Error in Line 1 and 2 - A tale of two parties!
CiH takes a slightly dispassionate look at the two editions of a world
famous Atari Scene party.
There's no doubt that the second Error in Line party was cool, and that
it lived up to the spirit of the first one. We can even say that it may
have been as significant release-wise, as the first. But was it
'better' than the first, the purpose of this article, is hopefully to
find out..
Okay, let's go!
Weather:- A trivial point perhaps, but you remember the first EIL as
having passable to good spring weather. This time around, Easter was
devoted to blizzards! This didn't affect the in-party ambience one jot,
and the cooler conditions may have helped some people to sleep better?
It did add an unintended Xmassy festive air to our trips around the
Dresden city centre though!
Alcohol:- Another dumb personal satisfaction gauge. EIL 1, beer, thanks
to those nice TNB people. EIL 2, Vodka, and lots of strange Macedonian
red wine, thanks to Grey and a nice but unknown French bloke!
Major demo releases:- Error in Line, more than some other recent coding
parties, is a release driven event. Major demos were shown at both
parties, including some genuinely groundbreaking material.
The first Error in Line party showed off nine (count 'em!) major demos.
Five of these were ST based There were two demos from the Mystic Bytes
and Dead Hackers Society, each very similar in style, and although both
were very good, they tended to reprise effects they had already coded
for the Falcon. There was a neat combination old school/new effects
surprise release from TNB, and of course, the highlight of the
competition, the epic 'Suretrip', coming from the hands of Defjam of
Checkpoint. So four high quality productions, with Checkpoint
dominating centre stage.
The first EIL Falcon demos were clearly showing a scene in transition.
The best of a mixed bunch, in my opinion, was the energetic 'Alive'
demo from Fun. This was pipped to the post by a DHS release with its
main strength in its presentation. A lightweight intro from Mind
Design, and a borderline "is it fake or is it real?" production from
NoCrew made up the numbers. The third prize winner, a very slow 3D
world by Cobra showed where the Falcon scene was going next, if only
someone could put a rocket under that code!
The second EIL stood things on their head, as it was rightly called
'The revenge of the Falcon'. Fewer overall major releases this time,
divided up into six Falcon demos (one of these borderline fake), and
just one ST demo. So, seven against nine big demos.
But numbers aren't the whole story of course. Where the first EIL had a
lot of competent stuff, with (hand on heart!) just one groundbreaking
demo, the second EIL managed three totally new productions, the DSP and
Sono smashing first prize winner from Escape, the accelerator loving
epic from DHS, and a top class 3-D world from T.O.Y.S. This puts the
second party way ahead of the first, in this all important category.
The remaining Falcon demos were all of a good standard, including
entries from the Paranoid (tunnel paradise!), something slightly
different from an unknown GFA basic fan, and a well-realised joke demo
from the Spice Boys, or is that a harrowing true-life documentary on
the (short) life of a pizza slice!
The ST section suffered a big crash, and it was only thanks to the
efforts of Sector One and friends, that we saw anything ST related at
all! And this was a demo previously previewed at the Xmas STNICCC
party! To be fair, this was extremely high quality in a French
oldschool fashion, and an interesting counterpoint to Defjam's work,
two years previously.
Of other contenders of potential interest, Cream stayed away, as did
Defjam, who would have otherwise surely mounted a challenge comparable
to his first EIL demo? There were others who didn't make it for the
Falcon competition too, as Mystic Bytes put their demo on hold, but
promising something special later on, and Mind Design who simply ran
out of time.
Conclusion.. EIL 2 wins, in spite of big holes showing in the ST
category, due to the greater levels of innovation in the Falcon
section.
Minor stuff:-
Eil 1, famous for 128 byte intros, (three), and a strong fake
competition (3).
Eil 2, missing both the above categories, but bringing back proper
96ktros, with a strong ST based entry from tSCc, and a cute lightweight
affair from Exocet. Also a couple of 4K intros from Escape and tSCc.
The faketro's can possibly said to have been replaced by the Atari 8-
bit intro section, where there was no evidence of anyone trying too
hard!
Conclusion.. Very close, the Ibiza faketro almost pulls it off
singlehandedly for the first party, Ray of tSCc fights for the honour
of the second EIL with his 96k and 4ktros. Shoving the Whip! plugin
competition, a totally new category in here, clinches it in the end for
the second party!
Wild Compo:-
Eil 1, had quite a large mixed bag, with various musical, and audio-
visual productions, in the end, all blasted aside by the first sighting
of the awesome Whip! sound to light effects program for the Falcon!
Eil 2, a big drop in interest here. The author of this piece found that
he was roped in to make up the small number of entries with his ASCII-
Nation diskmag! A very professional video production from Havoc wins
it.
Conclusion.. Error in Line part 1 wins this by the proverbial country
kilometre! Although the author of this article personally found the
second EIL wild compo much more personally profitable (grin!)
Graphics:-
Eil 1, a reasonable number of entries in the truecolour and sixteen
colour categories, truecolour won by Agent T, and sixteen colour
section by Havoc.
Eil 2, dear or dear, a big crash down to just five entries! Giving the
sparse number of entrants three categories to play with (a four colour
compo, in addition to the other two) didn't help. In the end they are
all rolled together into one! Flash of TNB is the winner here.
Conclusion... A disaster for EIL 2. It seems perhaps that graphics
people are more vunerable than most to sudden decisions to quit active
scene work, when the pointless arguments start raging on the DHS
bulletin board?!
Music:-
About even between the two parties, the major interest moves from the
four channel protracker compo to chip music, as does the first prize
winner, MSG! The Multichannel category is about the same between the
two.
Conclusion... Nothing between them on this one.
Stupid spur of the moment thing that helped define the party:-
Eil part 2 walks this one, thanks to the Whip!Pong competition. A
"sporting" event with a difference, and possibly quite useful in
identifying future threats to the well-being of society at large!? Tam
was the unsurprising winner here!
So, to wind things up, both parties had their happy memories to take
home, both parties had their many good points, and few slightly less
good points, but in the end we have to pick a winner...
In spite of the first EIL's valiant attempts to catch up in the minor
categories, the winner is the second EIL, due to the higher quality of
the major demo releases. Very simply, we are setting four groundbreaker
demos for EIL part 2, against maybe one or two from the first party.
I'm sure lots of people may well have differing views on the matter, so
feel free to write to the editor and tell him what you think of this
topic!
CiH, for Chosneck diskmag, May '01