WoS visitors and demoscene

I was just interested, how many WoS visitors are actually interested in demoscene production.
Post edited by moroz1999 on

Comments

  • edited October 2012
    I voted 1st option although "all" is a strong word. You can easily miss something ;)

    I can see some problem here. Most of demoscene events today happen in Russia and is discussed on Russian sites only. That's not problem for me as I know the language but for others it can be a big barrier.

    It's a bit shame that there isn't now any English website keeping track of all recent Spectrum demo events. Demotopia isn't updated for years, Raww.org seems totally dead and WOS doesn't deal with demos.

    But I try to know the news and some recent demos are really astonishing. Okay, as a game oriented person I have sometimes this feeling - "Cool, but they could use their skills to write a game instead" ;) but I still appreciate the result.
  • edited October 2012
    I'm more interested in games, but I get to get really amazed with a nice (recent) demo from time to time, so I don't really know which option to vote.
    Ralf wrote: »
    But I try to know the news and some recent demos are really astonishing. Okay, as a game oriented person I have sometimes this feeling - "Cool, but they could use their skills to write a game instead" ;) but I still appreciate the result.

    Exactly my thoughts whenever I watch a cool demo, for any system, since I can remember.
  • edited October 2012
    I'm somewhere near the 3rd option, but not quite. I don't follow demo stuff in detail, but if there's a post on the forum pointing out something special, I'll take a look.
  • edited October 2012
    I like to see if anyone's come up with something new, but I'm more interested in games.
    Joefish
    - IONIAN-GAMES.com -
  • edited October 2012
    Selected the first choice, although I'm not being here that frequently and I spend most of my time looking for new Speccy swag anyway. :)
    Ralf wrote: »
    It's a bit shame that there isn't now any English website keeping track of all recent Spectrum demo events. Demotopia isn't updated for years, Raww.org seems totally dead and WOS doesn't deal with demos.

    Oh, there is Speccy Live, which has been recently converted to a bilingual site (with English being the primary language), despite the stupid rants of our, er, so called "Spectrum fans".

    The bad thing is, I see I, as one of new admins, might need some help on the parties outside the former USSR... Mostly because it's the first time I've ever heard of such party as Wapniak, which has appearantly finished! So, don't you guys mind if one of you gives a helping hand to the resource?

    P.S. No worries, we'll purge the communists who spend all the time on SL doing the offtopic and dirty comments, therefore making 70% of the new content (i. e. comments) cyrillic. :)
    joefish wrote: »
    I like to see if anyone's come up with something new, but I'm more interested in games.

    You know, me too. On the other hand, our guys don't do demos just for fun anymore, unless there's a huge demoparty coming up, so by those moments, I do expect cool demos and intros to pop up.
  • edited October 2012
    Heh, I picked the 3rd option and was baffled to see I'm the first to do so. I was heavily into demos (had my own group too) in the early 90s but these days I'm not really interested in them much anymore, even though I have seen quite a few demos made since then, but I'm afraid to say in my view it appears there always has been a kind of divide between the russian scene and the "rest of the world", the language barrier certainly playing a major role here. People like Crash Nicker (and a few others who post here) trying to build bridges are doing a nice job, though.
  • edited October 2012
    XTM of TMG wrote: »
    People like Crash Nicker (and a few others who post here) trying to build bridges are doing a nice job, though.

    The worst thing is, some of us don't even want those to be built! Although, like I said before, such guys are usually ignored.

    ...hell, I'm so worried on that I can't find time to translate a new issue of Burn the Lighter diskmag to English.
  • edited October 2012
    Crash Nicker, if you're interested, here is the website and relation of WAPNIAK:

    http://atari.sikorsoft.com/party/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYGdI2D2PpQ
  • edited October 2012
    actually we got second famous 8bit scene site after pouet, zxdemo.org, which was run by gasman, abandoned due to X (X=I don't know).

    Despite one of the big and very much alive part of the demoscene, ZX scene is almost ignored by the fellow WOSsers (although there are lots of creative people here).

    I always experience here, the lack of interest to the technical demos unless they are somehow related to a game. For example, joefish's river raid demo gathered enough interest, yet Mescaline Synesthesia almost stayed undiscussed.

    Why? I really don't know. is it because lack of subforums dedicated to the demoscene? Maybe it's that simple.

