Archives for March 2008
10 years since RPGe
29 March 2008 | Random | 5 Responses
I intended to write something for March 19 to coincide with the day I left RPGe. Real life jumped in and this is coming 10 days late. Hey, at least with this delay it is now 10 years and 10 days, and that has a damn nice ring to it.
A decade is not a short time.
RPGe died 9 years ago. I left it in a total mess. I am not sure if I gave MagitekKn the e-mail addresses of the group’s other members. It was a disaster — one that made me look bad and crippled what was the first translation scene group, and up until that time the biggest.
Everything is gone. The older patches were never archived. The Web site, despite having more than a million hits, never made it into the Wayback Machine. Only one page survives, dating from the summer of 1997 — the first time I considered jumping ship. It is a humbling experience to see how something that was the talk of every Squaresoft fan page — then a huge chunk of the Internet — can be so easily lost.
Apologies for my broken comment system
25 March 2008 | Random | 2 Responses
I must apologize to all my readers. Dave Shadoff told me last week that when he posted a comment, he was immediately dumped to a dead page and never shown a Captcha. I failed to investigate why his comment never arrived in moderation.
Now I know.
There are some problems with my Spam Karma plug-in, and everyone’s posts are being flagged as karma “?” and held in limbo. The problem has apparently gone on for some time, and even comments on Final Fantasy VII were trapped.
I especially apologize to those who commented on the Tibet article. I was stunned how few comments it received. Now I know why: my page was broken and discussion could not take place.
I have restored all the comments which were stuck in limbo: they can now be viewed. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Aside from one extremely racist comment, I have not censored any. I do not run that kind of Web site. I will approve all comments until I can fix the plug-in, so there may be some delay until your post appears.
I do Chinese games better
25 March 2008 | Press | 8 Responses
It seems my recent Titanic post is making its way around the Internet. Again, most sites were classy in their write ups. Kotaku took a few lines, insert credit took a few lines, but it was perfectly fair use and necessary for their work. Each said who wrote it, and that makes each kick ass.
But where does fair use end? It ends when you steal 100 percent of the article, steal all my pictures, translate it into your own language and violate my license by not even naming me.
No name. No link. No shit.
That is what Chinese news site MyDrivers did when it hijacked my content at http://news.mydrivers.com/1/102/102033.htm.
The title is especially endearing: “A look at the domestic RPG ‘Titanic’: some foreigner played it”
Know your Famiclone carts: Waixing
25 March 2008 | Pirates | No Responses
Next up, we have the infamous Dragon Quest VIII, a game which has little to do with dragons, quests, Dragon Quest or the number VIII. The game was published by Waixing Science & Technology, one of the first Chinese mainland development and publishing houses for original Famicom games.
When Waixing began, it was famous for its attention to detail and the quality of its packaging. Unfortunately, I do not have an early sample of its games. My only sample of a Waixing cart is Dragon Quest VII and admittedly late addition to the company’s lineup, and one released at a time when it was going very, very downhill.
Waixing Science & Technology still exists, but it is mainly a factory which makes cartridges and systems for other developers. I speculate that it makes Nanjing Technology’s cartridges, and it has been in cooperation with SUBOR, the first and most successful Famicom clone developer, for the last several years. It currently produces SUBOR’s game systems and multi-carts.
Know your Famiclone carts: Nanjing
24 March 2008 | Pirates | 1 Response
So I’ve released photos of what the Final Fantasy VII cart looks like and its dimensions, but what about other Made-in-China Famicom games?
While I have yet to track down any Mars Technology games or C&E games new in box, I have obtained games from Waixing Science & Technology and Nanjing Technology, a major player in the Famicom scene of the 1990s and the current top company.
Read on for samples and full details of carts and packaging, lots of photos and measurements for any spiring pirates eager to reproduce false packaging for fun and profit on eBay.
You thought FF7 was a hoax?
24 March 2008 | Pirates | 4 Responses
Despite my article being reported on by Kotaku, Joystiq.com, insertcredit and a slew of other credible media, some people still insist Final Fantasy VII is a hoax. Some people honestly believe that the ROM does not exist, I fakes over 100 screen shots of the game in action and wrote several thousand words about nothing.
Well, guess what: you’re wrong, and here is proof.
Behold, readers, I present you with complete box shots and shots of the manual. Why not scans? Well, someone would certainly point out that I know my way around QuarkXpress and could have easily faked them, and also because I am poor and cannot afford a scanner.