Current Week Points: 08/10
Overall Score : 69/80

RBS (Rebels) - Still quiet, but I made this report on Wednesday and I saw shit - load of small releases from them today, so I will let them remain in my report for awhile. Lets see what they released in next week report in INQUISITION ISSUE 8!

Current Week Points: 00/10
Overall Score : 18/80

ROR is not good enuff to be a part of my report. Hopefully they will appear here soon!

Also wanna comment this 'new' mag Reality Checks that tries to compete with unbeatable INQUISITION! We all read this interview with Tsunami in INQ #6, isn't it pathetic when he explains the reason why he made his mag?? Because I press on groups?? That is really stupid if he think so, one of PNC seniors tried himself to PRESS on me to wr ite some good LIES about his group; I told him to shut-up and never do it again, and officially warned them in my report. I am glad PNC dudes understood it right and asked me many times after that to help them with releases, dupe checking et cetera . But, Tsunami never stops (grin). Hope his mag will be never so dupish as his previous group FSW when they duped everything and everybody on scene. And of course his mag will never get to be on top. Those reality checks are always painful for non-experienced people like TSUNAMI is. Farewell.

C-ya in next INQUISITION!

Jimmy Jamez [DOD BOSS]

You are free to email me on dod@ns.extech.msk.su

---=[ 3. Games Warez Report - Ionizer ]=--------------------------------------

---=[ 4. Reviews ]------------------------------------------------------------

I was looking forward to Advanced Civilization by Avalon Hill. Being a veteran of Civilization and Colonization, I was anticipating a new challenge, but what I found was a simple market strategy game, and a rather half-baked one at that. This is real ly my own fault. I was not familiar with the Advanced Civilization board game, and was really going on the game's title alone. Any time you combine the words "Advanced" and "Civilization" in a game's title, you can pretty much expect the same reaction f rom any dyed-in-the-wool computer strategist. To put it bluntly, I had set myself up for a disappointment from the start.

The game itself looks great. The main screen is a beautiful SVGA rendering of the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, divided into regions a la Risk. The gameplay involves trading commodities such as salt, gold, and grain to build up material wealth, while conquering and expanding your empire into neighboring territories. The game begins with up to seven tribes in the Stone Age, and progresses turn by turn to the Iron Age. During this time period, you must try to become the dominant nation, and ach ieve the civilization advancements like Literature and Roadbuilding necessary to win the game.

In reality, Advanced Civilization has very little to with the historical advancement of the civilizations represented in the game. They could just as easily have been corporations or blocks of stock, since trading to corner the market in certain items , while avoiding calamities as best as possible is the entire thrust of the gameplay. The idea of bartering, rebellions, earthquakes and epidemics during a trading session seems goofy and ill-conceived, but you must remember that this is a conversion of a board game. What you can do with dice and cards is far less elegant than what a modern computer can achieve in simulating the multitude of tiny factors that determine how civilizations develop.

This is certainly not Sid Meier's Civilization. Any pretense of representing this game as an historical chronicle of how civilizations rise and fall is ludicrous. Still, it's fairly fun once you give up the idea that this is anything more than a market simulation, and even then it's not without it's glaring faults. After nearly four hours of playing the game, neither I nor any of my f ive computer-controlled opponents was any more poised to emerge victorious than we were at the beginning of the game. The game seemed to deal us disaster after disaster whenever any of us began to expand or show signs of domination. This proved incredib ly frustrating, and eventually I lost interest in the game completely. This is really a shame because, like it or not, the age of board games is over. This game could have been so much more, and with some fine-tuning, still has the potential to be a goo d game but rote conversions of board games simply doesn't cut it anymore. Many versions of Risk, Monopoly and others have been converted to computer versions over the years, and while not complete failures, they just don't stand up to the originals. It' s simply much more fun to grab them off the top shelf of the closet, blow the dust off, and play them as they were intended to be played.

---=[ 5. Interview - InsaneTMM - Razor 1911 Founder ]--------------------------

INQ: Okay, I'd like to welcome you to this Inquisition interview and would like to thank you for taking the time. Very first question, what is your full handle and where are you from?

