WTF happened?

[Takumaji]

I think we should also reverse-engineer this subforum and turn it into a Habitat for Hilarity.

Then I'm going to reverse-engineer my toaster and play Samsho 3 on it. I'm doing it just for fun (and my 238492983 FB buddies), of course.

 

[Tripredacus]

Can we post ROM Spaceknight?

 

[mr_e]

I know what you guys are doing and I even appreciate it on a pure technical level. You do the same thing that I did in the 80s when I "reverse engineered" copy protections of 8bit games on various home computers and kept on telling people that I was in for the challenge but of course that's a load of bullshit because it always was and still is about being able to do/play stuff for free. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I played the cracker-monkey for thousands of pale-faced nerds who wanted to get da latest 0-day wareZ, you know, the leeches who could buy ten games a week with their allowance but rather spend it on silly clothes and Justin Bieber haircuts and download the games they want to play for phreeee.

And this is where I have difficulties following you guys. I mean, what's the point in cracking yet another handheld or whatever system is new at the moment just to play rotten old roms on it? And please don't give me that intelligent dude trying to learn new things crap, that was a lie in 1984 and still is in 2013.

I think there is a misunderstanding of my intentions vs the intentions of others. Between the MVS cab; the MAME cab; all the PC's; consoles and the tablets in my house, I have plenty of shit to play my games/ROMs on. I find no joy in switching a couple wires around on the SD reader and calling it "beating copy protection". Though it does bring me great pleasure to find a metric shit ton of extended "features" of the handset that were disabled by default, and enabling them. Making the device, in my eyes, the way it should have been before it was released. Things like a themeable menu system, the media player, networking capabilities, other joystick compatibility, homebrew, USB OTG storage, open access to the underlying OS, and the host of other things Tommo cut us off from that turn my crank.

I like the notion of being able to plug the X into the dock, playing some Neo on the big screen with familiar controls, busting out some TG16 with the arcade pad when I get bored and then switching over to the media player and watching a movie after. All on the same platform, all without changing inputs on the TV.

Does everyone want the same from it as me? No.
Does the majority just want ROMs? Sure.
Do I care? No.

The Neo is a dead platform. Been dead for over 10 years. Nothing anyone does or doesn't do will change that.

Could I have just bought a Neo Geo X arcade controller, plugged it into my media center PC and got the same thing if not better? Yep, and it would have taken me 2 seconds.

But, I enjoy doing this sort of shit. So I spend the time tinkering with it.

 

[daranus]

Does everyone want the same from it as me? No.
Does the majority just want ROMs? Sure.
Do I care? No.

The Neo is a dead platform. Been dead for over 10 years. Nothing anyone does or doesn't do will change that.

Could I have just bought a Neo Geo X arcade controller, plugged it into my media center PC and got the same thing if not better? Yep, and it would have taken me 2 seconds.

But, I enjoy doing this sort of shit. So I spend the time tinkering with it.

That.

 

[Takumaji]

Does everyone want the same from it as me? No.
Does the majority just want ROMs? Sure.
Do I care? No.

So you don't care that you're basically working for a mass of leeches who are too dumb to do some reverse engineering of their own and only want yet another device to play roms on?

This is what made me stop fucking around with copy protections, "friendly" takeovers and the whole phreaking bit back in the day. The technical avantgarde paves the way not for better products but even more protections and less features, at least that is what happened in the past and undoubtedly will go on. We all know that -anything- can be broken if people try hard enough, that's why there aren't a lot of smaller and more innovative companies left who dare to step into the handheld market, it's just not worth it because that shit gets jailbroken in a heartbeat. Only large companies such as Nintendo can afford that because they make most of their money with licensing, money already changed hands when a game appears in the shops and the shop owners get bitten in the ass. A vicious circle.

If you think you need an all-in-one set-top box that plays roms of various systems, movies and audio files, why don't you just get a simple small-board PC and do some embedded engineering that leads to a practical solution which even could be successfully marketed? Sure, it's a little more complicated than hacking an existing product but ultimately way more rewarding.

 

[Lee Gray]

There was a neo geo X review in a UK magazine called stuff, I read the small review in the shop and didnt really need to read it again, but I still purchased the copy of the magazine anyway as why should I read it for free as not a library and it is there to be bought so they can pay wages.
Thats why when the games come out I will buy them to support Tommo, but really instead of keep asking what games people want, just fucking release them already.

