Naked Truth Magazine (games-group) N1,4___ _______________ _____________________ l \l __ _ __ l __ _________ __ | \ \| | \| _ /_| ___\| | \ | \ \_ _ \_ | \_ | \_ | \_ | |\____/ |____/ |____/ _____/ _____/ ==|___|====|___|===|___|===|___|===|___|====== ___ ____________ _______ ___ _____ __l l___l _ __ l __ l___l l __ __ _____ | /_| | \_ _____ | \ | | \_ _ \_ | \_ | \_ _ \_ | _____/ |_____/ _____/ _____/ |____/BL ==|___|===|___|====|___|===|___|===|___|====== M A G A Z I N E ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Naked Truth Magazine - issue #04 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Magazine Personel: MindBender .........[ mindbndr@algonet.se ].............. [Editor] Raptor .............[ raptor@lnic3.hprc.uh.edu ]......... [Editor] Lester .............[ mike904@netcom.com ]............... [Ass Editor] Lurch ..............[ apd@openix.com ]................... [Ass Editor] Mach One ................................................ [Ass Editor] Cyberphreak ............................................. [Writer] Dysan Gylix ............................................. [Writer] Everclear ............................................... [Writer] Jimmy Jamez ............................................. [Writer] Judge Dread ............................................. [Writer] Manhunter ............................................... [Writer] Mr ZigZag ............................................... [Writer] Operator ................................................ [Writer] Shatter ................................................. [Writer] Ukyo .................................................... [Writer] Winterhawk .............................................. [Writer] Lars Ulrich ............................................. [InterNET director] Lotug ................................................... [InterNET director] Aslan ................................................... [Trial Writer] Genocide ................................................ [Trial Writer] Lord of Darkness ...[ an375076@anon.penet.fi ]........... [Trial Writer] =============================================================================== Introduction by the Editors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to Naked Truth Magazine, a text-based magazine made to give a quick view on todays pirate-world. This here is the forth issue so be sure to read more from us in upcoming e-zines. The hits just keeeeps on coming... This is the second time I edit this issue, why ? Well, last sunday (just a few days before the release) the server in my system crashed and all info on articles, interviews and reviews was lost. I spent all week trying to reach the contributors to send me a second copy of their work so let's hope it's all here... Naked Truth is proud to announce the merge with our partners in e-zines, The Inquisition. From this issue on, the magazine will be organised by myself and Raptor (Ex: Inquisition). We're also discussing a to put the e-zine into both text and with some help from our excellent coders, a VGA-core. If you want to subscribe to future copies of Naked Truth Magazine, please write to (r00t@limbo.stanet.ru). This way you be sure not to miss out on any of our interesting issues. Lars Ulrich is still working on the NTM WWW-page so be ready for the WWW-adress in next issue. Greetings to: HOSON, Jimmy Jamez, The Renegade Chemist, Cyber Angel, ZEUS, Bluewater, Celestial Wizard, The GEcko, Replicator, Wayward, Sector9, Mikeysoft, Dorian Hawkmoon, Jammer, Hi.T.Moonweed Hula, Studster, Turok & D-Eagle -- MindBender & Raptor =============================================================================== Contents of the Magazine ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. The Mailbox - Staff answering letters... 2. Articles - Clubber - The Enigma Affair - Aslan - The Battle of the Courier Groups - Genocide - New Groups, Helping or a Hindrance ? - MindBender - The Speed Stupidity, crackfile not included - Lord of Darkness - The Archaic Order 3. Game Review - Ukyo reviews some of the latest games... 4. Interviews - Sector9 - RAZOR 1911..............[RCD] - MindBender - Pitbull - RAZOR 1911..............[RCD] - Genocide - Hoson - Hybrid CD...............[HBD] - MindBender - Darwin - Request to Send.........[RTS] - Manhunter 5. Final words - Rounding up... =============================================================================== [01] - THE MAILBOX ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the mail we got was destroyed in my server-crash... hope for you to send us some new mail in next issue ... =============================================================================== [02] - ARTICLES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Enigma Affair - by Clubber / MALiCE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WARNING: Boring group war babble follows, read at your own risk. :) (And BOY is it long :) ) Just recently, December 10th to be precise, our FTP site "Enigma" has made the decision to overhaul our group-"buildup". After some negotiations, Hybrid joined our site. One of the "demands" Hybrid made was that the residing game-release group, Razor 1911, were to be removed. We, the Enigma siteops, initially didnt really want to get involved in the small "fight" that started afterwards. However, after the articles in NTM, (we only saw NTM-3), we feel we have to "clear our names", because what was said in those articles was at least partially incorrect. Btw. This reaction is sent in fairly late, cause I'm lazy and WHEN I feel like working on the site, I have lots of things to tend to. Also, English isn't my native language and I don't have the dictionaries and time to look stuff up, so excuse the bad english. For us, being in the internet trading scene is a hobby. If it would get boring or unrewarding, we'd quit. Due to the fact that Enigma is being supported by a few influential groups, sometimes we have to make "hard" decisions sometimes. Group buildup, user purge policies, security measures, who does and who doesn't get accounts are some of the issues we have to deal with. On our site we have a few siteops who have a say in such issues and if at all possible, we try to consult them all and make some sort of "democratic" vote on what "the site has decided". In this case "the site as a whole" decided to accept Hybrid into our midst and leave Razor in the process. I will give youu the arguments, from the site point-of-view. The 1st of November 1995, Razor 1911 offered our site membership, affiliation and support. As our site at that time didn't have any game release groups supporting us directly, the residing groups had no problems with this offer. On November 2nd, we agreed to accept Razor and vice versa. One month later, on the 29th of November, we made it known to Razor 1911 that unlike their general releasing quality, their performance on the net was below par. We only made it a warning, because we did not have any problems with them not performing all that great. After all, the name Razor was and still is good "publicity". Our warning to Razor was that if a good group that gives us the impression that they would be able to perform, we would be considering them. If this group gives us the impression that they will be able to perform quite a lot better then Razor AND they demand that Razor is to be removed from this site, Razor's performance would be a minus when considering the site's decision. A short evaluation (from our point of view of course) of Razor performance is in order. Before we joined Razor, this site already had a core of good friends and good support by Malice couriers and X-force suppliers. This fact was probably the reason why we were asked by Razor in the first time. Sadly, what happened was that they joined the site, it turned out that they hardly had a sufficient core of net traders and fast uploaders to improve the site overall. In fact, our impression of the structuring and setup of the net side of Razor, i.e. sites and supply lines was bad to say the least. The other sites that were reported to be Razor were small in number (3 or 4) and the only one that actually allowed us to log on was bad in quality to say the least. The traders and other groups on the site kept on performing well, delivering most Razor releases to us before Razor members could. (For Razor as a releasing force kept on doing a good number of releases) After the moment we warned Razor about their performance, the situation evolved quite rapidly. A personal friend, Widget, suggested that perhaps his group Hybrid might be interested in joining our site, but that due to the rivalry between Razor and Hybrid, a decision had to be made for either, not for both. Thru Widget, we made it known to Hybrid that we were indeed interested in their offer and we asked them for details. The details Widget conveyed to us were firstly that Hybrid would intensively support our site -quote: "Releases will be brought to us asap.". Secondly, they asked that Razor were to removed. Please note that unlike the claims of Razor, we were not "cowardly offered" Net HQ status, or any status at all. Just being a Hybrid site with good support. Around December 10, it was decision time. We considered most things thouroughly the following days. All of the representatives of the different groups on our site got to say their say. The thing that sort of bothered us, was that we did not give Razor a long time to respond after the warning around the beginning of December. Fact is that as we were at the time a part of the razor email lists in which the Razor net director (quite professionally if I might add) issued "orders" to his net crew. Nothing showed up. At least, nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing we saw from the Razor staff that could vaguely be described as "an attempt" was a mail saying something like "come on guys, support the sites". As our relation with Razor did not really get tight during the month, the decision was slightly easier. In the end we just said Hybrid had (as far as we could tell) quite a big advantage over Razor when it came to net-courying quality (which is of course something that really counts for us). The appearant difference was so significant that we made the business decision to to take them in. A few notes are in order: Firstly Malice, represented by Aslan in this case, knew about the POSSIBILITY of the move to Hybrid wednesday December 6th. Unfortunately we couldn't really involve him in the discussion, because he wasn't online a lot around that time. He did know about the possibility and he did not voice any real objections. Perhaps he did not realise the seriousness of the discussion, but he was not around when we wanted to make the decision. Fact is that in this site all parties get an equal voice in site policy, where the siteops main goal is to achieve a site with the best standards and the best trading environment possible, as well as trying to get the groups (who stand up for their own interests of course) to work together as well as possible. Of course if Malice would have complained the discussion would have been prolongued, and perhaps the move to Hybrid would have never happend, although the other parties seemed to be fairly against Razor and for Hybrid, AND Malice did not really complain. To sum up, at that Thursday when Druidkin and Aslan spoke, Aslan did not blatantly lie at all, he knew about the possibility, but just wasn't there between then and the time we decided at Sunday 10. Secondly I regret to say that after the decision was conveyed to Razor we received a reasonably fair reply apart from the fact that Aslan was falsely accused (see above note) and the fairly childish message that this site would be added to Razor's "never again" list. A site leaving a group because of dissatisfaction with their performance should cause this group to look at itself rather then marking the site as "nasty, mean, evil". This was an unpleasant business decision and should be taken professionally, not "personally". Mind you we have no regrets or intentions to want to go back to Razor anyhow. Also a small email discussion started and the only, but very inspiring input from one particular Razor senior was : "Truth hurts....muthafucka...." As for Druidkin, I do respect him and the professionality (if you can call it that) with which he works. He just hasn't been able to really organise the net side of razor to such a point that it can do some serious work. Perhaps he can get it to work in the end. Best of luck to him and his group. Pity about the "Never again"-thing. Thirdly, right now all we can say is that we don't have any regrets on our decision yet. Hybrid indeed has performed quite a lot better, not only by putting 3 top-class traders on our site, but also by Widget who has coded and is still improving an exellent ftp deamon which has received positive reactions everywhere. Now the last argument MIGHT be not completely applicable because Widget already was a good friend of the (local) siteops and might have agreed to code the deamon regardless. Fact remains that coding a ftpd for a site supporting a rival group but ran by friends would be less probable then making it for a site supporting his own group (incidentally, Widget left Razor when the Nexus case occured, along with quite a few other people) Fourth: in our opinion a site should be a fun trading environment. It should provide the means for all members to get the job done. We should operate on a "may the best man win", as long as they do play fairly. As far as group policies and wars are concerned, the siteops try to keep the environment fair and put the groups it supports before groups it doesn't support, as long as the issues where THAT bit of policy applies is reasonable. Five: Even a few influential Razor members I discussed my move with agreed with me on my statement that the net side of Hybrid was significantly better then Razor's and that they understood AND respected the decision. I can also bring up a few other nasty remarks, but I won't. Insiders will know. Six: Why are you still reading this? Er. that's it. I wish you ALL the best. HAPPY trading. Cheers! -Clubber, Enigma siteop. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Everything in this story is completely fictious and is MADE UP from my own twisted mind and any resemblance to real life events is completely coincidental If it bears to any resemblance or cause any embarrassment I apologise here. The Battle of the Courier Groups - by Aslan / MALiCE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter 1 - The Meetings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the first day, God created the Earth, On the Second day God Created The skies, the Seas and the Heavens, On the third day God created the animals and the plants, On the fifth day he created the humans, On the sixth day he created light and darkness and on the seventh day, before he was going to have a quick rest, he created the courier pirates with their names. Lo and behold the earth now had the following: RiSK, MOLiCE and MTS In the beginning, RiSK commanded the earth, lead by the evil Enslaver the cracked up Smokepot and the ever idle Eagle Two. A few centuries later on a sultry afternoon the leaders of RiSK gathered around a camp fire on Venice Beach, The Enslaver was looking ravished and hungry, as he sat down on the warm golden sands, with the Eagle Two, ever silent and ever idling snoozing on the deckchair, there were girls and chicks running around naked on the beach, but this had no effect on the Eagle Two, who was known for his snoozing skills, meanwhile while the other two were getting cosy the Smokepot grabbed some sausages and marshmallows and started to the food on the campfire, The Enslaver then heaved himself closer to the fire and looked menacingly at the Smokepot, and growled "Although RiSK has beenwinning so easily, I certainly do not like these other punks threatening our dominance and certainly if any of them dare come against RiSK I will crush'em personally, however I have developed a new weapon to wipe out everyone..." The Smokepot looked bleary at the Enslaver, and said in a nonchalant voice, "Well mate, we got problems we got MOLICE guy kicking our butt on Phart Central" The Enslaver heaved himself over again and shouted abuse at the Smokepot, "You what!, Your the frigging sysop of Phart Central, and you let this FREAK from MOLICE beat my killer crew of RiSK clan" The Smokepot looked meekly back at the Enslaver and said, "Wasn't it you who said put him on Phart Central, so that you could live up to your name and enslave him to RiSK? and why don't you test fire this new weapon?" The Enslaver looked sternly towards Smokepot and said "the new weapon is not fully operational, but when it is, no one can stand against the Force of RISK!" Amazingly the Eagle Two was completely oblivious to everything that was discussed between The Enslaver and Smokepot and so he continued snoozing. Meanwhile back over at Santa Monica, the MOLICE Leaders were meeting in AutumnFalcon's home, who was one of the first females in MOLICE, She decided to cook some Pasta with Peso for the three leaders of MOLICE who were busy playing poker, The Lion's Ass looked up from his hand and laughed at Jake Drunk and Dorian Eaglemoon and declared he had won the hand, Jake Drunk being drunk as usual merely burped and said he needed to piss. Dorian Eaglemoon was too busy goggling at the curvaceous AutumnFalcon who was wearing a very tight T-shirt and leather shorts, this had the effect of turning Dorian Eaglemoon on. The sudden hormone increase made Dorian Eaglemoon get up from his chair and he slowly walked towards AutumnFalcon, who was busy with the cooking. Dorian Eaglemoon as well as moving towards AutumnFalcon was hatching a plan in his brain to make a pass at AutumnFalcon. Meanwhile The Lion's Ass was grinning to himself, as his twisted mind thought of another deal, another plan on giving MOLICE the edge over the rest, Suddenly the Lion's Ass keen sense for strategy began to take hold of his ego again, he quickly took out his portable map and using fine bone china sticks, with labels, he then proceeded to stick flags representing RISK, MOLICE and MTS on the map, as he was developing a new strategy in his mind to win the game at all costs. Jake Drunk suddenly appeared back from the toilets room and burped loudly to announce his entrance, this startled AutumnFalcon who almost burnt herself on the stove, this caused The Lion's ass to snap out of his strategic musing and Dorian Eaglemoon was suddenly stopped in his tracks, which caused him to make excuses to why he appeared to be creeping on AutumnFalcon. Jake Drunk then bellowed at everyone to sit-down and shut-up, so the three leaders sat down on their seats awaiting the scrumptious meal that AutumnFalcon was still preparing, Dorian Eaglemoon then asked everyone: "So guys any comments on the opposition then?" The Lion's Ass then replied, "Yeah RISK I heard have developed a secret weapon to wipe out every group on the net, this came from my special agent 007 James Pond" Jake Drunk looked slight startled but asked "Could you elaborate?", The Lion's Ass then handed out the two leaders a dossier on "Project Robohoser" but he suddenly paused momentarily to look at the state of the food that Autumn falcon was STILL preparing. The Lion's Ass in his usual manner