TTM: Sure, no probs. As long as there are no emergency calls I hopefully can answer all the questions. My handle is InsaneTTM, I come from Trondheim Norway. TTM stands for The Tractor Maniac. ;)

INQ: Could you briefly describe the founding of Razor 1911 and how the first few years developed?

TTM: We were just kids. In 1985 the three founding members where at the incredible age of 13, 14 and 14, so you can imagine that alot of games were played. But, after a while we soon started to get interested in demos. The specific date is no t remebered but, during October 1985 three guys, Myself, Secotr9 and Dr NO, decided to get a kewl name.

INQ: Who is "we," that is, who helped you found razor and what did each of you do?

TTM: After going through piles of bad ones we ended up with Razor 1911.

INQ: Where did the name come from? Why 1911?

TTM: Well in the beginning nobody had dedicated stuff to do; it was just like - Hey guys lets start a group.

INQ: So Razor started as a demo group on what platform?

TTM: Well, a friend of ours called Hellmates came up with Razor and we instantly felt that this one was great. The number was actually 2992 in the very beginning but was later changed to 1911. The reason why we wanna have a number is that ever y kewl group at the time being used numbers - like Flash Cracking Group 1941, Section 8, Electronic Cracking Association 1998, ABC 1999, Jedi 2001, 1103 and so on. The platform Razor started to work on was Commodore 64. The number 1911 is $777 in hexade cimal. Because at the time, a lot of kids used 666 and such childish stuff; we just went the opposite way as 7 is the number of the good.

INQ: How did razor grow and when do you think were the best times for Razor?

TTM: Hmm.. We grew up from the Commodore 64, to the Amiga. On the amiga, our very first releases came. It wasn't actually until 1989 our first releases came. We had problems getting our hands on the originals, as every new group with no stru cture had. But, then everything started to roll. We got our first overseas member, Zodact, that had a board. So, we went into the modem scene at the same time.

INQ: What was the competition like with INC? What about Fairlight or THG? Who was the most competitive, and what was the competition for in the early days? I mean, with the modem scene, and the distribution of releases.

TTM: Now we did games on a regular basis for a while, and on the amiga until 91, we had some 50 releases. Then, the next step was to get into the PC world. At the time we got into the PC, as you said INC and THG were the leading forces, but af ter all the years in the business, we had a lot of contacts everywhere and were able to get some real action together. We were so fortunate that in our close neighborhood we had a young cracker named Darwin. A lot of amusing stories about those days. H e once had to crack the game over the phone to some guy in the US before leaving for school in the morning, didn't have the time to upload it!! And then went home during his lurch to check that it finally was released. And from there on everything grew and grew.

TTM: The best days for Razor must have been on PC during the spring of 93. We had enough cards to have the rule the entire scene. We're talking about the 1993 edition of Razor's European courier team consisting of RazorBlade, Devil, Hoppermani a, GrimLock, Insane TTM, Slain and Digital Justice which made the every other courier teams in the world look like plain amateurs.

INQ: Was this around the time Darwin was busted?

TTM: Nope, Darwin wans't busted. He actually was outta the scene in 93. In fact as he was and still is a close friend of Razorblade. My most memorable moment probably was the easter of 93. We had 5 huge releases in 4 days. Trading round the clock; it was the most thrilling experience. We just beat the crap out of everyone else on all 5 releases. I had almost no sleep for the days, should just go to bed. When the phone rang and said "We got a release in a couple of hours, get ready." The s adly in a forthnight, when were at the ultimate top. I was busted, together with Baal and Gene here in Norway. S9 and DRno luckily escaped.

INQ: For cards?

TTM: After 10th of May 93, I have been out of the business. Just watching what's happening with the group, and I am proud to see that WE still are a major force. I was busted for CC, yeah.

INQ: How were the releases being distributed? To what boards? What baud rate were these at?

TTM: At the end, we had 14.4 and 16.8 modems. As mentioned above, the courier team from hell did the most of it during the golden age. We had one line at our main board, and one line at every other major board around - covering everything. Ha nging in there downloading all the disks except the first where the cracks usually are being placed - waiting for the cracker to upload it and then, BOOM! We get it everywhere in just minutes. ;) Ahh, what a feeling.

INQ: What major boards were memorable for you?