 

[NeoTurfMasta]

The main reason I left the X threads is because of the leeching, begging, repeated questions/answers and people taking credit for shit they didn't do. It quickly became annoying and totally put me off of the whole X thing. It was fun for about a week, then it turned to shit. I got several "help me" PMs when things were clear as day. While I do like helping people, the X help turned into several "me, me, me, rom, rom, rom" messages that I ended up ignoring.

Neo Geo X... pls

 

[cdamm]

The main reason I left the X threads is because of the leeching, begging, repeated questions/answers and people taking credit for shit they didn't do. It quickly became annoying and totally put me off of the whole X thing. It was fun for about a week, then it turned to shit. I got several "help me" PMs when things were clear as day. While I do like helping people, the X help turned into several "me, me, me, rom, rom, rom" messages that I ended up ignoring.

Neo Geo X... pls

so thats a 'no' on getting me that LO rom, then?

i promise not to take credit! (/me crosses fingers)

 

[mr_e]

So you don't care that you're basically working for a mass of leeches who are too dumb to do some reverse engineering of their own and only want yet another device to play roms on?

This is what made me stop fucking around with copy protections, "friendly" takeovers and the whole phreaking bit back in the day. The technical avantgarde paves the way not for better products but even more protections and less features, at least that is what happened in the past and undoubtedly will go on. We all know that -anything- can be broken if people try hard enough, that's why there aren't a lot of smaller and more innovative companies left who dare to step into the handheld market, it's just not worth it because that shit gets jailbroken in a heartbeat. Only large companies such as Nintendo can afford that because they make most of their money with licensing, money already changed hands when a game appears in the shops and the shop owners get bitten in the ass. A vicious circle.

If you think you need an all-in-one set-top box that plays roms of various systems, movies and audio files, why don't you just get a simple small-board PC and do some embedded engineering that leads to a practical solution which even could be successfully marketed? Sure, it's a little more complicated than hacking an existing product but ultimately way more rewarding.

In a nutshell, no. I don't care how any data I produce is used. I do it for me, everyone else is a byproduct. I haven't released any formal work into the wild anyhow, just prodded folks down the same path I'm walking and lended insight where I had it. I suppose I would weigh the pros/cons and risk/reward ratios before doing such a thing and make the decision I felt was best for me. I'm not working on a one click solution for the rom whores regardless.

I agree with your industry synopsis and the cause effect relationship that modding has in most cases, but not in regards to the X. The OS is open source Dingux, the emulators are community created(or subsets of those products thereof), the hardware is damn near an exact clone of the GCW Zero and on and on. It's basically a compilation of open source resources wrapped in a pretty commercial shell. I don't feel bad for a second breaking it open for the world to see, it should have been an open platform in the first place.

We could pose your final question back down to Tommo at this point, they basically hacked together a whole bunch of other peoples work and put a nice case around it. They could have engineered a completely new proprietary product and it might have been awesome. They had the time and resource, but chose to deploy this product instead. I'd guess they did that because this was the path of least resistance to suckering a bunch of nostalgic mid-30's dudes out of their money. Why do people make CMVS's when they could just go get an AES? Different strokes for different folks.


And like I said, I do create as well. I'm an engineer by trade, 17 years and counting. My office looks like a frankensteins laboratory of disfigured creations. I simply enjoy taking shit apart and making it do things it wasn't intended for. There are no commercial aspirations for my toys. Too many facets to that endeavor I care not to engage in.

 

[pipes]

...instead of keep asking what games people want, just fucking release them already.

It seems as though there was absolutely no gameplan after they released this thing. They're just making it up as they go along. Why the fuck are they asking people what games to release? If they would take 5 minutes to do a little research they could figure out on their own what the most popular games are. This is by far the most disorganized and incompetent release of anything I've ever seen. I'm not just saying that because I think it's junk either. I think even as a fan of the X you'd have to agree that Tommo hasn't handled this whole situation well at all.

 

[Tacitus]

My opinion:

There's a distinct difference between the NGX and Multi-carts.

The multicarts are being used on hardware that has been dead for close to a decade. You're not "stealing" money (debate for another time) from SNKP by running a multicart or selling one. MVS is dead. Resellers, bootleggers and ops are the only people making money by selling you a cart.

The NGX is another revenue stream for SNKP and TOMMO. It's a live product and "modding" it for most people means illegally running ROMs on it. 90% of people are of that mindset. (This is not really debatable.)

This in turn, steals money from SNKP and TOMMO... forcing their hand legally on offenders. This could affect this site.

I'm not going to risk the future of this site on a bunch of n00bs who have come here for one thing and contribute nothing else. The attitude of most of these new members also leaves a lot to be desired, so my tolerance for them is low. This is OUR site, not YOURS and you'll need to play by OUR RULES.

