I was wondering if anyone remembers which game it was that had this message in the code (presumably to deter hackers). IIRC there was a furore in the letters page in AA about it and people were concerned about kids seeing it etc. (seems tame compared to what today's kids can see online :o but hey). The answer given by AA was something on the lines of "well you can hear worse in the playground and anyway why would someone buy a game just to be told to f**k off by it". This has been bugging me as I have been looking through my old AAs but could not find it.
Isn't there an OCR scanned version of AA? You could do a search through that to locate the article. Or was that ACU that was OCR?
Bryce.
I don't know which game is... but i always will remember the message that i found while i was cracking Split Personalities :P :
"HELLO HACKER: A POEM HERE I SIT....AND HERE I STAY....FOR ON NO DISC....WILL I LAY SO FUCK OF WANKER"
The best was when i went to my english teacher to translate it, because i was in my first days of learning english, and her face was a poem ;D
Hello,
I strongly believe that the game you ask for is Zap'T'Balls by Elmar Krieger (Elmsoft for the demomaking community); If I recall correctly, there was a rude message when you had your Symbiface connected to your CPC...
But I am not 100% sure; so, if I am mistaken, do not judge me too much - I am getting old ;)
We speak,
voxfreax
Quote from: voXfReaX on 15:09, 18 January 12
Hello,
I strongly believe that the game you ask for is Zap'T'Balls by Elmar Krieger (Elmsoft for the demomaking community); If I recall correctly, there was a rude message when you had your Symbiface connected to your CPC...
But I am not 100% sure; so, if I am mistaken, do not judge me too much - I am getting old ;)
We speak,
voxfreax
SF??? MF2!?!?
IIRC, IRC, MFG, CUS, BTX, OMG, TFM, purple jam....
Quote from: TFM/FS on 17:46, 18 January 12
SF??? MF2!?!?
IIRC, IRC, MFG, CUS, BTX, OMG, TFM, purple jam....
I do not get your message man... If it is not symbiface and it is something else, pardon me! As said above, I am getting old - memory weakens! :)
Btw, try Pearl Jam; they are much much better than purple jam ;)
It's most likely the multiFace, as this could be used to hack games. The SymbiFace wasn't around then either.
Bryce.
Yup, that was the one, I remembered it right when I read about the SF.
Quote from: voXfReaX on 15:23, 19 January 12
I do not get your message man... If it is not symbiface and it is something else, pardon me! As said above, I am getting old - memory weakens! :)
Btw, try Pearl Jam; they are much much better than purple jam ;)
Oh there is a good change for SF2, but I guess the MF2 will have the same effects, and maybe some other modues, maybe even everything changing HIMEM. The other abbreviations are thought as an homage to a song :) :) :) I do remember Pearl Jam! Guess there is still a CD in my car :)
Have a look around address #3630 while Druid is running :)
Quote from: Executioner on 23:53, 19 January 12
Have a look around address #3630 while Druid is running :)
You bring old memories back... I'm getting a bit more offtopic now, but I remember we were switching the V-RAM address to lower blocks, just to watch some addresses changing in real-time. I still like the CPCs ability to visualize a working program that way - decades before Matrix and stuff like this ;-)
We need a Core War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War) port to CPC ;D
Quote from: SyX on 18:42, 20 January 12
We need a Core War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War) port to CPC ;D
The CPC game MELTDOWN (http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1388) has a pseudo-code section at the end; not dissimilar to the programmable BigTrak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trak) toy of the 70s!
You could cheat in MELTDOWN by programming the thing an instruction at a time, but I always liked completing the mission in one go and watching the thing do its stuff... conditions and jps included!
Also, it had blatant DOORS references in the beginning section! And, finally, a lovely B.Daglish soundtrack, too!
Quote from: Executioner on 23:53, 19 January 12
Have a look around address #3630 while Druid is running :)
Argh, what does it say? Can't really check on my mobile :)
Thanks to another thread I now know the game to be "Dragon Ninja" by Ocean Software. The address where this is found is &5353.
Quote from: Gryzor on 09:07, 21 January 12
Argh, what does it say? Can't really check on my mobile :)
(http://i.imgur.com/ScOLDZU.png)
I remember people were complaining when "How to be a Complete B*****D" was on the second Monthly Regular Covertape. :D And even more people complained when Stormlord was censored. :D
But I think another game which had a bit of language in it when you listed the (BASIC) program was Logistic?
We occasionally hear sob stories of how these poor programers were only allowed 2-3 weeks or days to write or port a program for/to the CPC, yet they seem to have devoted a great deal of that time to writing copy protection schemes or rude messages into the program. :(
Just think how much better the games could have been if they had concentrated on improving the game instead of writing this other nonsense.
"Mister Shinobi" Rich Applin who granted us the honour of his presence was well know to lay "poems" to hackers in his code...
I think his Amiga version of FinalFight was quite epic on the matter. ;)
concenring the famous 3weeks as for R-Type... Mister Goodyer told us he spend actually a lot of time to protect the game.
Were protection schemes written by the game authors themselves at that point?
Quote from: steve on 17:18, 19 April 13We occasionally hear sob stories of how these poor programers were only allowed 2-3 weeks or days to write or port a program for/to the CPC, yet they seem to have devoted a great deal of that time to writing copy protection schemes or rude messages into the program. :(
Just think how much better the games could have been if they had concentrated on improving the game instead of writing this other nonsense.
This is implying that (1) they didn't just use pre-existing copy-protection schemes provided by the publisher and (2) typing a few lines of swears takes more than a minute. Neither is likely to have significantly siphoned away their precious time in reality.
