Subj : Re: where did it all go? To : alt.bbs.allsysop From : "Bubblewrap" Date : Sun Jul 06 2003 01:03 am "RhythmNp" wrote in message news:20030705130011.20867.00000179@mb-m05.aol.com... > Actually, in the past two years, more BBS's having been popping up than have > been disappearing. Nostalgic users are coming back. It may not be the heyday > of the past, but it's no longer a decline. I's assumed that, since they'd pretty much faded to the edges of my memory, obviously something had stirred the waters for me to start noticing again. My gripe on this particular aspect is that a lot of sysops are using now the internet tools that they had available then, when they just threw up their hands and gave up. Nothing has really drastically changed the way the internet and BBSs could interact in the time between, telnet is still telnet, etc. If anything, I'd have to admit that possibly the advent of "a cable modem in every pot" has changed user accesibility to telnet-able BBSes, opening them up to a larger potential user base. > You're being rather vague. If you want answers regarding the fate of specific > bbs software, mention what software you're talking about. > > Many of the new, freeware packages are actively supported and have more > features than the old packages ever did. For a good freeware package check out > Synchronet, Mystic, or EleBBS. As for the commercial packages, WorldGroup and > Wildcat Winserver are still supported but cost a bundle. Those packages > include a crazy amount of stuff now (including web servers with https/SSL > support for running businesses) so if the cost is somewhat understandable. Actually, I don't really have a problem with the BBS "server" itself, in fact, I found the WIN32 packages, including most of those you mentioned, to be fairly transparent cosmetic touch-ups. All they really did was add "point and click and I'll do the hidden work for you behind the scenes" to a software concept that was only ever successful because it behaved in the opposite manner. Luckily, there's plenty of virtual port and telnet-to-"modem" translators that will enable the good DOS legacy packages to work well with multiple telnettable nodes. I can't say that NTVDM.EXE is all that supportive, but it can be worked around. What I'm talking about the most is all the add-ons. Without doors, utilities, packet tossers, etc., most of which require registration, a BBS is just a chunk of software on the net with a semi-decent messaging system. And there's a reason freeware games are free... > Most door developers ARE "mom and pop" businesses, pulling in very small > amounts of money compared to the time put into the door. When you average out > the time I put into my doors vs the registration money I receive, it comes out > to under $3/hour. And you're trying to call that being an opportunist? You've > got to be kidding me! I appreciate that you are obviously doing what it is that I think conscientious game developers should be doing, but you missed a detail: What games do you create? LORD? BRE? Lunatix? ANY of the big names that are going to carry the nostalgia movement just as they kept BBSs alive as long as they were to begin with? In 50 years when everyone drives electric cars, nobody is going to want to buy my "nostalgia" Flords, Nevys, and Boyotas, no matter how much effort I put into adapting them to the then-mainstream roadway system. You may come up with a really good game with some unique concepts and implementations, and it would sell itself by word of mouth and it's own merits, just as the big names of the past did. If it's just another random door game, however, it kind of defeats the point of being true to the BBSs of old. > > >If they > >cared about us, they'd make stronger moves to adjust the BBS platform to > >WIN32 or *Nix > > All of my doors are Win32... many other authors have begun porting old DOS > doors to Win32 and/or *nix, or are simply ONLY making 32bit doors now... the > platform move is definitely happening, you're just apparently too cluelness to > have noticed it. Again, kudos to you, but I'm not clueless. Perhaps it's that you aren't developing anything remarkable, as in "worthy of remark"? Again, is it LORD, or Lunatix, or FE, or Global Wars? Anything someone is going to be looking for? Granted, the new inductees into the world of BBSing aren't going to know what to look for and aren't going to know the difference, but that's why I don't particularly care about them. I'm trying to attract the old users back into the communities where they still belong, so that when the "new newbies" come along they have something to look at to see how it's supposed to be done, and to carry it on. > >not just a server here, or a door there, but the whole damn > >kit-and-kaboodle > > Almost of the actively-supported BBS software have purely 32-bit versions for > Windows and/or *Nix, so again, you simply have no idea what you're talking > about. Again, not clueless. I said it nicely, but without the 50-cent words I'll repeat: Synchnet and the like just plain sucked. They were attempts to automate and integrate elements that I don't want automated or integrated. because I already have to blindly turn control over to ONE software package to do whatever it wants with my system on every boot-up, and that's Windows. Windows doesn't represent me to the public, though, and my BBS will, down to every little quirk and timing glitch. Someone with some slight skill and a vague memory of how it used to be done can set up a Telegard or Renegade BBS to do everything Synchronet and it's ilk does, with more