Yes - four days ago! If you had read on, you would have seen this question had been answered already.

...And I already answered

You asked

So what?

Everything goes in cycles...give it another 6-10 months and Abandonware will be the flavour of the week again...
give it time, and inovation will be back

I just wont be around abandonware anymore, so i wont see it

An argumentum ad verecundiam is an argument based on authority. In Latin it means "appeal to reverence".

No. In reference to the current situation, I'd define it by 'less innovation, more stagnation'.

I can see what you mean about people's work being shaped by people like us, and other forumites et al...i hadnt considered that to be honest, but it certainly does happen to a large extent.

regarding phiB, im not gonna comment, because i cant read his mind

And of course it was easier to start an original site a few years back. Thats a given.
In the interim, lots of original sites have come up, making many more ideas no longer original (bad way of putting it, but you should be able to get what i mean)

Some of the specializing back then may indeed have happened through neccessity rather than choice. Still, that doesnt mean it was neccessarily a bad thing. Personally, i love it when a new genre/system (non-pc) specific site opens up, because chances are, the webmaster will have a genuine love for that system/genre, which will inevitably show through in the site itself.


On an overall note, you asked is abandonware in a decline? That depends, IMO, on how you define decline. Less sites? Less visitors overall? Less visitors per site? Less reviews? Less quality? Personally, i think to a large extent, the relative success of a community such as abandonware is an intangible.

LOG: That is why I said this site maybe doesn't belong in the 'comeback' category. There is one reason why I did put it there though: the webmaster is not a new one. Sure, for him, this is a new concept, a new approach to his site. But he is what I call a 'convert'. He didn't come up with his site's current concept all by himself, but he had to be convinced. Or at least nudged into the 'right' direction. In other words: the idea didn't come from himself!
That makes his site an imitation of other people's concepts and the same conclusion as with Jante or you applies. The same (to a lesser extent) applies to anyone who has been involved in the 'scene' for too long (e.g. in forums) before he/she starts his/her site. This person's opinion have already been shaped by others then. The pure creativity can only come out if it's a really new person who hasn't been in touch with other egomaniacs like us.
Don't get me wrong, I like LOG a lot and I go there whenever there is something new. And it does show some creativity with these 'memoirs'. But I just don't think Lodiak will be able to pull something new off, show new ways.

Phib Abandonware: Just remembered something else why I consider this site not good. There is this banner floating around with the 'catchy' slogan Abandonware is not about downloads, it's about games. I absolutely hate that! Why? Because it's such an obvious attempt at sucking up to the people he considers 'important'!
And if you look carefully at the site itself, you'll quickly see what a blatant lie it is. Why? Let's have a look at the games collection. Commander Keen. Which parts of the series? 1 and 4. Oh, what a coincidence - the two parts which are shareware and thus can be offered for download without violating the Abandonware policy! Nah, my suspicion is certainly wrong, it's of course just that he likes those two parts way best and doesn't consider the others worthy to be presented (then without a download, because he doesn't care about downloads).
All I can say there is yeah, right.


The more I think about it, I come to the conclusion that it really was easier to start an original site a few years back. It's true, these days, a new site needs some specialized focus to gain immediate attention. 'Just another Abandonware site' was enough until about a year ago!
At the same time, fewer and fewer webmasters are willing to specialize though. Something I can understand perfectly, I mean, I don't think there is a site with less focus than mine One theory for the reasons is this: with paid hosting, it's a lot easier to run 'big' sites. Maybe some of the specializing in the old days happened out of practical necessity? I mean, there also weren't any sites which featured a few hundred games on the day they opened then.....

FTSA? Yes, that was a real success in both its incarnations

Edited by Mr Creosote at 08:30 on September, 19th 2002

ah, i missed that statement in your first post.
with NS and ARP, i agree. there isnt a huge amount they can do to make the scene "evolve", per se.

with LOG, i tend to disagree, purely because Lodiak/Nomad was always a "quantity webmaster" rather than a "quality" one. IE, no reviews/short comments, lots of games. The new LOG is a different focus, and i think thats where its important to differentiate.

Both myself and Jante have run quality-focused sites prior to our current ones, while Lodiak hadnt.

IMO, the problem isnt new sites showing promise. Its new webmasters coming into the scene with the enthusiasm that I for one have lost, and i know im not the only medium-old timer that has lost the enthusiasm.

