22 opinions for sale - Are you buying? - by Zerox/Gods

We need to have a talk. What's happening? I dont know. Do you?

A NEW AMIGA - Since 1994 people have been talking about different new amigas which where supposed to be as revolutionary as the first amiga itself when it was launched. However, to this day the scene haven't been able to get this fantastic machine yet. New owners of the rights of Commodore all the time don't make the situation better. Last thing I heard was that the new amiga will come in 1999? Do we believe that?

D.I.S.C. - This is a subject I can write about for hours, but at the end the situation is still the same. D.I.S.C. and the Salad Team is into the hands of only one man; his name is Brainwasher. To explain how likely it is that the scene will once again be able to enjoy this old mag, I can tell you about an old Chinese proverb. It goes like this: What seperates man from the beasts is an abiding belief in Faith, Hope and Charity. But man is foolish. For always, there are the beasts among us... Deep or what?

RAM REVOLUTION - Have you ever wondered if the scene took a wrong turn at one point or another? Well, I have. Isn't it true that the scene had to pay a very high price for an continuesly upgrading? More ram, better cards. What will be next? Who will be the next man to not upgrade and leave the scene? But then again, isn't it better to have more stunning productions than to keep everybody on board this ship? I don't know.

LAMERS - When was the last time you read about lamers in a mag? It really got to be a very long time ago. In the early days of the scene people where very clear about the difference between lamers and the elite. None admited starting as a lamer, but everyone did... A lamer is simply a person who doesn't do much. At the end we all become lamers again. Am I a lamer? PR - PR - What's that? I think it's something Lord Helmet invented. How else can you explain why some people still have faith in D.I.S.C. and actually bought the stories RAW presented?

CRASHES AND VIRUSES - Until recently I thought that only PC machines where crashing all the time... but now I have discovered that it's not true. It's all the PeeCees and my machine which crash all the time. Especially every time I write an article my machine tends to crash. Perhaps even the machine reacts to my writing skills? Or is it simply the fact that my harddisk is filled with new and old viruses?

BEERS AND VODKA - When most of us joined the scene we were real nice guys spending some time in front of the screen instead of getting drunk in the city. But what happened later? We grew up? Well, it's a fact that quite many sceners use and abuse drugs and alchohol. Infact every decent scener got some scandinavian or russian vodka at home or at least some beers. After some time in my group all members started to drink heavily, people that nearly hadn't touched alchohol before. Most either left the scene and or the team after some time. Am I to blame? Nah...

COMPETITIONS - How come the organizers of every party are accused of making the wrong decisions? Choosing the wrong modules? Selecting the worst pictures? Giving advantages to some groups and giving some groups a hard time? Is it imagination or real? Competitions are never fair. We often see an ok demo win over a better one. A good picture never even made it to the top ten. A great module wasn't even selected to be played. Competitions are great. They create winners and losers. We like winners, don't we? But sometimes we prefer the losers... when they actually are better and when they come from our own group.

THE SCENE - THE GROUPS - What happened to the scene after the influence of internet and the strong new PCs? Better communications between the scene countries? Less "amiga" people? Less groups? One thing is at least true. Most groups are getting less international despite the fact that it's easier to communicate across the borders with the help of internet. Before there were plenty of groups with members in many many countries. Today there are less. But then again, there are less of everything these days... except of PCs in "amiga" homes.




OLD LEGENDS - Old legends are not what they used to be. At least I don't think so. In the early days we were kind of amazed by real famous sceners, and respected them. When you met and spoke to a famous scener at a party... it was WOW! Did they deserve the respect, our amazed faces? Some did, some didn't. A lot of sceners got very famous quite fast after not doing much at all; just using their big mouth. The real legends are those who are still alive and with us. The people you don't read about in all mags, the ones that keep groups together or do most of the work without getting much credits... and the ones coming up with truly revolutionary work. It's not that amazing when another scener does the same afterwards... Anyway, all small communities need famous people to talk about, to make gossip, to love and hate... also the scene.

SLIDESHOWS - Slideshows are quite rare these days. It's not very often I get to see a new slide. The old slideshows still makes me happy though, Seven Seas and Never Liked Uno for example. Every time I watch NLU I get in a good mood and get happy. Don't know why really. Other slideshows offer better pictures, but then again I prefer NLU. Perhaps it's the music and the old pixel art? It seems like the scene graphicians have forgotten the old art of making real pixelled pictures with the help of dpaint, and not any PC program that does all the work for them. Give me a new real amiga slideshow done the old way with lots of pictures in 1 disk, and I will give you D.I.S.C... hah!

HARD CORE - Do you remember? Remember what you may ask? Well, the things being shown on every TV at the old scene parties? Yes, I am talking about the hard core porno being shown and all the young viewers looking very curious at it. I can't remember I have seen that in any party the last 5 years, but then again I haven't been at many parties lately nor been looking for it. At Rendezvous in 1993 the police entered... I think they were after Scott/Spaceballs because he was laying on the floor in his own puke (but that's another story), but then suddenly alot of TV screens were going black. Those movies don't really belong in a scene party anyway. If you like porno, watch it at home...

