pouët.net

After some years of long and hard work (without relation to the mag) i've finished a preview version. The mag itself (the contents) is in very first stages, since the work has been done in the engine which is fully functional (except sound, but i'll use 3rd party libraries for that [FMOD, Housemarque, etc]).

Get the preview version from

http://obscurum.nastybugs.cjb.net/
(download section)

I'm waiting to see some articles :-). For ideas check the site (but i prefer some more original ideas).

Comments? :-)

ah. And of course if anyone wants to make a theme, he/she's welcome :-). Currently i have two themes, but the one sucks and the other it's very similar to hugi and it will be better if Obscurum was somehow more original.

'This page is best viewed when using the Mozilla Web Browser.' All right! No more iE shit! =) Mozilla and Beonex king!

Statements like "best viewed with..." are crap. Only incompetent web designers use such a phrase.

About the actual topic: That's no preview, just a beta version of the engine. There's not much I can do with it. Not even a single article to read, not even a dummy text that shows some of the features of the engine (text formating etc.).

Re: "Best viewed with..." There are, unfortunately, a lot of incompetent web deisgners. At least they don't lock you out for not having Mozilla ;)

I said "best viewed with mozilla" because Mozilla the best browser when it comes to W3C conformance. With IE6 you'll have some bugs. But they're not because of my layout, but because of IE6 non-conformancy. I can make a page that shows the same in both browsers, but why should i when there are some standards? Microsoft should learn to follow standards, not i to learn follow Microsoft's crap.

And about the actual topic: well yes. It's a testing version of the engine, but i didn't knew how to name it. So since the program is about Obscurum diskmag, i decided to name it "Obscurum preview". I decided to release the engine, even in this stage to prove to the people that i actually have made something, since there are many who wants to see the mag working before start writing.

The point of not placing a "best viewed..." remark on the site is that there is no point in doing so. Noone will ever change his/her browser, just because of that. It's not a crime if you cannot make the site look 100% the same in each web browser. As long as everything works correctly and as long as every feature is still accessible, it's ok.

And what is the point of releasing an engine demo if there's hardly any engine feature to see? How do you want to encourage potential writers (the very few left ones) this way? Pain and Hugi have already a lot of problems to get some significant content in their mags.

The page is old anyway.

About the engine demo. Last year, when i posted at newsgroups about the diskmag i was asked for a demo of the engine because there must be a proof that the diskmag exists (people doesn't want to write for a diskmag that is just an idea, only in the mind of someone).

I know about the problems of pain and hugi and i really don't understand why people doesn't want to write. This morning i wrote an article about operating systems (you can found it's title -only- in the articles section [Obscure thoughts]) and it took me around one hour. A diskmag is released once every some months. Can't people spend an hour to write something for others?

It's really sad to have the biggest scene in demo productions and the smallest in diskmags. How can we build a healthy community without sharing our ideas? :-/

I hope that in the future, sceners will give more support in Hugi, Pain, Obscurum, The Product and other mags that may come...

Bad Sector: That's not ultimately true.

IE is a joke when it comes to W3C conformance, but you can use a lot of the gaping holes to create pages that look pristine in real browsers and IE at the same time, while still being 100% compliant with the specs. There's very little effort involved, really. I'd love to see IE sink in oblivion as much as the next reasonable person, but that's no excuse ;)

Seems that not only the diskmag needs a new theme :-)

Can't people spend an hour to write something for others?

people don't want to read boring and irrelevant crap.

and the current pc mags might not be very encouraging in that sense.

and the current pc mags might not be very encouraging in that sense.

Maybe...
but what people wants to read? Except tutorials of course...

Good question that. Here's a list of stuff I don't want to read:

- Demo reviews. It's not like I need to read how good/bad it is before I fork out €0 for it :)

- Bullshit politics/philosophy/religion articles. Good ones are fine, but there's nothing worse than reading some shit by a 12 year old about how USA is evil blahblahblah with no decent reasoning to back it up.

- uncommented sourcecode, hex or binary. Not that it's common in diskmags...

- party reports that are 75% about a boring bus trip, and say next to nothing about the actual party.

- articles by amiga zealots about how much amiga rules. Or by any other kind of zealots :)

Ok, some stuff I do like to see in disk mags too would be helpful I suppose:

- A windowed mode, plus no-sound option

- good party reports

- Articles about anything at all, so long as they are either informative, funny, make a point (and make it well), or are at least interesting to read.

- tutorials (not just coding too, tutorials for music, 3d, graphics, or even stuff like demo paja are great)

- demo reviews made by the authors, with info on why they did a thing, or what something means, or how it was made, or whatever. That's always interesting to read.

- interviews, but make them worth reading. Nothing worse than reading an interview with somebody interesting, only to read 'whats your favourite colour then?'

- obituaries. Not just for sceners who died, but groups too, preferably with statements from the founding/key members stating that the group really is dead :)

Interviews, making ofs, detailed reviews and tutorials are imho the only things left that still make sense within a diskmag. Don't bother with "news" and "discussions". That's what the web is a good platform for.