There are some webmasters in the community now that i (personally) feel do have that promise to really do something special in the future. People like phiB, Lodiak, Hanging and quite a few others. The problem is them getting first the experience, then the opportunities, to be able to do whatever they are able to do. Another one was cqdered/cqde, who i felt had immense potential to really do something big in the future. Something unique & highly successful. Unfortunately, he is now lost to the abandonware community forever, it seems.

And on



Again, to a large extent i agree. Its not that sites today arent good, there are still a large amount of high quality sites. Its that mysterious x factor, that most seem to be missing. I, for one, dont know what the x factor is. Either you have it or you dont, it seems.

Another large problem is the copycat syndrome. Sure, the design might be different, but in every other aspect, Site X is the same as Site Y which is the same as Site Q.
What i tell anyone who asks me for advice on their site is to find their USP (unique selling point). Focus on having great reviews. Focus on lots of screenshots. Focus on games for the C64. Focus on shoot 'em ups.
It doesnt matter what you do, as long as it isnt just another "general abandonware site". Have something unique, something that really sets you apart from the crowd. Thats what we're missing these days.

Maybe its time to bring back the FTSA? (no, not a serious suggestion)

LOG, NS, ARP: Yes, it depends. I mentioned 'combacks' in my initial statement:Perhaps I didn't make it clear enough then, but even if I like those sites, I don't think they really do anything to make the 'scene' evolve! For that, new people are needed because the 'old guys' can't do anything but repeat their old stuff all over and over again

Abandon5000: I only checked the source code because I wanted to see if the pop-ups are voluntarily or not. There, the keywords caught my eye. I have pop-ups enabled as pop-unders in Opera and per page, it opens two pop-ups. I closed them, kept the site open in the background (because I wanted to check another site first), and some 'timed trigger' opened another two or three pop-ups!
That was not really the point though - like SLAG (leading over to the next one in an extremely smart way ), these paragraph descriptions really don't do it for me. I'm not saying the webmasters of both sites actually do it that way, but since they're lacking any insightful stuff, descriptions like this could have been written without playing the game Might have missed some better stuff on the site, but they are not really amongst my regular visits, so please prove me wrong.

2nd Millenium Games, Abandonbyte: I'll just believe you they're good. It's only technical problems which prevent me from reaching the sites at the moment after all.

Edit to your edit: I never ranked Flashback amongst the good sites, only special was its massive documents collection. I also don't want to claim that there were more great sites some years or even months back. There was a point (sometime around late 2000 / early 2001) when the standard for 'good sites' was raised quite a bit in fact! The good sites of today have a more finished touch to them certainly. But teh creative potential is missing. There are no (or hardly any) new sites which show promise (even if they're not all that great from the start) or freshness

Edited by Mr Creosote at 07:31 on September, 19th 2002

LOG, NS & ARP are all site/people comebacks, correct.
However, they are still new sites, and so i feel they apply.

Abandon5000 - I dont check meta keywords normally, but ill trust you are telling the truth, in which case its very disappointing. I dont see popups, i use Opera, but again ill take your word for it.

SLAG - I cant see why you'd call it mediocrity.
To me, the site has a nice design, a friendly atmosphere, some good reviews (others are lacking unfortunately) and a general fun feel. I wouldnt say it was one of the best, but for a relatively new site, its not too bad.

2nd Millenium - Never seen that message myself, but ill take your word for it.

AbandonByte - Odd, when i posted my message that page worked fine (i had a look through it at the time), but it no longer does.

edit - phiB Abandonware might feature fairly common games, but the length and depth of its reviews more than makes up for it. Some good extras for the games, a good number of screenshots also help lift up my rating of the site.

