In 1998, three people decided the future of how the scene should shape
itself and released a 10-point information document stating how a game
release should be conducted. In the past year, many of these rules have
been broken by its founding members and other groups have purposely
broken the agreement. In lieu of recent events, the deciding figures
of three groups, Class, Myth & Divine, have converged and agreed upon
a new set of rules based on the original Faction rules and Myth's
recent proposal and have been updated, modified and agreed upon by a
consensus to a new standard to better suit the scene in this millenium.
These groups have been active participants in shaping the scene in the last
6 months, and were given active participation in voicing their point of
view. These new rules will allow for a more fair and competitive scene
while ensuring a quality-minded environment for the scene. These deciding
figures have bestowed themselves to be called the N.S.A., Network Software
Association. These rules have been ratified and approved among the three
groups and will be recognized and followed immediately on this date,
March 26th, 2000.
1. The disk limit is as of now 65 x 2,915,000 bytes. This equates to a
total of 189,495,000 bytes of compressed data. Groups may not go over
the total size to prevent any future cheating. Acceptable compression
formats at this time are ACE or RAR or any future compression that
supports multiple volumes and long file names, followed by the
traditional PKZIPing.
The limit for standard game add-ons is 35 x 2,915,000 bytes for any add-
on that includes Music, Speech, Commentary or Play By Play for the
original release. Any add-on that does not fit this criteria will be
restricted to 25 x 2,915,000 bytes. Only the group that won a game
release is allowed to release the add-ons for the game.
2. To prevent sloppy rips, a re-release of a game is allowed to make groups
release proper and respectable releases. The following provisions
include:
a) it can be ripped in >=10 disks less than the previous release by us-
ing only lossless compression methods. Lossy compression will not be
permitted to compromise the release to fit under this condition.
b) it can be ripped in >=15 disks less of the size of the previous
release by using mp3-compression while not downgrading any wavs
or mp3's sound quality using lossy compression.
That means all the essential gamedata must be still included in the re-
release. No essential data is allowed to be removed to be considered a
valid re-release. A re-release from a competing group may not use tools,
original crack or any other files from the previous release that were
modified for the original game rip.
The re-release of a rip can be done by any group and must be done in
at most 48 hours after the release of the original rip, as possibly
every game is rippable in a smaller size if enough time is spent.
3. Every release under this limit MUST be a functionally and playable
complete game with no essential data missing to complete the game.
This means that included will be every component necessary for
the successful completion of the game e.g.:
- all game executables that are needed,
- every level (single AND multiplayer),
- every track (including practice),
- all actor graphics & models etc,
- sound effects
- registry settings to play on the Internet (e.g. Zone/DirectPlay)
4. Any lossless compression method to reduce the size of selected game data
is ALLOWED (e.g. uharc).
5. Lossy compression is ALLOWED for sound, videos and non-texture graphics
(e.g. jpeging of menu screens) but lossless compression is encouraged
before using lossy compression. Lossy compression of textures is expli-
citly FORBIDDEN to prevent the many problems inherent to that.
6. Sound effects WILL and MUST be included. To reduce the size of rips when
possible, standard waveformat files (PCM) should be mp3-compressed
if possible in a reasonable state of time and is over the size of 20
disks. If the soundfiles exist inside a bigfile its highly regarded
when time is invested to extract those files to compress them. Groups
are not to required to index bigfiles though. Downgrade of sound quality
to sound files to allow the game to fit the limit will not be permitted.
It is allowed to rip music, commentary/speech and ambience files as long
as the game remains playable. Speech files MUST be included if there
exist no on-screen subtitles. It is okay to remove commentary from a
release if size does not permit it.
It is highly regarded when all sounds, speech and music are included in
a rip and not intentionally put out as addons.
7. It is allowed to remove gamedata that exists in multiple resolutions or
formats as long as the game remains playable on a typical system which
is defined by a PII-300 with a D3D-card and soundcard.
- high-resolution textures for highend systems.
- low-resolution textures for low-end systems if there is no
possible options to include the high-resolutions in the release.
If size permits, it is expected that high resolution be released
as an add-on.