control, and thus flexibility. Even so, how far does that get me? If I commit to one WIN32 method, I start to be committed to more and more 32 bit methods as the system grows, and for every 32-bit method I commit to n order to achieve a certain result, I'm locking myself off from a potential 16-bit answer to another problem. Some of the best old stuff will always be 16 bit, unless someone mounts a major effort to port them en masse. When placed in that position John Daily opted instead to release his software to the public, except then he couldn't even be bothered to follow through with that. If faced with the choice between a completely 32 bit system or a completely 16 bit system, I'd rather go 16 bit, because the games and utilities that made BBSs a strong enough community tool to even consider a comback already exist in that form, and many of the best will never exist in any other. What are you, some Microsoft employee rooting for the total death of DOS? > Yet other door authors have passed away (like the author of The Pit -- R.I.P.) > Same thing is true with some BBS authors (MajorBBS and one or two others that I > can't think of). So please don't tell me you're harboring all this anger at > deceased software authors, it's understandable that they can't support their > software anymore! Ok, so when I start poking around for ideas of how to make certain unsupported doors fuly functional, why do people jump down my throat about the morality of it? Why not - hey, ok pal, here's where you go, here's a list of active software, here's a list of what's been officially abandoned. I DID find suck a site on the internet, but it was partially complete, only mentioned a few doors and utilities that I'd never heard of anyway, and had apparently been abandoned as of 2001. Even then, for some the games that are still at least semi active, but haven't done anyhing new in forever, such as most of JDs doors, especially after his promise and apparent renegging, why shouldn't I crack or keygen it? It's a cycle, if I can't grow the community via SOME method, then they have nobody to cause sales for them. In this cycle, whenever money IS made, it's them, not me. Why shouldn't I expect them to carry through with a certain responsibility to their followers, or to at least have some freedoms available to me as recource in lieu of that follow-though? > >But I'm not going to pay first > >for what might amount to a few extra zip files in the far reached of my > >drive if a BBS proves to be something that just wants to die. > > So then run the unregistered/demo versions. That's what they're designed for. > Most of them aren't horrendously crippled, they're designed so that they can be > run up to a certain point to see if you want to continue using them or not. I agree with another response around here that the registration/shareware concept is simply applied improperly. We knew this when the ASP came around and immediate made fools of themselves after their conception, before the shareware principle had ever been applied to BBSdoors. Why not simply make it per user? If you give me three hack and slash games with comparable ansi and story line and gameplay and interactivity, and one is free, or at least not crippled pre-registration, guess which one I'm going to run? I'm not going to extra efforts because some door author halfway across the world has bad grasp on sales and representation. If your door is so hot it deserves my money, give me the whole thing and let it sell itself. Limit it to, say, 5 users pre-registration. As a sysop I'll have to reset often and come up with a system to determine who gets to play, or maybe run several installations so that users can get the taste for it, but they can't truly interact between the games and benefit the community I'm trying to build, except in the way of competition for rights to a player slot. Eventually, either your game is so damn good that my users are begging to register it for me, or it fades away and you get the message to try again with a little more effort and orginality. There is no in between with door games. Either you have nothing to lose by letting me see all of what you expect me to pay for because it IS that good and I want to enable more users to play it, or it's not. Anything else is just grasping for excuses to justify asking for payment in exchange for yet another piece of mediocre BBS litter. > If you insist on using/making cracks though, make sure it's truly abandonware. > Personally, if I find people using cracks of my software, I would contact their > ISP and have their internet cut, at minimum, without hesitation. I put a lot > of time into my doors; and my doors have large unregistered versions and also > have reasonable registration prices. So I really have no tolerance for people > who steal from me by using cracks because there really is no excuse for it. Personally, if I found people doing that with my software, I'd ask them why first. That's market research you can't even pay for if you wanted to. People HAVE consciences, and the test of time has shown that games worth getting paid for GET paid for. This is why Squaresoft will still be making games for my granchildren and Maxis is mostly dead and doesn't know it yet. If someone's conscience isn't prompting them to pay for your software, then in some way what you're offering isn't worth what you're asking for, be it the price, the function, the support, or something. > I think most of the other *active* BBS-related authors feel the same way. That depends on how you define active. What software do you make again? .