Actraiser's Lottery comments

[Simsense]

Dude. The grand prize for the lottery is a POS CD64. WHO THE HELL WANTS ONE? After reading all the complaints about the CD64 here and elsewhere, it sure isn't worth the $20 minimum donation to most people (myself included.)

Second prize is a GBXchanger. Those things are so incompatible it's crazy. You have to maintain a list of what games work with what cart sizes, and what games don't work at all. That's just too much.

It's not that we don't appreciate what's going on at Dextrose, it's just that the incentive for most people isn't incentive at all.

[RedboX]

While I'm not going to defend the concept of the dextrose lottery as I have fundemental problems who the concept of it.. I am going to ask you the follow....

ARE YOU MAD??

Lets say you donate 20$ and win a CD64 or a GBC.. you dont think that either of these devices are worth 20$??

I release you might not win, but 20$ is nothing in the big scheme of things...

The CD64 has a lot of bad press when in fact from a techinacl point of view its one of the best units out there, the early units had a lot of problems but things seem to of improved no end..

The GBX works perfectly, the problems here arose in the early days when bung were only selling small flash cards which were not big enough for the average GBC game, but with a 64mbit card now available I think that problem has gone, there are a few games recently that will not work as dumped, but this is due to nintendo starting to add protection to the games..

A interesting side note here about how the "scene" works, Harrison,Maderia & others are quite active in the "scene" and seem to spend a lot of time going on about how the Z64 is THE unit to buy and the others are crap, which is only logical as they have an interest in you buying thier product.

UFO dont activly involve themself, which means theres noone activly promoting the unit to any large degree, hence you will find more stuff about how crap the unit is than how good it is...

If you were to support independant sites you might get a nice unbiased review and then you'd know the truth... If only there was a way to support a indenant site like dextrose... oh wait.......

[RedboX]

BTW,

What I find more worrying about the dextrose lottery is the delivery of the prizes..
seeing as one of the sponsers, dOnline, has stopped trading due, apparently, cash flow problems, go read http://www.donline-store.com/ to find out more..

Anyway I look forward to what actraiser has to say now that his back from the good old US of Stateside..

RedboX/Dextrose

[actraiser_old]

I want to wait for other comments on the original post before i give my 2 cents on
that. Can't really believe that this is the
general opinion, but anyways, i will post
something tonight hoping that some more reflections are gathered before.

To Redbox:

About dminion, i dont know about any problems of the store, but the GBX has already been received by myself some time ago, so no problem with the shipping.

-act

[Mr.Mucho Romz]

hey.......I dont know why everyone dont
donate atleast 50% to dextrose......
After all they have done for us!
C'mon guys!
Ive been looking for act on #n64dev to say
that I am going to donate 50%!
well...I havent been on-line at the same time as he but I think he'll se this post.....:-)
I would pay 50% only for the T-Shirt!
It is a POM t-shirt isnt it???

/MMR

[unit]

To Actraiser (Rocco)!

I think wanting people to pay for access to a piracy released webpage is odd. (and dont tell me asking in your Site-Index for somebody who knows PBX-Numbers or dialups for free internet axs is legal). Also you cant tell us you spend all of your cash on updating dextrose. Also i know that firms like lik-sang and visoly spend quite alot for advertisement on decent pages. Dextrose is a nice page for gathering information but not "that" special after all as there are 100 other pages offering the same thing. Well i wont argue any more as i think there are lot of people behind my opinion.

regards,

unit/hs

[Dre]

What the?? I do hope, that ppl will donate, just to show that the general opinion is not like the above!

[EVL_DUK]

To RedboX on CD64:

"...from a technical point of view its one of the best units out there..." - sorry can't tell: i've got one of those 50% (so called early units?) that don't work http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/wink.gif
"The CD64 has a lot of bad press..." yeah but why? - simply because there are so many discontented CD64-owners!
but the very best one is: "UFO dont activly involve themself..." good joke man - i already know that, cause i tried to get any help from them!

To act:

of cause Dextrose deserves such a donation more than any other site - but i've got to admit i struggle with myself paying for things i get for free...
(by the way: you're not the only one who's got high phone-bills (scheiß telekom...))

[sugadaddy]

As far as I'm concerned, Dextrose is the only (and best) site of its kind on the 'net! i stumbled across it last year by accident, and I was inspired to buy a z64!

Who says piracy is bad for nintendo? I will mosdefinitely contribute to the lottery, as soon as my credit card gets approved! My little brother wants that GBX-changer....

[Mr. GoldenEye]

unit, you are wrong.
Dextrose is the best N64 (Underground) Site on the web. Actraiser, Hartec and their crew are doing their best to provide us with the latest news and stuff for our backup stations. And as far as I know, what they are doing is legal. And the people not from Germany should believe us that our phonebills are quite high! You say there are 100 sites containing the same information as Dextrose? Name one!
And which site has such a great forum?