then said softly "Inside the dossier you will find top secret and of course for your eyes only information on the Robohoser Weapon that RISK are developing". The two other leaders were sifting through the documents, both of them were looking perplex, The Lion's Ass then walked over the Windows, and drew the curtains shut and brought out a cine-camera from his Louis Vitton suitcase, and then he proceeded to play the cine-camera, which was projected on a makeshift whiteboard The film was flickering but it showed the Robohoser Weapon in action, Dorian Eaglemoon and Jake Drunk gasped to see this human automation, armed with 10 pairs of arms, 10 keyboards and 10 modems to the brim, sitting on the console of phart central there and simply typing N T U and D Z ... and then doing bin hash, mkdir, mput * The cine-film then suddenly ran out, The Lion's Ass sighed and said, "James Pond ran out of film on this undercover mission I am afraid, but what you see in action is a devastating piece of technology guys and I am afraid RISK have already test fired this weapon" Dorian Eaglemoon exclaimed "We must have a plan of action!" Jake Drunk simply burped loudly and nodded his approval to Dorian Eaglemoon's statement. Food eventually arrived, and AutumnFalcon was serving the piping hot pasta to everyone's delight. While the MOLICE leaders were contemplating the possible problems the Robohoser may cause. Over in Oregon, MTS Leader Ordo was sat in his office, writing in his usual poetic style his life memoirs, Ordo then summed his captains to his office for MTS managerial briefing. Ordo then asked his captains One Strike and Silver Smith. "How are MTS doing over in Europe?" One Strike and Silver Smith both looked at each other, thinking that the almighty Ordo might inflict vicious pain if they do not report good news, so Silver Smith took charge and reported that although RISK and MOLICE appeared to be slightly ahead of MTS, however MTS have made positive strides in Europe, Ordo looked up and congratulated Silver Smith's report, One Strike then asked Ordo whether MTS were going to expand in other directions. Ordo then rose from his leather bound chair, and started the usual speech saying that MTS has truly been born again despite some damage in the past, Ordo then proceeded to explain the virtues of being a MTS member to the slightly shaken but not stirred One Strike. After all the speeches, One Strike was convinced completely, Ordo then said "You two are now dismissed" so both of them left, Ordo mused himself and decided to write a letter to the Interrogation, which would contain propaganda material that was written in a way that would suggest subliminal hints to readers of the Interrogation to join MTS, so he pulled out his typewriter and proceeded to type out this letter. The phone suddenly rang, and Ordo picked the phone to hear a worried sounding Dar-Loose, Council of MTS, Ordo then asked Dar-loose what was the problem, Dar-loose replied, "Ordo, half of MTS witnessed a test firing of this weapon that a rival group has created!" Ordo in his usual self assured and self confident manner told Dar-loose to calm downand he proceeded to ask Dar-Loose what the weapon was, Dar-loose replied, "I was not to sure, but this weapon wiped out half of MTS temporarily!" "We couldn't stop this weapon, no matter how much meggage we pumped at it, it was like invincible Ordo!" Ordo again started musing, and paced up and down, he then told Dar-loose to muster the MTS troops, and to met him at the beach, where Ordo would be relaxing with Primal Sanderson. He then picked up the phone and rang to Manatee of AWP, Attitude without Pricks, a fine release group that dominated the scene with the huge amount of Microhard shit that would come out. Ordo asked Manatee about getting MTS to the AWP sites to try and secretly replace MOLiCE, Manatee however passed the call on to Sheep Bone and Sheep bone being bored, assigned Ordo's captain One Strike to the AWP site. Ordo then summoned the One Strike back into the room and briefed one strike's undercover mission. "One Strike, your mission is to spy and eliminate MOLICE from the AWP site, the mission will be hard, but it is vital for MTS to get the AWP affil back!" One Strike then clicked his leather boots and gave Ordo a salute as he marched out of Ordo's office, muttering and preparing himself for the showdown that he thought would be inevitable. Ordo then proceeded to finish off the letter to the Interrogation, smiling quietly to himself as his dastardly plan for AWP and his propaganda letter was executed to perfection. With The Enslaver of RISK hatching out a new weapon, The Lion's Ass of MOLICE preparing a possible battleplan and Ordo of MTS scheming away for MOLiCE'S downfall, it was going to bloody Mary for all the rival groups in the next few days! ...To be continued in chapter 2 Written by Aslan - MALiCE Leader / DARiUS and PiNNACLE Member. Last notes: The reason why I wrote this intriguing tale was to bring humour back in to the couriering scene as everyone should really remember the purpose why we are all doing this, is for fun and pleasure! Oh yes excuse me for my grammatical and spelling mistakes, I wrote this at 1.30am after coming back from a party :). +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ New Groups, Helping or a Hindrance ? - by Genocide / NTM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Most groups in this scene share a common dream, that is often shattered. A dream that reaches for the stars, and comes up short. Groups pop up every day with names that may sound good in the minds of their creators, such as: Acid Sphincter People (ASP), or The Humble Hump Guys (THHG), or the like. Are these new groups popping up every day a hindrance, or are they actually helping the scene? The new groups are hurting the scene, yet some of them actually stay a while, and make a difference. So, most new groups are hurting the scene by not doing anything, and wasting people's time, yet some new groups are good for releasing efficiently, or couriering correctly, The new groups are hurting the scene because of their immaturity. Mainly, most of the groups are started by young 16 year olds who can't even make the grade in school, and have a short attention span. But, there is the occa- sional gem who shines whenever challenged. This is what made groups like Razor, DoD, PWA, and the like. Groups like RoR, and NFS were started with people still in HS. But, the rarity of these groups is almost like finding oil in the middle of East Jabib, slim to none. In a recent interview with Pitbull of Razor, I found out this to be true. When told that there had been successful groups run by "kids", and asked about his viewpoint on the subject, he responded with, "There are some "kids" who actually have a halfway decent idea of the way things work in this busness. I think it has alot to do with levels of maturity, more so than age. It's just that in MOST cases, maturity and age go hand in hand" (Pitbull -- Razor). There you have it. A word to the wise, get into a quality group, learn the ropes of leader- ship, then if you have the time, and the people, start your own. Some new groups are helping the scene in a few ways: competition for the bigger groups (releasing wise), for getting the warez to all the boards quicker (couriering wise), and for bringing the new generation of the scene into the spotlight. These groups were started by young, fresh blood teen- agers, or rising stars, and will continue to grow as time goes by. Such groups as Need For Speed, which was started by Fallout (teenager, not allowed to disclose age), and has released some quality material which is now being couriered by FATE. Release on Rampage is another group which was started by tKLP, and has effectively released for more than a few months now. These groups were started with a common theory: "Get the releases on time. Make sure of no duplicates, or just plain old crap." This has brought both groups into the spotlight, including a #2 group ranking for RoR. All in all, in Pitbull's words, "If you have a good idea with quality people, and stick with it, then you'll have a good group. In conclusion, good groups are hard to come by. That is why almost 75-90% of all releases are relesed by some of the top groups like: DOD, Razor 1911, PWA, Hybrid, and the like. These groups "started small", and ended up big over a gradual period. Overall, new groups are helping and hurting the scene in various ways, yet, "It is in the eye of the beholder what his future sees" +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Speed Stupidity, crackfile not included - by MindBender ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This article was first going to deal with the bad blood between the zcenies (scene-zines) but as Inquisition merged with us and we dont really feel like stabbing back on RCN, I leave that to the passed... 6 months has gone since Hybrid introduced CD-ripping to the scene. Yes, I know TDU-JAM first started but here we're talking about acctual rips and not the huge releases done by TDU-JAM. Hybrid started up with myself, Hoson, Cyber and a few others re-releasing software in better ripped and working versions... Time went and CD-rips became the only thing left as the floppy-games started to go CD only. Major floppy groups like Genesis, Eclipse and Razor 1911 changed their labels into TDUJAM, Hybrid and RazorCD. In late 1995, TDUJAM decided to resign from what they had started and left Hybrid & RazorCD + a bunch of small groups in charge of the CD-releases. Hybrid & RazorCD agreed on a 30-disk limit to all games ripped from CD. The problem is, there was no agreement on games below the 30-disks. What we're talking about is releases like the Warcraft 2 from TDUJAM on 20 disks and the Hybrid release on 10 disks. The only different in between was 10 disks speech between each mission (the speech was not in any way necessary and besides, all speech was also typed into text). I believe the pirates today are not really interested in extra-speech that makes the game so much bigger than what they actually could be so that they would care to leech 10 extra disks just to get the game to work. The group-politics has become so rough that people dont care for the size anymore. The only thing that matters is to get the game below 30 disks, write the NFO and release it. What I much rather would have, is a 100% working version with crack, trainer and install that easily install the game onto the harddrive. Is there anything that can irritate more than grabbing a 30 disk game, unzip:ing it, then you have to UNARJ it and finally (if it even works) install it. I'd say, let's get back to the nice intros and good ripping with crack that people WANT. I qoute myself from my earlier article in NTM #3, let the game-reviewers help us out. If they start rating games out of quality crack/rip and game instead of just the speed and the game. The groups might be able to change their ways. Another thing that I might find wrong is the above mentioned 30-disk limit. Who says a game's not worth downloading just because it's 35 disks. I say, as long as a game is 100% game and no speech, animations and intros it should be rated aswell as any game. just think about all the great Lucasarts games like "The Dig" and "Full Throttle". These games are acctually possible to rip but not down below the 30 disks. Games as these are worth the 35-40 disks, even more sometimes. Let's not set limits for what can be released aslong as the game is good enough and it's possible to download in a day (or two). So what the hell am I saying? I dunno, but hopefully you agree with me :) Sincerely: MindBender - So many lamers, so few bullets... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Archaic Order - by The Lord of Darkness ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A person such as yourself, you are probably aware that the scene has gone through, and is going through some major changes. One such change which has revolutionized the scene, is the the introduction of the scene to the internet. Of course you don't need to be reminded about this. But basically what has happend, the internet has allowed access to ANYONE who has even the slightest knowledge about piracy to join the scene. Possibly thousands of people have joined since the introduction of the internet, since it is so easy now to get involved. A look at the past. During the days where the scene was primarily run thru bulletin boards, only a certain few with the proper connections and know-how could be a part of the scene. Thus leaving out all the other lamers who just joined to be cool etc. The scene was a "private" underground operation, and not everyone knew about it. No need to say, it wasn't accessible to the general public, as it is now. I believe that in all the benefits the internet has brought to the scene, there is an equal amount of downsides. Due to the internet, the scene has grown rapidly to become a monster operation which is out in the open. This has poisoned the foundation in which we stand on, in my opinion. So much useless crap is being released, in ratio to the actual useful software which is being put out by the respected groups. I know this may seem harsh or unreal to some of you, but I think that the scene is going down slowly as it grows. Some have lost their way, doing whatever is possible to get some warez. Others don't even know why they are here. I am requesting of you, to join me in my quest, to make the scene a better place once again. If you managed to stay awake through all of that, congratz. If you think that you can help support our vision of a better scene, and be able to do something to make it happen, please write to us. We want your exclusive opinion... - The Lord of Darkness - =============================================================================== [03] - GAME REVIEW ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is alot of surprises this month like ESPN (Thanx Shatter =) ) and duke nukem 3D (#duke3d). Over all i am thinking that february will be a good month for game groups, as far as releases and such. Maybe i am just too optomistic, but i am always hoping =). Enjoy this months reviews, and sorry i couldn't do more games. Lack of time to find someone with the newest stuff. // Ukyo --- Ring Cycle Hybrid 6 Disks Well, uhm the game is not really playable inmy opinion, but i might be wrong. I Doubt it tho. Once you unzip thfiles, there is an Easy, nice to use installation. The Setup will probably require a boot since psychnosis fucked up, and the game is well, uhm, well you don't want to know. This game is way below average. 40/100 --- Return To The Arcade Hybrid 4 Disks Woah!!! Shocked me when i installed this game. Sure, the installation is your usual microsoft disk release install, but the game is great! Tho it only has 4 games, these games were made by Namco, one of the greatest and these translations do them justice. Graphics & Sounds Are IDENTICAL to those of the arcade counterpart. Another goodie to this title is that it was made for win95, so when i do my leeching, i can play at the same time! 85/100 --- Toshinden Demo (Playable) Public Release (No Group) 1 Disk (3.98 megs tho) Well, i have to say that i have played the PS-X Version of the game and all things considered, it is a cool game! Like the demo that comes with the ps-x, you get the choice of 3 charecters (2 of them different then ps-x version), and only one round. Has a setup for sound, and i had it set up for midi and didgital and all i got was Sound Effects, so i guess no music in the game. Also, when you play the game, don't forget to press choose the 640x400 mode or your going to be playing a peice of shit. I enjoyed it, nice game although ps-x one is Smoother. Maybe the final tho... N/A/100 (Demo) --- Solitare For Win95 Razor CD 1911<---Rewl! 4 Disks Well, i would not have liked this game if it was not in win95. Reason being is cause you can play it while you download. Well, the instalation was cake and the graphics are a really crisp High-Res resolution, so it scored points there. Also, there are Tons of backgrounds & Deck covers. I Really liked the Variety, and think that people who enjoy Solitare, would really enjoy this game. 78/100 --- Real Deal Razor CD 1911 5 Disks Win95 Game. Easy Install, and cracking it is just as easy. Lots of card games and tons of people to play up against. The Game is fun and not too big as it is 14 megs (i think) afteryou install it. Over all, people who like card games shall enjoy this one much. 75/100 --- Shell Shock DNZ 15 Disks Rowr!. Didn't Work N/A/100 --- ESPN Extreme Razor CD 1911 9 Disks Yes! I love ps-x to PC Translations. This game has an easy installation, and has a Semi-cheesy avi runningin the beging. Fun game to play, although i never found how to exit the game! Nonetheless, very fin and control is righton. 