If you don't like it and want to play dice with the DMCA and IP laws, go ahead. There are plenty of other internet sites you can start this discussion on or you can start your own. As this site has formal relations with SNKP and TOMMO, this will not change.

You can call this heavy-handed or arrogant; that only proves to the long-time members you have no idea of how the community or this site is moderated. This site has a reputation among the greater retro-gaming community for its self-policing, loose moderation and "shark tank" mentality.

The fact is, members in here were left to their own devices and it invariably led to ROM posting, infringing materials being posted and piracy. More than enough warnings were given. Future violations will be dealt with similarly, if not more swiftly or severely.

 

[aria]

We could pose your final question back down to Tommo at this point, they basically hacked together a whole bunch of other peoples work and put a nice case around it. They could have engineered a completely new proprietary product and it might have been awesome. They had the time and resource, but chose to deploy this product instead. I'd guess they did that because this was the path of least resistance to suckering a bunch of nostalgic mid-30's dudes out of their money. Why do people make CMVS's when they could just go get an AES? Different strokes for different folks.

Well, Tommo did pay the copyright and trademark holders for the licenses in order to make a legal products. That can eat a lot of development costs and if people want to whine about it they can, frankly, buzz off because that's the right of the IP owner for the work the put in when they created the games in the first place (don't even get me started on those who claim "abandonware" nonsense).

All I care is that things on this forum are kept from outright piracy. If people get PMs from ROM whores, let a mod know and they will be dealt with--likely with extreme prejudice.

 

[cdamm]

I'm not going to risk the future of this site on a bunch of n00bs who have come here for one thing and contribute nothing else. The attitude of most of these new members also leaves a lot to be desired, so my tolerance for them is low. This is OUR site, not YOURS and you'll need to play by OUR RULES.

...

You can call this heavy-handed or arrogant; that only proves to the long-time members you have no idea of how the community or this site is moderated. This site has a reputation among the greater retro-gaming community for its self-policing, loose moderation and "shark tank" mentality.

thank god it was finally said.

 

[SetaSouji??]

The whole reason I even wanted one of those adapters is two main reasons.

a) the room in which my MVS cab is in has no heat, so it's cold as fuck and miserable to stay in there. Hell, I even (still)have intentions to buy the games when Tommo pops em' out because I hate hate HATE when developers no matter who it is gets shafted.

b) the monitor (what's left of it) is on it's last legs anyways and the trouble of consolizing it, finding a spot for it, tracking down sticks, etc. is a fucking pain.

Before I continue with what I'm saying, I'm not supporting the piracy side of this. People have their own reasons for wanting the adapter and hacks or whatever and that's their business. If by chance they do something stupid and go to jail, it's all on them and their business.

However, when you cross the line into piracy and sell ROMs you endanger the site, both parties involved in the transaction (buyer and seller), and it hurts the companies involved. They licensed the games, they licensed the brand... at least have the decency to respect that portion of the space and if you are gonna do it

card sellers: don't you dare sell or distribute the games. let the buyer do that on their own time somewhere else and get busted.
buyers: don't be a dick and buy the official releases too. Even if it ends up being one game per card, buy them to support the product. You can use your multi-card to not wear out the SD slot from constant swapping.

 

[SSS]

burp

a) sell the neo x and buy a space heater.

b) buy a fly back/cap kit from bob Roberts and find someone with a rejuvenator. You may get further life from that monitor yet.

 

[Danthor9]

..... Hell, I even (still)have intentions to buy the games when Tommo pops em' out because I hate hate HATE when developers no matter who it is gets shafted.

...Before I continue with what I'm saying, I'm not supporting the piracy side of this. People have their own reasons for wanting the adapter and hacks or whatever and that's their business. If by chance they do something stupid and go to jail, it's all on them and their business.

However, when you cross the line into piracy and sell ROMs you endanger the site, both parties involved in the transaction (buyer and seller), and it hurts the companies involved. They licensed the games, they licensed the brand... at least have the decency to respect that portion of the space and if you are gonna do it....
buyers: don't be a dick and buy the official releases too. Even if it ends up being one game per card, buy them to support the product. You can use your multi-card to not wear out the SD slot from constant swapping.

