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The July '95 Ware Report, by The Renegade Chemist
Explanations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Game Name - This is self-explanatory.
Disks - The number of disks in a given game.
Rated - The release's point rating, based on major-ness of the release,
publisher, platform, etc. For example, Elite 3 is a long-awaited
title from a major publisher (Gametek) so it earns the maximum of
9 points, while USA Scenery West/East are upgrades to data disks
for a flight sim that nobody plays from a publisher that is not
noteworthy, earning only 3 points.
Rel. Size - Actual byte size of the release.
Bytes
Awarded - Number of ware report bytes awarded. Normally, this will be
the same size as the release size, but if a group puts out an
update, it only gets 1/2 credit (if I even choose to recognize
the release of the update). If a group puts out a game badly
cracked or not cracked and someone else fixes it before the
original group, the group gets 1/2 credit and the fixing group
gets the other half, etc. I try to be fair.
Group
Score - Group Score = (Release Quality Average) X (Bytes Awarded)
-------------------------------------------
1,000,000 (The number of bytes in a meg, roughly)
Ware Report :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Game Name Disks Rated Release Size Bytes Awarded
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eclipse
~~~~~~~~~
Fantasy Football '95 2/2 4 2,707,784 2,707,784
Simon the Sorceror 2 8/8 8 11,542,582 11,542,582
Solitaire Deluxe for Windows 2/2 6 2,848,465 2,848,465
~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
12/12 18.00 17,098,831 17,098,831
Number of Monthly Rel. : 3
Release Quality Average : 6.00
Eclipse Group Score : 102.59
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyranny
~~~~~~~~~
Art Apart Coll Ed. for Win 4/4 3 3,271,177 3,271,177
DarkStrike : ATF 5/5 4 6,720,962 6,720,962
Entertainment Digest for Win 3/3 3 4,519,965 4,519,965
Laser Light 1/1 4 613,496 613,496
Microleague Baseball '94 Exp. 1/1 3 19,043 19,043
Overdrive 2/2 7 2,351,666 2,351,666
Ricochet for Windows 2/2 3 1,751,075 1,751,075
Time Hunters 2/2 4 2,747,704 2,747,704
~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
20/20 31.00 21,995,088 21,995,088
Number of Monthly Rel. : 8
Release Quality Average : 3.88
Tyranny Group Score : 85.34
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Razor 1911
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Atari 2600 Action Pack 2 3/3 5 2,992,267 2,992,267
Hyper Cyles 2/2 3 1,612,543 1,612,543
Kingspoint for Windows 8/8 4 10,574,796 10,574,796
Flight Lite Plus 2/2 5 1,688,117 1,688,117
Scrabble for Windows 1/1 5 785,485 490,572
* Simon the Sorceror 2 8/8 - 11,542,582 A BIG FAT 0!
~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
24/24 22.00 29,195,790 17,358,295
Number of Monthly Rel. : 5
Release Quality Average : 4.40
Razor 1911 Group Score : 76.38
* I didn't figure Simon into the above 3 figures.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really Biased Commentary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ahh, now we get to the FUN part!
For starters - the reasons that only Eclipse got credit for the game
are as follows (duh .. don't even say 'WHAT GAME!?') ..
1. I figured that if I was going to be called biased in my
report, hell, I might as well make DAMN sure that the insult
holds some water!
2. Nexus really ticked me off on this one, spreading a vicious
rumor that the Eclipse version wasn't cracked, or wasn't
cracked properly. Crap, crap, crap. Poor sportsmanship
like they display does not earn them credit for a release!
3. We beat them on Park Central. We beat them on one of
their OWN HQ's, IN THE STATES! Is that unbelievable or
what? And it was the Sysop of OUR WHQ who uploaded it -
meaning that he must have had it way before they did,
otherwise they could have done the same thing, no?
4. Since I didn't do a report last month (I'm a lazy ass, I
know it!), I figured I'd have to have something really
controversial in this one in order to retain my readers!
5. OBVIOUSLY, they named their files 'simon2-*.zip' because
they had already USED 'sim2-*.zip' and discovered that
we'd already used those filenames <snicker> .. more to
come on this topic later.
First off, I want to say a few things about Razor. I could start by bagging
on them for their incredibly poor sportsmanship when they got creamed on the
best game of the month, Simon 2. I could also talk about the great job they
did botching an inside original, Scrabble, only to re-release half the game
later, after they bothered to check for protection. Note that they were
able to play the game enough to give it an inflated rating, but not enough
to notice the doc check early in the game. Pretty slick work you guys do!
But, I won't. I'll start by talking about the asinine remarks they made in
a release from AUGUST, which I probably shouldn't do, but I'd like to have
a little fun in this report, in case you couldn't tell from the above ..
It took over a week for Razor to FINALLY come up with some kind of a reason
why you should believe that they were somehow wronged by Eclipse when they
double released us on Simon 2. Now that they have, I feel that I have every
right to place it under scrutiny - after all, they DID spend a week coming
up with such a SOLID argument <snicker> ..
