Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 11KB | 56 lines
MPARTICLE
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[6";32;41m Oh It's Hard To Be Hard
[0m& It's not generally realised just&how hard life is for the software&pirate. What with the expense, the&cut-throat competition and everything&else it's amazing anybody applies for&the job. Anyway, with the demo 242 by&Virtual Dreams of Fairlight making the&front cover I thought I'd give you an&insight into what Fairlight are more&known for. This is extracted, (OK&then, leached) from Grapevine 15. It's&the full text of the article. Over to
Tony.
% T H E S C E N E B Y S P L A T T !
By Splatt! of Fairlight
&I've never written for any sort of&magazine in my life and probably never&will again, so i'll try and make the
most of it!
I N T R O D U C T I O N
&First of all i'll introduce myself to&those of you that don't know me, my&name is Tony, my alias is Splatt of&FairLight, besides running a BBS&(Splatter House) i'm the main&organiser of the UK division&of FairLight. I'm the poor guy that&has to arrange everything, this&involves things like calling various&stores everyday to find what's&released, making sure the supplier can&pick the game up if not getting&someone else, finding a cracker that's&available and making sure he gets the&game as fast as possible, etc etc. I&also draw alot of the ansi logos that&are used on text intros and bulletin&boards. I've been in the scene now for&over 5 years, (I was around when Dave&Jones was Alien of The Kent Team!) and&know just about anyone that is anyone&in the scene. Anyway after reading&several articles about the UK scene I&thought I would tell the UK people how
it really is!
D Y I N G ?
&A lot of people say the scene is&dying, what a load of rubbish! There&are more people involved in it now&then ever before, so how can it be&dying? One thing that is true is that&its changed, A LOT! Guys used to crack&games because they didn't want to pay&the stupid prices only to find that&the game sucks. There was never really&any competition, you cracked a game&because you wanted to, there was never&any hurry to release it either, you&could release it today, tomorrow or&even next week, it didn't matter! Then&gradually its become more and more&competitive, remember groups like&Quartex, Oracle? 4 Years ago they&could take 2 days before they picked&up the original and still be first to&crack it. Nowadays its so competitive&that you must pick up the game the&same hour it arrives at the fastest&shop you can find. Some groups are&even picking up the games at a&distributer the same morning its&released! If you don't pick up the&games this early then your group would
be easily beaten by another!
! W H O ' S T H E B E S T ?
&Imagine if you have just spent 25 on&an original, the cracker has spent&maybe 4-5 hours cracking it and you&are just about to release it when&someone calls you up and tells you
What do you do?
$1) Release it and say that we were "first but our version didn't get
spread as much as yours.&2) Release it and say that we released
it at the same time.
3) Don't release it at all.
&Double releasing a game with another&group is one of the lamest things&possible and you will really get an&ear full from the other groups! So who&pays for all the games then? As&they're certainly not free! If you was&running a BBS which was a bit lame and&you weren't getting too many callers&and hardly any uploads, you could pay&a group to call and support it, as&well as having it advertised on their&cracks. These board's are called&Distribution Sites, your group must&have these to survive. Often guys&steal distribution sites from other&groups by offering them less money&then what they are paying at the%moment. This is when the wars start!
L E T ' S F I G H T !
&You'll find a lot of people always&arguing and calling people names&because of this and that, but surely&the lame ones are the guys that do&just this and don't actually&contribute to the scene at all and are&just fighting with others. This of&course solves nothing and just makes&more and more people mad. The dudes&that actually make the scene such as&the crackers, suppliers, etc. hardly&ever get involved with the fighting&and just try to keep a low profile.&Most of the fighting is based around&the quality of the cracked games, tell&me, if a guy cracks a game, makes a&mistake and then has to release a fix&for it does it mean he can't crack?&Nobody is perfect and considering&cracking can take days and be more&difficult then writing the game itself&(It would have to be a pretty simple&game!) its no wonder people make&mistakes. If a guy cracks 20 games of&easy protection and another guy cracks&2 games of much harder protection who&is the better cracker? What would you&rather release: 20 codemasters games&or 2 Psygnosis ones? I think you&should vote for a group on the quality&of the game they release rather then&the amount of them. At the end of the&day you'll probably be playing the 2&Psygnosis games twice as long as the&20 Codemasters ones! And why should it&matter if the cracker makes a mistake,&as long as he fixes his mistake within&a day or so and doesn't make a habit
of it who cares?
D R U G S ?
&The modem scene can be additive, I&know this sounds stupid but don't&laugh until you have one. The first&time you chat to someone with a modem&its just amazing, you begin logging on&boards every hour just to chat with&the sysop! And if you think that&sounds kewl trying chatting with 5&people simultaneously on a 6 line
MultiNode BBS in America!
&There is also the thrill of seeing a&file on a board and being able to&download it there and then and not&having to wait 3 days for it to come&though the post. This obviously wears&off after a while and you begin to&take it for granted. I think it&becomes more additive if you actually&run a board yourself, as it almost&becomes part of you (sounds kinda dumb&eh?). Wake up in the morning and logon&to check what's new, come home from&work and check your board, etc. If you&think i'm crazy and you don't believe&me then ask another sysop, its true! A&couple of people have said to me&"Don't you wish you never got the&stupid computer now? I mean its&practically running your life!" All I&can say to them is "How many friends&do you have in America, Sweden,&Germany and Scotland?" I now have some&of my closest friends living in these&counties and its only though the modem&that got in contact with them, and&have been to visit them several times!&There is nothing wrong with having a&modem, just try to keep a social life!&Have other hobbies, do other things,&otherwise you could get sucked in.&Action Man of Ministry UK once said&"Its something to care for, if you are&missing something in your life, then&this is something you can devote as&much or as little time to it as you&want." The important thing is to not&take it too seriously, just have it as&a hobby and nothing more. A quick&warning to you future modemtraders:&Some people when they first get their&modem they seem to think they're the&best thing since sliced bread (which&of course there not) and put in the&file description when uploading a file&something like: ANOTHER FUCKING COOL&UPLOAD BY BLAH BLAH. This of course is&one of the worst things you can do and&you'll probably get warned by the&sysop, do it again and your deleted!&This goes the same for uploading&files, you have to be fast! 0-1 Day&old files ONLY! Upload anything older&and your making the board you upload&it to look slow! I hope i've not&offended anyone by writing this&article as its all true. Just remember&90% of the guys that develop Amiga&software started off in some sort of&pirate group! I want to see all of you&at the FairLight Party in September&which will be held in London! For more&information on this awesome event
write to:
P.O. Box 12
Hoddessdon
Herts
EN11 0QX
England
&Some personal greetings to: Action&Man, Executioner, Flux, Gaston, JBM,&Majic Mushroom, Night Flyer, Nomad,&Rebel, Red Devil, Shaggy, Slayer,&Synchronizer, Telemach, Zool And the&1000's of others I can't be bothered
to list, you know who you are!& end.
----& And there you have it. I know it's&all too late for you to make it to the&Fairlight party but I left Tony's&address in should any of you wish to&send him some words of sympathy or&encouragement. Christmas cards at!Christmas would seem appropriate.
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