TTM: Hmm... Major board. Digging in the back parts of my brain - Elusive Dream and Pitts are our rival board. We have had like zillions of boards during the time, but getting into the rivals boards is always a great deal of fun.

INQ: How do you feel about subsequent leaders? What about TRC, Butcher, even today with TSR and The GEcko?

TTM: On the issue of our leaders. The one I have had most contact with is probably Butcher. He was a very kewl guy when you got to know him. He was sadly busted too. Today's leaders I must say I don't know at all. I won't get into the busin ess again. As I have got a kewl job with full INET connection.

INQ: What are you doing now? What do you think of the scene today? What about BBS's? Are they better or worse than before?

TTM: I ususally hang around on the IRC all day to see when we release something. Since I was busted 2 1/2 years ago, Internet has taken over alot of the distribution, plus the trading scene is being shut down in one country after another. So a lot of sites are replacing boards as we used to know them.

INQ: What do you think of the internet and the effect it has had on the scene? Do you think the scene will survive?

TTM: As long as there is games/utils being developed there will always be a scene around.

INQ: Do you think that there needs to be some sort of "elite" for the scene to function correctly? If so, what makes someone elite? Do you think that the net has increased the lameness in the scene?

TTM: There will always be "elite" and there will always be wannabees. And for the scene to function properly there will always be a need for elites to be there. Elite could stand for somebody that can organize properly.

INQ: The CDRip/NET question.

TTM: Hmm.. CDRips. There are two kinds of CDRips.

1. The good ones by usually quality groups.
2. The lame/bad ones froim new groups trying to break into the scene.

INQ: Do you think there will ever be a time when games are too big to pirate?

INQ: What would you say the disk limit for a rip should be?

TTM: Hmm.. Well I won't say anything because the quality of games vary, but more than 30 disks is like meaningless to me. One of my flatmates came home with a 29 disk game here one day. I don't understand why people care about copying of all of the disks.

INQ: Well, thank you very much for your time, and it was very nice talking.

This interview was conducted on November 28, 1995 by Darwin/DWi.

---=[ 6. Articles ]=----------------------------------------------------------

The PC scene is wide and diverse. The Elite constitutes the core of the scene, that which makes it exist. The segragation exercised by the lack of communication means of most of the Scene's members has forced some into exile, like natural selecti on would the weak or unlucky, onto the shores of the Internet. The Elite, by the same mean, was recreated in the body of the central groups and individuals that keep the Boards the center of all thing. PC, The Wall & the few Large Boards a re Cathedrals for the zealots of each of the main faiths to fly they color and seek supremacy.

The point is: 3 Houses struggle for power, of which two fear not to have to fight their way onto the Boards. The 3rd fraction, Razor, settles for the Bowels of the Net, and as a result, has embraced shame and dishonor by duping time and time aga in (this month alone : 3D-Table Tennis, Tyrian CD, Fifa Soccer '96 and now Civ-Net). The races takes place on The Big Boards. Razor's trend to dupe on the net is just a lame display of their total lack of trading and releasing power. Anyone could dupe a major group as they race to the Capitals of the PC Scene, where all conflicts are arbitrated. But such a someone can only be a lamer unworthy of any attention or respect. If Razor Members Persist in acting like lamers, they and their releases will be treated as jokes issued by a bunch of loosers by the PC Scene, and treated accordingly. On that the other two rivals agree.

The internet crowd is the reason why we fight. This competition guarantees quality releases to be spread onto the net. This parallels the survival of the fittest. We will not allow Razor's reckless behavior to spread diseases over a scene we fight so hard to keep healthy and satisfied.

First of all, I have to laugh. OK now that I got that out of my system, I'd like to ask who the lamer in the above excerpt is? You guessed it! Fan-Fan Latulipe. Aside from FanFan's obvious difficulty with the English language, this is a rude and lu dicrous way to address a problem. One of the things I've learned in my time in the scene is that you have to show respect and courtesy no matter who you are. This is just ludicrous. I'm usually comforted by how grownup the people in the scene are. The re are 15 year olds who act like adults. And then there are people like this. I'm very disappointed when I see things like this. There are better ways to resolve these disputes.

