millumin was switched to at DB13/2019 for live video effects |
| DB3 -> DB? | Quartz Composer | Visual programming language | Used to create the overlays at DesertBus | Custom web-based tools and OBS | While still supported Quartz Composer is now been deprecated. |
| DB4 -> DB? | Skype | Video conferencing service | Used for guest callins at DesertBus. | VDO.ninja | -- |
| DB? -> DB? | AG-HMX100 Video Switcher | Digital Audio/Visual Mixer | Used for camera switching / effects | ATEM video Switcher and Stream Decks | -- |
| DB5 -> DB? | AverMedia SPB350 Document Camera | Document Camera (overhead style) | Used for showing off prizes during DesertBus. | Sony SRG-360SHE PTZ camera (aka Kevin) | -- |
| DB1 -> DB10, DB17 | Sega Genesis / SegaCD | Game Console / Add-on Game Console | The game console Desert Bus is played on | JVC X'Eye | JVC X'Eye (and OSSC) donated/loaned to the run by DandyGeek The X'Eyes would eventually break and they would revert back to the Sega Genesis / Sega CD Combo for DB17 |
| DB14 -> DB16* | JVC X'Eye | Game Console | The game console Desert Bus is played on | 'Cloud Bus' | *This was a forced change due to a global pandemic. |
| VST used Services/Products that have been outgrown | |||||
| DB6 -> DB7 | Twitch Highlights | Video Editing/Uploading Tool | Used for editing/uploading videos to youtube | YouTube video editor / Wubloader (v1) |
Was abandoned due to Twitch VOD muting. |
| DB8 -> DB8 | YouTube Video Editor | Video Editing Tool | Used for refining the edit of videos. (Initially uploaded with 1 min on either side) |
Thrimbletrimmer (v1) | YouTube's video editor does NOT handle the volume of video edits the VST does. |
| DB8 -> DB10 | Livestreamer | Live video capture software | Used to capture the video stream from Twitch | Streamlink | Software stopped being updated, hence the switch. |
| DB9 -> DB12 | Default Browser video playback | Custom video editor | Replaced because we moved to HLS video capture | video.js | Nothing wrong with it, we just switched capture methods |
| DB11 -> DB12 | Streamlink | Live video capture software | Used to capture the video stream from Twitch | Custom HLS capture bot (Wubloader v3) |
Switched because of twitch implementing a 24-hour watch limit. |
| DB13 -> DB14 | video.js | Javascript Library for Browser video playback | Used in the VST's custom video editor | hls.js | Replaced to get more features |
| 2015-10-13 - 2021-09-17* | Slack | Group Chat / Instant Messaging service | Used heavily by the VST, Mods, and DB Org. for internal organization/chat | Self-hosted Zulip (VST only) | ArchiveTeam page ||
Wikipedia page
*While the service is still up, free service scroll-back was limited to 10,000 messages As Slack's billing for "paid" is $8.75(USD) PER PERSON, PER MONTH, and you MUST buy for everyone AND archiving / preserving old data is functionally impossible... 2021-09-17: The VST made the decision to move to self-hosted Zulip. 2022-09-01: The free service was again further limited to "messages older than 90 days." |
| Services/Products Desert Bus for Hope / The VST / Chat have used and outlived. (Services/Products that Desert Bus for Hope, The VST, chat, or Child's Play Charity have used for hosting/creating content that are now partially or fully gone.) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date Dead | Service | Software / Website type | Description | ArchiveTeam / Wikipedia Link | Notes |
| 2011-08-20 | Revver | Video Hosting service | Used by LRR for hosting videos | Used only to link to LRR videos in chat, no DB content lost with this one. | |
| 2012-08-20 | Google Video | Video Hosting service | Used by various chat members to host and share videos | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Was shutdown by Google with merely a month's notice (on 2011-04-15), but due to outcry they delayed the acutal shutdown till 2012. |
| 2014-??-??* | ImageShack | Image Hosting service | Used by numerous chat members for hosting images and gifs of the run | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | *Service deleted nearly their entire free image archive w/o notice in 2014 and completely on 2016-01-31, no known backups exist. Website still exists, but is completely pay-only now. |
| 2014-08-04 | Justin.tv | Video Streaming service | Used at the beginning of DB5 (2011) The service continued until it was shut down in 2014 |
ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Was shutdown in favor of Twitch.tv and all content deleted. |
| 2014-09-01 | blip.tv | Video Hosting service | Used by LRR and DesertBus to host videos of / about the run Most notably: DB4 video uploads and DB5 preview/PSA videos |
ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Shutdown was given with 4 months notice, archiveteam managed to make a good, but not full backup. |
| 2015-??-?? | yfrog | Image hosting service | Occasionally used by chat members to host and refer to images | Was shutdown and deleted by ImageShack who took the ultimate team evil approach of replacing all images with ads at the time. No known backups exist. Any yfrog link now just re-directs to the ImageShack main page. |
|
| 2016-01-24 | irc.desertbus.org | Chat service | Used by chat members and crew during the run DB5->DB7 (2011-2013) Was shut down during the run for DB8 (2014) and DB9 (2015) in favor of twitch chat. |
During the DB8 and DB9 runs a seperate room was setup on irc.chatspike.net, post DB9 irc.dbcommunity.org was launched to replace it. The DBcommunity IRC server group is non-official and not run by DB itself. |
|
| 2016-05-01 | Picasa | Image Hosting service | Used by chat members and crew at the run to host screencaps and photos of the run Most notably: photos taken by Ashton of Paul's beard shave event at DB2 (2008) |
ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Was shutdown by Google to try and force people over to Google Photos basically all photos are now considered lost. |
| 2017-01-17 | Vine | Short-form video hosting service | Used by chat members to link to videos and LRR for non-DB content | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Was shutdown by Twitter with ~2 months notice given on: 2016-10-27. An official Vine archive was put up by Twitter on: 2017-01-20. Full public access to that same archive put up by Twitter was shutdown on: 2018-05-25. That same archive itself was fully deleted by Twitter on 2019-04-??. |
