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Please be more specific than “tell us more”, it’s just too vague! Among the three Quartex is the one I knew the best. Paranoimia I supplied the games and TGS were the intermediaries I didn’t have a modem at that time, so I’ve never been directly in touch with Jürgen for instance. It was like Foxy said about Skid Row the leaders didn’t know all of their members. It was quite impersonal.
Crystal I just supplied two games, they missed Turbo GT but were quick enough on Baby Jo. Yes they had some flaws in the organization: processes, cards, etc. they seemed to not control everything, and I had the habit to work in organizations where everyone had a strictly defined role. Or either they were just not good at welcoming new members. It seemed that the group was running itself, and was quite well running, but there was no true leader at the helm. On the other hand, Crystal were really nice people, not like the baddies at Skid Row, even nicer than Quartex members (and it also means: nicer than me!). All those I’ve known during my scene life were very cool, and talented people, not only when I was in but also in other occasions, such as when I retired from the scene and became a not-so-active member of Melon Dezign.
At the end of 1991 before the police came for me, when I left Crystal and decided to join the new Nemesis adventure, it was mainly because I had taken the habit of a proven organization with seasoned professionals. Nemesis was approximatively Quartex minus the French members who had been or were fearing to get busted. So I already knew quite everyone, in particular the crackers and those in charge of the organization.
With reference to Quartex, but without Olivier in the new Nemesis, I knew Henk (Zelnik) and Adrien (XTC) were good organizers, who were able to take quick decisions, to rapidly find the right cracker for the right game, to supply virgin/business cards at any time, etc. And I forgot to mention: they paid everything in advance. I must say that I had a preference to work with Adrien, because Henk was sometimes very authoritarian and often managing through carrot and stick. On the other hand he was trustable, if you dared to be persistent and authoritarian with him, so when you finally had the carrot it was rewarding. I don’t remember having had the stick, so it was good enough for me. On his own, Adrian gave the impression to be more friendly with a constant mood, so it was easier treating with him on an equal manner, without conflicts.
Regarding your second question and the old amiga games when I’ve been busted all my old disks were seized. It was a pity I had so many rarities, notably internal utilities of different groups, the tools I had developed myself, assembler routines of my coders which were supposed to be used in future Delight demos, and a lot of my musics which had not yet been spreaded and thus have been lost forever.
Btw if you’re just looking for the games you have a chance to find them here:
Hi WayneK, as you have probably noticed n00w was not one of my handles on the scene, and probably WayneK was not yours. If you start by telling me which groups you were a member of and which handles you used, there’s a chance I will remind if our paths crossed during the scene. If you just care and you don’t want to reveal that publicly, send me an e-mail: myname_is_bond[at]yahoo.fr.
Also in the meantime I’ve read your question about Hoan and the answer by Foxy. It seems obvious that Foxy did not know Hoan personally. Although I never worked with him directly, I worked with other people who did, and I did know him as we met several times, generally in cordial and respectful conditions. In my post, the part about Aces, I mention Obi Wan / Quartex and he was the same person. Hoan was not as bad as a cracker as Foxy said, but yes some people gave him that reputation of lazyness. Sure he did not succeed in everything, but who did? Also when I said I ordered a fucktro to DMX / Phoenix against Aces and Diabolics, then Dr Soft and Hoan came to my place and were left outside, I was surprised to see that Hoan was there as I had nothing against him. The only one I wanted to fuck was Dr Soft, because at a CBC copy party he was just too arrogant and he talked to me very badly.
But the true story about Hoan you want to read is that when he was in Quartex, he was working at AMIE, a Paris-based shop specialized in Amiga hardware and software/games. It’s the shop where I bought my first Amiga 1000 (a collector signed by Jay Miner, unfortunately later seized by the cops). So, for Hoan, that was one of the reasons Quartex released so much cracks in the old times. Hoan received the games directly at the shop, and he had an Amiga readily to crack them onsite. That eliminated the problems of the original supplier, transport times, go and see the cracker or find a way (warp/modem, fedex or else) to send him the original, and in case this one was fucked up (as in the story told by Foxy about Gaston), there was always another original in the stocks.
Added 15 seconds later:
>could also be a guy called Laurent(megaforce) who did this a couple times… 😉
Probably Nasty Boy, organizer of Megaforce France.
Added 14 minutes later:
> I would love to also read about PaRaDoX, Quartex, Anthrox, PRESTiGE, Crystal and especially Betrayal, so if there is anyone
> that used to be in those groups back in the day, it would be awesome if you could take us (or me at least!) on a “behind the
> scenes” whirlwind tour of the past.I have plenty of anecdotes about Quartex and Paradox as I was very involved – so please don’t hesitate to ask questions, I have a few about Crystal, and for Prestige only what Blackbird told me – I had already retired when they were born. I can’t say anything about Anthrox (below the radar for me), and Betrayal has been very short-living – a one-crack group which released mostly utilities and only some trainers, as far as I know.
