17 Bit Software 2: Collection B

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Text File | 1991-09-09 | 16.2 KB | 269 lines

THE FINAL FRONTIER - THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA -------------------------------------------- by Simon Plumbe ----------------- As you can see just by reading this issue, we've undergone a number of major changes, mainly in terms of the magazine's overall look and presentation. It is also being produced under a new group name, Infinite Frontiers. Why have we done all this? Well, it's a long story, but we felt that you at least deserved to know what's been going on behind the scenes. Andrew Wilk, our ex-coder and ex-producer, had been a friend of mine for the last 10 years. When he started his demo crew, Power House, I joined as a swapper under the name "The Q" (I was quite heavily into the demo collecting scene). Eventually, when I launched The Final Frontier, it was my chance to make a "real" contribution to the group. I decided to call him recently, on Thursday 14th May, for a friendly chat and to discuss work on the next issue of the mag. He answered the phone and said, "Hello". I immediately recognised his voice and replied, "Alright!". He recognised my voice, said "Goodbye" and slammed the phone down on me. I called again about 30 minutes later to be told that he had "gone out". Within 2 hours, a letter was in the post trying to find out what was wrong and whether I had said or done anything to upset him. Two days later on Saturday, I was in Birmingham city centre when I spotted him. I went up to him and he seemed okay. He said he was going to explain everything to me in a letter and he told me to "be patient". I waited for about 3 weeks and I still hadn't heard from him, so on 1st June I wrote another letter, explaining my concerns for the mag saying that if he wasn't willing to work on it to let me know so I could make other arrangements. I just wanted to know where I stood. This was the letter I wrote (as you can see, it's a fairly unoffensive and tactfully written letter). "Hi Andy, I know you're going to write to me soon, and you asked me to be patient, but there were a few things that I felt that needed to be said before you sent your letter (a few points I could do with answering). Sorry about hassling you like this, but here goes..... It may sound like I'm getting a bit narrow minded, but I'm getting a little bit concerned over your involvement in THE FINAL FRONTIER. I'd just like to know if you'll still be working on the current, and possibly future issues. It's really that I'm just getting paranoid and I've spent the best part of 2 years working on the mag and I don't want to see it fail. As well as me, there are quite a few other people who are starting to put a lot of time into it's production. Colin has had the last 2 weeks off from work just to write for me! Without you, I don't think the mag would look half as good as it does, and I'm eternally grateful for all your help! I know I've put you under pressure over it in the past, and I'm really sorry and I'm starting to try and sort this situation out with a series of ads for new writers, artists, musicians and, most importantly, coders, so I can greatly reduce yours, and everyone's involvement. To help further, if you're still keen on working with me on the mag, I've got a few suggestions to make work on the next issue much easier:- * For the bootblocks, I think it's probably best to stick with the bootblocks we're using and just mention the distribution in a number of text files. This saves the trouble of having to get a track-loader written and to draw the art to go on the bootblock. I don't know how long it would take you to do bootblocks for 4 disks, but it's got to be quicker than writing a track-loader! * With the menu, I think it would be better to forget trying to do a text viewer for now. MuchMore seems to work well enough, and I don't really think I'll be able to contact the coder of that PowerPacker support file in time anyway to get permission to use the util. This will mean that the menu system is as good as ready, but with the lower-case font support and the text-based menus you've created, it will have been enhanced over the previous issue so we can keep the readers quiet! * I'm not too sure whether we need a contact screen or not, but I could always knock up a small text-screen myself and I'll get hold of Mod Processor to do the business with the music. * The intro. Sorry! There's nothing I can do about this, but I'll leave the design totally up to you so you just code what you feel able to do. If you can incorporate the TREK VI logo (from the novel and mag you're borrowing), that'd be great! I've got the music ripped and I'll pass it on when we get together. That's another reason I'm looking for more coders so I can get them to do intros on most of the issues, leaving you with just the menus. (P.S. I'll need the TREK VI stuff back soon, as I've got to review them!) If there's anything else I can do to help, if you're still willing to work on the mag, just let me know. If it helps at all, maybe the mag could become independant of P-H again releasing any burden that it might be on the crew? This way, you