I was under the impression those messages were left for people looking to hack games just to get a cheat out of them?
That's pretty obvious. It still doesn't mean that the act of putting in those messages took an appreciable amount of time away from the actual development. I really doubt it did. As for copy-protection, I also doubt that people given two weeks or whatever to port a game were also expected to code novel schemes; it's much more likely that the publisher already had the code in place, or they could even quickly port a routine from the Spectrum and benefit from the fact that most of that would require no changes.
I know you are very insisting in your POV. However not all software companies are the same. And for companies like Ariolasoft the only thing that did count was copy-protection and the boxing of a game. As soon they sold their crap, everybody saw that most of the games were crap.
So is today:
Did you ever try to rip a "shareware" program?
Or did you take a look @ its resources with resourcehacker etc?
90% is "Protect my shit" and 10% is "Eat my shit" :D
Development time: 3 years: Effective coding: 2 weeks, programming copy protection: 2 years, 11 months and 2 weeks :P
The most ever disturbing things are protections like "You need an internet connection to activate blablabla"
Quote from: Devilmarkus on 00:36, 23 April 13
The most ever disturbing things are protections like "You need an internet connection to activate blablabla"
Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past. :(
Bryce.
And we have better things of the past to play with... ;D
I've been working for almost 13 years now making computer games, and I'm the first one to be pissed off about all the 'always connected' drm.
Most of the games I've bought recently are either indie games (most of them from humble bundles) or games for our old machines.
I won't tolerate such invasion of my privacy, and the fact that they are calling us thieves by behaving that way. So, for me, the can GFO big time! And if I get bored, I'll do my own games, thank you.
Damn right!
Quote from: TFM/FS on 17:34, 22 April 13I know you are very insisting in your POV. However not all software companies are the same. And for companies like Ariolasoft the only thing that did count was copy-protection and the boxing of a game. As soon they sold their crap, everybody saw that most of the games were crap.
Ah, we both like our respective POVs a lot. :D I'm certainly not denying that this could have happened, but I struggle to believe that it was the norm to have a schedule wherein things other than the game itself took most of the developing time, at least back in the CPC's era. Perhaps this indicates that I'm unrealistically idealistic at heart, if someone can provide evidence that it was the case! :P Citations even for single games would be welcome. As for "Ariolasoft", all I can do is emit Beavis and Butthead–style laughter at that name...
Quote from: Bryce on 08:39, 23 April 13Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past. :(
And making me ever less likely to get any new consoles. Feeling that the Wii doesn't really count as a current-generation console for anything other than family-pacifying shovelware, I was considering getting a 360 many years late, but am I really missing that much? I'm not a big gamer, am fine with a few games, most of which are for older consoles or are available on the Wii, and certainly don't want to support the way the industry seems like it might be going. Just as in music, I'm more interested in going back in time than forward...
It will also mean that there will never be a retro scene for consoles from the PS4 onwards. As soon as the server support dis-continues for a console, it's then a computer with no games - If I wanted that I'd buy myself an Atari Jaguar :D
Bryce.
Either that or we could have lots of fun making a pirate server for those consoles... ;D
Hey! There are pirate WoW servers....
After getting bored with Microsoft's anti-piracy measures I have abandoned my 360. Their loss.
I only opened a Steam account very recently to buy Anomaly 2 (the sequel to my favorite defense game), but I'll be downloading the cracked version as soon as it gets out. Ridiculous...
Sorry for the late reply, I managed to miss this thread until it popped up again in the recent posts list..
Quote from: steve on 17:18, 19 April 13
We occasionally hear sob stories of how these poor programers were only allowed 2-3 weeks or days to write or port a program for/to the CPC, yet they seem to have devoted a great deal of that time to writing copy protection schemes or rude messages into the program. :(
Just think how much better the games could have been if they had concentrated on improving the game instead of writing this other nonsense.
Quote from: Gryzor
Were protection schemes written by the game authors themselves at that point?
The copy protection was generally done by someone other than the game author. A friend of mine started in the games industry by writing copy protection, and would typically just be given several finished games per week to add protection to and I think he said that he often needed to have a turn around time of less than 24 hours. I'm sure he's probably not proud of those messages now, but he was certainly profilic back in the day when there was unused space and there's even a page dedicated to some of his longer messages: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/equinox/eggs/stuart_middleton.php (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/equinox/eggs/stuart_middleton.php)
Anyway, that was the start of his career. He soon moved on to writing games himself, and I'm sure you all recognise his work - he did all the coding for the GX4000 Pang port. So, I'm sure you can let him off any stupid messages he wrote when he'd just left school and was suddenly doing his dream job!
Quote from: Bryce on 08:39, 23 April 13
Get used to it. Judging by statements from Microsoft / Sony / EA etc, they intend making Games on DVD and playing without an internet connection a thing of the past. :(
Sony at least have officially confirmed that there is definitely a blu-ray drive in the PS4: http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf (http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf)
Quote from: ralferoo on 09:03, 29 April 13
Sony at least have officially confirmed that there is definitely a blu-ray drive in the PS4: http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf (http://uk.playstation.com/media/7ngkAGoJ/PlayStation4_Specification.pdf)
That's there so that you can watch a movie while you're waiting for their crap server to come back online YET AGAIN! :D
Bryce.
Quote from: ralferoo on 08:56, 29 April 13I'm sure he's probably not proud of those messages now, ...
Or in other words this is another case of "he was young and needed the money." :D