    (Ps. I'm not arguing that we need a demoscene subforums. Wos doesn't need to cover *everything* about zx spectrum).
  • edited October 2012
    None of the above.

    Vague interest, but not through nostalgia.
  • edited October 2012
    Ah....can't fit into any of those boxes.....I'm in between choice one and choice two.

    Only today I ran a load of demos from....some site I can't remember the name of :(
    It was a site with icons like paintings hanging up in the top right - when you mouse over them they swing back and forth.....anyone know what it was?

    *EDIT* ok - found it. It was zxaaa.untergrund.net
    "I should use simulator loosely 'cos I don't think it's quite like this on the beach with helicopters and fires and the jumping beach buggy" - paulisthebest3uk 2020.
  • edited October 2012
    The reason the technical merits of demos aren't discussed here much is probably because WOS is, for the most part, populated by people from the UK, where games were available in abundance while a demo scene apparently was pretty much non-existant until the early 90s.

    Sure, we do have plenty of members from other countries but even with those, there's only few who were into demos. I'm not even sure how many currently active WOS members actually were demo coders "back in the day" (read: early 90s or earlier)? I doubt there are more than maybe 10 ...
  • edited October 2012
    actually we got second famous 8bit scene site after pouet, zxdemo.org, which was run by gasman, abandoned due to X (X=I don't know).

    He got married ;)
    The reason the technical merits of demos aren't discussed here much is probably because WOS is, for the most part, populated by people from the UK

    Yes, WOS users while being international are still mostly British. I'd guess 70% or more. And they experience with Spectrum is playing games bought in the shop. No demos swapping.
  • edited October 2012
    Ralf wrote: »
    Crash Nicker, if you're interested, here is the website and relation of WAPNIAK:

    http://atari.sikorsoft.com/party/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYGdI2D2PpQ

    Wow, so it's an Atari party actually? Now that sparks my curiosity...

    Thanks for the link!
  • edited October 2012
    Atari + Spectrum but more Atari.

    You know, in Poland Atari 8 bit models were extremely popular (the later Ataris like ST not so much). You can see it now in the number of remaining fans. There were about 7 Spectrum people and 30 Atari people at the party.
  • edited October 2012
    The first option for me.
    New software for ZX Spectrum is most desirable.
    ZX81/ZX Spectrum/Amiga/Atari music: http://yerzmyey.i-demo.pl/
  • edited October 2012
    I went for the second option, although I don't actively seek out the demo scene I do enjoy watching them and my interest is peeked when they're announced here on WoS. I'll have a look at the new stuff then have a browse at older stuff then drift away untill a new one is announced.


    is raww.org still running? don't seem to be able to find it
  • edited October 2012
    Ralf wrote: »
    actually we got second famous 8bit scene site after pouet, zxdemo.org, which was run by gasman, abandoned due to X (X=I don't know).
    He got married ;)

    Did I? Awesome! Why am I always the last to hear about these things? :-)

    I gave up on zxdemo.org because it was too time-consuming to keep up to date, and too clunky to open up to other editors. However, my current long-term project is Demozoo, which aims to be the definitive database for the scene, joining up the data on existing sites like Pouet, zxdemo and Bitworld and offering a friendly wiki-ish editing interface - and once that's officially launched (no firm schedule, but I'd like to think it'll be some time next year) I intend to resurrect zxdemo.org as a Spectrum-specific front-end to that.
  • edited October 2012
    gasman wrote: »
    Did I? Awesome! Why am I always the last to hear about these things? :-)

    I gave up on zxdemo.org because it was too time-consuming to keep up to date, and too clunky to open up to other editors. However, my current long-term project is Demozoo, which aims to be the definitive database for the scene, joining up the data on existing sites like Pouet, zxdemo and Bitworld and offering a friendly wiki-ish editing interface - and once that's officially launched (no firm schedule, but I'd like to think it'll be some time next year) I intend to resurrect zxdemo.org as a Spectrum-specific front-end to that.

    Hooray!
    actually I knew about demozoo but I didn't know the cause of death of the zxdemo.org.

    Nice to hear zxdemo will still be zxspectrum only interface of demozoo.

    Do you think people will migrate to demozoo after collecting too many gl?ps on pouet? will it be like facebook-googleplus style competition or friendly cooperation?
  • edited October 2012
    It's a very brave plan with this Demozoo.