won't feel "compelled" to work on it (although I hope you'd still like to)." Nothing wrong with that, you might think. However, I still didn't get a response and I sent a third letter to him on 23rd June 1992, telling him that I had sorted out the intro (with the RSI Demo Maker) and that I was using MenuMaster for the menus so I didn't need any help from him. I also said that I was desperate to get my TREK VI material back and I asked him to send them back in the post or to call me to collect them as I needed them within 7 days. That was that, I thought. We were going to have everything sorted from the magazine's point of view and I was expecting a parcel or a call to collect the books. That wasn't to happen. On 27th June 1992, I received a parcel from a friend in Finland, which included a demo pack from his crew, Acume. On it was a British message based disk mag called "Message Box #3" released on 12th June 1992, produced by the demo crew "Dual Crew", of which, Andrew was a friend of one of their members. I was shocked to read in the news section that I had been kicked out of Power House! The exact words were: "The Q of Power House has been kicked out for unnaceptable behaviour. As a result of this, the magazine `The Final Frontier', of which `The Q' was the editor, has been dropped and is no longer a Power House release." As you can imagine, I was somewhat shocked! It's not unusual for demo crews to kick members out, but usually, the members that are being kicked out are told when it happens, or at least WHY they are being kicked out. Obviously, this magazine had the "news" at least a week or so before release, and yet I didn't find out until 3 weeks later after receiving the mag from a friend living over 1000 miles away. I still haven't been contacted by Andrew and haven't been told by any of the remaining members of Power House that I have been kicked out. If I hadn't seen that magazine, I could still be going round under the assumption that I was still in Power House! However, it seems as if I wasn't the only casualty of all this. Because of his work for TFF, I talked with Andy and he agreed that Colin Gunn deserved to become a Power House member as well. Unfortunately, in the news article, after it announced my removal from the crew, there was a list of all the current members of Power House and Colin's name was nowhere to be seen. It appears that anyone or anything to do with me was being removed from Power House. There was also no mention of the fact that Vince Hirst was supposed to be a member of Power House either. Vince hasn't got an Amiga at the moment, but Andrew had told Vince that he was in Power House a LONG time ago. After reading more of the magazine, Andrew had also sent a few messages to some of his contacts, and I presume one was referring to me and it looks as if the actions he has taken towards me and The Final Frontier are VERY personal. He sent a message to one of the other Power House members who goes under the alias of `Qix-Snd': "If you encounter stress, Eliminate it! Thats what I did and I feel much better now!" The first issue of TFF was an independant release, although Andrew was quite helpful and coded the great intro for us. Andrew had been very supportive of TFF right from the very beginning and at one time, before Issue 2 was released, we were discussing possible releases for Power House, I suggested that we could release a "normal" disk magazine. He replied that Power House already HAD a disk mag - TFF. However, in December '91, I saw a Power House demo and there was a message to me from Andrew saying that he decided that TFF wasn't going to be a Power House release, but he would continue to do the coding for me. This was, as usual, the first I knew about it. (Andrew had a very bad and extremely annoying habit of doing things like this that affected other people and telling them afterwards by post or in a demo - he RARELY communicated or discussed things like this face-to-face.) We talked about the reasons, and in the end he finally agreed that TFF SHOULD be released as a Power House title, so for Issue 2, the name "Power House" was added to the credits. As I said earlier, it seems to be a personal vendetta than Andrew has against me. I don't know why and I haven't got a clue what he means by "unnaceptable behaviour". Maybe I was being "too productive" for Power House! In my time as a member, I had released (not counting demo and PD game compilations, as anyone can release these) two issues of The Final Frontier, spanning five disks. In that same time span, Andrew had written 3 short intros (he had co-written one with someone else) and a music disk. (In the scroll text of the music disk, he claimed that he was the coder, although in reality it was coded by a member of the defunct demo crew "Cryptic UK" who didn't wish to be credited for his work. At the time that disk was released, Andrew was INCAPABLE of coding anything that even vaguely resembled that music disk.) Maybe there could have been a hint of jealousy. The Final Frontier was the only Power House release to have been reviewed in a magazine, it had contributions from some of the best artists and musicans around (such as Tobias Richter and Bjørn