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[Japo]

I didn't intend to blast anyone, besides my opinion doesn't count more than other person's. I guess I should have added a or something. A solution much like what jg007 suggests has been discussed in other topic, and it was seemingly very simple and satisfactory not requiring email or anything, the service would be the same as now for users. But I don't even know if it was tried by the admins.

[TheChosen]

Its a shame that this guy doesnt have a forum. Otherwise, we could make an invasion and start spamming, with U-Boat Commander Dave leading the spam army....

[Japo]

No wonder he doesn't have a forum. I don't think he's interested in filantropism and promoting socialization, rather in reaping as many bucks as possible in the minimal amount of time, with the least effort and with no regards to morals. I bet he dedicates to his site like a tenth of the time dedicated by the average admin here.

[KillerTomato&Ketchup]

Apart from the moral dimensions of this guy's actions, isn't there some kind of written agreement between Abandonia and the original publishers of the games offered here for downloading?

Usually there's an explicit paragraph permitting free personal use and forbidding commercial exploitation of the concerned object, something like the GNU licence for Linux and similar freeware.

It's definitely no nice feeling that the people here are putting in all this hard work for fans like us and some such a..hole is making a few fast bucks from that!

Apart from that, here's a whole lot of compliments to the Abandonia team from a newbie to these forums (but not to this site! I have looked by on occasion over the years - this is quite an improvement in the design!). Keep up the good work! k:

EDIT: Hey, here's an idea which just might work: Why not add a line to the starting page and/or to the credits in each game, mentioning that the game is being offered for FREE download by Abandonia and forbidding charging for further distribution? I mean, it's like the colour 'tabbing' added to heating oil to prevent the cheaper fluid being misused in diesel engines... All one would have to do is to add the statement in such a way that it's not deletable in any simple manner!

What do the admins opine?

[The Fifth Horseman]

EDIT: Hey, here's an idea which just might work: Why not add a line to the starting page and/or to the credits in each game, mentioning that the game is being offered for FREE download by Abandonia and forbidding charging for further distribution? I mean, it's like the colour 'tabbing' added to heating oil to prevent the cheaper fluid being misused in diesel engines... All one would have to do is to add the statement in such a way that it's not deletable in any simple manner![/b]

That's one idea which is just about technically impossible. Doing such a thing would require major programming knowledge, and would be far from easy in most cases.

An easier thing would be including a tag in the archive itself, informing where does the archive come from.

[Taskmaster]

Actually, maybe you can a little "runme" type Windows application and include it with each compressed file. If the games were not DOS based you could have the "runme" application launch the game, which would mean most folks would see it. Obviously once they see what it is it is easy enough to just start the game without seeing the "intro" application.

If nothing else a fancy - fancy being relative to how much work you want to put into it - logo around 640x480 (maybe 800x600) splashed up for a few seconds should suffice. Yes, it would increase the size of the ZIP file by a few KB (depending on the size of the image, etc.

So not exactly what was being requested, but this is doable, could reflect positvely on the site if done respectfully. If you have a small WAV file for music/message, that could be included also, but again increases the size.

I might be able to assist in this area if it is decided that this would be a good thing.

[Taskmaster]

Since I had some free time I managed to code a small example of what I was talking about. It isn't the greatest, but it does illustrate the idea.



It turns out that the EXE is much larger than I was hoping for, but it is beacuse of the graphics and sound.

The EXE is 1.83 MB, of which 428 KB is the short musical score, but compresses to 767 KB when ZIP at maximum compression. A shorter WAV file would reduce the size. Also this example randomizes some of the graphic elements each time it is run meaning it has extra graphics over just a static scene. This is a cool effect, but if size needed to be reduced, using a static scene is another way I could do it.

I caution you that my artistic skills are not great so I created a simple "Abandonia" logo (text) but it looks pretty nice. I would hope that some one here could enhance it, if this is something that Kosta wanted to pursue. Again this is just an example.... go easy on me.

You can download the example Windows EXE right here...

http://www.jesustaxi.com/mikel/Abandonia.zip

Application is stand-alone, Windows-based, and should work for Win 95 and up. it doesn't require DirectX, Microsoft DLLs, or .NET framework.

Give it a try and let the group know what you think.

[win98]

I like the look ofthe program but it is a bit large in a way. But the graphics and stuff are good for it though.

[gregor]

or if all games (as it was already discussed) had an installer that would be easy to use and user friendly. similar like Classic gaming archive has. that way you know here you got it and that is free.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Except that it would screw things up for Linux and Mac users.