Best cracking group
 

In recent months I've seen Codetapper, Akira and others talking about how crap this group was and how this group never released a good crack and so on.

All this is new to me, I was 14 when I sold my Amiga so I didn't pay any attention to whether a crack was goos or not, after all they were free so that made them OK in my book:great

So up there you'll see a list of the major (As I see them anyway) cracking groups, vote for your favourite and post a comment to back up your vote (If your not to ashamed;))

There was a time when I thought Skid Row were the best (It's alright you can laugh:)) as almost ever crack I had was done by them:)

Of course now I read the scroll text's and stuff so I gather there was quite a war going on in the old days:)

So my question is simple, Just who were the best?

PS. If your favourite group isn't listed there is two things you can do:-

1. Moan and bitch until a moderator adds your choice
2. Stop whining and post your favourite in a reply:)

BTW I voted for Paradox:)

I've always like Paranoimia, but everyone tells me that sucked major ass, so I guess I have to change it ;)

My all time favourite cracking group would be Eaglesoft Incorporated (ESI), but only on the C64

My favourite cracking group in general would be Fairlight

I also loved Crystal, so it was a tough vote, but Fairlight won in the end :)

DANG!

Should say Best Amiga Cracking Group, please amend mod's or give me the power:evilgrin:D

Done. And I also fixed your dodgy spelling of Crystal :)

I vote for Fairlight cause I just love their GFX & mods in their intro: good work (from demosceners eyes). Moreover, they are always active. :cool

It's not me, it's this damn keyboard I tells ya':p

I also voted for Fairlight, not only cause I liked the gfx and intros, more that I think they made the BEST cracks in that time (bugfree, game was REALLY cracked, no bullshit like : "This game was cracked..." and at the end of disk 3 is another password protection ;) )

This is a tough choice...
 

Fairlight were the dominant group in 1993, releasing most majors and by then, A1200's were out so they tended to fix lots of memory allocation bugs in games. Their quality was also consistently very high and had some top guys like Gaston, N.O.M.A.D and Galahad.

Skid Row seemed to dominate from 1990 to 1992, with good old FFC doing most the work. Pretty consistent quality too and some nice intros.

Paradox seemed to always be around but not in the quantity of the other groups. They seemed to "sleep" for several months and came back with Desert Strike. Prior to that they did good work on Ivan Ironman Stewart's Super Offroad Racer (who can possibly forget that intro of the devil when they were at war with Angels! For anyone that hasn't seen it, grab the Paradox version of this game! Paradox seemed to be so full of themselves at times (from reading the Paradox website) saying that they beat all other groups into the ground (except Fairlight who outlasted them - even they admit that!) Blackhawk was a great Amiga cracker/coder.

Quartex cracked practically everything from 1988-1990 and then slowed down a lot after that. The early games (1988-1992) had lots of bugs on AGA machines and accelerated Amigas which was not Quartex' fault - at the time they didn't have 030's etc so the games worked. I personally admired them as they didn't add buggy intros and trainers to the games, just cracked them and spread. I have disassembled quite a few Quartex cracks and there are some really elegant ones where they didn't touch the original data, just "patch" around it - a difference on the original disk and the crack shows up minimal changes which is great. Not sure who wrote their poetry, always seemed to be someone on drugs writing that shit on their text intros. And they always asked you to purchase the original if you liked it, nice of them.

Finally Crystal seemed to be a major force around about 1990 and lasted a few years, they seemed to be abused a lot by other groups - not sure why! N.O.M.A.D was cracking a lot of stuff for them for a while and I can't remember too many dodgy cracks.

So to sum up, it's almost impossible for me to choose a favourite group but by a whisker I think Fairlight wins...


[Perhaps we should do a "worst cracking group" poll? That would get some interesting results I'm sure. There were quite a few lamer groups with dodgy cracks (or ones where on a password screen you would have to write "XXXX rules" as the password or it would crash) and those awful "AGA fixing" groups like Fix Ltd who couldn't fix the easiest game without making it crash on the majority of machines!]

I'll go for Fairlight too, they had nice intros, that could be quickly skipped, and I never had any problems with their cracks...

I think talk about crap cracking groups would be more fun too :) I hated those cracktro that made you look at them for too long. I also hated when they messed up the loading routines (Like adding one more disc and stuff). There's a version of Cannon Fodder around, don't remember who cracked it (The cractro shows a jumping rabbit), that asks for disk 3 after EVERY MISSION.. very annoying....

For your info, here is a list of crackers/spreaders. I'm not sure who did what and I really don't care! Check out Amigaboy 2000 and Codetapper! There are probably missing ones too.

