Period
2004–2012
What it was
A DirectShow decoder pack for Windows, distributed as an installer with optional Windows Media and QuickTime modules.
Status
Documented in full, with the component list and modern equivalents.
Archive Index: The File Collections This Domain Used to Carry
Four separate collections were hosted here before the current site. This page records what each one was, so that a link arriving from an old forum post lands on an accurate answer.
Final Fantasy VII field and menu mods
Period
roughly 2012–2016
What it was
Texture packs, field graphics, menu overlays and batch installers for the PC release of the game, distributed as archives under /ff/.
Status
Not recoverable. Modding for this title has since consolidated onto a handful of maintained community installers, which supersede anything that was here.
Period
2017 and 2021
What it was
Four posts on Nintendo hardware and one slot review, published under a WordPress theme after the file collections had stopped being updated.
Status
The slot review is the one page that still draws readers and it has been rebuilt in place. The hardware posts covered the Switch launch presentation, the OLED revision and the persistent Switch Pro rumour, citing Nintendo's own pages and TechRadar's reporting at the time. The 2017 presentation page those posts linked to has since been retired, so that citation now points at the console's current page on the same site.
Cited at the time
Cockatrice and Magic deck tools
Period
roughly 2013–2016
What it was
Card databases, French translation files, token images, a deck printer and a portable build of the Cockatrice client, distributed under /magic/.
Status
Not recoverable, and superseded in any case. Cockatrice is actively maintained upstream and ships its own current card data and translations.
The files themselves are gone and are not recoverable. Where a link still points at one of these paths it now lands here instead, which is the honest outcome: the address is recognised, and what stood at it is described. Where a project is still maintained, as Cockatrice is, its own distribution is the right place to obtain current files rather than any decade-old mirror.
The decoder bundle is the exception worth following, because the formats it handled are still encountered and its component list is a fast way to identify what an old video file needs. That documentation sits at the archive entry, and the symptom-led route to the same information is the playback diagnostic.
Why a dead file collection is worth describing
A vanished download is normally left to return a not-found error, and that is the wrong outcome for two reasons. The first is practical: a reader arriving from a decade-old forum thread has a specific question, which is what the file was and whether anything replaces it. An error page answers neither, while a short description answers both in a sentence.
The second reason is that these four collections explain what this domain actually was before the current site, and that context makes the rest of it legible. A site carrying video decoders, game texture packs and card-game tooling at the same time was not an editorial project; it was one person's file host, organised by whatever they happened to be working on. The video decoder half is the part with a subject that outlived it, which is why it is the half that has been rebuilt as documentation rather than recorded as history.
What replaced each of them
The four took different routes. Video decoding moved inside the players: once VLC and mpv carried their own decoding library, a system-wide bundle stopped being necessary for ordinary viewing, and the one remaining case is covered by a single maintained filter set rather than a dozen loose components. That transition is documented in full on the decoder-pack entry.
Game modding consolidated. Where a mod once meant downloading numbered archives and unpacking them in the right order, the communities around individual titles have since produced installers that resolve dependencies themselves, and loose texture archives are both harder to use and easier to get wrong. Card-game tooling consolidated upstream instead: Cockatrice is actively developed and ships its own current card data and translations, so a mirrored copy of either from a decade ago is strictly worse than the original source.
None of them needed rescuing. What needed preserving was the addresses, because those are what other sites still point at, and an address that resolves to an explanation is worth more than one that resolves to nothing.
Questions about these collections
Can any of these files be obtained elsewhere?
For the card-game tooling, yes and from a better source: Cockatrice is still developed and publishes its own current card data and translations. For the game texture packs, the communities around that title now distribute maintained installers instead of loose archives. The decoder bundle is the one with no current equivalent, because the need it answered no longer exists.
Why does an old link land on this page rather than an error?
Because an error answers nothing. Someone following a decade-old link wants to know what stood at that address and whether anything replaces it, and both fit in a sentence. Returning a not-found response would discard a question that can be answered.
Were these collections related to each other?
Only through their author. Video decoders, game texture packs and card-game tooling have nothing in common as subjects; they were hosted together because one person was working on all of them. That is worth knowing, because it explains why the current site covers one of the four and not the rest.
Why was the decoder bundle rebuilt as documentation and not the rest?
Because its subject outlived it. Files still refuse to play and the reasons are still the same, so a description of what the bundle contained remains useful. Texture packs for one game and card data for another were superseded by better versions of themselves, which leaves nothing to explain.
Is anything from these collections still hosted here?
No. Nothing on this domain serves those files, and this page exists to say so plainly rather than to leave the question open. The addresses are recognised; the contents are not reproduced.
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