- high-screen resolution graphics data standard of 800x600 (or 640x480
if other than 800x600 is not applicable)
- at least one hardware-dependent data must be included, and must be
in Direct3D mode or any other hardware data modes that are accepta-
ble (e.g. Glide textures). A release of software mode only with all
hardware-dependent data and textures removed will not be allowed in
future releases.
8. Movies (intros, cutscenes) should be removed if they aren't game-related.
Movies must be ripped in a way so that the gameplay experience is not
compromised, e.g. framing of movies is highly regarded. It should always
be avoided to create situations in which user-input is necessary on
black screens because the video normally shown has been blacked out.
9. Other allowed add-ons for games include:
- cutscenes/movies
- commentary/speech
- music
- manual/documentation
- editor
Intro and Outro add-ons are EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN. Not more than 2 add-ons
should be released for a game release.
10. Children's games (aka Kiddie games) and Edutainment software do not
qualify under these rules guidelines for acceptable releases. Kiddie
games are usually defined via the game target audience of '5-12 years'
as stated by the game's producer. Common sense should be based on
common sense by all groups to identify what really is a kiddie game.
Platform games are not to be considered kiddie games.
11. Levelpacks, game add-ons etc. for rips are only allowed if they are offi-
cially released/authorized by the same company/developer/publisher that
put out the original game. If possible by its size, the add-on should be
made as a standalone and not needing the original game release. The
original missions may be removed to allow the game add-on to become
standalone if not size can not permit the original game. It should be
explained in the NFO if and why a game add-on isn't made to be standalone.
12. In regard to games distributed in the United States that are LATER
distributed in Europe or vice versa under the same or different name /
publisher. These games if released AFTER another group's release are
counted as DUPES unless it can be proven that there is a clearly
noticeable PLAYABLE difference in the latter release (more than just
tiny differences in graphics or sound). Differences in filedates and
Game Titles between Euro and US releases are NOT a good enough reason to
re-release the game.
13. A brief outline of what has been stripped from the game should be
clearly stated in the game-release .NFO, as well as information as to
whether or not Add-Ons can be expected.
14. Fully cracked Update Patches and Trainers are highly regarded, though
they are not the responsibility of any group (including that of which
released the original game). If 2 trainers from the same or different
groups are released for 1 game, this does NOT qualify as a dupe unless
the latter trainer provides no new features over the prior trainer. Beta
update patches will not considered a valid release among any game group.
No group shall release a cracked patch for a game if a generic patch
exists for a particular game in the scene. If a generic crack exists, a
new patch-release must specify that the generic crack does not work
anymore.
15. If two or more rips of the same game get released, the first working rip
wins. Sites should not nuke any release until the winning rip has been
proven to work correctly and follows the above ruleset.
16. No group shall do a rip using another's groups work, be it an iso crack
or tools written by another competing group. Any third party tools shall
be acceptable. A crack from an ISO or past release (even in other
languages) shall not be used unless permission is given from the
cracker/creator of the original release group.
All appointed HQ (Headquarters) should abide by these rules to the
fullest extent permutable. Any group that competes in the gaming rip
scene will and must abide by the above rules to allow fair competition
among all competitors.
Signed,
Leaders, Council Members and Seniors of Class, Myth & Divine.
Note: MythPC have recently hinted that they will come to an agreement with the other 'main' RIP groups for new operating standards.
You might have seen yesterday's release of 'NFS5_Final-CLS' and read the
nfo that came with it. We want to answer a few of those accusations that
those 'classy' people made:
a) Our NFS 5 Porsche release was the EUROPEAN boxed final version. Like
all other native-built european versions, ours had a version.txt
with '3.0' in it, being the reason for not being compatible with the
USA version. All rules still forbid to dupe euro-releases with games
that come out later or in a different version in USA (and there are NO
gameplay differences, contrary to what CLS says. There CAN'T be game-
play differences as all the files except for the localized gfx are
identical).
b) CLS knew about this - they DELIBERATELY duped our release, as they had
the german iso already when they threw out their dupe release.
c) You always have to wonder when CLS wildly throw accusations and never
ever put any proof to them, like comparisons of dirlists etc.
d) Imperium Galactica II was a german store final - that included the
english text etc. CLS had this version as well and were just too DUMB to
figure out that if you just deleted the GER\ folder with the german files,
the game would be english.
e) We really wonder how a group like CLS can even try and blame other groups
for bad ripping. Our Nascar 2000 is a fully working rip and follows all
known ripping guidelines - set by CLS themselves. CLS should maybe look
into their own past for really bad rips, like SpecOps 2 or System Shock 2.
