Editorial
in front of our eyes,
hugi will live for ever,
because hugi is life.
life might vanish from earth one day,
but then, nobody will notice it anyway.
Welcome to a new issue of HUGI!
During this year, 1998, the PC Demo Scene has been strucked by several memorable happenings:
- The last issue of DemoNews was released.
- The last Wired party was held.
- The Hornet Archive is shutting down.
- Pulse.Poland does not exist any more.
- Doomsday has quit the scene.
Is the scene dying?
That is one of the most frequently asked questions in the scene at the moment. But the answer to it is not easy.
Some people share the point of view that the scene is not dying but changing - slowly changing. The change has begun with the growing popularity of the Internet back in 1996. Gradually, BBS's and mailswapping have lost their importance, while FTP servers, IRC, and e-mail have become more important for the scene. There was a demo archive that had existed since 1992 and whose popularity was now growing to vast dimensions. Its name was the Hornet Archive, and it had become the true center of the scene.
Now, at the end of 1998, Hornet is shutting down. That is certainly a major break and the end of an era.
But what people often overlook is that the scene was already there before Hornet, and before Hornet had gained that importance. Likewise, the scene will continue its existance even without Hornet.
There are several projects that have been designed as substitutes to Hornet. To name a few: Scene.org, Trebel, and ftp.demo.cat.hu. Sooner or later they will be established, and the scene will go on without any serious drawbacks.
As regards the end of Pulse.PL and Doomsday, the situation can be compared with Future Crew. Future Crew used to be the 'Scene Gods', which they are often still regarded as. Today, to some people Second Reality is still synonymous to the perfect demo. When FC stopped their activity back in 1994, it was a major break to the scene as well, as no comparable group then existed.
However, at that time groups like Pulse which are famous today did not exist yet; it was about the time of their foundation. But soon they evolved to the leading groups of the scene, entertaining masses of sceners with their demos.
So, if a major group stops its activity, that is not the end of the world. New groups will come and take its place.
Similar things apply to parties and newsletters (and diskmags, but let's leave that out as we are not egocentric, are we?): At the beginning, Wired was a small local Belgian party. In the end, it became a major international scene party. Other parties can manage to do so, too.
As for newsletters, there are some projects that try to develop to inofficial sequels to DemoNews (read more in the diskmag section of this Hugi issue).
But these visions will not come true if one thing is missing; and that is ACTIVITY. Only active people can change anything, can get any projects going. As long as there is any activity, there is a scene. But in the same way, if there is no activity, there is no scene.
To quote trid/Comic Pirates: "If the scene is dying, it is dying slooowly. But it depends on our behavior!"
Read more articles about this topic in the forum section of this very Hugi issue!
Since Hugi #12, two months and a half have passed. That means: We have kept our timetable and released the mag in December 1998, as announced in the newsletter.
However, if I have learnt a thing during the work on this Hugi issue, it is firstly never to announce approximate release dates until very soon before the release of the issue, and secondly never to announce the content of the next issue when these articles are not yet finished.
Let me explain. If you announce a release date very early, that will have the following consequence: At the beginning, there will be a period in which you get almost no articles from outside. But during the last few weeks, articles will rush in so fast that you have hardly any time to edit them. Moreover, you will get under a high pressure because every time you log on to IRC you will be asked by dozens of people when the mag will finally come out.
Fortunately this time I was helped with editing by Dendrite, who proofread a whole bunch of articles. Thanks mate!
An explanation for the article-rush-in-phenomenon is: If the release date is public, people know that they have to send in their articles till a certain deadline. So they take their time until the very last moment. In contrast, when there is no deadline and the readers know that the mag will be released as soon as there is enough text, they will hurry up to submit their articles more likely. I think this strategy also contributed to the success of Imphobia, and that is why I will pursue it from now on, too.
All in all I am contented with your support to this issue. But everything could always be even better! :)
The second thing has a simple reason: When articles are announced to be published in the next issue and they are not yet finished, it is not granted that they will really be written in time. An editor is a human being like anyone else, and like every human being he cannot foresee his future. It is possible that some event occurs which limits his time for writing, or other topics come into his mind, and he has the strong urge to write about them first. Therefore the magazine will most likely end up in not containing all promised articles.
As regards myself, I was in quite a hurry during the last days before this issue's release to finish my articles I had announced in Hugi #12. In the end, all got completed except one: the reviews of diskmags from other computer systems. But don't cry. Instead, this Hugi issue contains two long articles about the history of Imphobia and what the diskmags of today could learn from it, which I think is equally interesting. Sorry to all of you (if there were any?!) who were awaiting the Atari/C64-mag reviews. You will probably see them in Hugi #14 (I guess I should not have said that... :).
Some words to our 'fusion' with Restless. The Restless magazine is now definitely no more. Phoenix is going to leave the scene, and Goblin will contribute to Hugi in the future.
This Hugi issue contains most of the articles that were written and collected for Restless #3. Maybe you already have noticed that we also have some articles about the Amiga scene, which are interesting for PC users, too. Part of these articles found their way to Hugi through the 'fusion' with Restless. Ghandy, who is the main editor of the famous Amiga diskmag Showtime by Darkage, used to donate his articles to Restless for spreading in the PC scene. Now they are in Hugi.
I personally appreciate having Amiga articles in Hugi. For one thing, the PC scene will thus be able to learn from the Amigians; and for another, it makes the content multi-platform. Hugi is also open-minded towards other scenes than the PC one. We are ready to provide a platform for the sceners on Amiga, Atari, C64 etc., too. As soon as the HTML conversion, which is under construction, is finished, this idea might come true. Theoretically.
Some facts:
We have not used any single article from The E-Mag Network.
And the Forum section is bigger than last issue's one.
Go and enjoy reading!
- adok^hugi
To Civax: Congratulations to your recent birthday. There is a *little* hidden part in this issue, dedicated to you. Go and find it!