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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Release id #74018 : Mutant Camels Strikes Back +3 [pal/ntsc]
It is a pleasure to be active again in the scene. It feels like being young again. The Commodore 64 scene is a great experience for all of us.
The recent release of Mutant Camels Strikes Back has had mixed reviews and feelings. Back in the old scene many people imported games to their locale all around the world. Long before the internet, importing was considered to to be an art. It was an art since telephone calls across oceans were expensive and people had to work, in some form, to be able to make these telephone calls. It was customary for the importer to attach an intro to the already cracked game. Years later the standards raised. Importing alone was not sufficient and people were required to NTSC or Pal fix the import in order to receive proper credit. It also helped if a decent number of trainers were added to allow people another set of options for game play.
My work of the recent release was a process of remembering, re-learning and new discovery. The total work hours were approximately 48 spanning over a period of four days. Trainers have never been critical however NTSC or Pal fixing can mean the difference between a program working or not. Fixing has always been a highly regarded skill. I received a negative comment about my recent work, since it was not considered a 'clean crack'. I did not crack the game. I did make the game flicker free for people with NTSC computers and trainers for everyone. Does that effort not mean anything to people in the modern scene?
Back in the old scene, when a game was imported to the United States, it became a first release and no one else would release it. Unfortunately there a some multiple versions of cracks that were originally cracked by one group in America and released as imports by several groups in Europe. There should have been only one first release import for Pal computers allowed. Some of the imported versions were Pal fixed and some even with Pal/NTSC compatiple fixes that turned out to be the best versions. Training a game, Pal/NTSC fixing a game, adding high score saver routines, writing docs, bug fixing, levelpacking and adding other restorations to a game, improves the quality of the game. I enjoy improving and restoring games. Some originals simply are not available anymore to "clean crack" from scratch. There are plenty of games that can use an upgrade. Some of these games have been previously cracked with no original in sight. The Dominators were an old trading partner of mine. It is fully justified for me to once again put an Avatar intro next to a Dominators intro.
A person does not have any business putting an intro on a game unless they have made an improvement to the game... |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
maybe you missed it, please read this |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
I did miss it. I have now read the new rules and I like them. Finally there are WRITTEN standards for releases. I do feel that additional clauses should be added to the section on re-cracks due to unexpected possible scenarios.
If a game has been cracked and has no coding bugs, some of these exceptions should be:
Adding lost or missing game components such as pictures, levels, etc
Adding fresh code onto a preview to make the game 100%. Not minor adjustments but actually putting the effort into making the game complete.
Doing a major repair on a game such as one that has damaged sprites and taking the time to draw a new set of sprites.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
like the rules say, recracks should be a *rare* exception.
the things you mention mean "bugfix" to me - and i don't see how you couldnt do it using a clean crack. |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Doing a clean crack is great. Nowadays there is approximately 20% of games that an original can not be found. It would be a shame not to restore such games. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
lol, are you pulling numbers out of thin air? :o)
seriously, ask around a bit. there are plenty of people around who will happily supply originals (and tons of them are even online). |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
Indeed .... and welcome back in action The Shadow. Cracking front need fresh troops :) |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Thank you. I am very pleased to find that Pal and NTSC fixing not only has value to modern sceners, it has now become a requirement of cracks. The standards have raised to a level old sceners would only have dreamed of and now it has become an actuality. A group of scene veterans got together and wrote a "constitution" standardizing the way cracks are produced. Good job guys! |
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Moloch
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2928 |
NTSC/PAL was required when you were active previously.
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Ksubi
Account closed
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 87 |
NTSC/Pal is not only the requirement for the cracks, but the intros on the cracks also. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
ofcourse, that should go without saying =P |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Moloch, yes fixing was required back in the latter part of the old scene. Many releases during the period somewhere after 1996 to even recently have been cracked and not fixed. It seemed as though people had forgotten how to scene. These new cracker rules, as of this year, are a good set of standards.
Ksubi: Do you mean the cracker's intro or the game's integrated intro? Regardless of what it is, if it flickers or crashes, it should be fixed.
Back in the day, many games were fixed by importing groups, yet few groups had the manners to fix the cracker's intro too. Even during the pressure of first releasing, it was possible to have time to fix the cracker's intro. If two groups were intimate enough to be exclusive traders or co-op, then it made sense to fix an intro as soon as it was created and to have the intro ready fixed for upcoming releases.
The new cracking standards makes no distinction between cracking and fixing groups. Cracking has finally been unified. The demo scene has risen to heights never before known. Incredible coding nowadays. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
there hasnt been a difference between cracking- and fixing- groups atleast since 1995, if not earlier :) how would there be one, the US scene pretty much died in 1989 or so, and pal groups had to fix stuff themselves, for whatever stupid reason, its not like there was anyone left who would need ntsc fixed stuff =)
and i doubt there was a lot released since then that wasn't fixed (if it needed a fix) either (minus the flood of crap that was released by certain groups in the last year(s) =P). it was pretty much a must to fix a release if you wanted to get any points in the charts :) |
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Ksubi
Account closed
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 87 |
@The Shadow: the crack intro of both PAL/NTSC groups was (an still is in most cases) compatible either through some detection method (raster line count etc) or simple enough that it works fine on both systems.
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Moloch
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2928 |
Grope - 1993/94 was the end of majority of US based fixing.
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d0c
Registered: Apr 2006
Posts: 186 |
@the shadow
if you want originals to crack, check out these two sites..
http://tapes.c64.no/
http://c64tapes.org/
here is an uncracked disk game in g64 format, its a hard nut still not a proper release of this one... the game is called portal...
http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=5836&d=18&h=0 |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386 |
didnt TWR want to crack it? =P |
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d0c
Registered: Apr 2006
Posts: 186 |
@Groepaz
no, sadly it was just empty talk from twr... |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Thank you d0c. That "uncrackable" game will take some strong skills for someone to crack. There is always a way. |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
Another huge list of dumped tapes:
http://www.tzxvault.org/C64/index.htm |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
Still waiting for TWR's Portal crack... |