Or have they already forgotten about Risk II and Majesty this week and the
need for fixes for them ? All groups make mistakes, and CLS should be the
last to throw stones - not the first.
f) MYTH acknowledges that our Force Commander rip was not working and a repack
was due - CLS was just faster to do that. Kinda silly from then that their
repack was 7 disks bigger, while they didn't forget to mention that they
were able to pack NFS5 3 disks better - in only one week after the original
release by MYTH - and that after claiming that they would be able to do it
in under 50 disks.
To summarize, we feel kind of sorry for the few good people in CLS, who are
getting so horribly abused by a moronic leadership. All evil empires fall
eventually, so there is still hope for them :)
~~~scenenews@defacto2.net~~~~~~Scenenews~~~~~~
3-26-1~~~Class Pays Out On MythPC~~~3:16 PM~~~Class for the first time in a long time have released a public statement concerning the competition in the RIP scene. In fact it is more of a direct flame at MythPC and the way they do their business. Here is the statement in full ..
Like Myth's beta, we could not get this under 50 disks. While we did compress it better than Myth's release, it still couldn't get it under 50 disks. Since the beta was over the limit, this game deserves to be over the limit as well since it's well-anticipated. When the disk limit will be raised remains to be seen. We'll try to upheld to the 50 disk limit unless it isn't possible. Myth should be ashamed. Yet again they burn the scene by slipping out a game that is claimed to be final, when it isn't. CLASS wants everyone to play the final version that they can find in stores, not a hacked-up version stamped as beta. Now Myth has been caught again, and look who has to clean up the mess. The proof that Myth's NFS5 was beta? Check the version # in version.txt: Myth: 3.0 Class: 3.2 There are multiple difference in the cars and in text. Binary differences in the PORSCHE.EXE. You also can not play multiplayer if one side has FINAL and other side is using myth's BETA. Differences in the car data. This could possibly cause problems down the road when updates are released. Screenshots have been included so you can see the differences. Myth has been taking us all for a ride. First it was Force Commander, with a #!%&ed up release which they've only mildly agree was a screw-up, with a bad crack and a bad rip. Later on it was the Imperium Galatica 2 beta along with the german files and calling it a final release. And where are the speech IG2? Don't expect any. While in past years in the scene, this would of been an acceptable practice. But now that the scene is all on the net as this is not acceptable anymore since games have gone global. If people aren't getting the true English final that they'll be able to find in stores it makes it difficult to play multiplayer, and truly enjoy the game. The opportunity to release a game with mixed files from betas & other language finals has passed by us recently but we'd rather give people the game they can expect in stores. That is how you do things proper. And where is the music & speech files that Myth knows it could of been included in Nascar 2000. Instead of making it PROPER, they rape and release, putting out an add-on later on, which in their NFO in the release of NFS5 BETA they wanted to put an end to with their proposal (Rule 6). They just brushed the release under the rug, and move on to the next game likely to be #!%&ed up. If Myth wants to release games to the scene, they must learn to do things proper. They need to make sure that when they release a game that its release is a proper rip, truly final or fix their own mistakes. It's best they do it right the first time and that we don't have to clean up their mistakes every time. Already less than a month old, and we're already suspicious about every Myth release. It's like pot luck when Myth release is put out. Could it be broken? Maybe beta? Bad Rip? Don't be fooled by an imitator.
Below are the rules in full.
NEW RIPRULES
This ruleset-draft was written in an attempt to restore fair competition
and at the same time encourage all groups to make the best possible rip.