88/100 --- Duke Nukem 3-D Public Release 1 Disk (5 Megs) well, well, well. I Always heard justifier & Exodus talk about this game, and never really knew anything about it. Well, i can TRULY Say, this game fucking kicks ass. Although it is a demoof the shareware version, the gme is just so fun and has so much to it, i just cant stop playing it. Alot of Lamers are not going to get the game to work due to the sound config, but if your Leet (look to INQ#11 - Lesters " You May Be Leet If ") you will be able to get the sound card chosen and on its way. The most shocking thing about this game is the amount of Adult type Material. Also, i was glad they fund the cheats in the first 20 minutes of the release =). Over all KICK ASS 90/100 --- Sonic The Hedgehog Fate 15 Disks Well, i was never the biggest Sega fan in the first place and this game doesn't help there reputation At All. This game is the exact Sonic CD That came out on Sega cd format a LONG TIME AGO. So, with nothing new to expect, i was figuring on a cool game to play. Well, as usual one disapointment to another. First, no music. Next, you need to put a subst in the autoexec.bat. There are more probs with it, but trust me on this one when i say DEFINETLY not worth the d/l. 40/100 --- QuarterBack Club 96 Napalm 25 Disks Well, me being a Sports fan and all, i was awaiting a sports game for the ibm that was actually any good to compare to the console counterparts. Personally i liked this game alot. It has a nice feel to it, and lots of Great modes & Teams to choose. Another goodie is easy instalation, with everything already cracked and ready to go. This one is really nice since it is the first sports game i have seen to use SVGA mode, which Rules! In conclusion, although the game is high in price to download (78 megs! Sheesh!), i would recomend d/ling it if you are a sports fan. 85/100 --- Fire & Ice Legacy 15 Disks Well, i have seen alot of releases from Legacy and one thing is for sure, they need a new person to start testing the releases before they get released =). See, when you rip a cd game, the cool thing about it should be that it would be cracked and ready to play, no fix needed. There was a file released for this game to get it to work, but still can't get it to work. My closeing is to say to Legacy to recruite a cracker! N/A/100 --- Classic Card Games For Win95 Legacy 2 Disks Well, Surprised me but this one actually works! (Hooray!). Too bad they get cheesy games to work fine and the good ones (at least it looks good on the box =) ) they can't crack correctly. Oh well, i guess in due time they will turn out to be a huge success (Bwahahahaha). But anyways, lets just get to the matter at hand. The game itself ain't too shabby if your one who likes card games, and i sure do. Average at best is what i would say about this game. 55/100 --- Top Gun Razor 1911 10 Disks Well, the best group in the scene did a booboo. Game looks good, but with no Sounds?? If the sounds were in and it was like another 10 disks or something it would have been cool, just to have gotten to hear something while you try to figure out which button to press to start the engine and stuff. I praise the group for there Extremely hard work, and i know that they Probably did the best choice by releasing it this way. 35/100 =============================================================================== [04] - INTERVIEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interview with Sector9 / RAZOR 1911 Founding Senior ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ M: Hi, this is MindBender for The Naked Truth Magazine... I want to ask you some questions about yourself and RAZOR 1911... S: yeh.. M: Where are you from and how long have you been in the scene ? S: I'm Norwegian and I've been in and out of the scene for almost 11 years now (too damn long). M: When did you first start up RAZOR 1911 and with whom ? S: Basically this information can be found on our www-page, but I started Razor back in 1985 together with Doctor No and Insane TTM. Two of my good local friends. M: What was the competition like in those days ? S: There wasn't really any competition when it came to cracking. If you cracked something you just mailed it to all your contacts and asked for them to pass it on to their contacts again. We did a few demos at the time, I guess they we're up there along with the better ones made at the time (bordersprites and such effects were amazing in 1985 hehe). M: You ran the board Kindergarden together with Dr.No... what happened to it? S: In January 1993 I was told by a friend in Norway who just got busted by the police/phone-company that the phone-company had started logging all phonecalls to at&t. I believed him and we shut down the board the first of february 1993. Basically we just handed the Euro-headquarter status over to Baal who was running a very structured system (BedRock) in the same city. In may 1993 the police came knocking on our door, but luckily we had moved from that particular adress one week before and got away. Baal (in addition to Gene and Insane TTM) got busted though. That was the end of 8 years of Norwegian control of Razor Europe. M: What can you tell me about the norwegian Callingcard/box busts back in 1991? S: I don't think there were any major busts before late 1992 when all kinds of phreakers got busted for carding, boxing and abusing calling cards. In May 93, as I already said, the biggest bust was done. That one brought down Razor Norway in addition to a major C64 cracking group - Illusion. Several other persons got caught too - all together about 17 I think. M: What can you tell me about the RAZOR organisation, any differences in the organisation now if you look back in the RAZOR history... S: It's bigger. The group is 5 times bigger in sheer size now than when we cracked on Amiga. It's also become much more US-organized. We have very few organizing people here in Europe these days (Hot Tuna excepted). The group seems to actually create some profit for the first time. We sell quite alot of Razor-supporter merchandise, and we are glad that people want to support their favourite group this way. Now we just wish that they continue supporting the softwarecompanies with buying the good games that we let them check out for free. M: What does it take to be a leader in a group as great as RAZOR ? S: It's lots of hard work. You need to have the ability to be really hard when times require it. You also need to invest much time - especially on the phone. Most important is that you need to believe in what you do, and that you are very determined. M: Any hints to leaders in other groups on how to become successful in their way of organising... ? S: Well... Get a real name that you wanna work or and feel confident with. Don't bring up a dead groups name. And most important - when times are tough you have to be able to sort out your problems instead of killing off your group and reforming a new one. A group should not be built upon greed and the wish for PERSONAL succes. Too many groups (such as Legend, Later Public Enemy etc.) was built upon such a foundation and they all dissolved after some time. M: Who's in the current leadership of RAZOR ? S: I'm not really involved with Razor these days but from what I know The Gecko, Speed Racer, Pharaoh, Third Son, Druidkin, Hot Tuna and several others are working much with the organization. We don't really have "leaders" though. We just have people who organize things without using fancy titles. M: With all the different leaders in RAZOR I bet there's been alot of different ideas on how to run the group. Is there any leader in particular you got more/less along with than the rest ? How do you get along with the current leadership ? S: We have always had strong leaders who's intention was to make Razor strong instead of exposing their personal egos. Lately I have withdrawn from the active scene and have only been able to observe the power-struggle that has been going on. I was very sad to see Renegade Chemist, Randall Flagg, Marauder and the other guys leave the group last year, but I feel that the new organizers have done a very good job releasing warez and keeping the name on top. During 1995 we released more than 120 games which is a new record for us. M: RAZOR got a new European HQ, Temple of Doom which was transformed into the famous Bedrock with sysop Baal... what happened to it ? S: As I said before it got busted by our dear friends in the police in May 1993. M: What can you tell me about RAZOR splitting and creation of LEGEND ? S: I'm not gonna reveal too much details, but that was a different sort of split than the Eclipse-split last year. The main reasons why it happened was that certain members felt they didn't have enough power in the group. Some dickhead took advantage of this and talked behind our backs telling central members that his concept was gonna change everything. Basically it was a split caused by greed, oversized egos and several cardsluts with no loyality to the group. Needless to say - Legend was a giant flop. M: Rumours say that Butcher was tired of other people ripping the groups money.. is this true and who was involved ? S: It might be true. But Butcher put himself into the position he was at the time and all problems are possible to sort out one way or another. I was very unhappy with a few events that took place the last days before the actual split. I have never heard so much bullshit from people I thought of as personal friends. Still I respect Butcher and the other guys jumping over to Legend for all the work he did for Razor from 91 to 93. M: What can you tell me about the RAZOR merger with NEXUS S: It happened pretty much without my involvement. I just know that Nexus split up and we knew they were talented people so we asked them to work for Razor. Nothing special about that really. M: Why did you leave the scene ? S: I slowed down noticeably after I got warned about the phonecompany logging my calls, and when the busting started here I took a long "vacation". M: Why did Black Spyrit/Spyrits Crypt quit the scene ? S: He moved from Vermont to New York to finish his (art) education about 2 1/2 year ago. I still miss BS' wicked humour and astonishing artwork. I haven't heard from him since. M: How's the RAZOR finances, after selling T-shirts, CD-ROM and Shirts RAZOR should be quiet wealthy as a group... S: Razor is one of the very few groups who manages to make a little profit out of what we're doing. It's not really making any of the members really rich, (except from Hot Tuna that is - hehe) but it's enough to make us capable of buying all the software we feel like releasing, and to pay most expenses our suppliers may have. M: What made you decide to make a comeback ? S: I didn't really. I just got very upset after the Legend and Eclipsesplits and felt I needed to get in touch with the guys running the show to find out what was going on and to help them with a few things. I'm not really spending much time with the group these days - I'm trying to sort out everything else in my life and it pretty much takes all my time. M: So what's going on in RAZOR right now ? S: The most obvious happening lately is our introduction into the CD-ripping scene. Apart from that we're going on the way we've done for the past decade. People come and go, but as long as theres a solid core organizing the group we'll do all right for a long time. M: Why did RAZOR split up after NEXUS merge ? S: It's a long and painfull story. It began back in late 1994 when I was talking to Renegade Chemist about the future of Razor. The amount of floppygames was quickly decreasing and the CD-games coming was mostly unrippable crap. We figured it was time for Razor to take a break when there would't any floppygames coming and so we agreed to await the situation and see how long we could crack floppygames. Unfortunately alot happened behind my back in early 1995. Renegade Chemist thought he had most senior members on his side when he released a textfile saying that the floppyscene was dead and that Razor would stop their activities. He didn't pay attention to all the guys who said that the floppyscene still had some time left and was clearly acting without the majority of the members on his side (I didn't even know until several days after the textfile was out). This was especially true when it came to the newly joined ex-Nexus guys who had no intention of stopping their work in the scene. Afterall they had just joined the group. Basically they figured that they'd just pick up the ashes after TRC who had decided to leave the group and the other seniormembers weren't really too active at the time. They did very well too, as the floppy- scene for some reason picked up again. The split came after the ex-Nexus guys started taking care of everything and TRC decided to come back and be in charge of Razor. Gecko/SR/EOS meant that it wasn't right to come back and demand power like that, and after lots of bullshit from both parts TRC finally got kicked out of the group he had been a very central part of for almost 4 years. It was a situation I woulda thought was impossible some time ago, but because the new organizers were controlling the supplies they could pretty much do what they wanted. The remaining old Razorguys tried to work together with the new organizers but apparently it didn't work out too well. There was too much talking behind eachothers backs from both fragments of the group. There were no angels in this situation. I know this because I tried to stop the other old memebers from leaving. Needless to say, I failed. So shortly after TRC had left he was followed by Randall Flagg, Marauder and a few other guys who formed Eclipse. I was hoping that this whole situation could have been avoided, but there wasn't really anything I could do to prevent it. Some people thinks that I should leave Razor today, because they don't think the "new guys" are competent enough to run the show (and apparently I'm the only guy left who gives the group some credibility). I understand their opinion, but frankly it's a load of crap. Razor is more powerfull than ever, despite of us loosing many of our old people. Things change, and you can't expect things to be the same forever. For me the only solution after the split(s) was to leave the past behind me and to make the best out of the new situation. All I did was for the group and not for my personal benefit, therefore it makes me disappointed when certain people in the scene thinks that I betrayed them. M: What happened to Apocalypse / POW & Whistler ? S: Think they closed down after beeing threatened by the cops. M: What happened to Fasttrax ? S: Can't remember really. Think he just closed because he was threatned by the cops like Apocalypse. M: Why did you kick Concept Elite ? S: The sysop wouldn't let the couriers download the stuff they needed to upload to other boards. It's a part of the deal when you become a courier hq. M: I heared The Brain was in charge of all RAZOR PcBoards so that they worked 100% at all times. Why did The Brain leave RAZOR ? S: I think he worked too much and burned out without getting the influence he felt that he needed. I didn't really talk much with him though. M: How many of the RAZOR 1911 members have you actually met ? S: If you count ex-members I've met Randall Flagg, French Mate, Ziphoid, Lord S, Dr. No, Insane, Darwin, Zodact, Hoppermania, Illegal Error, Sir Henry, Dune, Rage and about 15 others. M: What's your favorite BBS throughout the years ? S: Wild Side, Apocalypse, P.I.T.S., Suburbia, Central Europe, Bedrock, The Pitch, Collosevm and CEntrum. M: Why did Razorblade quit the scene ? S: He was quite tired of all the work he constantly did. If you trade 200 mb every day you get slightly bored after a while. He also wanted to spend more time with his fiance and concentrating on his work. M: What can you tell me about the bust of The Assasins Guild ? S: I suppose everything you need to know about that can be found at Microsofts www-pages. (They keep the press-release after he was busted). M: Seems to me like you had bad luck with your HQ boards... why's that ? S: We're so popular(!) that EVERYONE wants to get on our bbs's. Because the hype is so massive the rumours of our systems spread all over the world and sooner or later some narc turns them in when they get in some trouble with the sysop or some other member in Razor or something like that. M: The question I know most people are asking is, what does 1911 stand for ? S: 1911 = hex.777! In other words we are GODS! For more information I refer to our www-pages. M: Which one is the best RAZOR-release ever ? S: It's impossible for me to say this but my favourite demo is probably Vertical Insanity, my favourite Amigarelease must be Obitus (in coop with the legendary Classic) and on PC perhaps Maximum Overkill or Legacy. But as I said - it's really impossible to say coz there's been so many. M: Which one is the best GAME-release ever ? S: Thomas the tank engine from Alternative Software. A big pat on the back to RazorBlade for that one! M: In a interview in the last issue, Hot Tuna explained himself leaving RAZOR and so was alot of others... what can you tell me about this ? S: It sounds a bit more dramatic than it really is. Some of our organizers feels like having a life outside the scene (!) and I understand that very well. They're not quitting though, just having other qualified people helping them doing the jobs they used to do themselves. With Hot Tuna it's slightly different as he's retiring completely from supplying software. This is something we're gonna miss very much, but we have people who can help us out with UK and hope to make it work out as good as it did with Hot Tuna. M: There's been alot of organizers throughout the years in RAZOR.. who's been the best leaders of RAZOR throughout the years ? S: Hell, they've all been good at doing what they should. Some of them burned out a little too fast though, bacuase they were working too hard. Others worked well for some time before they did very stupid things that we had to react towards. But all in all I am very gratefull to all the people who has put so much effort into the group. I'm not gonna pick my "favourite" organizer coz it would be unfair! M: Who are the best suppliers you can remember ? S: Grim Reaper, Zodact, The Surge and FFC. M: How do you look at the fact that floppy-scene died and CD-ROM was the only way to continue releasing ? S: I used to be very negative towards it. I even agreed on closing down the group once the floppyscene died completely, but things changed and today the games ripped from CD are not really that big concidering that ISDN and 28.8k modems are quite common. There's too much multimediacrap coming from all the lame groups every day though. 50 disk shit that only couriers cares about anyway. M: What's your opinion on the internet scene, will the BBS-scene die ? S: BBS'ing does not have many years left. The internet is still very new and misses the organization that we had on our boards. This will change though once we get new soft- and hardware solutions. M: What can you tell me about war with GENESIS on terms like the TAG boycott, RAZOR spreading XCOM2 for TYRANNY just so GENESIS wouldnt win etc.. S: Just the usual stuff. Once the adrenalin starts flowing you do weird things. I'm sure it was funny at the time. We used to help TRSI some years back to win over TDT if we didn't work on the particular game ourselves. TDT got really mad, which of course was our intention. M: Anyone you like/hate more than others in the scene and why ? S: I hate backstabbers, leeches, cardsluts, thieves and liars. I like people with sense of historic events. These can respect someone for what they did 5 years ago. I also like people who are 100% loyal to their groups, can take a good joke and doesn't take the scene too damn seriously. M: Every group has had it's up and downs, still there is NO GROUP on PC that's been around as long as RAZOR 1911. How did you manage to stay alive ? S: We have always had a loyal and solid core of leaders whose goal was to make RAZOR 1911 big and NOT to expose themselves. M: How do you look at HYBRID, the mayor competition ? S: I respect Hybrid, afterall most of their central members are "educated" in Razor 1911 so I know they are talented people. I've known Hoson since 1989 and TRC since 1992 so I know what I'm talking about. But there's too much yelling about doublereleasing these days, it's boring. I'm not saying that doublereleasing doesn't happen, but in my opinion an upload is valid and not a dupe if it's not already uploaded to that particular bbs/site by someone else before you. That's the way it worked back in 91-92 with INC/THG and in my opinion things haven't really changed. M: As I said before, there's been alot of groups through the years, Which one was the most "dangerous" competition RAZOR ever had ? S: On Amiga we had "dangerous" competition around every corner, but on PC we've had it easier. The Dream Team, THG and Pentagram/Genesis must be the hardest competition we've had. Nothing is like a good race for a game. You loose some and you win some, just like real life. It only gets frusturating when you start getting sloppy and loose everything. That's a very annoying feeling. M: So what have you REALLY got out of the scene ? money, reputation, what ? S: A few good friends and a good reputation among experts. I've also got a lot people who are angry with me for things I did or rather they think I did - which isn't all that pleasant. M: Anyone you'd like to greet or curse as we're closing up ? S: All the guys who contributed to Razor's success since we started out. You are too many to mention but you know who you are. You've created computer history. M: Anything you want to add or got any last wise words for this interview ? S: Check out our www-pages for more details about our activities. M: thnx for this interview... and good luck in the future ! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Pitbull / RAZOR 1911 Member ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here follows a quick interview with Pitbull of RAZOR 1911 conducted by NTM's trial reporter Genocide. G: Hi, this is Genocide from Naked Truth Magazine, I would like to interview you about the recent happenings in the PC scene.. P: Go ahead ! G: OK Pitbull... What do you think of new groups? Are they helping or hurting the scene? P: Well, I feel that all groups started out small, and I think that if people feel that they truely have people that are serious, talented, and devoted to the hard work that it takes to make a group grow and become successful, then go for it, but if they are just out to try and make a name for them- selves, or become instant successes, forget it. G: So its kind of a: Only the strong survive? P: I think you have to look at it not so much as only the strong survive, but only the hard working, seriously devoted survive. There seem to be alot of "kids" in the scene that think that all they have to do is say "Hey, I'm gonna start a group, and we're gonna be bad asses, and"..... well, you get the idea ? G: There have been successful "kids" though. How do you figure that then? P: There are some "kids" who actually have a halfway decent idea of the way things work in this busness. I think it has alot to do with levels of maturity, more so than age. It's just that in MOST cases, maturity and age go hand in hand. G: What do you think is the BIGGEST problem with big group vs. small group today? P: Organization. You have to have a plan of action that works, and you have to stick to it. G: OK, thanks for the interview and hope to see you in the future... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with HOSON / Hybrid Founding Senior ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ M: Hi this is MindBender from NTM ... I would like to ask you a few questions about the scene / hybrid / etc.. H: Do I know you? :) M: Where are you from and when did you first start in the scene ? H: I am from somewhere in Sweden... I started out seriously in the Amiga scene back in 1989... M: So, when you started up... was that in the pirate-scene or the demo scene ? H: Well at that time the pirate-scene and the demo-scene where kinda joined up together... the groups that cracked the games also made cool demos... well some of them anyway... Vision Factory or Paranoimia etc never made any demos.. M: So what group did you first join and how ? H: I think I was in NorthStar (demos only), but later that year another demo group called 'Spectre' at the time decided to go cracking... so I joined up with their new cracking group in late '89, and we called ourselves 'Classic'. It was formed by Ringo Star & Stalker I reckon. M: So in Classic... you got to know alot of people to later form Hybrid ? H: Well, I got to know alot of people, but I can hardly say any of them has anything to do with Hybrid, except for Mr.Terry/Mr.Thompson. And maybe Jack. M: What was your position in Classic ? H: Spreader to begin with... put the releases on every major US/Euro bbs kinda and to get some AT&T's etc.. But the Amiga scene never had any position-like organization... no member lists in the crack intros or anything... everyone operated under the group name more than their own handle if ya' know what I mean.... M: What was the competition like back in those days ? H: Tough, damn tough... You couldn't just get the originals fast, you had to have very good crackers aswell.... if you had these two elements, you could stand a fair chance... the competition at the time was Quartex, Fairlight, Defjam, Angels, The Company etc... a shitload of groups actually... M: So after Classic what happened ? why did you leave Classic ? H: Stalker & Ringo Star decided to quit the scene... and thus they disassembled Classic... Think this was in 1992 or 1993... can't remember... M: So suddenly you stood independent... but not for long.. ? H: No I was in a group called 'Agile' for awhile.. (together with Undertaker!). Then I was totally independent and got myself a 386.... started calling the PITS and leeching like hell... I was helpin Razor out a little bit.... I first got in contact with Razor during 1992 when we had the CLASSIC-RAZOR coop... So I was still in contact with Sector 9 and Zodact... so I gave some PC-originals to Razor ... (I actually stole a bunch from THG and gave them to Razor hahaha!) ... but I was never a member... M: So, after helping RAZOR out, it was time to found a new group.. Pyradical ? H: Well, I wasn't involved in the forming of Pyradical in anyway, I was just independet and one day I was speaking to Zelnik and he asked if I wanted to join, so I sad ok sure.... So I got in contact with The Panterh, Wolverine, The Magic Artist, LowTec and some other peeps... 2 months later Pyradical died so I picked up the valuable parts and formed Hybrid... this was in February 1993... M: Hybrid ran for a 6 months period, then you merged up with TDT, why ? H: Well, we were never really 'competing' with the other groups, we were just there somewhere in the background putting out a game here and there.. So I figured I would be fun to rule the scene instead, so Hard Core asked me one day in a msg on Unlawful Entry if I wanted to join TDT, so I sad, ok sure... M: At the same time as Hybrid merged TDT, another group called Legend (not the one coming out of TRSI and RAZOR) joined in for a while, but later got kicked out... can you tell me something about why ? H: Legend was an outcast of Razor, and they could only get games from one company (MECC) ... so after a discussion with Hard Core we decided to threw 'em out... I never really liked the idea of having 5 people in a group when only 1 of the 5 is capable of doing something and the rest are his friends if ya know what i mean M: Yep... So time went and TDT was running smooth... then one day, TDT was declared dead... why and what did you do ? H: I dunno why really, but I though the name Hybrid was cool any everything so I got this mad idea I'd just break out from TDT and form Hybrid again... or something like that (I think I was in NEXUS for awhile inbetween somehow, but I have no idea why!)..... So that's what I did... and when I told Hard Core about it he decided to quit the scene.... M: So he did.. and Hybrid re-opened... Hybrid was now powered with some new blood from TDT... this time the group ran a bit better than before... but in between all these merges and splits, you got busted, for what ? H: That's a secret.. but I did get busted like three or four times... hehe... M: After running Hybrid for a while, you decided to merge up with the guys from old RAZOR into the new group eclipse.. what can you tell me about this ? H: Well, TRC called me up one day, saying: -Hi, this is TRC let's make a new group. I said: -Hmm... let me think about it for 2 minutes... OK good idea let's rock! ... so we rocked for some months... and then summer came etc. and I guess we all became a bit lazy, I was drunk all the time we had a release etc. and everything was going straight to CD so I had this brilliant idea, let's reform Hybrid again, and only release CD-rips... and why not have our own installer, just to implement some quality to the releases... but Eclipse is still there ... putting out any floppy we can get our hands on..... :) M: So how do you look at the fact the floppies died, internet spread all warez in minutes and everyone could get anything 0-days.. ? H: Actually, I don't give a fuck... the good thing with the fact that floppies disappeard is that not just anyone can go and release any game just coz they get it fast... well, we've all seen what happens when you try to mix CD-ripping with speed.... 20disk add-on fixes and shit... pathetic... that's where we have the advantage... I think if there were two versions of the same game, people would download the Hybrid version before anyone else... or if the Razor released something some unknown shit group released two days before, people would pick the Razor version, just coz they know which people are able to actually do something that worth downloading... the fact that everything is spread over the internet in 0 seconds doesnt bother me at all, since they can't move a Hybrid release until we let them :)= M: So is there any "race" in particular you remember ? H: Well... I remember two... the Police Quest III race TDT vs RAZOR and a Sierra football game, Razor vs PTG vs Hybrid vs everyon had that got damn game but only Randall Flagg could crack it.... kewl! M: ok.. so .. what's your favorite game ever ? :) H: Eye of the beholder I & II, Druid on the C-64 and North & South on the Amiga! :) M: So what is your comment on the TDU-JAM closedown ? H: Well I always though they were fucked in the head, but still, these mother- fuckers knew how to rip... even though they had to release some fixes, the proper rips they made worked.... M: And how do you look at the new compeition on the CD-games ? there's been alot of new smaller groups formed.. H: Well Legacy is a joke, Napalm seems to be able to get the games friggin fast, but they doesn't seem to be able to bind the word quality around their banner... The Council, well they get some games sometimes... no coolness whatsoever.... ROR... haha... did you see that A4-Network release? how lame can you get. But they did put out Timegate... with CDEMU2, hohoha M: Enough said about these ones... what is your feelings about the major competition (RAZOR 1911)... and the war that's been going on between you ? H: RAZOR... they have good people... but they're still RAZOR if you know what I mean... I dont really care actually... I think they are bettre than the other CD-rippers so maybe we should be glad they're around at all... Sec9 is kewl though.... M: Ok.. so can you tell me in short words... why is Hybrid such a success ? H: Has to be large amount of knowledge and coolness we inherit... M: So.. hmm what about this new ERA you been talking about, others than the words about the small and working CD-rips you mentioned above ? H: Well thing is I hope you will never see a fix from Hybrid again... that explains it, right? M: Right!.. so what about all the rumours about Hybrid bankrupt.. I never saw anyone from Hybrid comment it ... would you like to ? H: Well, to begin with, bankrupt? we never had any money.. never even reflected over the thought.. inexperienced people think that we're paying suppliers of bollox... we get everything for free, and when we need to pay something, like some UK originals etc., we simply send some money.... besides that, we have no money involved... M: Now I will give you a few names and you just comment them quickly: The Speed Racer H: I dunno... don't think he knows too much.. but he's there allright... arf! M: Fan Fan LaTulip H: Lame handle... M: Crackpot H: Kewl guy... can take care of certain problems :) M: The Renegade Chemist H: Tempered... hot tempered M: Les Manley H: Busted ! M: Mr.Hoson himself.. H: Totally fucked up... knows too much.... too cool... M: Randall Flagg H: knows how to crack Win 95 stuff in 3 minutes! kewl! M: Hot Tuna H: old TDT supplier... wicked ideas he has on some matters M: The Undertaker H: Well he's kinda kewl... to bad he got busted... been around a looong time.. M: Well, I guess that's what I got... hmmm any quotes, wise words or final greetings/curses you would like to send before I leave you ? H: No... well... I think the scene is self dying... but I'm unaffected... greetings to Razor :)= M: OK thnx for the interview and good luck in the future... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Darwin / RTS Senior Member ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ M: Hi, this is Manhunter from NTM and I would like to interview you... D: Yes, please go on... M: To begin with.. can you please give us some background on who you are? D: I'm Darwin. I'm from the USA, the east coast. I first started in the scene in 92, trading with Xparent and Necro/x\ancer on Alpha 2010, So-krates.. etc. AT&T didn't like that, so I dropped out for a bit. I came back onto the net scene in mid 1995.. the summer, really. I spent the summer working my way up, primarily working as RTS BBS co-ordinator, and trading on the net a bit. M: Whats your current job in RTS? D: Now, I'm a net-trader for PWA, Razor, XForce, and I am planning on working selectively on BBSes some time this year. D: I'm also RTS resource co-ord, which means that I basically hustle around, recruiting people, helping wherever help is needed. M: What groups have you been involved with throughout the years? except for RTS/PWA/RAZOR/X-FORCE :) D: Well, I was involved in a bunch of groups in the text scene, notable RICUS and S0L, but the first wares group I was involved in was "OW!" we released classic wares to our member boards. Like, we packaged them, cracked them, etc. Remember that this was 92, and there was no net. We just wanted to find people who dug old wares like we did, but everyone accused us of trying to release old shit for creds, which was ridiculous, because they were the morons who spread a release from the *OLD WARES* file area. M: I see.. so you made old releases even better with better cracks and stuff? D: Basically, that's what we did. Like, with full docs, etc. D: Anyway, this is the time I met Rambone (his board was a site) and Suspicious Image (sup nigr). It was kinda a crazy idea, but we were crazy kids. M: I see.. you mentioned RTS earlier.. can you give us some info on how RTS is doing right now? D: I would have probably ended up as TDT or Razor trader if I had not been busted, because I was talking to them both at the time. D: Well, RTS is.. RTS is in a transition period, still. We're still massing resources, etc, but we' We've been doing that for a while. We have some excellent people in organization, from Ordnance to Tiger's Claw to Blacksmith and Alice to Eclipse. Not to mention our homie Ninja down under. All we have to do is pull it together into a group of a few hardworking people who have the time, and we'll be all set. Most of out members (like myself) have lives outside of the scene, and can't dedicate 24/7 to the group. My girlfriend hates the scene. =) Basically, we're still coming back. M: In INQ-11 Ordnance said that RTS is currently stronger on the boards than they've been in a long time.. what do you think about the BBS/NET diversion? whats RTS main objective? supporting Inet or BBS's? D: I think that the net needs a lot of work before it's a scene. I think that currently, the BBS scene is more of a scene, and I'd like to see RTS concentrate on BBSes first. However, these days, most wares are on the net before they're on PC and a trader like Jazz can hit the weektop by leeching from the net and upping to a bbs. In my opinion, though, the net is reaching a critical mass for traders and shitty releases. I mean, what the fuck fun is it trading 50 utils in a day and 1 game? Who the fuck uses 95% of this shit? Like the SB sampler cds, I mean, Give me a break! There needs to be a big change in the scene to make the net as fun as BBSes were. Anyway, to answer your question.. We're going to concentrate on having a core of people who bring from the net to the boards *first* and from the boards to the net *first*. and then the board/net crew can deal with it from there.. M: You said that you've been in the scene since '92... thats 4 years away, many people come and go in 4 years. Are there any people in particular that you've bumped into that you like/dislike more than others? D: Most of the people who I really became friends with back then are still in the scene now and are still great guys. Specifically, Rambone is a legend, a hardworking guy from when he was in Razor until the present day. PWA is the stuff of legend, and everyone knows it. And Rambone is a *big* part of that. Xparent was the first Euro to Box to call me.. We used to talk for hours, and he's a great guy. Most of you probably know him as YumYum's older brother. =) Suspicious Image has been down and a cool guy since I met him on Star Maze in 416. He's an awesome trader, and just a fun guy to hang with. I don't really have any problems with people in the scene, I mean, I could shout out to people I am friendly with all day. There are some people who are in the lamer parts of the net scene I could do without, but I don't consider them part of the scene. They're basically local lamers, on a new scale. Oh, prozac. Prozac is my holmes.. I used to kick his ass on this one site, repeatedly. In the last few months, he has gone from being a good trader to being arguably the best trader on the net. And of course, there's Ordnance, Lester, HR, Vaesolis, Aslan, Technic, Nhawk, Tiger's Claw, Pericles.. Tons of people. I could go on for a while. Cybphreak, Drapper.. Manhunter. =) Basically, people who are intelligent, and have a sense of humor about the scene. People who really think about what it is that we're all staying up waay too late to do. M> ;) Alot of old RTS guys took of for Malice in September.. whats your opinion on that (being RTS Coord at that time?).. how badly hurt was RTS really? D: Oh! Bitecrash! Let me not forget to shout out to Bitecrash, who I've watched grow into a *great* trader. Well, near the "end", RTS was getting pretty amazingly bloated. I was trying my hardest to keep RTS together, but Dorian seemed to be letting in any lamer who even looked in our direction. I still do blame D0rian for the state RTS was in when he left. Him and Vile (who I'm not a fan of either) left and formed Malice. A lot of good people left RTS, because there really wasn't much left in RTS. Ionizer, Shatter Star, Vaesolis, a bunch of other excellent people left, and I guess it's understandable. M: I remember having long, long phonecalls with you about the mess RTS was in at that time.. how do you think it could have been prevented? D: Vile asked me to join as a council member, and I told him that I was loyal to RTS. I am still loyal to RTS, to this day. I think that the mess that RTS was in was due primarily to two factors. We had two leaders and a net- coordinator who did *not* have the time to run the group. Ordnance was away for the whole summer, and Dorian might as well have been. We had no vision for the group, and that was the biggest problem. I remember Dorian saying to me : "I don't *WANT* RTS to be the best group, I don't *WANT* RTS to be the fastest group." He wanted RTS to distribute wares to everyone and no matter what we said to him, he wouldn't listen. Then, he leaves to Malice and blames the *OTHER* people in RTS for the problems that RTS had. I think that's the biggest load of shit around. If people don't believe me, just go ask Raptor or Hemp Hoodlum. If you don't have time, you shouldn't be in a leadership position, Period. M: What is the current RTS leadership? who is running things? You, Ordnance..? D: Ordnance is our leader at this time. Blacksmith and Alice are Euro co-ords Eclipse is Net Coord, and Tiger's Claw is BBS co-ord. I am resource Co-ord, and just basically help out and cheerlead and trade for RTS. M: I see.. so how do you look on the future? will you and RTS be around for 4 more years? :) D: I'm worried about the future of the scene, honestly. Things are getting so lame. I'm going to be going to college and will be ethernetted. So, when I'm not working, I'll probably be trading. I'll be around on the Net, and that probably means I'll still be in the scene. I like trading, there's something about it. But the net isn't as fun as BBSes, and I think that that really needs to be addressed. RTS will be here for the foreseeable future, and so will I. The summer is going to be totally nuts, I mean, how can we possibly get *more* releases? I just hope that I have made some sort of impact on the scene and that people will remember me as one of the first fifty people to trade hardcore on the net as we know it. I hope people will remember me beating them on every release on one day to sQuidsite a few months ago.. =) M: Thanks.. we wish you luck in the future.. and this will end our interview with Darwin of RTS/RAZOR/PWA/X-F good luck to you and to the entire RTS crew... D: Don't forget INQ/NTM.. Thank you, and I appreciate the chance to speak. =============================================================================== [05] - CLOSING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another issue is ready for the masses, thanks for choosing NTM !!! Please keep sending us material for upcoming issues, this magazine is built mostly on what people bring us... If you want to contact 'Naked Truth Magazine' to leave us pratical jokes or rumours to include for next issue, please send e-mail to: >> mindbndr@algonet.se << ...or call 'The FF/TSL Inc' the home of the Naked Truth Magazine Once again I remind you of subscribing to future copies of NTM at the adress that follows: >> r00t@limbo.stanet.ru <<< To grab the latest issue (or earlier issues) of NTM please connect to our FTP internet HQ at: >> ftp.giga.or.at - /pub/pcmags/ntm << We're always interested in new talents to make the magazine even better so if you think you can help us.. write now ! =============================================================================== Naked Truth Magazine - There's no business like scene business The Autum Edition of "Naked Truth Magazine" by MindBender. