The c64 cracking scene, in the peak of glory, had two distinct lines of competition; one was the first release and one was the best release.
First release lived it’s own life where the key question was to capture the flag and the important question of“when” was determined by a complex system of releasing at appointed BBSes. Back in the days, most first release groups also honoured quality and the fastest crackers often scored reasonably well also in the quality rankings.
Quality rankings made multiple groups crack versions. Gamer’s Guide kept score and listed them. Re-releasing was not a topic and people bolting an intro on the original game where ruthlessly exposed for their inferior quality. The more versions, the merrier. But do your job or get exposed.
This document is a draft to marge the two lines of competition into one.
Old habits that shall go
Much of the old habits are maintained, including a number of potentially strange ones with very limited justification in today’s world. The new omelette will include a few cracked eggs.
Place of release - where?
The habit of having BBS:es determining the release time is a relic that has no merit in today’s world. Neither is boards being down, running out of disk space, having no additional spots for new members, Sysops being asleep or any other silly reason.
CSDB clearly doesn’t want to be the place for this.
So; The scene needs an online service, where one can upload ones release. Relevant capacity, never run out of disk, a front end that allows upload to determine the time stamp of a release, but then only accessible to a selected few that evaluate and set points based on the release. It’s not a download site. Access to a selected few from release scrutiny check - nothing else! For now we call it“The Release Log”
Feel free to use BBSes as a mechanism to spread your warez. This concept is merely for establishing the log of cracks. Only a selected few shall have the right to download, and this only for the purpose of validating the quality of the release. Use BBSes and any other mean to spread the releases. Don’t come here for that.
The term“re-releasing” is scrapped.
We want more releases. We want people to develop and grow. In order to get any points for their efforts, they need to put out versions, trying to be better than the competing ones. But they shall not be penalised for trying and sharing what they have done.
Software to be counted
What can be a release?
Basically anything released to the public. Additional versions are welcome. A release of a new version of software, where the features are superior to the existing ones, will get points by the features it has. Only the first release point is accounted for once.
As said; the term“re-releasing” is scrapped. We don’t want an early crap version to stand in the way of subsequent good versions.
All commercial games are subject to being acceptable.
However;
Software made in game generation tools will not yield any points; the likes of SEUCK, GAC, D42, Racing Destruction Set and derivats of such software.
Games made by own group are not counted for that group.
Games made predominantly in basic(compiled or not) will not yield any points, unless they are proper commercial releases. If it was sold, had a box and such are fully legit.
Releasing of different states of previews of the same game shall not obsolete the previous version, but the incremental score for the new version is naturally to be a lot less than a fully new version from scratch.
Our view of the end goal of the scene is to ensure that there are great versions of all software ever released, supporting a variety of hardware configurations! It’s hence our ambition to encourage that this happens.
It shall be noted that some games might be different depending on the media; disk and tape versions can have a slightly different feature set. It’s up to the releasing group to tell why their version is different enough to justify being called a separate release and justify handing out a new first release point.
What can be a first release?
Today, a lot of games that crackers put out are findings from achieves. In the early days, games were cracked and sometimes not very well circulated. We then need a mechanism to determine if a game was released before.
All releases shall hence be cross referenced against;
Old habits that shall go
Software to be counted
What can be a release?
What can be a first release?