Well I won't comment anymore. Basically I just wanted all of the INQ readers to get a look at this, which is DIRECTLY quoted from the tdujam!.nfo in ef2000.

-CyBeRpHrEaK

There has been much debate and bitching over dupes among games' groups. I, myelf, have just entered the rat race and I have experienced some but nothing close to what our leaders have in the Games aspect of the scene. To state right off the bat, the g ames' scene is full of ego's and competition, so there probably will never be a time when there is a moment of silence between opposing groups.

From what I have gathered, TDU-JAM along with Hybrid have accused Razor 1911 of uploading partial releases and racing to the NET to get a release out.

A partial upload is not complete hence it is not a release. I see that plain and simple. I have heard that all top three releasing groups practice partial uploads and claiming the release. How can you claim a release when it's partial? If we were t o download 5 disks of 10 and attempt to install it, will it work? Of course not, only a dumbass would attempt to do such a thing. The first one to get it to the board is the winner.

That leads to the next question - What board sets the standard? Why PC and not a WHQ of a games' group? If TDUJAM wanted to slam Razor or Hybrid in a release, upload it to the WHQ of your competitor first.

As for uploading to the NET first - it shows that group rather give out to the masses than race to a board that only the ELITE go to play. What defines ELITE, you call LD and have an account on a 15-node board? If that defines ELITE, then lets close down the NET. The question that needs to be answered is - would you rather have a select few grab your release or have 10 to 100 times more people to grab and spread your release.

To my knowledge, PWA and Razor 1911 have gone for the "Bowels of the NET." I probably am mistaken that there are other groups who settle for the "Bowels of the NET." Could it be that some people rather take adavantage of the infohighway as means of transporting warez? Then again, some people are still ignorant of the NET and fear it since technology is not that great for them.

Anyhow, boards are front-runners for warez and probably will be for a long time. However, if a dupe is to be declared - who is to believe that someone dupe another group because they did not upload their release to a certain board first. As far as I am concerned, if I receive one groups' release before another then that "other" is the dupe.

Then again, I am an individual and not a 10+ node board.
- Raptor

---=[ 7. Internet ]=----------------------------------------------------------

INQUiSITION has a World Wide Web page site. Please come by and check it out. You can grab the Previous issues of INQUiSITION there plus the WWN archives.

http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~wdaddino/trb.html

If your group has a WWW page, please leave us a note and we'll advertise here.

---=[ 8. Announcements - There is Competition ]=-------------------------------

You may have noticed other 'zines popping up here and there in the warez scene. There have been a few which died after the first issue, yet there are some which stuck around. In the last issue you may have noticed a part where tsunami declared he was going to start a new mag, which will be better then INQ. To this date, I have seen two issues come out. Well, what can I say, it looks like RCN is here to stay, and it looks like INQuisition has its first real opponent, or competitior as I'd rather put it. I do not want battle between us, but rather "friendly competition".

How many times have you heard THAT phrase before? Many. How many times was it true? None. Every old timer in the scene, and some of the people who have only been around for a few years, have all complained about wars and fighting. Well, I'm one of those. I do not wish for fighting. However, RCN really asked for it. And I feel that INQ will give it to them. RCN's introduction clearly attacks INQ as being prejudice to some groups. Particularly attacks Jimmy Jamez. I'm just wondering how in the wo rld they expect Jimmy Jamez to sit by a frontal attack and watch what happens. RCN also claimed that it will try to get INQuisition members to join RCN. Again more instigation of fighting especially between the leaders.

Since I am a very active member of INQ, this "battle" also involves me, and I feel I should at least put a say in it. In the next few weeks there will be competition of INQ and RCN. There is no "Only One Will Survive", but there will be a strive to p ut down the other and to get people to read their mag. To this, I can only say that I wish RCN the best of luck. Their coded mag is not bad at all, but INQuisition is and will continue to be better. I will not attack any accusations made indirectly or anything of the sort, and I do not in any way wish to instigate a fight, but to face the truth, INQuisition is better. We being YOU, the reader, much more then does RCN.What RCN has, we do also, and more. More recent, more to the point, and simply more. More open-minded and more complete. INQuisition is the #1 to read. I do not see the point of reading INQuisition and RCN together each week, but then again I am not one to read the local newspapers over the state ones. Some people do choose to read b oth, the New York times and their local town's paper, and I guess those are the ones that would want to read INQuisition and the other mag. However, if there is a choice of two zines to read, there is no delema that INQuisition is the right choice.