Quality AND speed should be the main motives to rip a game.
The BEST rip is the one that includes ALL the essential gamedata at the
SMALLEST size in a TIMELY manner and not necessarily the one that gets
released first.
1. The disk limit is as of now 70 x 2,915,000 bytes. This equates to a
total of 204,050,000 bytes of compressed data.
Acceptable compression formats at this time are ACE or RAR, followed
by the traditional PKZIPing.
The limit for standard game addons is 35 x 2,915,000 bytes. This equates
to a total of 102,025,000 bytes for the addon. ONLY the group that won a
rip is allowed to release addons for it, as too many times in the past
addons that were released by third parties did not work.
2. Every release under this limit MUST be a functionally and playably
complete game. This means that included will be every component
necessary for the successful completion of the game e.g.:
- all game executables that are needed,
- every level (single AND multiplayer),
- every track or course,
- all actor graphics etc,
- all registry entries used by a game (for Zone-multiplay etc).
Not necessary to complete a game are usually manuals, editors etc, but
those should stay inside a rip if possible, else released as an addon.
3. Any lossless compression method to reduce the size of selected game data
is ALLOWED (e.g. uharc).
4. Lossy compression is ALLOWED for sound, videos and non-texture graphics
(e.g. jpeging of menu screens). Lossy compression of textures is expli-
citly FORBIDDEN to prevent the many problems inherent to that.
5. Sound effects WILL and MUST be included. To reduce the size of rips when
possible, standard waveformat files (PCM) should be mp3-compressed. If
the soundfiles exist inside a bigfile its highly regarded when time is
invested to extract those files to compress them. Groups are not to re-
quired to index bigfiles though (for further comments read rule 13).
It is allowed to rip music, commentary/speech and ambient sounds as long
as the game remains playable. Speech files MUST be included if there
exist no on-screen subtitles.
If possible, ALL sounds and music should be included in a rip and not
intentionally as addons.
6. It is ALLOWED to remove gamedata that exists in multiple resolutions or
formats as long as the game remains playable on a typical system which
is defined by a PII-300 with a D3D-card and soundcard. This means it is
ALLOWED to rip the folowing gamedata as long as it gets released in an
addon not more than 4 hours after the main rips release:
- low-resolution textures for lowend systems,
- high-resolution textures for highend systems,
- high-screenresolution graphics data (above 640x480 or 800x600),
- hardware-dependent data (e.g. Glide textures).
7. Movies (intros, cutscenes) should be removed if they are not game-related
Movies must be ripped in a way so that the gameplay experience is not
compromised, e.g. framing of movies is highly regarded. It should always
be avoided to create situations in which user-input is necessary on
black screens because the video normally shown has been blacked out.
When movies/cutscenes are necessary to understand the game they MUST be
included in the game.
8. Other allowed addons for games include:
- cutscenes/movies,
- commentary/speech,
- music,
- manual,
- editor.
Intro addons are EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN. Not more than 2 addons should be
typically released for a game.
9. Children's games (aka Kiddie games) and Edutainment software do not
qualify under these rules guidelines for acceptable releases. Kiddie
games are usually definied via the game target audience of '5-12 years'
as stated by the game's producer. Common sense should be used by all
groups to identify what really is a kiddy game.
10. Levelpacks, game addons etc. for rips are only allowed if they are offi-
cially released/authorized by the same company/developer/publisher that
put out the original game. That means e.g. an Age of Empires II addon by
some lame-o-webstuff company is EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN, while an addon by
Microsoft / Ensemble Studios is ALLOWED. Also allowed would be an addon
that was 'officially authorized' by Microsoft/Ensemble.
11. In regard to games distributed in the United States that are LATER
distributed in Europe or vice versa under the same or different name /
publisher. These games if released AFTER another group's release are
counted as DUPES unless it can be proven that there is a clearly
noticeable PLAYABLE difference in the latter release (more than just
tiny differences in graphics or sound). Differences in filedates between
Euro and US releases are NOT a good enough reason to rerelease the game
(example: Supreme Snowboarding and Boarder Zone are the same game, with
different Euro/US names and filedates. But as there was no PLAYABLE dif-
rence in the games, the release of Boarder Zone was a dupe).
