@t3,04@^@t1@f03@cASPECTS OF THE SCENE by THE FOX OF DAMAGE U.K @f00@t6Everybody who is involved with the scene will have their own opinions and arguments on what is happening in and around it, this is my own opinion of the scene, and not the opinion of any other member of DAMAGE UK. On the whole I think the scene is pretty much the same now as it has been for the past couple of years, by that I mean the more well known groups are still kicking ass with their well timed releases of demo's and intro's, this just goes to show how well things can be done when a group is very well organised. On the other hand though there is nothing happening demo wise (in my view) to make you sit up and @^ think anymore, everything you see is either a slight variation on something that has been around before or the idea has been blatantly thieved from some other groups hard work, and the charts that you see in the numourous disk magazines, always have the same top groups year after year, even if they have not released anything for ages and ages they still seem to get into the top 10 (how do they do it?). The scene as far as game releases are concerned seems to be at an all time low, I have been around the scene for a good few years and I cant remember a time when the quality of software released was so bad, I know that the @#@t3,04@^@t6 software industry is probably holding back to exploit the Christmas market but things are pretty naff, if you (like me) do a lot of Mail Trading, it is getting more and more difficult to put something half decent in your contacts jiffy bag, and its the old DEJA-VU syndrome every time you open a packet, you know 100% that the same old stuff is going to be in there, it's the same problem for all of the thousands of Mail Traders out there, I have been a bit brutal in the past with contacts who constantly sent me "old warez" maybe they were just having the problems that we are having now a whole lot sooner? A word what seems to be on the lips of everybody on the scene is LAMER and each and every one of us puts a @^ different slant on it, to some it is "the new boy on the block" this is usually a guy who has just bought his very first Amiga and is trying his hardest to make some headway onto the scene by writing off to loads of contacts, but because he is new he is often considered to be a LAMER, I have been guilty of this very thing myself, but if you think about it reasonably, we all had to start out at the very beginning, and we didn't consider ourselves LAME did we? We just thought ourselves as good as anyone else,then all of a sudden you get a reply from an expected contact telling you that you are LAME, and some of the more nasty contacts just put adverts into mags as an excuse to rip off peoples disks, dont you OSKARI 501/INSANIA? This guy lives in @#@t3,04@^@t6 FINLAND and he is a DISK THIEF, if you see his name avoid him he's a total shit. Then there are the groups in the scene who are slagged off as LAME by other groups, and some of the groups doing the slagging off seem to have formed a group for this purpose alone, in my opinion this is not LAME it's just about as CHILDISH as you can get, grow up you very very small minded people. To me the real LAMER is the BASTARD who rips off other peoples work, these shits should be the ones who appear in a chart every month, that would certainly make a good read, "THIEF OF THE MONTH" would certainly get my vote, and the thought of seeing their name up in lights for all the scene to read would make a few of them think again before thieving someone else's hard work, show the @^ bastards up for their crimes. Thieving is a part of the scene that really pisses me off, loads of you already know that I have been a victim of a CODE THIEF while I was a member of SLIPSTREAM. Myself and another member of SLIPSTREAM were given a menu to use for our pack series, and I was informed after I had released approx 14 of my SlyFox packs that the menu had been resourced/stolen by VENOM of SLIPSTREAM from an original by CRITICAL MASS of ANARCHY, I was informed of this by one of my contacts (who doesn't wish me to name him), I informed Ken (Mr.Cool) then the leader of SLIPSTREAM of my findings and it took him almost 3 weeks to reply and this is the note he sent to me "Hi m8, Sent some bits ok, not much, send soon, all the best Ken." not the sort @#@t3,04@^@t6 of reply you expect from the so called leader of SLIPSTREAM is it? I at least expected some sort of answers to the questions I asked him, but all he could do was turn a blind eye to the fact that there was a code thief in SLIPSTREAM, as a result of this I QUIT the group and joined DAMAGE UK, this group is run by MICROLITE who is only 15 or 16 but he has already proved to be a 100% better leader than Mr.Cool could ever have been. There are some good guys in SLIPSTREAM namely Havoc, Dr.Strange, Dredd, and they are being let down in a massive way by being associated with dickheads like VENOM and MR.COOL. I have sent out apologies to ANARCHY direct, and through Grapevine Magazine, explaining all about the @^ menu theft, and I want to tell the scene that I knew absolutely nothing about the menu being stolen until I was informed of the fact by that shy contact I used to have. I immediately stopped producing my packs there and then. By all accounts Mr.Cool new about the menu all along, and now he is trying to make people believe that I knew about it. This is just the sort of thing that a guilty person does when he realises that the lid is about to blow off and certain members of his groups actions are going to be public knowledge, he is now starting to panic a bit, and so he should, he sent out the menu for us to use knowing 100% that it was the work of CRITICAL MASS/ANARCHY, like I have said before the only thing that I am guilty of concerning this menu is @# @t3,04 @k344,024,10 @^@t6telling the scene the full truth, and we all know that the TRUTH HURTS the real guilty ones, and the bastard responsible for thieving this menu is VENOM of SLIPSTREAM, and MR.COOl of SLIPSTREAM for handing out the menu to myself and other menbers of SLIPSTREAM knowing full well that it was stolen, you would think that they would have learned thier lesson after the group was exposed in Grapevine 11 for doing exactly the same sort of thing, but that time some member of the group tried to steal one of LSD's menu's, but not content with being caught the first time they had to rip off one of ANARCHYS menu's, it's a pity that the remaining decent members of SLIPSTREAM will be tarred with the same brush as the others, but by all accounts a few of the guys have already left. I have made all this public of my own accord to try and clear my name, I am not @^willing to take the can for someone else's crime. @t4 The Fox! @@