I love this thread! This is old school original supplier’s delight…
@Foxy: Long time no see,.. here’s François – if you don’t remember me (don’t you, really?), you will in a few seconds. How are you? I’d be pleased to meet you soon and have some drinks at a bar or eat at a restaurant in Paris, if you’re still around. Also it’s a long time I haven’t seen Stéphane, and the last times we met we were more friends than foes (things had changed after you and I got busted at the end of 1991). I even bought his modem for a friend of mine back in the 90’s. Anyway don’t hesitate to mail me at myname_is_bond(at)yahoo.fr. I will leave at the end of the next week for a long trip in the Americas but I’ll be back at the end of January. Please let me know.
In waiting I will be a little thought provoking, but you know me, no?
So you remember when you first joined local groups – it’s Raid! – as a swapper and gfx artist when I was leader of the group? Sure, everybody -both you and I- have had to start low before climbing the steps to the top. The difference is that before this local group I already had close ties with Ackerlight (applied for membership right before they got busted) and CBC (had been a short-time member). I also think I’ve taught you 2-3 practical things about the scene, swapping, etc. so I’d be glad if you could be a little more grateful and a little less contemptuous.
So you still don’t remember mmmh? Later Raid merged with Brainstormers and I took over leadership of BSM. With former Ackerlight members joining (C-Dryk, Pat and Broadcaster officially, Fred and Crocky unofficially) and also members of Bamiga Sector One, Freestyle UK, and others, Brainstormers released a music disk and several good intros. CPU and Amnesia, well, they weren’t better at all, and that Krapulax was sometimes a little strange. Clash wouldn’t contradict me about this.
Also about protections, do you remember Dragon’s Lair? It had been a several months wait for both 8-disks versions by BS1 and by the Australian TIC. But didn’t I supply you with the rare 6-disks TSK Crew & Accumulators version? I think I was the only one in France who received it, directly from them. And they wanted me to join.
And Dungeon Master? This one also was not MFM for sure. Thanks to my good privileged contacts I managed to get the Eagle Soft Inc. version which was 100% working (I finished the game!). It was years before anyone noticed that a 100% version just existed at all.
Then, do you remember how you met “the lame French leader” of Angels when we came together (correct me if I’m confusing you with someone else) at his place as I (yes, I, not TGS who only had the modem, not the originals) was the true original supplier for Paranoimia, then Vision Factory? – and my god this Patrick (Spirit called him ‘Patdick’) was lame, in fact worse than that: a “dirty scum” would better describe him, along with his homeless “wife” or whatever she was, and her trisomic son Willy (not the same Willy as in Bomberman & Willy, thank god! Hi to both of you friends!). Remember their horrible dog was pissing all over the place and they didn’t wash the mess. A true sight of horror.
FYI some years ago I discovered that ‘Patdick’ joined a religious sect, I found this somewhere on the Web. So him in a sect, and you boasting about how they wanted you to supply games for Paranoimia… that’s a strange world! At least I understood who he was before he created Angels, and I fled away. You say you didn’t like Paradox, but I think you’ve missed the point here. Olivier was the smart guy, and Patdick was the idiot. Guess who you have chosen? No, no, I don’t want to be rude… In fact you have chosen Duncan, that’s completely different.
About your little anecdote: two years later in 1992 with Maximilian we defrauded Patdick of 15,000FF for virtual USR modems which he never received. Hahahaha!!! He didn’t know that I was the underlying sponsor of the deal, which made it even funnier. Vengeance is a dish best served cold. Yes, that scumbag didn’t pay me for the originals I had supplied to Paranoimia and Vision Factory, but he finally paid more than ten times the sum. Let’s call it ‘Inflation’!
Now talking about Classic, do you remember how we moved together to go and get the original of James Pond Underwater Agent? – and yes Classic was quite lame at this time… Later they became better, as far as I know.
Then for readers around, do you remember when I came to your place and leeched all the latest warez on Danse Macabre before I got my first USR 14,400 bds? Do you know what I did with the stuff? I just came to copy parties and to lamers’ places with all the latest 0-day wrz, showed them to everyone, and just said “watch as much as you can because now it’s game over, no one will copy…”. It was the fucking rule of the 15 days embargo! Remember this? We were called arrogant people by lamers and copy slaves but it was only a matter of ethics. All in all it was the same story as “a game worth playing is a game worth buying”.
At last do you remember that you were greeted on top as Foxy/Sprint in the first demo ‘Overdose’ of my group Delight? I guess that after all these details you now have the full picture. Enough provoking.
Now talking about Classic’s lazyness and horrible things that Skid Row did, I could bring my own stories on the table about Crystal’s lazyness (I was first on Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge II but spent one day talking to nearly everybody there and uploading the game to every board so they could find me a cracker – (hi Phil Douglas! what were you doing?) – I think you did a better job at The Company with this one!), Oracle’s cheapness (no cards, and no money to pay for the originals – hi The Panther, great Texan accent! Why not making money with all your oil?), and weird things that Quartex and Paradox (very well organized groups!) sometimes did to others, like Fairlight for instance. But squatting, attacking and hacking BBS’s to prevent competitors from uploading their originals was finally not so nasty after all (hi Olivier!)… and who cares?