    I'm not sure what Pouet people will say about sucking down all their content though ;)
  • edited October 2012
    I'm not connected to demozoo or pouet, but I must admit, that that's not exactly "their" content. Imho, any open archive should be ready to give out all of the data unless it has any kind of restrictive protecting publishing rights from the original authors of published works.
    That's how the things go on ZX-Art at least - I don't own the works and I don't think that my efforts on keeping the graphics archive give me any right to restrict it's distribution.
    That's just my opinion, I'm not forcing it to any project or person, but I personally find it really serving the common purpose of free information spreading and making the computer art popular.
  • edited October 2012
    gasman wrote: »
    However, my current long-term project is Demozoo, which aims to be the definitive database for the scene, joining up the data on existing sites like Pouet, zxdemo and Bitworld and offering a friendly wiki-ish editing interface - and once that's officially launched (no firm schedule, but I'd like to think it'll be some time next year) I intend to resurrect zxdemo.org as a Spectrum-specific front-end to that.

    That's some neat news going around here. Since it's gonna pump all the stuff from pouet.net, will diskmags be allowed for publishing there? :D

    As for a similar idea for ZX Spectrum (freely editable database with all kinds of releases), newart's already trying to make one on zxdb.info. Not sure if it's gonna include English, though, not to mention that other people are enforcing him to make the DB freely editable. Unlike his other "quirk mode" resources (ZXTunes and ZXPress).
  • edited October 2012
    None of the poll options apply to me. I've enjoyed watching demos in the past, read most if not all of the topics about "best demos", watched the YouTube videos and like to watch the latest demos if they're announced here, on Speccynews, Speccy.org or c.s.s.

    What I don't enjoy is watching demos with recycled content taken from older demos, boring scroll messages, "lazy" demos, etc. Contrary to popular belief, it's still possible to come up with something new, interesting and impressive. A few years ago I started a thread about the "Wow factor" which covered this. I also remember being criticized, and that's ok.

    We understand demos are usually made for coders by coders, not for the general public. We also understand the general public may not understand or appreciate everything that a demo shows. But if a demo gets thumbs up by the general Sinclair public and coders, you know it's a good one.
  • edited October 2012
    Arda wrote: »
    Do you think people will migrate to demozoo after collecting too many gl?ps on pouet? will it be like facebook-googleplus style competition or friendly cooperation?

    Friendly cooperation, definitely... I've spoken to Gargaj, and he's supportive of the idea. It's anyone's guess how the community will respond - building a community around Demozoo isn't something I'm actively chasing (because getting the data right is a big enough job already), but there most likely will be comments and forums, as that's a basic expectation of a site like this.

    Inevitably there will be individual users on Pouet who kick up a fuss about data re-use, because that's the sort of place it is :-) It's only going to happen with the full approval of the admins, though (aside from the fact that Pouet has had a data export API since forever...). And I feel I should point out that even in beta, without any Pouet import, Demozoo has a fantastic amount of data in it already. 40000 releases so far...
    Since it's gonna pump all the stuff from pouet.net, will diskmags be allowed for publishing there? :D
    Yup, diskmags will be included.
  • edited October 2012
    gasman wrote: »
    And I feel I should point out that even in beta, without any Pouet import, Demozoo has a fantastic amount of data in it already. 40000 releases so far...

    Cool. I can only hope you will eventually find enough time to add the native support for ZXDS listings like the RZX Archive does... Feel free to let me know if there is something I might assist with in this regard...

    Patrik
  • edited October 2012
    I voted "I'm only curious about demoscene parties announced here, on WoS" as I'm not a major fan of demos, but I like seeing how people push the Spectrum's limits. Back in the Atari ST days I did see a fair few ST demos, some of which were very impressive, but I've never bothered with demos for any machine other than the Speccy and ST. No doubt the PC demos are amazing, and Amiga/C64/CPC demos etc would be great too, but since I'm not nearly as familiar with those machines' limitations as I am with the Speccy then I wouldn't appreciate the demos so much.
  • edited October 2012
    The results of poll are far more optimistic than I thought before.
    Why is there almost no discussions of demos here, on WoS?
  • edited October 2012
    moroz1999 wrote: »
    The results of poll are far more optimistic than I thought before.
    Why is there almost no discussions of demos here, on WoS?

    For a more or less obvious reason that was covered in this thread already...

    I guess.
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