And one thing in general: You should not call people by their real names, what do you
think why they have got the pseudos?

Und übrigens... "Scheiß Telekom!"

[colin phillips]

unit: I'm not going to flame you, I just think that Dextrose deserves a bit more credit, just think of what this site has to offer.
This is one of the only sites on the .net where n64 coders can come and get help with their problems.
I'll bet you that quite a few coders from Commerical N64 Companies go to dextrose to get n64 code snippets. Where else would they go to obtain n64 info?

and it's quite clear that Dextrose does NOT promote piracy. If it did then it would've been closed down a LOOOOONG time ago.

Mr goldeneye: Ist Deutsche Telekom eine stuck von scheiß?
You should see British telecom! http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

(I only post in college!)

/colin

[unit]

i wont argue about anything here anymore. just the "spelling" of actraiser in his index-message was a little bit offending to me. its ok for me if people donate cash. its just not o.k from a site operator to officially blame people for not donating antything. nobody cares & nobody is interested of : in and how other people are financing their online costs. if he didnt want that "so many" people want "actual" news every day there are several decisions and one of them is to take the site down. There are so many different ways to run a site - just look at the lik-sang and visoly banners. they spend quite alot of cash to be present on dextrose. It would never come in to my mind to ask other people if they could help me finance my online costs - its my own business that i run like i can/want to afford.

well, thats my point of view. and if people want to argue about it, fine for me, i dont wait that my credit-card gets
approved (like in a thread above) cause i surely dont donate to dextrose. (but i donate for kosovo people!) they deserve it http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

unit/hs

[actraiser_old]

Unit, please check your sources, Lik-Sang does not and NEVER has spent a PENNY on the advertisment here.
It's simply a prejudice that they spent a lot of money, neither do the other companies spent "a lot" of money for advertisment on Dextrose which actually should attract MOST of their online customers by the way.

Please dont spread lies, if you dont know it better.

Second, i dont want to make feel anyone guilty about not donating, but i dont see the point organizing a Lottery, getting prizes and stuff if noone is interested anyways and the shipping of the prizes is actually eating up all donations.
After all i try to make people feel they GET something out of it (do you think i got the Shirts for FREE in the first place ? Hell No, I paid them of course, and thanx to custom, it was quiete a bit).

Its True, i spent all my money on Dextrose and my appartment and the bit i need for living. If you cant believe that, sorry you.

Dextrose is more than a hobby for me and i know that this is my fucking problem probably how to afford it in your point of view. But in my opinion everybody willing to help me out is VERY welcome to do so.

I am not on a 40US$/Month cable-connect like you, I dont have parents paying my bills and my appartment, and i dont even think about putting up 5cent per click porn-banners online.

I actually was able to "afford" Dextrose in the first 1,5 years since i had a job and nearly spent all my earnings into phonebills. Now i am student, and situation got VERY worse lately, i now even have to go EVERY weekends to a 20hours-job in a harddisk production line as a worker to pay my bills.

If you dont believe that, then sorry. I cant help you about that. Its the fucking truth.

And if i dont get a flatrate or any other way to call for free or at least below 150$/Month , i cant afford Dextrose really in future. And if you are happy that Dextrose is down sooner or later it is your opinion, and i dont mind since free speech is welcome as long as you dont spread lies.

I doubt that there are 100 other sites offering the same contents neither in quality nor in quantity. Name me a SINGLE one. Thanks in Advance.

I dont want to sound offensive, but i must
protect the spirit of Dextrose here which is implied by you as moneymilking machine, but
it isnt. Its a my beloved Hobby for 2,5 years, and whenever Dextrose will be down, a small part inside of me will be too.

thanks for listening.

-act

[This message has been edited by actraiser (edited 05-20-99).]

[just64bits]

what act said is very sincere and honest ... visitors here who have a regular job and with a heart and a hobby like him could probably afford to set up 3 or more Destrose ... so I do believe most people here are either without heart or are too bored (have too much time on their hands) ...

some kids here do not understand life/economy processes and do not yet know how to appreciate things that are given to them ... I guess that takes time... unfortunately.

Dextrose quality is far good enough as a fee based memeber service but I can understand that there would be concerns of freedom of expression, closed-door operations (vs. open-source), attentions from big brothers, etc. so lottery is just an idea to draw some funds.

I believe we should donate with a attitute like you want to help but not you want to get a prize ... and you could say to your buddies that you helped building Dextrose, etc. and I would think it's fair that you did it then said that.

Just get $10 or $20 from your pocket (or your dad?) and say you want to donate to a good cause ...

[unit]

First of all: I never, ever said dextrose is
a site to take down cause of its material, site-holders or other kinds of stuff. Its still and always will be the best kind of information for our beloved hobby. What i also always hear pople saying: dextrose is the work of acraiser and ravemax - indeed its the work of all console-sceners out there!