FFC and others who were blackmailing hackers with FBI threats is something I had never heard of. This is kind of terrifying. Usually I found the crackers to be some of the nicest people of all on the crack scene. In particular my friends Blackbird and Babydock of course, but also Sauron, SCSI, Phil Douglas, Nomad, Bob Duncan, TIC, The Surge, Bigfoot, Blackhawk… I’ve worked with all of them and they were all very cool guys. Blackhawk even accomodated me in his home the last time I went to The Party in Denmark. IBM, when recruited by Paradox, stayed at my place for a week or so and I toured him shopping and visiting landmarks in Paris. Also a very nice guy. I did the same with Nuisance (NYC-based sysop of Nirvana, Paradox WHQ) but he was sometimes complaining for very little things. In fact his parents were multi-millionaires so I can understand this.
Now even worse than the story of FFC and his friends, I also welcomed Bionomix, this time an original supplier. Not all of them are bad – for instance you and I and Subzero here are original suppliers, but maybe we are some of the exceptions. So Bionomix came with a friend of him at my place for several days, and these assholes stole my credit card right before leaving to Barcelona. I immediately opposed the card and complained to the police. They effectively found the card in Barcelona. Thanks to my quick reaction, these pigs couldn’t use it at all. And Bionomix was immediately fired from the group after that.
About the tools, at Quartex we had the TIC warper, the best ever of its kind. It was quite slow, not easy to use with its hermetic parameters and totally undocumented, but even the worst protections couldn’t resist. After that, it was just a matter of time with the modem..
So yes it was far west, with everything we had to always invent and all what you said about the war between groups, etc. But there was also all the phreaking stuff, the social engineering techniques, the 2-months business cards which we were lucky to have, as privileged original suppliers at least as Quartex and Paradox members. And if we had to find other means to call for free, it was easy to scan PaBX by ourselves. Al last at Delight I had Shadowvex sysop of our WHQ The Fiend Club, 2nd WW H/P/A conference and better known as… guess who!
In conclusion, no spitting in the soup – there was thrill, challenges, and a lot of friendship, and that’s why we loved the scene.
___
Supplied over 70 games and preview games (of which more than 10 insides) for over 5 years … how many on your side?
1989 – Anonymous supplier for WoW/Eurosoft-who handed the original to Aces (Les Portes du Temps) – but I was in war with Aces so it really pissed me off (remember the fucktro against Aces & Diabolics by DMX (Olivier – the same one!) / Phoenix? Hehe I was also behind this one – Stéphane was ok but Dr Soft was really upset and came to my home with Obi Wan/Quartex just to complain. Of course they stayed at the door :-p), Genesis/Alpha Flight (Savage – cracked/trained by FFC – the same one also!), Spreadpoint, Powerslaves…
1989 – Header/Aliens (Mr Heli, Hillsfar)
1990 – Advanced/Upsiders, in co-op with M.A.D. (Drakkhen)
1990 – Eresy for TGS/Paranoimia then Vision Factory (Sherman M4, Hot Rod, Test Drive 2+Muscle Cars+other extension pack, etc.)
1991 – Flex/Quartex (also as The Magic Trio+Kruel Krime UK, The Fabulous Five, Infernal Best, S.F.X. (Spirit & Flex), Alvin the Chipmunk, etc. for Toki, The Teller, The Blues Brothers, Geisha, Lords of Chaos, Midwinter 2, Booly, Burger Man, F-15 Strike Eagle 2, etc.), Oracle (never supplied anything: no arms no chocolate!), Crystal (Lotus Esprit Turbo GT 2, Baby Jo, … – also supplied the game to Model who was supposed to be the sole intendee, sorry for this Skywalker! and hi Bob Duncan!), Nemesis (founding member, just the day before I was busted – Fascination, which was finally released by Quartex – hey Olivier what have you done?).
1991 onwards – Voyce/Delight (Genesia (pre-English version meant French to English translation done by ourselves in the binaries, not a lame preview!), Olympique de Marseille, Stardust Playable pv, Necronom pv, Bomb-X, etc.)
1992-1993 – Paragon/Fusion (Super Ski 2 (as Chipster), Jim Power), Crack Inc. (Push Over), Skid Row (various games Q3Q4/1992 – see member lists), Interpol (nearly everything over the period, starting with Flashback), Paradox (nearly everything from Desert Strike to Arabian Nights (06/1993), notably everything supplied as Paradox France, as TGV, as TGV & TMW (myself and Willy), as TDT UK for Arabian Nights, etc.), TRSI & TDT PC (various games notably PC versions of the above, and Crazy Cars 3).
