I might get banned for this, but...

[Turbo2Xs]

I've been to several 'classic gaming' forums of late and I do so because I feel that there was a culture that existed then that is sadly lacking now.

When I got my first Amiga it came with many pirate copies and few originals. At the time I had stopped (per se, I still have and covet it) I had (have) over 200 games that I BOUGHT brand new in the box. Not saying that I was overflowing with cash, but I felt that buying made the system stronger. I like the fact even now that I have the boxes, manuals and even the original disks.

Back then, people were passionate about the Amiga and its games - despite the numerous crappy ones - there was a communtiy there to assist and push the envelope of software (especially the graphic stuff).

And it was good.

Of late, all I see is people that - while remembering the Amiga, forget what made it special: Its originality. I know I cant be the only one! Read the rant at my site and tell me that this is not true...

I have over 30,000 games that I collected during my "Gotta have it!" phase - Mostly indexed with full name, screenies, box and manual because I felt its worth the effort to preserve over just to say I have it.

...Now when I see these sites I just kinda feel like ! Just like when I'm playing Halo on the net with 14 year olds that just don't get it: Who cares if you have 654216512 kills but cheat yourself and never take time to enjoy what your doing or have...

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepcbcs/

I didn't understand your point but you can't get banned with that. The title will attract attention though.

[IFW]

You are just getting old and find brats more annoying not being one of them anymore - welcome

[woody57]

Howevr PXscroll if you follow his link to the rant on his site it could be interpreted that he includes EAB as one the retro= warez sites he talks about

But since its not directly on the forum page then its hardly a banning matter to state his opinion as to how little some younger gamers lack eiether the patience or skill set to learn and play a game title without using cheat modes.

As for site visitors I get several hundred a month on my own site and its only a few that post anything , with such a variety of choice on the net there is a huge differnce in numbers between browser/leechers and contributors.

So even with the reviewed and updated WHD load site the number of vistors as against those who leave any comment regarding the months new pack of games is disproportionate and it is a useal few who leave any comment or greeting .

There is the point that the more specialised your site content is and in amiga retro games that can be a realy narrow area , the less likely your site will contain anything topical [ and I don't mean politics or jokes ] as without the development of many new games across all genres , there is a genuine shortage of real news.

Acknoledging the historical fact of the death of a thriving REAL amiga community , I can but totally disagre with your comments over EMU users who are on the rise , this board is consistently gaining new members who are taking up emulation and along the way a few who want to aquire a classic real Amiga again.

IMHO the days when the Amiga community could support the need for several disk magazines is long gone , what instead is happening is that the " Flavour" that was remembered from long ago is rekindling users to seek what is missing from todays products .

The platform is commecialy nearly dead but its memories and uniqueness can still be apreciated by those who continue to look at it as whole machine not just a games consul with a built in keyboard

[CodyJarrett]

I have gone out of my way to target the Amiga community at large and what is my dismay? I see 5,960+ views and 250+ replies to what is essentially a pirate complation disk while anything original gets maybe 200/10...

I'm assuming that you are talking about the CD32-888&??? thread but it's been around for four months and your thread for two weeks. Not exactly a fair comparison.

And surely both threads could be just as popular as each other? Why does it follow that this 'piracy' is preventing an interest in your games?

Classic Amiga games have had years more than your game in the collective consciousness of gamers so it's not surprising that they are going to get more recognition. Most of us first heard about Battle Circle days ago!

Perhaps you need a new marketing campaign - unless this is it?

[CodyJarrett]

I've downloaded Battle Circle and tried it on WinUAE (I don't have access to my real Amiga at the moment).

- The downloads on your site are in rar format but have a file extension of .zip. If your site can't use rars then put a note on the download page as well as on the Battle Circle page.

- The screenshot on the "Battle Circle Main" page is very uninspiring. Replace it with a decent screenshot. The Battle Circle Snaps page is better but grab screenshots without scanlines.

- Label the ADF images as "Battle Circle Boot Disk" and "Battle Circle Data Disk" - or whatever.

- There is a read/write error message if you run the game in WinUAE with a higher floppy emulation speed than 'Compatible'. It might be worth noting this as a lot of emulation users could have this set to 800%.

- The game quit back to Workbench once when I died and was being resurrected. If you need any more information about this possible bug I'll try to reproduce it.

Overall I haven't played the game enough yet to comment fully but it looks like an interesting mix of genres. My feeling is that you've got some interest going but there are some teething problems that are stopping some players running the game - which may explain the relatively high number of hits compared to a few comments.

[Marcuz]

i would gladly ban you for good measure if you want me to just let me know. also there is my pendent request for ban RCK but you know bureaucracy...

[Mr Creosote]

I can relate to your rant to a certain extent. The scope of this 'scene' has narrowed down extremely. It's not just the distinction between commercial classics and new fan products. For example, it seems that in order to attract any interest, a thread here in this forum has to be either about Turrican, Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder or Lionheart. Sites doing anything different than offering at least a few thousand strangely 'renamed' files don't seem to be of any interest.

Anyway, I'm exaggerating, of course. The tendency is still there. Don't take the lack of comments too hard, though. One comment out of 750 visitors is a lot, I can assure you.

[dreamkatcha]

Entertainment overload, that's what it is. Long before the net became so all-pervasive, gripped us by the throats and refused to let go, I'd keep on dipping into my meagre Amiga games collection even if I was bored witless with the games. I didn't have an endless supply of new releases I could flit between because they were harder to come by - you'd have to actually leave the house and visit friends to swap disks, send off for pirate copies and wait for them to arrive in the post or buy them legitimately (I did my fair share of that too). I kept re-visiting old games because the alternative was to sit around in the local park with a friend and bleat, "I'm bored, what should we do now?". Eyes glazed over he'd wearily reply, "I'm more bored than you", but wouldn't offer any solutions. Trying to avoid that situation always led us back to the computer. If I plugged away at a game for long enough I'd progress a stage further and that would extend its life. I'm not saying the only thing that made old school games successful was a lack of alternative forms of entertainment, just that they may have failed to gain such a firm foothold in my consciousness under different circumstances.