To get the 2nd thing straight is the fact that actraiser and myself grown quite big
friends in the last several years and he's
a very-kind and nice person. When we meet
we always have great fun with our friends around the globe!

Ofcourse again those 2 replies twist my words
around. Also i dont lie around actraiser. Its
just true that those 2 companies, present with the banner down below in the forum, sponsor people with hardware if they get a banner up at sites that offer related material. You&Me and one really good friend from both of us know that, so theres no need to lie. Well its ofcourse not the main factor that good me upset. The only thing that got me a headache was this sentence in your index:

Sorry dudes, but how am i supposed to afford minimum 400US$ phonebill PLUS additional powerbill each month if not supported by the people who use Dextrose daily ? I am not living at home and no mum or dad is paying anything here.Please think about it and give a little. If ONLY 1% of the daily visitors would donate 20$-50$ a month, my phonebills are paid. Doesnt sound undoable. -end
-


If i tell you that i run around US$ 800 costs only for internet and cellular phone with and income of approx 1800 US$ a month. (without my house paid / car paid / injurances paid etc.) than i dont know whats wrong with my opinion. For my own it was just offending abit. Anyways www.dextrose.com will always be a site to look at so close the thread now!
http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

to just64bits: i wont argue on your reply
cause only actraisers reply was in my interest.

unit/hs

[Stu]

OK, now I'm confused. First you said that there were 100 sites just like it (trust me, there are not), but then you come back and say its the best in the scene. I think if people have the ability to donate then its a good idea. Its takes money to run a site and I appreciate someone doing all the work to help all of us. And if you think winning a CD64 or GBX is not worth it, then don't donate, but I think they are great prizes.

[Sound of Silence]

Thought I'd give my two cents on the matter:

I and many others have always been under the belief that one should not make money off of the piracy-scene... Yeah, you claim your not making any money off of DX... But honestly, where is all your hardware coming from? I find it hard to believe that Bung has never given hardware to you... Actually, I KNOW you've been given some hardware... Despite the fact that Sage claims that he has seen proof that Bung has supplied you with quite a bit of free hardware, I can't prove that myself, but I believe Sage in this matter... I know for a fact that at the very least Dextrose has gotten a free Z64 out of the site... Now I know a Z64 doesn't pay the bills, but I'm sure its not the ONLY thing you've gotten out of it. I have no problem with Dextrose having a donation/lottery type thing... But when it gets to the point where you are giving us guilt trips about not donating, its quite silly. Now on to specific responses:

"and the shipping of the prizes is actually eating up all donations."

Then why are you doing it? The whole point of the lottery was to make some $$$ for Dextrose... Now you claim you're not making anything off of it... Then why are you still doing it? And how many lotteries have there been? Shipping inside the US does not cost a whole lot of money, and thats where you sent the latest batch of prizes out from.

--

"After all i try to make people feel they GET something out of it (do you think i got the Shirts for FREE in the first place ? Hell No, I paid them of course, and thanx to custom, it was quiete a bit)."

I wasn't aware that Atreyu charged you for them... I could be wrong here, but everything I saw on IRC made it look like he was doing the t-shirts for you out of kindness...

--

"I doubt that there are 100 other sites offering the same contents neither in quality nor in quantity. Name me a SINGLE one."

It's impossible to... Why? Because any site that does sprout up, instead of Dextrose taking it as friendly competition, you try to give it a badname and destroy it... Latest being V64.Com, more personal to me happens to be Interstate 64... I quit Interstate 64 because I didn't have time to do it anymore, but I was constantly harassed by you, and other members of Dextrose/MSFTUG because of the site... Why? I never knew... Never stole anything from you (though you claim I somehow hacked the Dextrose 2 in construction web-site and out of all the cool things it was sporting, I stole the name "The Library" -- I mean its such an ungeneric name, two people COULDN'T have thought of it)... In reality you just didn't like the fact that you did have competition... I updated more frequently, and had a little more "style", and it drove you nuts... So don't go saying you welcome any competition, cause you don't.

--

Lastly... Something I just need to get off my chest... Dextrose never apologized about the DX Bios... I realize that it was "Ravemax's project", but it was sponsored and housed by your page, thus Dextrose as a whole was responsible for it... Ravemax promised these base features, plus a release date... Claiming it was all possible -- which it was... CDROM support, GUI, yikes! A LOT of people went out and bought a $400 Z64... Two years later, with no updates, Ravemax drops the project... In reality, Ravemax had dropped the project almost a year before, just hadn't decided to let anyone know yet. Now, I can understand him losing interest in it, but at least make a sincere apology, and try to get someone else to finish it... Yah, he claims he's looking for someone, but he's not... He's doing other stuff, hasn't even bothered to actively search for a replacement coder...