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Magazine Personel: MindBender .......................................... [Publisher/Editor] The Acid Zcout ...................................... [Editor] Welcome to Naked Truth Magazine, a text-based magazine made by myself and The Acid Zcout who thought that it was time to give the mag-makers of the PC-scene some competition. As this magazine was going to be released this summer (but you know summer) everything was delayed which means most all of the material is more or less old... real reason why it was not released is that I never found a coder/gfx that was good and active enough for the mag to finally reach the release point... atleast this is easy to read! For next issue we will try to include as much fact/news as possible as there has not been a really great mag since the BAD-Magazine days... (Hi, Bart) The magazine will also include have a bunch of topics and interviews with all kinds of people in and outside the scene, also there will be some updates on what's going on ... So this is what I can say so far... enjoy the reading, if you can Greetings to: Hoson, Jimmy Jamez, Lord Cyric, Cyber Angel, Celestial Wizard, Bluewater, Morbid Angel, Dr. Insanity, Tazman, Hula, M:ET, Rygar, Chainsaw Massacre, Manhunter, Morbid Genius & Stoney -- MindBender 2:nd October '95 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Hula ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first interview is a earlier non-published interview with the SysOp of ex:Rest in Peace and ex:Gods Realm... Razor / DOD member Hula. The interview might be a bit out of date... but still a good interview... M: Hi, this is MindBender for The Naked Truth Magazine... I want to ask you some questions on the RIP subject, if that's ok ? H: Yeah, is this the first issue ? M: Yep correct.. the name is Naked Truth Magazine H: OK, shoot ! M: How long have you been in the scene ? H: I have been in the scene for about 2 years... but I remember the old commadore days.. M: So what about Quackers ? H: He has been around longer... M: In your two years, any people in particular you learned not to deal with, like people you dont like ? H: Humm.. I am a pretty easy person to get along with.. I try to stay neutral as a SysOp... M: Can you give me a little background on 'Rest in Peace' ? H: Sure, well first the History of RIP I guess. RIP the board was started by a guy named Nuke.. he ran the board and brought it up to 12 nodes when there were mostly 1-3 node boards around. His userbase was a Whos-Who of the scene... For some reason he decided he didnt want to run it anymore so he offered it to Quacker and I. We had at the time been working on a deal with High Voltage to be their new World Headquarters. We assumed the board and promised Nuke that it would be run with the same high standards that he had made it on.. Unfortunatly our group HV got busted...and We took down the board for security reasons... After some new modifications we put the board back up and continued on....Business as usual... Until most recently we had to take it back down after our security had been comprimised.. So thats about it without going into great details :) M: So what you mean is, the board was NOT busted ?! H: Nope...The board was not busted... M: What about the rumors that say you and Quackers got into a fight about how the system should be runned which ended in the closedown ? H: Well he and I are and always will be close friends.. M: So that rumour is false too ? H: But those rumors are just that, not true... The RIP staff which was more than just Quackers and I worked together on all things. Quackers was the Politician.... He made the deals with groups etc... M: OK, so what was the main reason you closed down the BBS this time.. I do remember lasttime with 'Unlawful Entry' being busted etc. but now, why ? H: Well you may want to ask him about that... All I can say is that Quackers and I both wanted a place where groups could hang out and trade... no attitudes.. Unfortunatly this was not possible. M: Yep.. I guess, but why close down now ? You just got the word from Quackers, closed down and didnt question it ? H: Well Quackers had a visit... and I think at that point you have to question your intentions in the scene... M: From the feds or SPA, what ? H: Well I would rather you ask him... M: Yes, but I cant get ahold of him here, can I ? H: No, he is basically outta the scene... M: OK nevermind that, were there any fights on RIP betwen groups who wanted to have the board as WHQ.. ? H: Ohh sure, everyday ! M: Anything in particular that you remember ? H: Well I had to turn down Eclipse WHQ becuase of my loyalty to RAZOR even though at the time I was only RAZOR CHQ. M: And what about the time you found out T.A.G. got busted.. I mean it was just weeks after the RIP closedown... H: I felt bad for Blackhawk... he is a cool guy and been around along time... His board was an example of Quality. He worked very hard to get where he was at... M: You think maybe it could have been RIP.. ? H: Sure it could have been RIP, Anytime a fellow SYSOP gets busted I feel bad. M: What about security on RIP... any special things you remember to make it untouchable for the feds ? H: People in the scene dont relieze how hard it is to run a board so that the questions falstions fall in the right places.. Alot of work and money... M: Anything you would like to say to RAZOR 1911 team about the RIP closedown? H: Not really...They understand my feelings about the group... M: Anything you want to add ? H: Yep, I think people need to start to learn to work together and stop fucking eachother around... and that groups should enjoy the competition they get from each other and not take it so personal. And that when people get busted they should learn to Shutup!! :) hehehe.. M: What do you think of all these small new groups releasing Cd-rips/Trash.. H: Well they are a nessasary part of the scene, Pretty soon all games will be on CD-ROM only... M: You think RIP will get back online again *EVER* ? H: Nope...As Quackers said "May it Rest in Peace!" hehehe well said :) M: Yep, for sure... well ok it's been a pleassure working with you and thanks alot for your time, doing this interview... H: Well thats ok, I will get off my soapbox :), and Good luck with the mag! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with M:ET ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another interview made by my editor 'The Acid Zcout' was shot with M:ET, the president of Rebels util division. Forgive us for the delay but finally we've made it out in public... T: Hi, this is The Acid Zcout from Naked Truth Magazine. I would like to make an interview with you if that's ok ? M: OK, go on... T: So first of all .. I would like to know when you founded Rebels.. M: Well, Jake in Denmark founded it in 1985 on the amiga. I joined it in early 1986 and took over the group and have runned it since then... T: What about this R2 thing.. can you tell me what that group was all about ? M: Rebels & 2000ad was to famous amiga groups and we desided to get together and release some trainers and utils in the beginning of our pc time but we soon desided to make rebels the big one so the 2000ad guys joined in rebels insted so now we are here hopfully to stay for a long time. T: You first called it R2 and then went back to Rebels is that correct ? M: Thats correct, R2 released a lot of PD stuff when i was busy with my work and that was lame, so we desided to shape the reputation up by letting R2 die. T: I understand, so about Rebels.. you first made demos when you started it up right ? why move on to utils ? M: Hehe, well utils is much easyer to get.. I can tell you this as rbs/amiga leader we released a lot o demos/dentros/intros whatever and at my time as Rebels amiga leader/founder we were never below top 4 demo group due to the eurochart.. and about the pc demos, yes we will soon release a demo on the pc which is about 6meg large with almost pure code.. and then we will go on with the demo sceen on the PC to... So beware rebels is coming on the demo sceen on the PC aswell very soon... T: Any dates set for the demo release, I guess there's alot of demo-lovers out there just waiting for it to be released.. M: I sure hope so.. but as all my experiance with demo coders tells me, they are the lazyest people on the scene so i guess i'll never set a date.. but it will come and that in a near future.. T: OK, hehe so back to Rebels utility releases, how do you rank Rebels among other release groups on util-scene... PWA, SCUM, DOD etc ? M: Well PWA, SCUM and DOD are the three ultimate groups and with no doubt the three biggest.. we are a small swedish group doing this for fun and release about 5-20 meg a week i guess it makes us about avarage... but remember that it is really hard to get the wares out of sweden as it is almoust impossible calling with cards from sweden. Nowdays all things go through the net with a lot of great work by Il Cattino and Manhunter.. i guess we are a bit big on The internet scene also nowdays and in the future.. T: You think that the scene will be more and more based on the "net" ? M: Ofcoz, but i think that's a shame becouse it will ruin the old "group/board" feeling. T: Yeah, about the group... what do you think about all the small/new groups ? M: Hehe, if you have anyhing to release dont start a small group.. contact me and I/Rebels will help.. T: So I remember once you had The Assasins Guild as World HQ.. what happened ? M: It was in the beginning of the assasins era.. when it only hade 8 nodes.. now it's busted cause it got too public and too big.. and why we left it, well we couldn't compete with either Razor 1911 nor PWA and as PWA didn't want any competition at all we hade to leave it.. T: OK, I would like to know who you think was/is the coolest guy in the scene ? M: I guess thats a pretty weird question.. but i really love Mr.Z on the C-64 and also Sodan/Magican42 on the amiga. The three people who showed the way by their cool releases.. today there are no especialy cool dudes but a lot of shitheads... T: OK, so go over to the shitheads then.. M: Naah, I will give no name but here in Sweden we have a real lame local guy. Half sysop on a big board... but no name... He is just lame and weird. T: What do you hate most about the scene today ? M: Well all 12-14 years guys wanna-be-cool and ofcourse there are alot of older guys wanna-be-cool too. I hate that cause i think this shuld be made for the fun of it. T: Yep definatly.. so you had the Rebels HQ before, SysOp at Internal Affairs, so what happened ? M: Well my girlfriend could not stand it.. hehe so i moved my lines to another BBS called Fatal Future and then we could not get along, so i desided to restart internal, so now we are up and running on 4 nodes again.. T: About the groups, you've been in alot of groups.. I remember seeing your name in TRSI and NEXUS.. M: When i sold my amiga and bougth a PC i joined Razor then i left cause my military service, then i joined TRSI and for a short while Nexus.. but as I wanna be the leader.. hehe i restarted Rebels again... T: What about your favorite gamegroup then, you've been in a couple, which one was your favorite ? M: It is trsi but not cause the games, it's because the TRSI megademo on the amiga it was so cool and i have loved them ever since.. T: Well that's about it... thanks for the interview... M: OK, no problem see ya... and lets make all days party days.. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Morbid Angel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another interview made by The Acid Zcout follows with one of the remaining people in Dominators. Alot of people might have wondered what happend to them after a successful year 1994. Rumours talk about fights in the senior council, trouble with the boards and much else. To find out what really happened we tracked down 'Morbid Angel' to tell us about the rise and fall of the 1994 release machine... T: Hello, I'm The Acid Zcout from Naked Truth Magazines... I would like to interview you on the subject Dominators, it that's fine with you ? M: Thats cool with me, shoot! T: Ok, so when did Dominators first startup ? M: In 1987 on the C-64... T: Quite some time ago... but then it was a game group right ? M: Correct, on the PC its been utilities mostly.. we're looking into some games though... T: A comeback from the earliy C64 years, sounds nice... so I know you were quite big on PC aswell in the matter of utils ofcourse, and not games... Anyways something happened ? M: Hmm yup.. like 6-8 months back we skipped most of the US section, after Agents of Fortune was busted the US and the Euro part kinda seperated, there wasn't much communication and a lot of guys were added to the memberlist in US that we didn't knew of here.. it got out of control and to make a long sorty very short we (The Euro half) cutted them free.. A lot of them were inactive, some skipped the scene some busted.. a few of them we'd like to still have with us - but for various reasons we couldn't. Also a few of them joined other utilities groups while still being in DOM.. something we didn't think were ok. T: So they never formed any groups on their own ? cause that seems to be the most common way these days to prove oneself worthy to people... M: They did infact.. the group name escapes me though, but intimidator, merlin and a lot of the others talked about forming a new util group.. i dont know what happend, but i havn't seen intimidator since then... T: But right now you dont have any US boards left, is that correct ? I mean still without Agents of Fortune there were plenty of good boards... What about boards like False Intentions ? M: There is one us board left, down at the moment though.. but yes other than that one, no ones left.. and like i said earlier we'd have liked to keep a few of them and perhaps we'll contact them to see if the interest is still there... T: I see, so you wanted to create a smaller, more active group... something like the basics of Pirates /w attitudes ? M: Kinda yes, in large group there tends to be no control of the members, like it is now we know who is who and shit like that.. its controlled from the senior staff.. T: I see, what happened to Dream Weaver, I remember him being alot in the US at Agents of Fortune but I have not seen him since, what happened to him ? M: I dont know, i havn't been in touch with many of the 'former' ones and havn't been able to keep in touch with most of the boards overthere... T: So nowdays when Dominators is not as active, I guess you must have gotten a few offers to merge/join onto other groups, what's the reason you didn't ? M: Hmmm.. dont get me wrong, Dominators is still in full effect, i like the other dudes and never thought about joining other groups or merging what's left... T: So what about all the new util-releasers in the scene what do you think about these groups ? M: Well.. we all have to start someplace.. i really havn't got an opinion.. what i dislike is the way the scene is controlled by money these days.. everyone is selling and selling.. eventually they get busted.. i dislike that.. T: I know what you mean, not REALLY what it was meant to be... So how do you look at the future (1995-96) will Dominators do a comeback on game market or stay put to the utilties ? M: Currently we're looking into the games, lets see what that brings.. but the future looks ok. We have all been busy with other things, and havn't had much time for the group, but that should change over the summmer. T: So to sum up this interview in one question, is DOM dead ? M: No - never.. we're alive and kicking! T: Thanks for doing this interview I see forward to catch more of your releases in the near future... M: OK cool.. no problem.. and be sure to catch our releases.. :) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Cyber Angel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our next interview takes us to NYC and the leader of Phoenix CD-ROM division. I said it before and I say it again, this interview is (like the others) a bit old but I hope you all enjoy reading them anyways... M: Hi this is MindBender for Naked Truth Magazine... I would like to ask you some questions about the scene... C: Sure thing M: First of all where are you from and how long have you been in the scene ? C: I am living in New York City, even though I originally come from Russia. Have been in the scene for 2.5 years... M: Oh so what group did you first join ? C: At first, me and Sandstorm started a little group called Netrunners. We had some problems, broke up and I started EDGE (original EDGE, nothing to do with the SNES group that recently turned PC). EDGE merged into TRSi at the very end of 1993 M: So you went TRSI.. why did you join there, financial problem in EDGE or just organising problems ? C: EDGE was a small group with few opportunities. However we had a few good suppliers including the insider who was about to give us the final version of Mortal Kombat (EDGE released several betas of it). We have received offers from several groups, but a member or s TRSi sounded like the best choice at the time. They had a very strong European division but few suppliers in USA. EDGE had the USA backbone they could use. M: So what happened in TRSI ? you where organising the US division ? C: Yes, I came in as a US coordinator and was soon promoted to the US