Lynne) and people had actually heard of the magazine outside our reader base. Did he think that all of his own work would be overshadowed by TFF? I don't think I'll ever find out the reasons, and to be honest, I don't care. The Final Frontier can easily survive without Andrew Wilk and the "help" from Power House, as you can see from this issue. TFF will continue to grow from strength to strength and will be around far longer than Power House or any of it's releases. We are now producing The Final Frontier under our new group name of "Infinite Frontiers" (for more information on us, read the article in this issue) and we hope that we'll be able to build up our own solid reputation for producing quality Amiga titles. In all honesty, I actually think that The Final Frontier will be better off without it's association with Power House. The first two issues were delayed in their release, and in both cases this was because the intros/menus were late. Issue two was released over a month later than we had hoped because we didn't get the intro in time. As you can see, this issue has been released on time (even though myself, Colin Gunn and Edwin Yau have all INCREASED our workload) and hopefully all future issues will be out on time as well. It will also mean that I will be able to keep a tighter control on the intros. Andrew had a very strong habit of altering any graphic material given to him to include in the intros. For issue one, he totally redesigned the font for the scroller. The original font I gave to him was an 8x8 font (see the picture at the end of this article). He changed the font, made it wider and displayed it in italics. I had quite a few complaints from readers afterwards saying that they couldn't read the scroller. Unfortunately, when I first saw the intro, I read the scroller from memory and not from the screen, so I didn't notice the problem until it was too late. As you can see from the picture, the original version is quite readable and although not brilliant, you can at least see what is written. For issue two, his "tampering" seemed to be a bit more intensive. Again, he altered a font of mine for the intro. I don't mind people altering my work if I'm told or consulted. Andrew just went ahead and did it and told me AFTER. He is a reasonably good artist, but he seems to think that he can make anyone's artwork better. I just dread to think if he ever gets a job for a software house - he'd end up re-drawing all the art sent to him! Also on that issue's intro, I had a set idea for the design of the intro, which he agreed to. When I saw the final intro, it barely resembled my idea. He had also changed the size of the digitised photo of Gene and switched the sound filter off for the music (an integral part of that tune was that the filter WAS used in parts). Finally, I had designed the contact screen and I passed it onto him to add the coding and he re-drew that. Doing that alone would be bad enough, but in EVERY case, he had seen the art/fonts beforehand and praised them, said they were fine and made no mention of any changes that "needed" to be made. I simply can't tolerate an underhanded attitude like this and anyone who seems to gain pleasure from changing other people's work without permission. If I ever receive articles that need changing, I send them back to the author and ask THEM to make the changes, or at least ask them first. On top of all that, he has also still got a few of my belongings. To tie in with the Trek VI feature, I had let Andrew borrow my copy of the novel and Starlog special as he was going to convert the Trek VI logo for the intro. As I told in him several letters, I NEEDED these to review for the Trek VI special. As you'll see when you read it, I haven't been able to review these because of this. As well as the books, he was also going to buy my old disk drive from the C64 along with about 200 disks. The disk drive itself was broken and he was going to get it fixed and then buy it off me for £50. (I had previously sold my C64 so I had no need for it.) Finally, he has also still got a few disks for the Amiga. Vince Hirst, who is still a friend of Andrew's, has been in touch and I wrote to him about two weeks ago asking him to call me so I can go and collect everything. That was 2 weeks ago and I have only just heard from him after I called HIM this morning (14th August '92). He told me that he was going to send a parcel with everything back (although I think he still wants to buy the disk drive). What is annoying is that is has taken 8 weeks from the time he decided to kick me out of Power House to the time I am promised the return of my posessions. Oh well, at least that chapter in our history is over now, and maybe we can get on with what we do best - releasing a series of quality magazines that are appreciated by our readers. However, as a final note of irony, I've just had an article published in one of the top traditional disk mags (RAW) under my old name and it's publicising the disk mag and offering help to other demo crews. I only hope I get a good response! It's also looking certain that I'll be writing for that magazine again, along with a few others, further spreading the name of Infinite Frontiers.