For our guests from places outside of the normal scope of the site, fundraisers work by giving someone who owns the prototype money. In this case, I paid up front to someone who owned these prototypes so that they didn't disappear, and am simply wanting to lessen the blow to my wallet.
I am not the original owner of the prototype, so I do not have the fancy carts.
What you are getting :
*PAL Beta of Perfect Dark (Two days before final build - C-Up and C-Down to enable MCM, less options than NTSC)
*NTSC Beta of Perfect Dark (March 22nd 2000 build - C-Up and C-Down to enable MCM, a couple of more options than PAL)
*Conker's Bad Fur Day "Debug" (October 25th, 2000 build - Hold all C buttons on start to cause an interrupt and the debug menu. Doing so later crashes the game, but it may work on real hardware)
*Conker's BFD ECTS Demo Build (Made for a trade show, lots of differences, lots of crashes. Hit start to skip the intro cutscene or itll crash)
Note that I cannot say how much uncut or possibly uncensored stuff there may be in Conker. I never played the original game to any extent.
Further down that first page.
Borman wrote:I just need to free up some funds for an Everdrive. If not, it works fine in an emulator really, Id just imagine the text is a bit more visible on a console.
So what is the deal, does he already own the game? Just wants to buy himself a N64 Flash Cart? Is he planning on selling just the downloads or creating flash carts to sell? The following pages shows screen grabs which insinuates that he already has the downloads.
My take on this which I posted back on Assembler in the "I think this should be a rule for buying and selling unleaked builds of games / Should people be generous and not greedy?" Thread.
Betas are fine to sell if one is not greedy about it. If its a digital only and expensive then count me out, that is plain selfish. Sell the original game for gobs of money, not the download. Of course it is the individual's choice to decide how to release a discovered game.
I enjoy finding out about Betas and like to play them too. Owners of Betas have a responsibility to preserve a game and should also be helped in their efforts to get a game out.
How one beta was released
Atari Age who helped uncovered a Beta, worked with the original programmer to complete the game coding and is selling 5200 TEMPEST. The game was reproduced on EPROMS in an Original Game Cart along with Professional Box Packaging and Glossy Manual. Considering all the work involved and the 30 year history, fifty bucks is very reasonable. THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY TO RELEASE A BETA.
Compare that 5200 game to what has been happening in most new posts claiming to discover a new beta and asking money up front. If one wants to do a kickstarter donation at least make it worth the effort by offering more then just a digital download. I do not care for Kickstarters. If one loves the gaming and really wants to preserve something discovered, put it up. If a product is good enough, I'll put money in only if a download is at a modest price. I would be willing to purchase a beta for what many of the "Beta Hostage Holders" are asking, but only if it is reproduced as close as possible to the original game; done the right way as in 5200 TEMPEST.
Last edited by CRTGAMER on Thu May 09, 2013 2:36 pm, edited 3 times in total.
The proto scene is expensive, and prototypes that are dumped lose an insane amount of value.
Most people holding protos for 'ransom' are basically just trying to recoup their potential losses. A proto that might've cost someone a few thousand dollars to obtain might be worth maybe a couple hundred after it's dumped.
So yeah, it's not really cut-and-dry "greed" when that happens.
AppleQueso wrote:The proto scene is expensive, and prototypes that are dumped lose an insane amount of value.
Most people holding protos for 'ransom' are basically just trying to recoup their potential losses. A proto that might've cost someone a few thousand dollars to obtain might be worth maybe a couple hundred after it's dumped.
So yeah, it's not really cut-and-dry "greed" when that happens.
Just edited my previous Reply. Note the large font, seems like he just has download dumps.
The Tempest example is not really applicable. While that was a beta, the folks at Atari Age cleaned it up and released a legit game. Conker and Perfect Dark both got legit releases. These betas are for people to poke around in and see what they can find that is different than in the final release. Also, repro N64 carts would be prohibitively expensive. Subdrag, of the Goldeneye Hacking fame and is working on Conker as we speak, has stated in the past that it is just not worth trying and to buy an Everdrive instead.
Not a fan of Assembler games, they dont actually do anything but buy and use games that have never been finished or released, and why would i want to play the beta of a game i have CIB and is polished to a nice finish?
Hazerd wrote:Not a fan of Assembler games, they dont actually do anything but buy and use games that have never been finished or released, and why would i want to play the beta of a game i have CIB and is polished to a nice finish?
Betas can give us a lot of insight into a game's development. Sometimes, betas can also even be drastically different from the final product (see: the Sonic 2 beta).
Plus, there's the unreleased games. You're telling me you never saw an old preview for a game that got cancelled and said to yourself "That looked cool, I wish I could've played it."?
Hazerd wrote:Not a fan of Assembler games, they dont actually do anything but buy and use games that have never been finished or released, and why would i want to play the beta of a game i have CIB and is polished to a nice finish?
Betas can give us a lot of insight into a game's development. Sometimes, betas can also even be drastically different from the final product (see: the Sonic 2 beta).
Plus, there's the unreleased games. You're telling me you never saw an old preview for a game that got cancelled and said to yourself "That looked cool, I wish I could've played it."?
Yeah, but the ones i want to play are buried deep im sure
Like Eternal Darkness 64, i remember seeing screenshots, and Earthbound 64, also seen screenshots, cant really think of anything other than that.
But from the youtube video of Conker 64 Beta, it didnt look much different.
Hazerd wrote:Not a fan of Assembler games, they dont actually do anything but buy and use games that have never been finished or released, and why would i want to play the beta of a game i have CIB and is polished to a nice finish?
Betas can give us a lot of insight into a game's development. Sometimes, betas can also even be drastically different from the final product (see: the Sonic 2 beta).
Plus, there's the unreleased games. You're telling me you never saw an old preview for a game that got cancelled and said to yourself "That looked cool, I wish I could've played it."?
Yeah, but the ones i want to play are buried deep im sure
Like Eternal Darkness 64, i remember seeing screenshots, and Earthbound 64, also seen screenshots, cant really think of anything other than that.
But from the youtube video of Conker 64 Beta, it didnt look much different.
There's a lot of stuff out there, you never know. The people who have the really sought-after stuff generally keep pretty quiet about it.
Like I said, these particular betas aren't all that interesting, but there are some interesting n64 protos that we might see one day. There's the N64 versions of Dinosaur Planet and Resident Evil Zero, and the drastically different older builds of Ocarina of Time.
There is an early build of Conker 64 that people are really interested in (the one from before they added in all the swearing, blood, sex and poop jokes), but this isn't it.
