Subj : Re: where did it all go? To : alt.bbs.allsysop From : rhythmnp@aol.comSTOPSPAM (RhythmNp) Date : Sun Jul 06 2003 06:27 am >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? I'm the coder of DoorMUD and Tournament Trivia. http://www.doormud.com DoorMUD is relatively new (been around 3 years) and Tournament Trivia is brand new (was released yesterday!). Obviously, since my doors are new, they won't "carry the nostalgia movement". Instead, they're NEW doors with gameplay that isn't really available in other supported doorgames. And obviously, users (nostalgic or otherwise) seem to like them, and they get played a good amount for new doors, judging from the number of emails and message board posts that I get from players. And despite not having nostalgic value of their own, they carry appeal for players (and sysops!) who used to be into the pay-BBS scene of MajorBBS/WorldGroup. My doors are highly multinode-interactive like the old WorldGroup game modules were, but my doors cost 1/100th of the price ;) >Perhaps it's that you aren't >developing anything remarkable, as in "worthy of remark"? Why automatically assume that I haven't developed anything "worthy of remark", especially before even finding out what doors I've developed? You sound like a pessimist who compulsively feels the need to come to this newsgroup and post rants about how/why you think the BBS scene is dead and how doorgame authors are ripping you off. Whatever, feel free to express your opinions, but if you're coming in here with an unchangeably negative mindset about the current state of BBSing then there's really no reason to have a conversation with you. You shouldn't automatically equate "new door" with "bad door", that's utter rubbish. If that's how you feel, build a time machine and go back to 1990 instead of posting your rants on here. You can try to insult my doorgames as much as you want, I could care less. *I* know that players like them and sysops like them, and that's all I really need to know. >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. Synchronet, Mystic, and the like are just as customizeable as Renegade or Telegard, and then some. Hell, if you want to talk total customization, Synchronet and EleBBS are *OPEN SOURCE*. You can't get more customizeable than that. But even if you're not a programmer, you can still customize these modern BBS packages just as much as the old ones. I'm not really seeing a single example of something that you can do with Renegade, that you can't do with the modern packages. And that's the reason that there aren't even 10 telnetable Renegade boards out there, versus several hundred boards running Synchronet, Mystic, EleBBS, etc! Don't get me wrong, TG and RG are great packages and were always ones that I preferred. But personally, I'd rather run an integrated 32-bit package on Windows or *nix, than clunky DOS software that runs slowly and is a pain to get working smoothly over telnet. Most sysops seem to agree. >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. Really now, what are you talking about? The 32-bit BBS packages still permit full support for 16-bit doors and utilities and will emulate FOSSIL and route to telnet. It's not like you're stuck using ONLY 32-bit software if you decide to use a 32-bit BBS package. >If faced with the choice between a completely 32 bit system or a completely >16 bit system, Why would you ever have to make that choice? If you think the 32-bit BBS platforms can't run 16-bit stuff, you haven't done your homework or even really tested the 32-bit packages. >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? Personally, I don't yell at people for requesting regs for software that is *completely unsupported*, ie, abondonware. If someone else yells at you for it, go talk to them, but don't complain at me for it. Personally, I only have a problem with people who crack BBS software that is still actively supported by its author, since in that case you're intentionally stealing from an author who spends time trying to make the BBS scene enjoyable. That sort of heartless activity is what causes door authors to abandon their software in the first place. >Why not simply make it per user? ... 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. That sounds like a horrendously crippled demo, especially if the door is geared towards simultaneous multi-user gameplay. The fact that you're effectively saying the unreg'd versions should be MORE crippled sounds ludicrous and hypocritical. BTW -- some doors (Godfathers of Crime & other doors by its author) used a registration scheme like you're describing, and I distinctly remember a number of sysops being unhappy with it. >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. But again, if a door is based on multi-user gameplay, limiting the game to 5 player accounts effectively makes it impossible for you to see all of the game. The registration model that you're descibing simply cannot be used for all doors out there. >Personally, if I found people doing that with my software, I'd ask them why >first. Has it ever occured to you that I've tried that, as have many other door authors? Most of the time, the crack-users lie. Most common responses I've received: - "I'm just using it locally, I don't run a bbs" (if that's the case, why not play for free on someone else's bbs who has a legit copy? this response is extra ludicrous in cases where the cracker's bbs does indeed exist and is easy to find) - "I didn't realize it was cracked" (yeah, right) - "It's not worth paying money for any door game" (if that's your opinion, run freeware doors. And if you don't think a particular doorgame is worth a measly $20 for the author's efforts, you obviously don't like the game enough to be running it at all in the first place) >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. That's flawed logic, especially considering there's a much larger number of sysops who are willing to legitly pay for the door, compared to the much smaller number who crack it. If the majority who use a piece of software are willing to pay for it, it's a clear indicator that those who crack it are simply stealing it. Regards, Evan Elias http://www.doormud.com .