I agree somehow. I think that there should be at least one diskmag that acts as "archive" just for history issues. But i also think that HUGi and PAiN are doing this job good enough. I prefer to make an article-oriented magazine :-)

inside stories! revelations! articles about the most current things. keep yourself updated. rumours! fuckings! who is where and why? why did he do something? why did a group die? who is to blame? get behind scenes! have connections. make the readers develop a love/hate relationship with you. screw politeness and correctness.

also note that the above things should be written about groups that people actually know about, preferably by people that people know about.

don't restrict yourself to categorizing articles like tomaes seems to do. write about anything that would seem interesting.

also don't restrict yourself to tech stuff - personally i don't particularly enjoy reading tutorials, but people seem to appreciate them, so that's it then.

the scene is an interesting pseudo-social phenomenon, treat it as such :)

here's an idea: are there cultural differences between parties in different countries? or are the differences caused by the people attending? what about parties like breakpoint that attract people from a myriad of countries?

(i got this idea since i just remembered some greek scener asking me "this is a demoparty? but... all the pictures are from outside! where are the computers?" when he saw pictures from some small finnish party :)

this may or may not be a good idea, depending on if the editor manages to reach a conclusion. i'm not sure if it's possible :)

inside stories! revelations! articles about the most current things. keep yourself updated. rumours! fuckings! who is where and why? why did he do something? why did a group die? who is to blame? get behind scenes! have connections. make the readers develop a love/hate relationship with you. screw politeness and correctness.

also note that the above things should be written about groups that people actually know about, preferably by people that people know about.

don't restrict yourself to categorizing articles like tomaes seems to do. write about anything that would seem interesting.

also don't restrict yourself to tech stuff - personally i don't particularly enjoy reading tutorials, but people seem to appreciate them, so that's it then.

the scene is an interesting pseudo-social phenomenon, treat it as such :)

here's an idea: are there cultural differences between parties in different countries? or are the differences caused by the people attending? what about parties like breakpoint that attract people from a myriad of countries?

(i got this idea since i just remembered some greek scener asking me "this is a demoparty? but... all the pictures are from outside! where are the computers?" when he saw pictures from some small finnish party :)

this may or may not be a good idea, depending on if the editor manages to reach a conclusion. i'm not sure if it's possible :)

ok, fuckings to pouet for telling me "i need to log in first", when in reality it had accepted my post already.

i refuse to be held responsible for the double post.

"here's an idea: are there cultural differences between parties in different countries? or are the differences caused by the people attending? what about parties like breakpoint that attract people from a myriad of countries?"

That is actually a really nice start for a new topic.

While Breakpoint and Mekka&Symposium aren't half bad, there were significantly superior parties elsewhere which created very little international interest. (and don't give me crap like "that's what made it great" ... there's a weird bermuda triangle coincidence when it comes to germany around easter)

Polish parties have atleast much less computers than the parties in western Europe. The groups hand in their entries before the party starts, so they often have no need to take a computer to it. I don't know if its the same at other eastern european parties. The power cut for 7 hours at Symphony03 was no real big problem.
I'm not sure how the people at Breakpoint, Gathering or Assembly would act when they have no power for such a long time ;)

i can only say that i noticed the german parties changed alot, mainly because of the international attendendants and their way to bring in some nice traditions, which is a good thing. =)

i.e., i can't remember sitting outside and beeing part of the grill before 97. nor do i remember having spoken a word english before that time aswell. could be i was too geeky back then and ignored anything that happened outside the partyplace. =)

An interesting article for me too (cultures of diferrent countries and how they affect their own scenes is interesting to me).

My friend Antitec/Dirty Minds went to Ze Meeting (2001?2002? don't remember) CPC meeting in France and they were all sitting in their Amstrad CPCs all the day and doing stuff, ok he didn't had a CPC with him and so he was bored and asked them to play some football, because there was a football place near. They had never done this before during the previous ZeMeetings but they liked it :)

CPC meetings are very small and underground, just because there are 10-20-30 people coming and the scene is small. Few of them, especially in Greece, are like little house meetings and no way demoparties. They don't have projector, compos (Ok,. last Ze Meeting had Semilanceata's compo) in general, party compos is something rare actually because the scene is too lazy, sometimes people are guests of scener's families, etc. I'd like to find the opportunity to go in one Ze Meeting actually, but perhaps later, much later :P

In France, CPC sceners are like a family.

I'd like to second read's comments. I think actually, with hugi/pain/etc already running and struggling a bit for articles, a different approach is needed.

So instead of relying on contributions, how about getting some editors, then pestering groups etc to get more of a journalistic style article? That would probably be more interesting anyway, and would answer many of the big questions we want the answers to (why did group x announce their death, then release this demo is a common one recently ;)

Also, a summary of discussions such as ones here at pouet, or on irc or wherever would be useful now and then (just avoid the 'my little pony', 'opengl suxx' and 'I'm too stupid to use google, find this for me' discussions ;)

(why did group x announce their death, then release this demo is a common one recently ;)

tsk, tsk :)
you'll get to hear the whole story sooner or later.