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               Beowulf's Thoughts on the CD-RIP'ing Scene
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I have written this text file to vent my general frustration and to attempt
to re-establish some basic standards for game releases and cracking in the
CD-RIP'ing scene. This is not a group politics rag, a personal name-calling
.TXT or any other such garbage; I simply want to express my thoughts (and
what I believe to be the thoughts of many) on the piracy scene in general.
I am not God, nor do I ever claim to be perfect.


[My Credentials or "Why I feel I am qualified to write this"]

I personally have been cracking games and utilities now for more than 10
years, of which the last 7 have been directly scene related. In this time,
I have had many discussions with leaders and others who were heavily
involved in the PC game piracy scene, and in that time hopefully gained some
insight into what "it" is all about. I am presently (and have been for a few
years) in RAZOR 1911, although this does not bias what I have to say.
I am also an experienced programmer that has spent time dealing with the
game creation process, and generally what goes into producing PC games.


[What a Release SHOULD be]

To sum up what I have learned about what a pirate group's "job" is:

  A pirate group's goal is to release a commercially available game, with
  all copy protection removed or bypassed, in a format that reflects the
  original games purpose, and is generally considered "playable".

This word "playable" seems to be a foreign concept to a lot of suppliers,
crackers and group organizers/leaders who are under some false impression
that "The smaller the release, the better". In the days of disk based games,
the only difference between one groups release of a game and another's was:

1. How the game was cracked.
2. How fast the release was brought to the scene.

...and therefore, release size never entered the picture. In todays scene,
the "art" of CD-RIP'ing brings another point to bear:

3. How much of the original game is left?

This third all-important point is what makes today's scene radically
different from that of a few years ago. It is now in the hands of suppliers
and/or crackers to determine what and how much of a game to remove or "rip"
without compromising the quality and playability of the game. In point form,
here are my thoughts (and what I have generally determined to be a user's
thoughts from e-mail and discussions) on what constitutes a tested and
"playable" game:

-  The game should be complete. This means that no "add-ons" should be
   required to finish the game, whatever that entails. In the case of
   an action game, this would mean all of the levels would be included.

-  Sound, music and/or speech should be included whenever possible where
   it is not deemed to be "a waste of space". This means include the
   sound effects, the background music and the talking if at all possible
   but don't include a 100 meg .WAV file of some underpaid voice actor
   spewing out a lame help file or 250 megs of cheesy MIDI music.

-  Any animations important to the storyline or plot of a game should be
   included. All animations that are deemed "eye-candy" or just simple
   entertainment should be removed. As an example, this means trying to
   remove the movies from "7th Guest" or "Bad Mojo" is pointless but
   removing the movies from the CD release of "Dark Sun" affects nothing.
   If there is no text substitute for the movie (such as sub-titling or a
   text summary of the video's contents), then it becomes a vital piece of
   the game, and removing it would directly affect the "playability factor"
   of the game. Although this is a hazy area, any animation that adds
   to the "feel" of a game (not just some lame 3-D Studio hack that the
   company put in as a CD stuffer or for screen shots) should be included.

-  If a game is both for Windows 95/NT and DOS, both versions of the
   executables should be included EXCEPT where each specific version would
   require a completely different set of supporting data files (and
   therefore a pointless waste of space). Most users today prefer to make
   the decision of which version to play with after they have downloaded
   the game, not before. 

-  All multiplayer functions in the game should be tested and working.
   The only exception to this "rule" is where a cracker is unable to test
   a particular area of multiplayer play (such as Internet play) in which
   case it should be mentioned specifically in the release's .NFO file.

-  The game should be able to run on any drive and in any sub-directory.
   FAKECD, SUBST, batch files and other such "shortcut" cracking techniques
   are NOT considered acceptable, and generally result in confusion and
   incompatibility problems for the user. Forcing a user to put the game on a
   certain drive or in a directory off of the root directory is also not
   acceptable; it's just laziness on the part of the cracker and/or supplier.
   Of course, if the original game requires the game to be in a certain
   directory (such as Discworld), this could be overlooked as long as it is
   mentioned in the .NFO (though most times it just requires some extra
   effort on the part of the cracker to fix this).


["Rating" a Release]

What does this all mean? It means that in today's CD-RIP'ing era...
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  THE EMPHASIS SHOULD BE ON THE PLAYABILITY OF A RELEASE, NOT IT'S SIZE!
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Obviously, this should be tempered with the above rules of thumb to produce
what could be called a "properly ripped release". Remember, the whole goal
of the scene is to get a game to a user who will actually play it, not to
score points on a BBS or climb a ratings chart. If one group does it better
and more consistently than another, then the users will in turn recognize  
that and support them. Ask yourself this simple question:

  Imagine that all of the major groups simultaneously released a 50 disk
  game that you really wanted to play. Which groups release would you
  download if you had a 28.8 modem and why?

Having a leader of a group attempting to rate his group and other groups
is like marking your own exams. Sure, rating lists can breed competition
and in turn competition can breed quality, but in reality, the only true
judge is an impartial one, and the best impartial judge is the user who
just wants to play the game.

Also, it should be obvious (and this is a pet peeve of mine) that the only
person qualified to judge a cracker's ability is another cracker of equal
or greater experience. How many blind movie critics have you heard of?


[Summary]

My hope is that those of you that are reading this and are directly involved
in the release process, regardless of what group you are in, will accept
these principles I have discussed as a standard of sorts, and will apply
it to any release you are involved in. I personally apply these "rules" to
any release I am involved in, and the feedback I receive from users would
solidify my personal belief that it is ALWAYS better to spend that extra
time during the ripping and testing phases of a release than to rush a
release out for the sake of "points". If the end-user is happy, you win and
therefore your group wins.

                                    - Beowulf / RAZOR 1911
                                      xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.S. For the sake of quality programming, if you enjoy a game that is
     released by a pirate group, support the people that made it possible
     and buy the game. Programmers don't work for free...
     

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I personally welcome any comments you have on this text file or the scene
in general, and your e-mail feedback is always appreciated. I try to reply
to any e-mail I receive as time and resources allow. Requests to send games
via e-mail, do custom cracks or teach cracking are generally auto-trashed. =)
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