Leader. However, TRSi did not come through with some of their promises and neither me nor some of the US guys I worked with were happy. In April of '94 we left TRSi to start a brand new group called Phoenix (PNX). M: Exactly why did you leave TRSI ? what promises ? C: We were unhappy with TRSi for several reasons. First, they failed to provide the way to call out they promised to me and some other members. They also have not honored several other agreements and we decided it would be best to leave. M: Was this at the same time as the TRSI splitted off to Legend ? C: It was about a month or two earlier. The UK guys left TRSi when Legend was formed and that was pretty much the final blow for that group. M: So this was maybe also the reason why you left ? C: Not really as there was no plans of creating Legend back in April or at least I was not aware of it than. I never had any problems with the guys over in UK, only with the German members of the group. M: So what leader(s) in TRSI where bad guy(s) ? C: When I came into the group I was talking mainly with VFast and Oliver Stoned. The promises were given by both of them and they were equally not fulfill. I have never dealt with Drunken Rom. I will also not call anybody a "bad guy" as it was just an internal conflict. But my main diffirences were with VFast. M: So your first *REAL* group was formed... who founded it and is it true you released more utils than games ? C: Yes, it is. PNX was more of a utility group than a game group. It has existed until the January of 95 and has released over 1.2 gigs of games and applications. I was the leader of Phoenix, senior staff has shifted at times but original seniors were Shadow Master, Kidcapri, Daviolator and Psyco. M: ...and at this time, you got in touch with Jimmy Jamez ? Or did you know him all the way back from Russia ? C: No, I did not know Jimmy Jamez back than. I did see occasional DOD releases and was very interested in them, as DOD was based in my country of birth. I have spoken to JJ and some other DOD members briefly in 1994 but it was not until this year we became friends and started working together M: So from this moment on, Drink or Die and Phoenix were in harmony, but Jimmy Jamez got problems in DOD and you helped him out ... C: Well, first time I started dealing with DOD was when their game division has merged into TYRANNY. At that time, not PNX/DOD merge was planned. Later on, when some of the DOD members merged with VEN to start Prophecy, I have brought PNX suppliers for DOD to help make it strong again and I beleive I have made a right choice doing that. M: Yep, what you say about DOD today, one of the top groups in the world ? C: I think we are doing very well. There ARE flows - there always will be - in any large group. We have our share of problems but the group is doing a great job and all of us are having alot of fun which, after all, this is all about. M: Right, so DOD got PNX and you got TRN to take care of. Why did you form TRN in the first place ? You thought PNX got a util-based name and wanted it to be a *STRICT* gamegroup ? Also did everyone agree on merging PNX with DOD... ? C: Yes, thats the basic idea. When forming PNX I thought that releasing both games and utils under the same label might work out, but I was wrong. We started TYRANNY by simply moving all the PNX game suppliers and crackers into it.. It was a VERY smallgroup at first, as I did not have the time to manage it before Christmas. This year we have done much more and are continuing to become better and better. Expect alot of game releases from TRN shortly :) M: Hey !.. no commercial please :) C: Well its not my fault commercials in your E-Mag are so expensive... I had to squeeze it in somewhere :) There was no problems in the PNX/DOD merge. There was never a competition between the two groups and no enemies in them. M: But what about the Phoenix members ? Maybe they were rooted in that group and didnt wanna leave ? C: PNX was a cool name but since TYRANNY started me and some other CoOrds paid too much attention to the Game side of the group and Phoenix was not releasing actively during the last 2 months of its existence. Suppliers were still there, but too lazy. The merge has caused them to start working more actively again. M: Yeah well, then who was the leaders of TYRRANY and why the name TYRRANY ? most groups get their names from old amiga, this one was all new.. who brought it up ? C: Tyranny was started by me and EOS - as I said before we have not done much in 1994 releasing alot of budget stuff. Later during the year Eos left to Razor and when I restored the group, I have brought together alot of experienced AND new people to help me run the group. Grifter, Caligula, Nivek Ogre and Youngblood have done alot of work to help organize things in the group. We wanted to put together a group that would dominate the scene... and, of course, we wanted a catchy name :) I was on the phone with Eos, and asked him "what are the synonimes for Dictatorship or Domination - and the word TYRANNY immediately came up. We thought it was perfect... M: Well.. it's kinda nice.. I must say.. :) so, you had your own BBS, or did I get that wrong ? C: Thank you :) We hope to live up to it :) Yes... I used to run a board remotely for a while. Source Of Reality (4/94-9/94), Millennium Matrix (9/94-2/95). But I wanted to run my own board. Nothing big - a Games only board, but a place where you could find a VERY large collection of games. So I brought back Source Of Reality in my house, with very little hardware but the game collection available on my BBS will soon reach 5 gigs. M: Were you in TRSI while it had boards like Concept Elite, Gates of Asgard and Unlawful Entry ? C: Sure! I was responcible for kicking out Concepts Elite :) M: Oh, so about Concept Elite, why did you kick it out.. I know RAZOR 1911 also kicked him before you .. C: I had alot of diffirences with the sysop - even before joining TRSi. When the question of moving WHQ came up I voted strongly to remove it from CE. M: So can you tell me something more about this rag with the CE SysOp ? C: It was not really a "rag". Concept Elite was local to me. Competition between the boards is tough in New York and Loverman did not like the fact that I was supporting another upcoming local board - X-Factor. Loverman wanted to delete me from CE and he only did not becuase of me joining TRSi. I do not think that a senior fighting with the sysop of the WorldHQ is very healthy for the group, so when the opportunity came we took the position away from that board. M: But wasn't X-Factor in PNX or TRN ? C: Yes, X-Factor was an EDGE CHQ, than it was a TRSi affiliate board, TRSi Eastern HQ, PNX WHQ for a short while and now it is a TRN WHQ. We had a stormy but interesting relationship with that BBS through the years :) M: Lets go back to TRSI. As I was asking, Gates of Asgard... and Unlawful... Was TRSI kicked of both by Legend or was it something else ? C: Why UE and GOA kicked or left TRSi.. :) Well, at the point I left TRSi GOA was still the WHQ and UE was a WHQ for High Voltage. So I guess I would be the wrong person to ask :) Not to mention that I could not call out much thanks to my friends in Germany. So I am surely a wrong person to ask :) M: OK, nevermind that...can you tell me anything about the S.E.L. story C: S.E.L. story? M: About The BBS SEL and the SysOp who was busted for childporno.. C: He does not really have any child porno (that BBS is also local to me). What he has is a HUGE BBS with ALOT of disk space and good modems. At one point I took that board into PNX hoping to make it fast relying on its hardware setup. Unfortunately the sysop is just not cut out for running a true elite board as we understand it... But there is no child pornography on there as far as I know. M: Well, Blaster (X-Factor SysOp) claimed that. Do these guys fight much ? C: Blaster fights alot with everybody, *especially* any local competition. :) I have never even seen him call into SEL. At SEL they've got about 30 gigs of old stuff backed up but no X-rated crap. Not many new files there either though :) M: So lets talk about your Magazine... what can you tell me about it ? C: Are you referring to "Cyber Angel's Totally Biased Warez Report"? M: Yep I guess I am :) C: I would not really call it a magazine... Report is probably the perfect description. I have seen many diffirent "reports" and "mags" created to review and rate the PC game scene and I really liked the one TRC used to release in the winter of '94. Unfortunately he stopped and I picked up the trial in January 95. I tried to make it very thorough, rating groups, presenting monthly/total statistics and my opinion of the game ratings. Got alot of good feedback from it as well as lot of rags. But making it has always been alot of fun in itself. M: So there will be a new one for this month ? C: Sure! The May issue just came out a few days ago. M: Oups.. :) guess I missed it... C: I intend to keep doing it for as long as I can. M: About the game XCOM-2... that is (as I see it) your major release EVER... who supplied it and how did the supplier get it ? C: Actually, I think our best release ever was Descent from Interplay which we got 2 months before the stores. X-COM 2 was suplied by Psycho Stik but it was a simple store pick up. The spreading war against Genesis on that game was alot of fun though. M: I heard you guys got help from RAZOR to spread it ? C: RAZOR traders did help us spread the release. They would rather see us win on it than Genesis that was a bigger threat at the time :) I beleive we could have won on our own as well, but we could not have won on 90% of ALL boards without them. M: Later on Physco went to Eclipse and then RAZOR... why did he do that ? did you blaim RAZOR for it ? C: Physco Stik left because of the conflict we had with his friend, also a TRN member: The Comanche. They have left the group together. There is no bad blood between us though. M: Oh, another conflict.. please tell.. C: There was a misunderstanding. Comanche have expected us to move the WHQ to his BBS after Millennium Matrix went down but we had other plans. He was unhappy with it and left the group. M: What do you think of this Eclipse gathering, any particular reactions on that group ? C: I like Eclipse and am friends with alot of people in it. As I said in my report, we still have to see whether they pass the test by time, but they probably will easily. M: About RTS, were they the official couriers of TYRRANY ? C: RTS was a joke. MM (TRN WHQ at a time) became their USHQ for several weeks and we got 0 BYTES (literally) of uploads from them. We removed them as our Courier group and took Raw Meggage (founded by DeathStalker / Grifter). They were doing pretty well for a while, but the group is gone now simply because nobody had the time to keep it together. M: My board was also RTS but never got *ONE* byte... very sad.. anyways is TYRRANY established on InterNET ? C: Sure is! #tyranny on IRC is not an active channel, but alot of our guys hang out in #dod. We have some FTP sites and soon will list an e-mail address we can be reached at in our NFO file. M: So what you think of Scene today ? C: I do not really like it when people start whining about how the scene was great 1-2-3-10 years ago and how terrible it is now. We are changing, the basic rules in the scene are still the same. The only thing that seriously concerns me is that most games are released on CD now. Eventually, we will all have to concentrate and fight over the CD ripped releases and I do not feel comfortable with it yet. M: Anyone in particular you like or hate more than others in the scene.. C: I have alot of enemies and even more friends in the scene. But hate is a little too strong. Lets leave that to our REAL problems - not who beat who to releasing some game. M: So, got any last wise words for this interview ? C: Not really... Just play it fair, competition is alot more fun on SNES or Amiga because there are much less rag wars in those scenes. I hope we can accomplish the same on PC someday. M: I hope so too, well thnx for this interview and good luck with TYRRANY in the future ! C: Thank you! Good luck with the magazine, I am looking forward to it... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Lord Cyric ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following interview is giving us a bit of inside of the nexus/razor case and how TRC & Lord Cyric got along together in Eclipse... M: Hi Lord Cyric this is MindBender from Naked Truth Magazine, I would like to interview you a little bit about the scene... L: Hello MindBender, I will gladly do this... M: So tell me, how long have you been in the scene ? L: Well, I started with my c64 and a 300 bpd modem ... mean the PC scene, I guess it's a few years... Let me think... 3 years ago I started with PC... But before i got my PC i was doing some trading 'n stuff on the amiga scene. M: Altogether how long ? L: 5 years or something, but i wasn't very active in the beginning... M: About NEXUS, when did you first join and how ? L: As my name was pretty known back then I was sort of invited... But I guess it was 8 months ago or something. It was in a chat with moonstar on Mirage M: So he invited you as a member, later you became the Leader together with The Gecko and Torgall... what did you do to reach this position ? L: Well, I was very active, that's true... Lets say that I was getting along very good with the rest of the inner circle of Nexus, and they asked me if I would rather like to coordinate 'n stuff.. M: OK, so you became the coordinator... NEXUS went quite well but suddenly something happened and the group went down... I would like to know what made a group as good as NEXUS suddenly just die... L: Well... We had alot of suppliers. and good ones too. But well, ya know it's a always a question of money, and that we ran out of in the end.. M: Torgall & Vixon who were both Founders of the group were very active but suddenly they both stopped, why did they leave the scene and did it have something to do with Nexus running out of cash ? L: You're tight on that one... Well, I guess Torgall got pretty tired of everything in the end, and just didn't have any more money to spend on phonebills, cards etc etc... Vixon i don't know so much about, but rumours say that the Feds got in contact with him in some way and scared him to quit or something... M: So, Nexus went down... What happened to the members ? L: Well, many of them are members in minor (local?) groups now i guess... Nothing big. I guess some have even quit the scene, with all these busts and stuff hanging around... M: But, then some of them joined onto Razor 1911.. The Gecko and Speed Racer both joined on to the Razor force... why didn't you ? L: I guess i can't keep up with the tempo in RAZOR ;) .. We can just say that I'm not that active, and I wouldn't like being just some dead weight. M: Did it have something to do with the rags between you and Razor Ex:Leader The Renegade Chemist ? L: Well, we were never getting along with eachother, and I guess he talked alot of shit about me too... So , yes I guess it has something to do with that too.. M: Then, today you both guys are amazingly enough together in the same group, Eclipse must be the most crazy group of all time joining together alot of people that really hated eachothers guts... L: Yep, but nowadays we're just avoid eachother :) ... And that about Eclipse is true... But it sure works as a cracking group don't you think? M: I do agree .. Back to Nexus, what happened to the old NEXUS boards.. many guys still wonder what happened to Coyotes Member and Corrupt and why they had to shut down Road Runner / Moral Decay ? L: I'm not so sure that I'm allowed to answer this question... Well, they wouldn't be happy with me then perhaps;) But let's say that alot of fucking sky high phonebills made them put the boards down... M: Can you try to be a *LITTLE* more specific, please ? L: I understand.. Well, Coyote got some fucking line noise and stuff on his lines (Suppose it's the Feds way to scare us) so he just couldn't go on with his boards with low cps transfers and stuff... He also got some strange phonecalls from guys saying they were the police, and asking alot of stupid questions about piracy and stuff.... But that's just what he told me... Cant't tell if it's the truth or not.... But let's say so:) M: I read something about coyotes member was starting a band ? L: Dont know....... M: Can you tell me why Moral Decay went down ? L: Didn't I ? Well ok, I guess i forgot to answer that... I don't know this sysop personally, so I just have the rumours I've heard on this one too (sorry). But what I made out of it, I guess he moved to his girlfriend, and she wasn't very fond of having alot of computer stuff around, but as I said before - I'm not sure.. M: As you were the courier coordinator you must have seen alot of couriers and boards, what is your favorite bbs/courier ever ? L: Well, tough question. I liked Moral Decay alot.. But then there's many of other great boards too, for example: State of Devolution, Mirage and Assassins Guild ... When it comes to couriers, I guess my favourite (even though he was a razor member) is (or at least was) Razor Blade. Another one I really like is your Swedish guy, Raw Liquid! M: So after you quitted NEXUS it's been quite around you... what have you been doing until you joined Eclipse ? L: That's precisely what I haven't! I haven't done much! Well, I just don't have all the time needed anymore. M: But in this time, you got alot of offers from other groups about joining ? L: Well, I got some offer from PWA in joining as a coordinator. But why should I do that? I don't have the time, and as I said before, I don't like to be any dead weight.. M: Yeah, well I know you have been hated alot in the scene .. I once saw your name in the topspot of a 'Most Hated Guys' chart. So why people hate you ? what have you *REALLY* done ? L: Well:) ehrm.... I have done nothing, I swear:) No, but most of those who "hate" me is just fucking lamers, which I rejected in joining Nexus for example... And maybe it has something to do with everyone talking shit about me and stuff... I don't really know, but it must be for some reason. M: Is The Renegade Chemist one of those ? L: Sure he is... But I don't think he hates me anymore... I can't say we get along, but at least we don't fight anymore... M: What was your fight all about ? I remember reading about stuff on Mirage.. L: Well, he said that he had payed me for 500 AT&T credit cards, and couldn't deliver, but i never got any money from him, and I explained that to him. It might have something to do with something else too, But mainly of that. M: So what you really hate about the scene today ? the money-makers, all the CD-rips, the wanna-be:s.. what ? L: Well, I hate 'em all honestly:) But what I hate most, and can't stand is all these fucking new, small & lame groups, just releasing alot of shit like CD-ripoffs for example! M: But dont you think the CD-rips have to be released as mostly all games will be on CD only very soon.. L: Sure, they have to be released perhaps, but where is the competition? It's not very hard to take a CD and copy the shit into 25 disks or something and release it... Any lamer with money to buy a new game on CD can do it... M: Is there anyone you really like/hate in the scene, and in that case why ? L: Well, If there's anyone i like... You! hate... Torgall... He's talking alot of shit, and doesn't know what he's talking about.. M: What was your first thought when you found out Nexus guys joined Razor and now Razor 1911 is lead by Ex:Nexus only... ? L: Well... My first thought... I was disappointed, that's for sure.. But what could I do about it? ... M: I guess, so why did you suddenly join Eclipse ? L: I had a feeling that this group would go far... And to beat Razor has always been something I have wished for since Nexus... M: Maybe even revenge on The Gecko and Speed Racer for letting Nexus down ? L: Yes... mainly... And I have never liked RAZOR... But Eclipse kicks ass! M: So how do you feel now being in Eclipse is it as good as you hoped ? L: Sure it is... Just look at these releases. I like it, I love it :) .. M: Any special comments why Eclipse will continue to rule ? L: We have all suppliers we need (and more), we have a great courier team, and everything works out fine (at least at the moment)! M: Finally, is there anything you would like to say to the people out there about the scene or just anything ? L: Eclipse will rule! If you think you can keep up with our tempo, you should apply for a membership. And a big Fuck Off to Torgall too... Burn in hell!.. M: Oups, well thanks for doing this interview and I wish you good luck in the future with Eclipse ! L: Thanks, and au revoir! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Jimmy Jamez ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This interview takes us to Moscow, Russia to visit the highly respected Legend on utilities & InterNET, Jimmy Jamez... as always... delayed release makes the interview out of date... M: Hi, this is MindBender from Naked Truth Magazines, we would like to make an interview with you on the DOD topic. J: Okay.. go ahead man..:).. limited time but i am glad to give you some information... M: Well first of all, when did you start in the scene ? J: Heh.. not a complicated question.. i started working with a modem around 4-5 years ago..and scene.. around 3 years ago M: OK, so when did you start up the 'Drink or Die' team..? J: Hmmm... letme say exactly.. around 21st of April, 1993..:)) M: Hehe, good memory.. so whats going on in DOD right now ? J: I guess everybody knows what is going on in DOD.. group is large and working pretty okay..dont see many competitors besides PWA for the moment... M: So you dont see SCUM and PCY as *REAL* competition ? J: SCUM - no.. SCUM lost reputation releasing those never-ending win95 builds.. some games from cd:s.. not a quality stuff that util group need to release... PCY.. hmm.. not a big deal..just dont want advertise those dudes at all. It can be a good group if it will change attitude to other people... Hate is not a good feeling on scene... M: What you think about the scene today, any different from when you started ? J: Hehe..what different?? everything changed..:).. when i started i was nothing but a weak russian boy that was interested in puters.. now i am a strong man that leads many people. M: About the hate, who do you hate and who, you think hate you ? J: Yes..today is more hate then before.. i remember good old Mirage, UE days only some local fights with Lord Cyric or maybe Fanfan when he just appeared..but nothing serious. OK.. hate for me..it is hard to explain.. i try not to hate people, but sometimes they do something very bad for you to stay and look on it.. all you can do - to make a back impact.. I really dont hate anybody..but i dont like PCY senior staff and GNS staff. M: and what you think of all the small newcommer groups trying to suying to survive ? J: Hehe..DOD was a newcomer sometimes too..:)..all you need - just to want something very much and do it.. if you are enough patient and can communicate with dudes - you an make your group #1 You just need to know what ya want.. become a cool group or just remain a lame cd-rip games releaser. M: So about Phoenix and Tyrrany.. Phoenix merge with DOD and so on, can you tell me what really happened ? J: What happened?? it is a long story but i will try to tell it in few words: I had some local problems and was inactive for few weeks in late february. During this time some DOD dudes decided to take over and start their own group.. coz they dont like anybody ruling them.. When i returned i found that around 5-6 ppl left..including senior member and some supplier..it was a hard-time-for-me-and-Alex (Cyber Angel) who shown himself real friend and sacrificed his group Phoenix to save me for scene for all that time..but he really helped me in that god damn february. I known Cyber Angel for 1.5 years already..so.. we just lived in peace.. Without him there will be no more Jimmy Jamez... M: What about the SEL incident with Silver Bullet ? J: I dont know that story..sorry..cannot help in it..:( cannot catch up all information... head is enough busy..:) M: OK, so what does it take to be the leader of a group i a group in the class of DOD... ? J: You know it is like a habit..not very difficult if you work in it for years..but could be very complicated for a newbie..:) You just need to be patient, dedicated, spend enough time and things will go okay for you and your group.. M: What happened to all the HQ:s in DOD ?!?! J: What ya mean? why they're all lost?? M: Well DOD had quite many BBS:s, now most of them are gone ... J: The story is: DOD WHQ -Rest In Peace was busted, DOD USHQ - Silo.. we had some problems with sysop - Comanche and exluded him and his bbs from the group, latest DOD WHQ - Millenium Matrix - was closed and now we have many cool boards too.. awesome canadian bbs - Biohazard, of coz USHQ - The Wall and the most experienced sysop there - Roland, also new Courier HQ - Southern Comfort. Around 4 distro sites and member boards... M: So why did DOD suddenly get this good, DOD has always been there but right now it seems to be the major force... J: Hehe..nobody knows that.. maybe coz of the good leader? Or maybe right attitude..many dude like us coz we are always friendly and ready to help.. remember.. scene is not just a releasing force.. it is a strong labyrinth of communication between people... I try to be friendly and that helps to get new suppliers and simply cool dudes... M: Well how is the russian scene coming up... !? J: In the beginning we never could compete with any foreign ...we started and we made the russian warez scene.. M: Anyone in particular you would like to greet in the scene ? J: Ohh..a lot of dudes.. but first of all of coz my greatbud Cyber Angel, Youngblood, Roland, Interviewer (hehe), Mr.Blazer & YumYum all PWA dudes.. Anybody on scene who contacted me and live in peace with me... M: So, anything you would like to say at last to all the pirates out there ?! J: What can i say..Just work hard and sell your soul for the warezdevil.. I will always like this pirate brotherhood... M: I guess thats it, thankyou very much for the interview and good luck ! J: Sure.. was glad to give this one for you..hope to see this mag soon ! +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Tazman ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here comes a unfinished interview with Legend leading figure 'Tazman' who gave this interview just before he dropped out of the scene... M: Hi, this is MindBender from Naked Truth Magazines asking some questions about yourself and the groups you been into... T: Hi what do ya wanna know? M: First of all I would like to know where you're from and how long you been in the scene... T: I'm from London, England and been in the scene for 1 guess 3 years., M: You started up in TRSI ? T: Nope i started as a pay leecher on Concept Elite in NYC M: Hihi, and then ? T: then i became a pay leecher on Unlawful Entry M: ..and.. then ? :) T: And then i relised i had enough time to trade instead of leeching and became one of the best traders around. M: So you became a trader, in what group ? T: Purely independent, an top trade on the fastest bbs's at the time. Those were the days of Razorblade,Slain etc etc M: Then you started to supply ? T: Nope then Oliver Stoned kept Ringing me every 5 mons begging me to join TRSI as a Trader so finally i agreed to stop him calling me. M: Finally in TRSI... how did that group work ? T: Work? It didn't hehe basically 3 german dudes ran it Oliver,Vfast and Druken Rom. Oliver talked a lot and phoned a lot ,Vfast ripped everyone off and Drunken paid for the originals. M: ...and in TRSI you met Troops and Troll ? can you tell me something about this thing the three T's from uk ? T: Na Troops got me into the scene, i met him and he taught me to Bluebox and I bought my 1st modem and never even called a UK bbs for 6 months, getting in at the top:) Troll was a M8 of troops from b4 alos another guy troops taught how to BB. M: But who of you guys supplied ?!?! I know some of you did ... I remember you used to beat the Razor/Hybrid suppliers in UK all the time.. T: Haha dude this is a long story:) We were the best Uk suppiers for probably 2 years. Na maybe not that long but who cares.. M: Oups, forgot about prestige and all... please tell me abou it ! T: After a while trading in Trsi they kept bugging me and troops to go and pick up originals from stores. Finally we agreed as i didn't have a car Troops went to pick up a game and brought it to my house as i had two modems to spread. Amazing for us we beat The competition at the time i think Hot Tuna and it carried on from there, Troops got Troll to start giving him lifts on his Moterbick because it was quicker throught the London traffic. And then they'd come back to my house most of the time with the game. We supplied a few games but the big one that got us noticed was Ultima 7, When the "famous" motorbike accident happened. M: Oh, I dont remember this one, please go on... T: Yep, Troops and Troll picked up Ultima 8 and brought it to my house. I was on 3 nodes on the TRSI whq, Mirage and UE in the chat room on TRSI whq when 1 of of our traders spotted a Razor courier uploading Ultima 8. Troops and Troll dropped the game at my house and i started releasing it but we thought that razor was also releasing it and we were in a spreading race so troops rushed to get home to help with the spreading and troll crashed the bike and they went to the pub instead and got drunk :) It wasn't a serious accident just a couple of bruises and scratches.. and in the end razor weren't even releasing it it was one of their traders playing games by uploading fake filenames:):) M: About TRSI.. what was the reason you droped it and formed Legend and did it have something to do with Cyber Angel & co. leaving ? T: Well we never even thought of leaving TRSI before despite lots of people asking us to leave but then one day bluebox died in the UK and we didn't have any cc's so Troops payed to call The WHQ and posted a msg in the TRSI conference saying that it had died and we had no cc's and asking for one of the leaders to call us and supply some after 4 days still no one had called so we decided to quit the group. We talked to all the groups and troops wanted to join PE becoz he knew Speedmaster... I talked him out of that :)... And then out of the blue Westbam called and said that half of razor including all the original suppliers was gonna quit and form a new group called Legend. I really didn't believe him especially when he said Butcher was gonna leave but then a couple of hours later Butcher called and said it was true. Putting the Razor 1911 original supliers and the main TRSI ones together seemed like a really kick ass group. We knew we could take the TRSI WHQ with us as he was a good mate of ours so we decided to do it. M: In an earlier made interview Cyber Angel claimed that TRSI seniors did a couple of promises they did not keep. Is that true and did you see any internal conflicts in TRSI ? T: Not really to me but when the time came when we needed some cc's they couldn't come up with any so hasta la vista baby. I always got paid and stuff so no problems there... M: Who came up with the name Legend ? I know it was formed once before by The Unknown and other Razor 1911 members but that time it merged TDT and disapeared, who brought it up this time ? T: Westbam and Butcher used to be in the old C64 Legend so it came from there. M: It had nothin to do with The Unknown ? T: Nope M: Do you know why Butcher left Razor 1911 or just why anyone did? I mean it did quite well at that time.. T: Yes, other Leaders were ripping the pay-site money and keeping it for themselves.. M: Who where those leaders ? T: Well look at the NFO files of then time and it's obvious who they were. ...The line went down and I have not had any luck with ending off the interview so the interview with Tazman ends here... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Interview with Dr.Insanity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The last interview in this magazine pictures PTG/GNS leader Dr.Insanity just before he took a break from the scene and closed down Digital Underground... M: Hi I am MindBender from Naked Truth Magazine, I would like to make an interview about your time in the scene .. D: Hello there ... M: First of all I like to know where you are from and how long you been in the scene.. D: I've lived in Maryland for most of my life, area code 301, and I have been in the scene for about 8 years M: So where did it all start off, Pentagram ? D: No it all started MUCH further back than PTG ... It all began actually on a Macintosh in about '87. M: But... when we're talking the PC scene... D: Well, believe it or not ... the Mac scene was so lame i was in the PC scene even when I had the Mac! I was on the major boards at that time ... FiRM (original FiRM) boards ... PTL, MCM, BCC, etc ... I was really big into phreaking/hacking back then ... called worldwide. Back in '87 - 88, I got the best modem out there ... a 14.4k HST DUAL STANDARD ... They retailed at about $1500, and I was one of the few who got one (at only $550!!) ... M: So you started up in FIRM ? D: No, the first real PC group I was in was the NAP/PA - North American Pirate Phreak Alliance ... with Mr. Sike, Phoebus Apollo, Darkstar, Mr Camaro, etc ... this group tore the WHOLE USA wide open making it a NATIONAL scene instead of small local one. Before NAP/PA .. it took weeks for releases to be spread ... we opened up the scene by making phreaking more commonplace and giving out the knowledge on how to do it ... NAP/PA was like the first national network of pirate & phreak boards ... many of the biggest boards of the time were in NAP/PA. We wrote a lot of text files, many of which you can still find on p/h/a boards, many authored by myself. At about that time the MCM (Miami Cracking Machine - headed by Line Noise) merged with another group to form the original INC (Int Network of Crackers) ... many INC boards were also NAP/PA boards... (this is like '89 or so) ... by this time FiRM had more or less died off (old timers like Software Surgeon retired, as well as Knack, THe Maestro, etc). INC's only real competition was the newly formed THG (The Humble Guys) -- which was formed by Candyman - THG was a group formed from the Amiga scene ... and they played DIRTY. In about '90, I joined INC ... and worked for them coding intros and stuff (made a nice INC plasma loader ;) --- I was a memberboard ... This is when The Digital Underground first went up, in about late '89 ... before TDU I ran The Infinite Hierarchy (Macintosh). I was running Celerity back then, and was one of the original beta testers for Celerity ... Celerity was like the BEST BBS software at the time .. CelerityNET was made up of the TOP boards world-wide (small net of about 30 boards). M: Did this Digital Underground have anything to do with the EuropeanHQ of INC also called Digital Underground ? D: No, Teddy's TDU came in like middle of '91 when I left the scene for about a year ... I was the first EVER TDU in the world. I had the name even before the rap group :) Anyways, I was in INC and ran Celerity for about 1-2 years. In the end of 1990 I switched to a BBS software called ELITE, written by a great p/h/a guy I new in California ... only about 5 boards world-wide ran Elite BBS. OK, so for about the 2 years I was in INC. INC *RULED* THE WORLD. We were #1 forever ... Line Noise was a great leader and organizer and with Cool Hand and great crackers like Jenetic Bytemare, Bit Manipulator, etc we kicked ass THG was second ... there was the original PE (Public Enemy), etc ... some other smaller groups ... D: In middle of '91 I left the scene for personal reasons ... and when I came back in late 92 ... things were DIFFERENT in the SCENE. M: Why did INC die ? D: INC died ... why? I wasnt really around during the time. But this is what I think .. Line Noise went away to College and quit the scene. FLT (Fairlight) came up STRONG and kicked ass for like half a year ... with THG, PE, and new groups like TRSI in there too ... when I came back in '92 ... FLT was almost dead .. INC was basically dead with just THE JET releasing lame kiddie stuff Razor 1911 was looking to be the NEW kicking group ... So from like late '92 to middle '93 I was just hanging around doing BBSing as a hobby ... I put TDU back up again ... 