Accumulators, The
Ackerlight
Adept
Agile
Agressors, The
A-HA
Alcatraz
Alpha Crew, The
Alpha Flight
Amiga Crew Valbeat (ACV)
Amigaboy 2000
Amigos, The
Analog
Angels
Anthrox
Antiaction
Aspect Incorporated
Assession
Astronut
Backlash
Bamiga Sector One
Band, The
BBC
Beef
Bencor Brothers, The
Beyonders, The
Bitstoppers, The (BST)
Black Hawk
Black Monks
Blizzard
Cabal
C.C.S.
C.D.I.
Champs, The
Classic
Codemaster
Codetapper
Comax
Company, The
Crack Inc.
Cremki
Crystal
D.C.S.
Data Division, The (TDD)
Decade
Defjam
Delirium
Diamonds & Rust
Divina
Doctor, The
Double Density
Dream Team, The (T.D.T.)
Dual Crew
Eagle Soft Incorporated (E.S.I.)
Endless Piracy
Eurosoft
Fairlight
Faith
Fire Starters, The
Firm, The
Fuck Corporate Communication (F.C.C.)
Fusion
Galahad
Genesis
Global Overdose (G.O.D.)
Goonies, The
Guide, The
Hellfire
Heresy
Honey Crew, The
Hoodlum
Clan Of Gods, The
I.B.B.
Ikari
Il Scuro
Inertia
Infinite Perfection
International Cracking Service
Italian Cracking Service
Kent Team
Kontrasoft
L.S.D.
Laser
Legend
Lima-Soft
Lofty
Loons, The
MAD
Mad Monks, The
Magic Arts, The
Mayhem
Medway Boys
Metallians
Ministry
Mongols, The
Motion
Nemesis
New Force, The
Nomad
Nova Aces
Obituary
Oracle
Pantera
Panther
Paradise
Paradox
Paranoimia
PHR-Crew
Piranhas
Prestige
Prodigy
Public Enemy No. 1
Pulsar
Punishers, The
Quartex
Queen
Ramirez
Razor 1911
Red Sector
Replika
Risk
Rockbyter, The
Rod
Sacred Setrox, The
Salamander
Scoopex
Scorpions
Skid Row
Skyline
Softwar Technics
Southampton Cracking Team
Spelljammer
Spreadpoint
Squadron
Steel Pulse
Subway
Supervisors, The
Supplex
Supreme
Switch
Tarkus Team
Technobrains
TFS
Thrill Kill Kult (T.K.K.)
Thrust
Trilogy
Tristar
TRSI (Tristar And Red Sector Inc)
TRZ (TRSI & Zenith)
Underground Network
Unicorn
Unit A
Universal
Unlimited Potential
Valhalla
Venom
Vision
Vision Factory
Wanted Team
Watchers
Weetibix
Wise Man
Zelnik
Zenith

Yeehaa

btw - It's just Amigaboy (the 2000 I used so I would know when I signed up for that AEN account)

And I ain't a cracker. I'm a coder :)

You can add Toxic Prelux (as a group) and Thread (person) who are the ones behind the crack of Combat Air Patrol i posted to the Zone.

Also i guess all italians will be a little familiar with Mr CiBi who has been a big spreader here (i don't think he was a cracker).

EDIT : don't know why i put Pilot instead of Patrol

Re: This is a tough choice...
 

Well as an ex-Quartex member I can only say... THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

Rob made some damn neat cracks. I remember on Heimdall both us and Crystal released it. NOMAD's crack used to require you to press Enter on the password screen. Rob removed the whole routine. That for me was the difference.

The poetry - well some was Waremonger (sysop of Your Link to Perfection) and some was The Surge (Ben) who was well known to have had a bit of a habit. This was the reason he was finally kicked out cos he seemed to want to spend group money on his habit rather than on what was agreed.

A real nice bunch of guys though Quartex.....


---

Amigaboy writes : I just fixed up your quote thingy. It was screwed up

Hey, I've got nothing to add to this conversation. If anyone has something RELEVANT then please pm me and I'll do my best to ignore it.

Well I voted fo Fairlight, their output was quite great and their intros rocked, but I also liked Crystal, mainly because of teh uber cool Melon intros :)

I still think Quartex cracks are extremely dodgy :D

Marz, keep this offtopic shit for yourself. We're trying to talk here. [duh, i should have splitted it :) it's gone now, good]

Well, my vote goes for Skid Row, closely followed by Quartex.

I don't know if Skid Row did real good cracks, but I cannot remember bad cracks by them, either.
The main reason why I vote for them is that almost any games that was cracked by them was a cool game. Whenever I went to a friend of mine to have a look for some new games, and I saw a Skid Row intro coming up then I knew the game must be good. And in 99% of all cases it was good :)

Also Quartex ruled before Skid Row was formed out of Quartex's enemy 'Paranoimia' ( at least I have heard it was like that )
Also I believe Quartex was founded by one of the 2 guys of the legendary C64 group 'The Dynamic Duo'. He later had his own company called 'Dynatex' ( from Dyn amic Duo and Quartex It is said he was a very nice guy, but it's a very sad story because he later became victim of an accident :(

I voted for Crystal
 

I can't remember the quality of the cracks anymore, although I know that certainly Fairlight, Quartex and Crystal always assured me that the game I was about to play wouldn't crash.

Edit: And I forgot to elaborate on my vote :). Crystal because their intro's were of a stunningly beautiful simplicity.

In any case, drifting a bit off-topic here. Someone just mentioned he's an ex-Quartex member, and he mentioned "group money". I have always been wondering how these groups got their money and their releases. I can imagine contacts in the industry, press, etc, but I'd like to hear/read some actual stories on this. Anyone care to post something on this matter?

And some of them sold badges and stickers and t-shirts, too.

Oh, and
 

Any ties with organized crime? Or was that just bragging on the side of some groups?

(Needless to say, in my Amiga days, I found all that cracking leet-ness pretty impressive, and I'm still fascinated by the subject. Can't find a lot about it tho).

I used to see it as elite, but now I see it as pretty lame

There's nothing special to cracking. It just shows that the cracker has a good understanding of the system

Trading. Nothing special to that. That's just being able to copy disks

Getting the softs before release. Nothing there. That just means you have some contacts

The whole scene is pretty lame