| 2018-12-?? | Ustream.tv | Video Streaming service | Used by DesertBus for streaming the run DB1-DB4 (2007-2010) The service continued to exist until IBM bought them in 2016. |
ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | IBM quietly killed Ustream and deleted all content and archives without notice in Dec. of 2018. |
| 2019-02-05* | Flickr | Photo Sharing service | Used by Chat, crafters, DB, and Child's Play Charity | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | *While still up, the service did a purge of ALL free accounts on 2019-02-05. ALL free accounts were trimmed to 1,000 images on that date. This caused the near complete loss of public access to all historical Child's Play Charity's Charity Dinner photos. |
| 2019-04-02 | Google+ | Social Media Site | Mainly used by some crafters in chat to link to images of their prizes | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | While archiveteam claims to have saved nearly everything only 1 of the links from chat appears in the wayback machine. |
| 2019-09-16 | TinyPic | Image Hosting service | Used heavily by chat members to host and link images / gifs | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service was shutdown by Photobucket with 3 months notice in 2019, due to how slow tinypic's servers were complete archival was impossible. |
| 2022-11-01 | Google Hangouts | Video conference service | Used heavily by the VST and DB Org. Committees for pre-run meetings. Also heavily used by the VST for pre-run training of members. |
Dead date is a bit misleading, as the VST had to switch to using jit.si in 2021 as at that point Hangouts was essentially unavailable. | |
| 2022-11-17 | HQ | Live Trivia service | Played on-stream at DB11 (2017) and promoted by several crew members | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service was initially killed Feb. 14, 2020, but brought back by an angel investor. However, no games have aired since 2022-11-17. The app was removed from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store on 2023-08-05. |
| 2023-05-??* | PhotoBucket | Image Hosting service | Used by chat members to host and link images / gifs | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | *While still up, all free accounts have been disabled, and it is unclear what will happen to images associated with those accounts. |
| 2023-04-19* | Imgur | Image Hosting service | Used heavily by chat members, prize crafters, and crew to host and link to images / gifs | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | *While still up, the VST considers the service dead as they remove "old, unused, and inactive content after 6 months", thus making it a non-persistent image host. |
| 2023-06-02 | Blaseball | Baseball simulation horror game | Featured during the DB14-16 (2020-2022) runs. | Heavily featured during the DB14 (2020) run, and many live performances by The Garages (a band inspired by Blaseball). Game was supposedly shut down due to high support cost. |
|
| 2023-09-01 | Gfycat | Gif hosting service | Used by numerous chat members for hosting and posting gifs during the run. | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service shutdown notice was posted on the gfycat front-page with 2 months notice. |
| 2024-10-05 | Desert Bus for Hope Blog (old) | Old-style wordpress blog | Heavily used by the VST for referencing and back-tracking. Ran from 2007-11-07 to 2022-10-01 and included post comments. |
Service shutdown w/o notice, just simply disappeared initially to a white page, now all old links simply re-direct to current DB home-page. This means: several poster-moments and links in VST spreadsheets, as well as any external links are now dead links. |
|
| 2025-01-12 | cohost | Microblogging service | Used by Desert Bus and VST for posting updates.. | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service shutdown notice was posted 3 months before shutdown date Archive.org capture. ArchiveTeam was able to get a full caputre put in to the wayback machine with some help from the cohost admins. |
| 2025-03-31 | LoadingReadyRun Forum | Web Forum | Used heavily in the past by Crafters, DB Chatmembers, and LRR fans. An incredibly massive historical archive of LRR / Desert Bus content and feedback. Heavily used by the VST in the retroactive creation of historical data. |
Service created on 2004-03 back when most websites in this list didn't even exist. Service shutdown notice was posted on 2025-03-13, 13 days before it was turned off. Due to the complexity of the forum, and the slowness of the website, dumping all of it in to archive.org by the VST was deemed impossible in the time available. As of 2025-04-01 the forum Web page now just says: "Board offline. Visit our Discord server at discord.gg/lrr" |
|
| 2025-04-19 | Twitch (Highlights & Uploads) |
Video Hosting service | Used by DB / VST for hosting video | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service for storing highlights of old vods, and (upload service) created as an alternative to YouTube hosting. A new "100-hour" limit notice was posted on 2025-02-19, 2 months before videos would be auto-deleted. As a result Twitch can no longer be used/trusted as persistent video host, and the VST moved non-YouTubeable videos to archive.org |
| 202?-??-??* | Twitpic | Image Hosting service | Used by chat members, prize crafters, and crew to host and link to images / gifs | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | Service created back when twitter didn't allow images, later acquired by twitter in a "read only" fashion. *As it appears Twitter has stopped paying their bills (2023-06-30) and disabled non-logged in viewing of the site, is considered critically endangered. |
| 202?-??-??* | Micro-blogging / image hosting / video hosting service |
Used by numerous chat and crew members as well as crafters for hosting content and posting images / gifs / videos during the run. | ArchiveTeam page || Wikipedia page | As this has been a service since DB2 (2008) for information about the run, this poses an extreme historical information loss. *Since Twitter appears to have stopped paying their bills (2023-06-30) and disabled non-logged in viewing of the site, it is considered critically endangered. |
|