1 node. It was still one of the better boards locally ... (in 301). By the middle of '93 another new group came around ... UNT (original Untouchables) with Bandieto, etc ... M: How did UNT start ? Wasn't it made up by old Razor 1911 people ? D: UNT and Razor began a big rivalry ... and when PTG was formed ... with guys like Lord Thinker, Youngblood, Eos, etc ... there was a BIG PTG-Razor war.. Bandieto and The Renegade Chemist HATED eachother. UNT actually began as a totally LOCAL group .. guys in 301, 703. UNT did very well... and became big nationally and world-wide ... at this time, the Razor WHQ, Apocalypse, was in 703. Bandieto convinced the sysops of Apoc to join UNT (or what was then going to be PTG) and when that happened, the Razor-PTG wars began.. M: What happened to Apocalypse ? D: Well, the sysops of Apoc (POW and Whistler) moved to California and put up a smaller BBS ... we made them a memberboard ... and Whistler actually did supply a release or two from a company close to where he was living. But they then both moved back to my area ... POW now works about 20 min from my home (and I have a 250mb HD of his) and Whister lives very close to where I work .. Whistler is still listed as GNS member. M: So when UNT started.. rumours say they stole originals from other groups ? D: UNT never stole releases, just UNT was so fast for just a local group that people made up lies about them.. no actually i joined PTG ... when it was formed more or less .. I was never in UNT. If UNT had had a good cracker, they would have had all the BIG Origin stuff like 'Strike Commander' etc. M: Why did UNT die... I know UNT releases like hell for a while but suddenly it all just stopped.. but everything got back when PTG was formed... D: UNT didn't die ... it merged with some other guys and another group and became PTG ... M: What about the guy in UNT called Butterball, remember him ? Was he really killed in a carcrash or something ? D: Butterball didnt die .. he got very hurt ... but that was all after the PTG days ... that happened to him like 7-8 months ago I think ? M: I heard from someone he got killed in a accident back in the UNT time... D: No, Butterball called TDU only a few weeks ago. He almost died in the accident, but he made it! M: Ok, so tell me about PTG ! D: PTG started off with Lands of Lore and never stopped ... PTG kicked ass for all of 1994 ... the only month we 'lost' was November when Zeus supplied like everything. In PTG I was one of the main suppliers ... I supplied most of the bigger titles like the Sierra stuff (Gabriel Knight, etc) I supplied probably about 100 titles. M: So what about the conflicts in the PTG leadership ? D: Well ... Bandieto is a very good leader but there were personality conflicts between Bandieto and Lord Thinker ... and LT left the group.. The main leaders at the very beginning were Bandieto, Lord Thinker, Young- blood and The Professor (SysOp of Ice Station Zebra, PTG WHQ). But soon after all this, LT left the group because he couldnt get along with Bandieto ... M: Why did Lord Thinker really leave, you have any closeup information ? D: Not really ... just both guys really wanted to lead ... M: What about Youngblood, him and The Professor left too... and what happened to 'Ice Station Zebra' ? D: No Prof and YB didnt leave ... let me tell ya what happened ... OK so PTG is formed with the 4 leaders... then LT leaves ... still, all this time, PTG is KICKING the ass of razor ... Bandieto and TRC are going at it on the big boards (Elusive was #1 at this time). At this time (middle of 94), I am the top supplier for PTG ... and I am in 301 and Bandieto is in 703 -- and these two area codes are LOCAL calls (free). So, Bandieto gets the idea to move the WHQ from ISZ to my BBS, TDU. This would make spreading and coordination for the group a lot easier since YB was moving to 703 around this time too. BUT ... Professor was not very happy with this idea... and after a stupid little war with text files being release and stuff (most of the contents being lies), Prof just decided to quit the group. So now the leaders were Bandieto and Youngblood. I was the new WHQ ... now with 3 nodes, and I had just switched to PCBoard ... But I became a leader of PTG very soon after this. M: So what happened to 'Ice Station Zebra'.. heard a car crash into the house where Professor lived and wrecked the computer (another lie ?). D: No that isnt true ... Prof. left and he ran his bbs for a month or two and then he got in to some money problems ... from what I heard someone charged a lot of collect calls to his BBS numbers and he was forced to pay them ... I still have his voice # at work ... M: What made PTG such a successful group ? can you give me some reasons ? D: The main reasons why PTG was so successful (and GNS too) are: 1. Me! :) no seriously ... I was a very good supplier ... I supplied a shitload of titles for all the groups I've been in. 2. Local WHQ ... when I got an original, I could put it online to the WHQ (at my house) ... it took 5 mins! We never could lose to our own WHQ and could concentrate to spread to other boards (mirage, UE, etc). 3. Werner & Tardy --- THE BEST SPREADER -- we NEVER lost a release EVER (PTG or GNS) where W&T was helping us spread... 10+ nodes at the same time is UNBEATABLE. 4. Good organization .. with Bandieto, with me.. with Fanfan ... Oh btw, I still havent told ya why YoungBlood got kicked ... When Bandieto left the scene because he got a job .. it was me Fanfan and Youngblood leading ... (Fanfan started as a doc writer but he turned out to be a good organizer/supplier and so became leader). Anyways, we learned that Youngblood stole $400 from the group so Fanfan and I kicked him out. M: Can you tell me something about Kimble/BitBug & his board House of Coolness. How did it get on PTG and what happened to it ? D: Kimble/HOC was in PTG before I was even in PTG ... he was the German HQ when ISZ was the WHQ ... he basically supplied our Euros with cc and stuff like that ... I never have even talked to Kimble and I never have gotten into the whole cc thing so I dont know too much about that. M: Also I would like to know what happened to 'Momentary Laps of Reason' that had about 15 nodes back in the PTG days. Did it get busted ? D: MLOR just went down .. he was our Courier HQ (for PTG) ... he called my BBS still almost everyday up until last week when I took TDU down .. he started a business I think and didnt want his BBS to mess him up legally so took it down to be safe (MLOR went down in Winter of 94 i think). M: So about you making huge supplies to groups, could you like in short words give me 'Dr Insanity's manual in how to supply games' How did you do it, and what's the supplying job like ? D: Sorry -- but I cant tell the world how I did/am/can still supply games ... TOP SECRET :) M: Maybe just a hint ? D: Well, to tell u the truth ... we supplied games using every method in the book and more... M: As you supplied alot of games throughout the years, what is your FAVORITE release ever (you or someone else supplied) ? D: Hmm.. hard question ... a favorite oldie game I love is AUTO DUEL by Origin & Steve Jackson Games... this is from like 88 :) lets see... i really loved Syndicate ! ... Dune was cool ... XCOM 1 was awesome M: Who supplied them ? D: I think XCOM1 was TRSI.. Dune, maybe TDT ? I dunno ... I love Blackthorne from GNS ... Auto Duel ... i think that was FiRM ... M: How was is to lead PTG ? I mean alot of work ? what was good, what was bad ? D: It was a LOT of work ... I probably spent 75% of my day (everyday) running PTG and then GNS ... you have to be waiting from about 5am to about 5pm every day to see if a release is coming that day ... a lot of waiting... M: So what did you *REALLY* get out of it ? I mean what is your BIG score/goal in the scene ? reputation, money, what ? D: I did this for about a year! can u believe it?!! I am glad I am finally out of it ;).. Well, I got a couple things out of it ... Personal Satisfaction -- I really liked running a BBS (TDU) .. it's the main reason I got into the scene .. I've been running a BBS of one kind or another for like 7 years ... and running the main BBS for PTG and GNS, the #1 PC GROUP, is well ... pretty cool! TDU was awesome ... over 120mb per day .. very nicely organizer file dirs ... hundreds of calls per day from all parts of the world ... reputation... I never made any money from the scene ... I spent a lot actually .. in phone bills ... hardware, etc... One thing, which when I still think about now, I think is so cool is that the files which I released ... like the PTG and GNS files which I supplied, wrote the NFO for, etc ... within about 1 hour of me putting it on TDU, would then be ALL OVER THE WORLD -- 100's of copies in 1 hour... 1000's in a day ... and now with CD-burners.. my NFO's, my writing, is going to be PERMANENTLY recorded someplace... manyplaces! If I go to another country and find someone who is into computers... I can tell them that I was "DR. INSANITY" of "GNS" and they will know me! That is cool man.. I also met a lot of cool people in the scene ... many good friends ... not only in the states, but in the world.. M: What about FanFan, when did you first meet him and how was FanFan to work with in Pentagram / Genesis ? D: I first met FanFan in like Oct, 94 ... I gave him an original to write docs and a solve for ... Bandieto and I asked him to join PTG because he was releasing really good docs on independent.. Fanfan is a cool guy ... he is very serious .. and really determined ... You have to be, to run a #1 games group ... like everyone says TRC is a freak, well, Fanfan is sorta a freak too .. Fanfan is also very smart ... and can tell a situation very well ... he has made numerous decisions for the group which were very good. There is still alot of history i havent talked about yet .. like the merge with Legend, etc. M: OK about the Legend merge. When Legend first formed it seemed like they took almost EVERY release out there... didn't they give PTG a hard time before Butcher got busted and they merged with you guys ? D: No I dont really agree ... Legend was getting everything FROM EUROPE ... Legend almost never got any USA stuff except for the lame crap which Shadow Master got ... PTG ruled USA ... Legend got all of UK and some of other parts of Europe ... PTG had basically no Euro division.. TRSI was asking PTG to join with them ... and we were thinking about it .. but it never worked out with us and Vfast and Oliver... But when Legend asked us ... Wolverine and Tazman and company ... we thought about it and it seems like a great idea ... D: Nexus I think had asked Legend to join them and Legend denied them but then Legend came to us and we thought it was cool .. Bandieto didnt want us to do it, because he liked the PTG name .. but FanFan and I didnt really mind so much. M: So about Genesis... who came up with that name, why did Tazman come to you and how did the Razor guys react on first leaving razor for something new (Legend) and then end up in the "enemy" group ? D: I think I came up with the name ... we struggled over the name for a few days and actually lost a release because we hadnt decided yet ... I think the Legend guys came to us because we were #1 from the USA. they were #1 in the UK ... together we could be the top all the way around ... I also think because Butcher was busted, they needed help for the Euros to be able to call... I think the Razor guys were pissed.. but they were always pissed at us because we beat them every month. But then again, they just had Zeus so they were kinda happy i guess... M: Why did you pick the name Genesis ? D: I think I picked the name Genesis because that's what we were .. GENESIS .. the birth of a new group .. something totally different which was gonna rock the scene... M: So the RAZOR war continued in a new era.. RAZOR vs GENESIS... incidents like the XCOM2 release from TYRRANY that RAZOR couriered just to make you lose... and the time GENESIS boycotted T.A.G. D: Yeah .. well, acutally, if you remember, when Bandieto left the scene and Fanfan and I took over as leaders of PTG ... we made PEACE with all the groups except for NX (Fanfan hates the Gecko) ... even with Razor we were sorta friendly ... only TRC and LT would rag at us ... but PTG had a policy of NO RAGGING but when GNS was formed ... some of the ragging came back ... all because of TRC ... Well, on the XCOM2 ... if I had been in town, we would have had the game about 2 hours before and wouldnt have lost ... but without me, we got the game late and so we had to race ... Razor (TRC) would do anything to piss us off and keep us from crushing the scene. The boycott of TAG happened because we got the game Ecstatica, from the UK (Troops/Tazman/Troll) and so did Hot Tuna for Razor. we got it much earlier and Tazman uploaded disk by disk to TDU ... meanwhile Fanfan and W&T were downloading it .. when we got around and started to call TAG, Hot Tuna was already uploading the Razor ... so I logged on with a node, Tazman with a node, W&T wth a node, and FanFan with a node and we were goin to UL the 13 disk release and CRUSH Razor .. You see, GNS had the BEST couriering and the BEST coordination. each of us knew which disks we were going to UL and we could have had all 13 disks up in about 1 hour while it took Hot Tuna about 3 hours ... Anyway .. the reason we boycotted TAG is because ALL OF THE GNS guys LOST CARREIER ... not once, but EVERY TIME WE LOGGED ON ... I lost carrier to TAG that day about 80 TIMES !!! NO JOKE ... anyways ... WE LOST to TAG and we could have and should have WON ... later we talked to Blackhawk and he told us that Razor guys (TRC, PHaroah, others) called up his's WIFE and told her how to hang up nodes and to hang up to all the GNS people (they gave her the names to hang up on) ... we boycotted TAG because BH did not nuke the Razor release .. he LEFT THE GNS release NUKED for 1 week, and he never gave any apologize, and in his public msg he KISSED the ass of Razor. When Fanfan and I talked to BH before he posted his msg, he talked about how he was so pissed and that he was gonna quit Razor, but in his msg he was totally kissing the ass of TRC ... it was something we couldn't take altogether ... If Miragte was up and was the WHQ of Razor, I KNOW MIRAGE would have handled this situation a lot more fairly. Go back and read the GNS NFO's for like Blackthorne and Hardball 4 for more information. M: Anyways, you seen alot or people come and go in the scene, anyone in parti- cular you like/hate more than the rest ? D: Well, there are a number of people that I dont like .. but I dont want to mention them because they dont deserve my time Some guys who I would like to send greets to are: Mr. Sike, Jenetic Bytemare Line Noise, Invisible Stalker, Ryu, Software Surgeon, Knack, The Maestro, Fistandantilus, Rad Man, The Alternate, Vfast, Troops, Oliver Stoned, Hard Core, Slavelord, Bandieto, FanFan, Hans, Werner & Tardy + many more.. I think I might write a littel farewell to the scene text file this week... for formally say goodbye to everyone.. M: So what has really went bad in the scene since you first started ? D: Some things which killed/are killing the scene are: cc busts --- BIG ... it all started with Butcher ... I think he might have turned in most of the rest of people who were busted afterwards .. that killed alot of the trading from Europe, etc.. Another thing is just in general, there are fewer disk games coming out ... more and more CD-ROM ... so far in 1995 it has been good, but I think for the winter of 95 there will be few disk games... that is killing the games scene ... There are too few really big boards now .. and the big ones (lots of nodes) SUCK because there are no good traders ... M: After Tazman retired, only you and FanFan (old PTG staff) is in head of GNS. Why not move back to call the group PTG ? D: Well, Tazman didnt really 'retire' .. we didnt want him in the group anymore He only supplied like 2 games for us ever, and he was sent a lot of money and no longer was active for us so we more or less dropped him ... him and Troops got i in a big fight about a month or two before this as well and hated each other.. I dont think we changed names because its not good to always change names.. no stability .. M: So about the always continuing RAZOR war... did it end as the "old" RAZOR's went into Eclipse (of is FanFan / Gecko still fighting) ? D: No .. no matter what TRC always starts up crap with us ... and personally I dont care anymore ... TRC is a major loser and a social reject of some kind or just a freak ... I dont think Fanfan's fighting with anybody .. there are no active wars right now .. acually, GNS gets along VERY well with Razor (the Speed Racer) management .. M: Who will lead GNS + TDUJAM in the Future ? FanFan himself ? D: GNS and TDUJAM will be lead by Fanfan ... I might do some stuff for TDUJAM but thats about it for me ... in fact, I might put up a BBS again in a year or something like that ... I will still call some boards and be on the net sometimes.. M: So what about Eclipse... rumours say you guys aint to found of it.. D: I dont like any group TRC is in ... because he corrupts people .. tells them lies, spreads lies, and just rags ... if TRC was not in Eclipse, we'd have NO problem ... seems to me like Hoson has a problem with us ... You notice how like NO group greets us ? not eclipse, not trn, not razor, nobody ... I'm a nice guy ... how come never any greets ? M: So tell me, what you think will happen with the game scene ? will Genesis, Razor and the other groups restart on CD or will the diskgroups die ? D: I really dont know how the games scene will go ... I HOPE there will always be a difference between disk game groups and cd-groups. I think for CD ... there HAS to be a limit ... right now TDUJAM wont do anything more than 30 disks ... I KNOW we get probably all the CD's before everyone else ... but we wont put out a 40 disk thing like ROM 1911 does or other lamer groups .. M: So finally, why are you quitting the scene and do you think you will *EVER* be back ? D: I am quitting the scene to concentrate on work and school and life in general more ... this summer I've been doing a lot of travelling ... I just got back from the Bahamas ... I am leaving to go on a cross-country (from East Coast to West Coast and back) on my motorcyle (Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6) with a friend etc ... next year I will be living at school instead of at home on this trip I'm taking .. i'd like to meet as many scene guys as I can I've been doing the scene stuff as a hobby for like ever but only seriously (being a major part of a BIG group) for like the last 2 years. When I was in INC I wasnt nearly as involved as I was in PTG and GNS M: So when you will be gone, who will run TDU ? D: TDU is moving to a new location .. new sysop (dunno handle yet) ... it will be up probably next day or two.. with 7-8 nodes ringdown. M: Is there any wise words you would like to add to this interview ? D: As Sigmund Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar ;) Watch your back. Big Brother is Watching You. PTG in '94! GNS in '95! Long Live TDU! Quoting Terminator: I'll Be Back. :) M: thnx for this interview... and good luck in the future ! D: OK gnite dude ... nice chatting ... dont rag me in your mag :)) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Most wanted pirate in the world - Popularity Poll ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Last but not least, we made a popularity poll based on the question "who do you rate as the coolest person in the scene" with a 1-3 scale... the result gave us 441 votes (147 voters) by direct-voting or e-mail that gave us this result... 01) Jimmy Jamez --------------- 78 votes -- (17,6%) 02) Cyber Angel --------------- 24 votes -- (5,4%) 03) Youngblood ---------------- 18 votes -- (4,1%) 04) Hardcore ------------------ 15 votes -- (3,5%) 05) Mikeysoft ----------------- 14 votes -- (3,4%) Randall Flagg ------------- 14 votes -- (3,4%) 07) Dorian Hawkmoon ----------- 13 votes -- (2,7%) Hoson --------------------- 13 votes -- (2,7%) 09) Sector9 ------------------- 12 votes -- (2,7%) 10) The Renegade Chemist ------ 11 votes -- (2,6%) 11) Butcher ------------------- 10 votes -- (2,6%) 12) Fan Fan LaTulipe ---------- 09 votes -- (2,5%) 13) The Gecko ----------------- 08 votes -- (2,4%) Janno --------------------- 08 votes -- (2,4%) Orion --------------------- 08 votes -- (2,4%) 16) Snake --------------------- 07 votes -- (2,3%) Studster ------------------ 07 votes -- (2,3%) 18) The Speed Racer ----------- 06 votes -- (2,2%) Toyman -------------------- 06 votes -- (2,2%) 20) Crackpot ------------------ 05 votes -- (2,1%) ---------------------------------------------------- !!) Other votes -------------- 155 votes -- (35,1%) ---------------------------------------------------- Total votes -------------- 441 votes -- (100%) +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Well that's it for this issue, we're happy for finally getting it out and even if some of the material is not up-to-date it's better late than never... If you want to contact 'Naked Truth Magazine' to leave comments on our work, information for next issue, sexual guiding or anything else, please send all e-mail to: mindbndr@algonet.se We would also appreciate applies from ascii/ansi/VGA artists, editors and more idea-makers to give this magazine some "extra-cheese"... +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Naked Truth Magazine - It's our dream, and your nightmare... |