All of which was precisely my plan. My original NeoGeo hardware is finally starting to not function ideally anymore after so many years of beautiful service to me (I have a Neo Geo CD. Both sticks have started to fail intermittently, I'm not sure where the connection problem is, my games are taking several times longer than normal to load of late which might be a sign of the motor giving out, I'm not sure. Either way, the NGX is going to become my new Neo Geo solution for when it finally does die (It was cheaper for me to buy this, instead of replacing my old hardware, and my gaming budget just doesn't allow for extensive AES collection, but beleive me I wish it did. On top of that, I'm really enjoying my NGX, so of course I want to support the hell out of it!)
I know I'm a new member, and I see many are on thin ice, for very justifiable reasons! I've been a lurker for a very long time before I actually started posting, but I've never had difficulty understanding rules. I did go about obtaining an adapter, but I did make certain not to purchase the actual data, that's my problem. Either way, I personally feel am absolutely obligated to, and will buy every release, because I want to support this product. My multicard is gonna save a lot of wear and tear on my SD slot. I just don't want this system to end up turning out like my beloved Neo Geo Pocket colour, gone before I had the chance to really build a library for it! Very different reasons, granted, but I don't want this product to end up dead before it has a chance to be fine tuned and perfected to a wonderful experience. For me, this could be a wonderful opportunity to finally experience games like KOF 2003 on actual SNK hardware at an affordable price, instead of less than ideal Xbox ports, that incidentally don't work in my X360.

 

[Tacitus]

thank god it was finally said.

GREAT pick.





This would also be appropriate.

 

[Dr Shroom]

Stop using the "but I've been lurking here for years!" argument to justify your insignificant presence on this forum, nobody gives a fuck.

 

[Tacitus]

Stop using the "but I've been lurking here for years!" argument to justify your insignificant presence on this forum, nobody gives a fuck.

I always love that one. CDAMM may be the only legitimate long-time lurker I know of.

I also don't give a fuck if someone has been lurking for years, I only care about people who actively contribute. The rest are a waste of bandwidth and hosting costs.

 

[Kid Panda]

I always love that one. CDAMM may be the only legitimate long-time lurker I know of.

I also don't give a fuck if someone has been lurking for years, I only care about people who actively contribute. The rest are a waste of bandwidth and hosting costs.

I like lurking behind CDAMM.... And giving him ninja butt sechs.

 

[Danthor9]

I wasn't actually trying to 'Justify my presence' My bad if It was, but thanks for the warm welcome, anyhow! I was just participating in the discussion.

 

[Lee Gray]

lol dont think its personal this site is famous for its warm welcomes and treatment of newbies

 

[TurboRotary13b]

I wasn't actually trying to 'Justify my presence' My bad if It was, but thanks for the warm welcome, anyhow! I was just participating in the discussion.

Don't worry about it.. Some of the guys here just like to stroke their "I've been here for x number of years and that makes me better than you" ego. That minority of individuals is what gives this board its reputation in large part and those people work hard to maintain that. I have been lurking here for a little while, to soak up info before making some purchases and such, and I can tell you that most of the people here are pretty cool and very helpful.. Even to dirty noobs.

 

[Tacitus]

Don't worry about it.. Some of the guys here just like to stroke their "I've been here for x number of years and that makes me better than you" ego. That minority of individuals is what gives this board its reputation in large part and those people work hard to maintain that. I have been lurking here for a little while, to soak up info before making some purchases and such, and I can tell you that most of the people here are pretty cool and very helpful.. Even to dirty noobs.

Members may express it differently, but those people you're running down earned that right. Members like yourself have not.

Is it so hard to ask people like yourself to have some respect for the established community?

I don't like that act either, but for now, new members like yourself are outsiders. If you intend to be participate regularly, recognize that.

There have been literally hundreds of people with similar attitudes to your own and they don't last long. If we're not welcoming you with open arms, it's because you're just more meat for the grinder. Everyone here was a n00b at some point and several newer members are well respected because they had the right mindset.

This is OUR house and you need to play by OUR rules. If not, I'll ban you myself. I have no problem openly stating that.

I doubt you'll be here in 6 weeks, much less a year.

 

[Lemony Vengeance]

Members may express it differently, but those people you're running down earned that right. Members like yourself have not.

Is it so hard to ask people like yourself to have some respect for the established community?

I don't like that act either, but for now, new members like yourself are outsiders. If you intend to be participate regularly, recognize that.

There have been literally hundreds of people with similar attitudes to your own and they don't last long. If we're not welcoming you with open arms, it's because you're just more meat for the grinder. Everyone here was a n00b at some point and several newer members are well respected because they had the right mindset.

I doubt you'll be here in 6 weeks, much less a year.

Good lord, didn't I say all this a page or two ago? I don't mean to ride your coat tails, VT.