12. If two or more rips of the same game get released, the first working rip
wins. Sites should not nuke any release until the winning rip has been
proven to work correctly and follows the above ruleset.
13. To prevent sloppy rips, a rerelease of a game is ALLOWED and defined as
the winning release if:
a) it can be ripped in >=10 disks less than the previous release by using
only lossless compression methods.
b) it can be ripped in >=15 disks less or <50% of the size of the previous
release by using mp3-compression.
That means all the essential gamedata must be still included in the rere-
lease. If data gets removed, the rip-nfo must state why that data was not
essential to the gameplay.
The rerelease of a rip must be done in at most 36 hours after the release
of the original rip, as possibly every game is rippable in a smaller size
if enough time is spent.
BLUEBALL:
Some will be disappointed, others will be glad in cheer. This is the final Minime release to the rip scene. After 6 months, it was time to say goodbye to the end, to move on, and to sure as hell not merge with any group. After 25 releases to the scene, it was time to move on and do better #!%& in life. We brought you all types of games, and hoped you enjoyed them all.~~~scenenews@defacto2.net~~~~~~Scenenews~~~~~~ date%%Tuesday--March--1%% 3-1-1~~~1 Paradigm + 1 Origin = 1 Myth?~~~12:31 PM~~~Myth is the name for the newly merged crews of Paradigm and Origin. Apparently Myth is a creation of the top members from both of the two previous groups. And guess what they are looking for new members ..
Membership Benefits: We offer membership of the finest scene group, which entails access to the best sites available. We have 0day/ISO/VCD/PSX/MP3/N64/PDA and more :) We believe if you contribute to the scene you should be able to reap the rewards of it ;) We also understand the costs involved with supplying the latest unreleased games. Thus we are the only, yes the only group that offers suppliers a money back guarantee. We always pay back! Why should you pay and others get it for free? Remember we are the only group who offer this! Also we provide our cracking team with the tools it needs to do the job. We also have the only specific trading team designed for the group, only we provide this. Thus our team is the fastest :) But above all of this, we are friendly. Something of a rarity these days in the scene. Join us now, before others get in before you!. Membership Requirments: We require USA store suppliers. If you have a fast T3 or above connection, live on the USA, East coast and happen to be near a Electronics Boutique, Babbage's, Best Buy, or other store that sells software, and can be available during the day or morning of most weekdays to supply. Do not worry about your skills, if you can fit the bill we shall show you the rest. Contact us now! Use the contact information below. We are also on the lookout for individuals connected in any way with the distribution process of new software, whether it be software companies, store/shops, distributor, publisher, duplicators, game magazine, tech support for software publishing houses or hell, even if you're like us, regular software shop junkies who pay daily visits to your local fast shop or what have you and want to have some good competitive fun. We always reimburse the full retail cost of any originals because we know that you don't get something for nothing. We're definately interested in what you may have to help contribute to the success of our team. Contact us now! Use the contact information below. We are on the lookout for an ftp site in TAIWAN, SINGAPORE, JAPAN, KUWAIT, HONG KONG, SAUDI ARABIA and RUSSIA to help spread our releases to the FAR EAST and the GULF STATES. Contact us now! Use the contact information below. We are also currently looking for several proven crackers and mega trainer makers to join the team. Can you do SAFEDISC/C-DILLA or SECUROM or VOB protections? What about quality menu driven trainers? Contact us now! Use the contact information below. Also we search for free hardware suppliers. If you work for a company/companies in the hardware industry and have access to some good hardware of any type, you may just be the person we're looking for. Contact us now! Use the contact information below. We are NOT accepting courier applications, so please don't waste our time and yours by telling us what a great trader you are. Unless you can also do something that is outlined in the application details above of course. Then we could of course welcome you straight away ;)
Who would have thought that Origin once the laughing stock of the scene and Paradigm a fairly old but well respected group would end up merging? ~~~scenenews@defacto2.net~~~~~~Scenenews~~~~~~