We just have _MORE_. More of everything that can possibly go into a zine. A newspaper may grow popular and experienced over time, but it will not surpass something that has started earlier and gathered more power. RCN is new, and it will get better, but INQuisition takes the lead no matter what. We have many issues of INQuisition and Week In Warez behind us. No matter how good RCN may be and will be, INQuisition has been and will continue to be much better and much stronger.

I do not wish to recieve flames for this article. It contains my opinions, and mine alone. Not the opinions of the mag. I can only say that I said my peace defending the INQ for whatever battles it may need to fight in the future. Many may say I sp oke but gave no facts, it is true to some extent, but any editor or member will speak for their own paper, just as any parent will speak for their children. To me, INQuisition is better; I say this only to state the fact, and to encourage others to read, and read on.

- Lurch (lurch1@intac.com)

---

P.S. Sorry for any errors in grammer, meaning, or anything of the sort in this short text. As I finished this, my clock was pointing to 1:15 in the morning. If I repeated myself a lot, sorry for that too. Read INQ, it's just better. :)

P.S.S. There have to this date been 121 e-mail subscriptions to INQuisition. We really would like more. What, are you people forgetting the 1 in lurch1@intac.com? Well, happy reading.

---

Upon the release of the controversial TDUJAM NFO that FanFan finely typed up, it sparked the emotions of many Razor members. Here is an exert from Druidkin's E-Mail to the members of the Razor Net crew and his mailing lis t.

Ok did I get your attention? :) I'll warn you now I'm going to ramble on a little, but hey ya gotta love me. :) I want to address some issues that are hitting us right now and decide how we will approach our rebuttle.

When the whole, working release is available on net or online, a BBS makes that group win. Other groups are half loading releases to PC and other boards then going off to crack it and make it work. Then they

FanFan hates the net, so he goes crying to BBS's saying we are duping because my net crew fuckin rox. Let me tell you I shed a tear thinking about FanFan's dilema. This is the way of the future. Even some of our oldest

Our standards to play in their court. This is the big league, let them stay in the minors. Since our net team went into action, the only release that we were beat on is one game by TDU. That is it. The rest we beat them all

Veterans will sit and take too much. Our group has stood the test of time, and we always prevail. I am very happy to be part of the team, and a means to get the best games to the masses to review.

Cannot release faster, nor have working releases and what to cause trouble. You have all seen me when I'm pissed and it's not a pretty scene. ;) Keep up the outstanding work and expect to hear more on this issue. TTYL

Dan aka DruidKin - INet Director

We still like to announce that our good friend, Pieman needs support. Please contact his business if you have any hardware needs.

High Speed Tech
718-833-4949
Located in The Bayridge Section of Brooklyn New York

---=[ 9. Weekly Releases ]=---------------------------------------------------

Well, you asked for it! And YOU got it! This week's warez list is here and probably here to stay. We've revieced MULTIPLE MSGS requesting the Warez List which Bishop so kindly provided for WWN, that we decided to continue the tradition in INQuisitio n. This week's list is a beta - basically thanks to Oyl Patch we have a complete list of warez released this week. The list was compiled in one day though, and I only had about 1/2 hour to format and organize it. There may be things missing from here, sorry for that, but as I said, this was a first quickie. The list will be much better in the future. You may be upset of the way that the entries are written. Well, sorry, but that is probably going to stick around. Since not all items here have the re leaser's tag on them, we could not add a "group" column. The filenames at least to me seem unimportant, as well as the filesizes, if you want me to put them in the next issues, mail me, and if enough people want it, i'll consider it. (There really is a lot of work in it). This is yet another great feature which has come and will stick around in INQuisition. Enjoy the list, and the rest of the issue. Special thanks also have to be given to Oyl Patch for taking the time to help us out.

- Lurch (lurch1@intac.com)

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Applications

---=[ 10. Closing ]=-----------------------------------------------------------