If one looks at old sites, they arent as high calibre as one might think. Flashback for example, a site which holds high sentimental value for me, would be judged as a fairly poor site if it was new. The reviews are almost all of negligable length/quality, and the only high quality thing on the site is a large selection of docs (which is left in a dir listing)

Edited by LuN at 07:18 on September, 19th 2002

'Good sites of today': you more or less only proved my point. I'll split them into groups a little:
'Site or people comebacks': LOG (only to a certain extent, you could put that somewhere else just as well), Nostalgic Schtuff (lamest site name ever), Abandonrom Paradise
'Mediocrecy at its best': Abandon5000 (in addition, they have meta keywords like 'warez' and that site opens approximately 5 pop-ups per page), SLAG
'Temporarily inaccessable': 2nd Millenium Games (the usual 'bandwidth exceeded' message, can't judge that now), AbandonByte (says it is dedicated to screenshots, but when I click on 'screenshots' in the menu, it comes up with a 404 - and the few stolen walkthroughs don't quite make up for that)

That leaves us with one site of your list which might be nice, but since it only and exclusively features the most common games in existence, I never go there.

Creo et al - While agreeing with most of whats said in this most, i feel i need to mention 2 things.

With regards to hosting, it is many, many times harder now to run a site on free hosting than it ever was in the late 90's.
Sure, back then, sites were deleted, but as you say yourself in the FAQ @ TUOL, there were also flavours of the month that didnt delete for a long time. Places like Homepage.com, Homestead, Spaceports, F2S etc.
Nowadays, one has to look a lot harder to find a host that can be used for even a month or two! Most hosts dont allow files larger than 1MB, some with even smaller restrictions, making many abandonware titles impossible to upload.

My second note is on what you say is a lack of quality new sites in the community.
To some extent, i agree
However, there are still many new sites of a high calibre coming in to the community.

Examples include phiB Abandonware, L.O.G, Nostalgic Schtuff, 2nd Millenium Games (Although i have a severe dislike of their new policy for reading reviews), Abandon5000, AbandonByte & SLAG. I would also like to think that AbandonRom Paradise isnt bad

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but just ones i thought of off the top of my head. None are massively old sites.

Edited by LuN at 03:12 on September, 19th 2002

I didn't quote the FAQ to prove my point, but because I didn't want to write it all again when I've already put it in a nice way before. The only thing I wanted to point out with the quote was that Delos' point that I can't know how it is for new webmasters currently is wrong.

Mr Creosote: False reasoning ad verecundiam means accepting: X says Y is true, so Y is true... especially blatant because in this case you were person X and thus invoking your own authority to win a discussion...

I'm not questioning the quality of that FAQ however

Pada1: Huh?

Eagle: Have to agree with Tuss on this one. I wrote my review on Discovery for example partly because I was absolutely shocked how I couldn't find any even mildly positive review about it! The only few times it was mentioned at all (for example HOTUD), it was always presented in a negative light. Sure, it's not the best game (part of why I like it is certainly just because it was one of my few originals back then ), but it's also not that bad.
You are right saying completely objective reviews aren't possible. But that's the same for professional computer magazines and basically all kinds of media. Actually, you're the first one I meet who uses this as an argument not to write reviews, I've only heard it the other way round so far. But that makes it especially interesting actually... something I would have never thought of...

Eagle of Fire: Seems like disagreeing with people's reviews would only want to make one create a site even more so than before. You never know how many people get disgusted at ANOTHER positive review of Speedball, when they play the game and think it's crap.

Tuss

Sounds an awfull lot like false reasoning ad vericundiam if I'm correct... Not all that fair...

Just a thought

It make sense the way he posted it, you are the one reacting over that sentence. However, I'm not posting to talk about that, but to add to the subject.

Some months after discovering Abadonware (and The Good Old Days), I was thinking about creating my own ABW page too... Several points discouraged me, most of them already discussed here (lots of other site already, not enough experience, etc).

The real point which really discouraged me was this one; I visited a lot of sites to get myself an idea of what was going on... Of course I met the sites with no reviews at all, then I met the sites with very crappy reviews, then I met the sites with good reviews, then I met the sites with very good reviews... BUT, none of those reviews shared my own oppinion of the games. When they gave a high review I was always thinking the game didn't really deserved it, and same thing for a low review that I thought it would deserve more.

I then realized that, whatever system you may think and use to classify and review the games, it will never really be something the majority of people will agree to, since personnal feelings and taste in games interfere a lot with anybody judgment.

Since I didn't wanted to simply add yet another site with somebody feeling (mine in this case), I thought that the best solution to this would be not to do reviews at all like the sites you were refering to earlier in this thread.

However, you said that a site with only links and no reviews is utterly lame and unacceptable... An opinion that I share too. Decided not to do anything, end of argument...