These days it's too tempting for kids to ditch a game if they fall at the first hurdle - there are so many other games out there vying for their attention which may be better than the current one they're playing, or at least provide a more instantaneous pay-off. That's just games - game programmers also have to compete with easy access to new movies, instant messengers, web sites and so on. In this climate you really have to wow someone to capture and hold their attention. Enter very pretty, but ultimately shallow and soulless 3D graphics *yawn*.

You've also got to take the nostalgia factor into account. People aren't going to play your game and get all gooey-eyed over it as it's brand new to them, even if it's retro by design. I think we cut older games much more slack precisely because we were so bowled over by them on our first encounter. We play them today and our opinions are coloured by our original impressions. If near-identical games were released today under a slightly different guise I don't think they'd get such a warm reception from the people who adored the originals. I don't doubt that some classics stand the test of time exceptionally well (I wouldn't still be talking about them here otherwise), but there's no denying that times have changed and there's no going back. You could say that the bar has been raised ...or crookedly realigned by a generation of spoilt brats with ADHD.

[Turbo2Xs]

Ok. There are alot of interesting ideas going on here and I find myself agreeing quite a bit.

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

I'm assuming that you are talking about the CD32-888&??? thread but it's been around for four months and your thread for two weeks. Not exactly a fair comparison.

And surely both threads could be just as popular as each other? Why does it follow that this 'piracy' is preventing an interest in your games?

Classic Amiga games have had years more than your game in the collective consciousness of gamers so it's not surprising that they are going to get more recognition. Most of us first heard about Battle Circle days ago!

Perhaps you need a new marketing campaign - unless this is it?

Yes, that is the thread that I am inferring to. My dissapointment stems from the fact that this is the largest and most active of the Amiga boards I've found and I am drawing a comparison to what could seem to be of greater importance to the board as a whole indicated by the size of that thread.

Originally Posted by CodyJarret

I've downloaded Battle Circle and tried it on WinUAE (I don't have access to my real Amiga at the moment).

- The downloads on your site are in rar format but have a file extension of .zip. If your site can't use rars then put a note on the download page as well as on the Battle Circle page.

Really? I used WinRAR but had it set to .zip (other than the videos) I'll investigate.

Originally Posted by CodyJarret

- There is a read/write error message if you run the game in WinUAE with a higher floppy emulation speed than 'Compatible'. It might be worth noting this as a lot of emulation users could have this set to 800%.

I'm aware of this issue and I'll make a note on the page. Thanks.

Originally Posted by CodyJarret

- The game quit back to Workbench once when I died and was being resurrected. If you need any more information about this possible bug I'll try to reproduce it.

I'll look into that also, however, if your character dies to many times it may be related to a disk op that may not be supported.

Originally Posted by marco pedranai

would gladly ban you for good measure if you want me to just let me know. also there is my pendent request for ban RCK but you know bureaucracy...

Originally Posted by Echostryker

All

I think this may be the most telling point. Well said.

I hope I haven't pissed off to many people here... I just wanted to get that off my chest and see what others thought. Thanks

[Turbo2Xs]

Hey Cody, I take it you don't like scanlines?

Not many people do
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=14056

[CodyJarrett]

Scanlines were a useful way to get more speed out of WinUAE on a slow system by sacrificing image quality but these days most PCs are high powered enough to not need them.

[Turbo2Xs]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

Scanlines were a useful way to get more speed out of WinUAE on a slow system by sacrificing image quality but these days most PCs are high powered enough to not need them.

Really? From the way I understand it, using scanlines has more overhead than without. This is rather noticable in MAME.

My personal opinion is that scanlines are truer to most older games actual look. IE. running a game on a pc monitor and the same game on a tv (where it was designed to play), the monitor doen't appear accurate. Everything looks blocky; scanlines seem to add resolution rather than detract.

Again this is my opinion.

[Turbo2Xs]

Originally Posted by Echostryker

You've also got to take the nostalgia factor into account. People aren't going to play your game and get all gooey-eyed over it as it's brand new to them, even if it's retro by design.

I'll grant you the nostalgia factor, but I submit that for entertainment value games in the style of mine, should be more resistant to the ravages of time.

My game is essentially about 'leveling' ie beat up stuff to get strong enough to beat up more stuff to... get more stuff.

And I know that its not the greatest game in the world. Its more about the time I've invested and the fact that (despite the flaws), it can be good fun - if its given a chance. And thats all I'm asking, its why I request feedback. "Are people actually trying the game?" "Is it good?" "Does it suck?" These are the things I wonder about while thinking "There has to be someone that is enjoying the game"

So I guess I'm bummed because if someone were, surely they would tell me. I guess its the rantings of someone whos pride has been scorned...

[Turbo2Xs]

Looking back so many months later, I can appreciate the advice that was given here. Having posted on other sites, the responses we're far more helpful to understand the current Amiga climate and I thank you!

...if only I'd released this 12 years ago!

[Sid]

The original Amiga lives on in my house!!
It has come back out of the cupboard and sits next to my PS2 ... I'd rather play on the Amiga... games like
Player Manager (my fave of ALL time),
Kick Off 2 v1.6e,
Wings,
Supercars 2 ....

[Methanoid]

Anyone who wants advice on how to get banned could always ask Martin-Flash

[lopos2000]