Razor makes the allegation that Eclipse 'must have' duped them since we
didn't pick the same filenames that they did. Wow, that's pretty brilliant
thinking on their part. However, they couldn't possibly know what reasons
prompted our selection of 'sim2*.zip' rather than 'simon2*.zip', any more
than I could know why they chose to name Cyberbykes 'cybyke*.zip' rather
than 'cyberb*.zip' (the name I would have chosen). What's in a name? I
hate to sound cliche, but absolutely friggin' nothing. We picked a
different filename than they did, and that's the bottom line. Besides,
there would have been no way to tell if we were 'duping' them or not at
the time, as only one board had one disk of their version, nobody was
uploading the rest of their disks (though Ustasa seemed thrilled to send
me lots of olm's about how he was 'about to') on Park Central, and every
time I logged into God's Realm to put up OUR disks personally I myteriously
lost carrier. Sure, it could be because I have a crappy v.fc modem, but it
could also be because they have a crappy sense of sportsmanship. Which
brings me to an earlier point, now that I have invalidated their comment ..
Sportsmanship. What is it? Sportsmanship is behaving in an acceptable way
even in the face of indignity, loss, you name it. Sportsmanship means that
even though you may bag on someone for supposedly 'duping' you, and you may
tell people how lame such-and-such group is, you DONT generate false press
about ANYONE's cracks. If a crack works, and you were beaten ANYWHERE -
take it like a man, and insult the other group the old-fashioned way.
Generating lies about the ability of one cracker or another never helped
anyone - in fact all it does is increase the amount of hype around Gods
like Randall Flagg, who's name is already a legend.
Anyway. Besides Simon the Sorceror 2, Razor didn't release dick worth
mentioning, unless you are making fun of it. Okay, so there WAS that
sexy Action Pack 2 from Activision - we all know how terrible the first
one was - of course we can't forget Flight Light Plus <hurl>, and the
other GREAT titles they released <cough>. I guess I gotta give 'em a
little credit. They DID one-up Tyranny and took the credit for
'worst release of the month', with Hyper Cycles from Aclypse. Scrabble
was from a DECENT company, which is why it earned some decent points.
I figured that since they were too cheesy to crack it properly, I
would take the total size of the game, subtract the size of the crack
patch from it, and add that into their total. I plan to do this in
the future for everyone. I also did it for the serial number on one
of those lame Tyranny releases, Entertainment Digest I think.
Chainsaw Massacre just pointed out that I forgot to mention Razor's
lame release of Kingspoint for Windows. Thanks for reminding me, Al.
Let's do talk about this release. Genesis (back when they were
building their reputation as kings of the budget scene) released the
DOS version of this fine dungeon designer program non-game thingie
last year, when I was in Razor 1911, back before it was Nexus. Anyway,
Gecko and Eos and Speed Racer made just as much fun of that release as
I did (and trust me, I *DID* make asses of those GNS guys - do you
think the moniker Budgetsis would have stuck around as long as it did
without some truth behind it?), and we all know that DOS versions are
far more acceptable/preferable than Windows versions. So now Razor
cranks out the Windows version, gives it an inflated rating, and makes
it out to be some kind of big game. Yeah, right. I'm sure a lot of
users felt fucked on that one - that's why you don't find that type
of stuff with an Eclipse DIZ on it, even though we've still got a
couple of similar programs from England - Dungeon Designer and Campaign
Cartographer. Perhaps Razor would like them?
Which brings me to Tyranny. Have you ever seen a group that released
MORE shit than they do? INC did a good job of it, but at least INC
had a lot of great titles to back it up with as well. Tyranny seems
to be synonymous with 'pure 100% grade a steaming shit', and as much
as I like Cyber Angel and his attitude, I can't really respect a
group that builds its reputation on dung. Overdrive from Team 17
was a nice change, perhaps this indicates an upward trend for the
upstarts from New York.
As for Hoodlum, TDU-Jam, and Twilight - Hoodlum & Twilight both put out
major stuff, uncracked. TDU-Jam cracked the Hoodlum release, but they
put out the whole thing AGAIN, DAYS after Hoodlum's copy was on all of the
boards, so, in the same spirit which prompted Fanfan to nuke our upload of
Simon 2 from TDU for 3x credits even though we were there first, I will
ignore them in this report. Maybe that'll straighten 'em out <yeah,
right> ..
Let's now talk about Eclipse. Besides the fact that Fantasy Football
was a total pile of shit, albeit a full price one, there's not much to say,
except for the first time this year we've won on more UK titles than anyone
else. We'll have to see if that holds up, but I expect it probably
will, as we're in the process of making some key additions to our fun
little crew. Simon the Sorceror 2 works just fine, contrary to
Razor's opinions. Mad Turnip really IS a person, and he and his buds
really are some fast UK suppliers. You don't have to believe it, in
fact we don't really care either way. Its just fun and games for the
Eclipse posse, as usual, and with our brother group Hybrid, we're
really rockin' and rolling now. As Hoson would say, the quote for
the month is 'Money, Girls, and TRC's famous biased ware report!' ..
See you next time, maybe.
The Renegade Chemist
5 August 1995 - Up Way Too Late, Again