CODERS - We can't live with them, and we can't live without them. If you are not a coder yourself and have an idea you want to realize you have to ask a coder to help you. I have always envied sceners that have had the power to influence coders to realize their ideas. It's not very easy. There are real many projects that have come true because of the work of the coders, but I guess even more that haven't. Some people have even quit the scene just because certain productions have been very very delayed or not seen the light at all. Thats sad, but true. The scene have had some real genious coders during it's short life time. And now even the PC scene have had the pleasure to see their amazing skills... but somewhere out there I hear the cries of lost sceners never been able to realize their ideas. Some might have been revolutionary, we will never know... One thing that's sure, is that most of the coders say they can code everything, but they never do. Do they?

FRIENDSHIP - This is another topic there have been hundreds of articles about in the past. Friendship never goes out of fashion. Then again, the scene is a place which creates friends and enemies. There have been real fights here, but also quite many have got some friends for life. I have at least done that. As for the enemy part, the worst enemies you can get are your former friends. At some point in the scene history, the groups were more important than friendship... so some people got kicked out of certain groups just to keep a "good" reputation. So much for the friendship...

HOLIDAYS - Every now and then we need holidays. We need to get away from our daily life just to get other impressions. Forget the daily routines and explore new areas. It's really great. To escape from reality, to discover the dreams. Sometimes it's not even necessary to travel anywhere... just to get some changes. But other times we need to go far... for example to a party island: our own paradise island. Quite many sceners have been there... on Ios. Been there, done that. Now it's your turn...

AGE - According to an unofficial poll done by the D.I.S.C team 67% of the sceners have been at the scene more than 5 years. So it's a fact that not only the scene gets older, but also its sceners. Earlier we had lots of kids running around at the different parties, but not anymore. The scene have become more mature, but did we lose our fantasy in the process? Where did all the funny productions go? Where are all the newcomers? The amiga is not a play machine anymore as so few new games are being made. So no need for crackers nor piracy anylonger. With so many experienced computer freaks, I want to see a truly masterpiece where the amiga is taken to its very limits. And I want to watch it on MTV... do you want to make it? Nah.. you probably don't have time to do it. You're going to school, or preferly the University or you're working. Right? Do you steal?

PARTIES - Before you have been to a real scene party you don't know anything about the scene. Going to such scene events bring sceners and group-members closer together. We don't just get to see the latest developments in the productions, but some times we also do other things outside the computer- halls. There are still some parties being arranged, but these days they are mainly the big parties; like Assembly, The Party, The Gathering and The Mekka-Symposium. Smaller parties with only amiga fanatics are better. Anyway, what happened to the copy parties? When was the last time you heard about a party refered to as a copy party? I surely can't remember.

LAWS - The laws are the only things between us and anarchy. It's my destiny. But lets talk about the unwritten scene laws. Do they exist? Some sceners have tried to define the laws of the scene and tried to make rules themselves. It's useless. The scene doesn't need other laws than in real life... infact, we need even less. The scene doesn't need a parlament or group of sceners to decide what's allowed to do and not. There are already to many foolish laws around. Infact there should be a law against stupid laws!??

EDITORS - Editors are the ones that failed to become good coders, graphicians and musicians I think I've heard somewhere. Most editors however are from an extinct group called swappers. People that are self-concentrated and egoistic. Many want to get known. Most of them tried to manipulate reality. Some want the reader to decide what's true and not. That's quite a tough demand as it requires that the reader already know all the stories. Some editors are very good in finding stories to write about, and write them in a quite special angle. Others are extremely talented writers, they present their stories with an excelent language. Then again, some aren't good at all...

WARS - The opposite of friends are enemies as I've already written about. Earlier we read about smaller and bigger 'wars' between persons and groups in almost every mag. These days I guess it's more seldom, and the disagreement is concentrated mostly among editors. When reading articles written by seeming 'angry' editors, the reader often think that the editors are real enemies. But quite likely the disagreement is not very serious, and is done just to make the reader believe in a conflict that really doesn't exit to make their own articles get more attention. Have you noticed any of those articles lately? Is there a new 'war' going on? He he...

INTERVIEWS - All communities have different news-medias; some political movements have their own newspapers, the same have some religious groups, sport-groups etc. The scene have had the mags from the beginning. We all like to get the latest news and to know about the sceners. Some sceners seem to be more interesting than others, and therefore certain mags interview them. Interviews are either done to satisfy the readers need to get news about a certain scener, but in some cases also to make fun of the interviewed person. It's so easy to manipulate the answers by just asking the right questions and twist and turn on the answers. Because of this certain very aggressive mags have been able to make very interesting interviews with BIG headlines. R.A.W. is perhaps the most known mag which did that. It's interesting for the reader, but is it correct to do so?

RAGE AND DISAPPOINTMENT - Some time or another I guess most people have felt disappointment and also true rage. In the scene it happens when some sceners aren't able to realize their ideas and have done a lot of work which suddenly becomes wasted. It's hard when you aren't able to accomplish things you wish to do. It gets even worse when some people make promises which aren't provided. At first we feel rage, but later on we just feel the disappointment...

Sometimes we also get disappointed after reading over 14.000 bytes of an article without finding anything interesting at all. Feeling fooled? At least I deliever some promised articles for JP now. So I hope I won't feel the rage of Ghandy and Sixpack, he he... Perhaps you didn`t buy my views... on the other hand, they are for free... Personally I would say my opinions are not my own, at least I disagree...

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