[actraiser_old]

SOS's post was a bit out of line, but
anyways here some comments which have now NOTHING to do any more with the original Thread in my opinion but well:

We dont kill any sites. v64.com as well as your site stopped because both siteops didnt have the time/fell like continuing it (in my opinion because you both noticed how MUCH work it bound to make a very good site with only a few resources and how much spare time you could use for something different but is "wasted" by doing updates, getting infos etc).

I am doing this site ALONE ever since, except for Hartec who helps out with design and database stuff. Its not that 100 people are working at "Dextrose Inc.".

Neither is it true that Dextrose would bash anyone neither private nor in public.
If you blame me for that to make the disappearence of istate look better in public, well...

No offense, if i am wrong of course, but i get the intention right now.

I wonder what happened to planned n64scene.com and the "whole new" v64.com.
Or what happened to Hitsquad's Summer64's prizes which has not been shipped up to today ? Dextrose's Fault ?

I REALLY hoped both sites would start or go into a new innovative direction actually to make things interesting again.

I dont really know why they stopped
caring for visitors as they never put something on their site about that.

All i "heard" at v64.com was that the siteop
had no time anymore, but again, as it was not officially on their site mentioned, i cant know for sure.

How would people feel if we commentless stop
Dextrose from today on ?

Where are all the sites Dextrose probably bashed in your opinion ? Your Interstate64 ? V64.com ? Are you mad ?
What development did all the others sites take since the whole scene started ever since ? All bashed by Dextrose ? Yeh, Right... I may add that Dextrose was a VERY little site once as all others too.

I sometimes tend to think that some people dont like the "professional" development of Dextrose actually. But from my point of view, i want to do things right and as best as i can, and development is part of the process.

Dextrose is run by Hartec and me, and NOT
by Ravemax.

Hartec does designstuff and database from time to time, me the rest (which actually also incl all updating = phoning).

DX-Bios, that complain is , sorry, a bit nuts. Complain to Ravemax, he is the ONLY one responsible for the Development of the Bios and that topic doesnt really fit to this whole thread anyways. Probably you needed something to make your post bigger, from my point i tried EVERYTHING to encourage him to continue it, but he is NOT PAID, nor BOUND by contract to you to code this bios either, and as a free man, has his own right to decide what to do and what not.

We are not scapegoats for other peoples mistakes (e.g. Mr.Backup not incl CDROM Support).


Next: Sage = Bung = V64.com, any more comments needed on that ? Question is, who tried to bash someone by spreading rumours.
I even talked to the Boss of Bung to make Sage stop that shit and he apologiesd.
From that point on the thing was ok for me and settled, there is no more to discuss about that old story and probably sage would agree on that.

Your problem is, that you barely know all details and that you are right now talking about things which's ending never were discussed in public for good reasons.


POM Prizes + $$$:

Your financial thinking is , excuse me, not very advanced.
Things which had to be paid for POM:

- Making of Shirts & Chair + Second day Fedex Shipping from USA to GERMANY (VERY Expensive)
- Paying 21% Tax at Custom for the whole thing
- 21% Tax payment on all other prizes we received from other companies
- Shipping from Germany to around 6 different countries via airmail.
- Shipping from USA via airmail.
- Plus Fees for transfering Money (Donations)
for USA to Germany.

Not to forget the immense STRESS we had, but
we were aware of that anyways, but its sad that people like you dont appreciate that. POM99 was a great success and we are VERY proud of it.

Besides it was clear we use the donation money for POM, but what i originally was talking about was that the shipping of the LOTTERY Prizes already eat up most of the donations.
That should show you that not many people are helping by donating money.

Your "intentions from IRC" are not enough to yell. Get all your details right before spreading lines i must correct afterwards.

And again, there is no way right now to make MONEY out of Dextrose. If you think so, fine do that. But right now, I have financial problems as stated above, and that would SURELY not be that way if Dextrose is a good money-cow for me.

And if Dextrose COULD be used to make money from, i would say that would be GREAT!
Its probably a dream of everyone to make money by just doing his hobby. Nothing wrong about it, but as i said, right now, impossible.

To Unit, buddy, no, Lik Sang is not sending my either money nor any hardware. All Hardware he actually sent to me is either PAID since i ordered it for myself or if not paid, used for the Lottery or POM99 ONLY. Its REALLY that way, you can ask the boss there, as you probably know him too.

Yes, Dextrose is more or less a mirror of the work of the N64scene, but still expensive. I think the whole information traffic of the scene needs a place to gather, and that is "Dextrose.com". And as long (and i repeat myself again and again and again) as its not affordable, i MUST ask for help to protect Dextrose from dying because i dont want that of course.

And if companies spent a lot of money on OTHER sites, then they probably have better negotiators. http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif
Maybe you can hook me up with a really good paying customer so i dont need to worry about financial problems due to high bills anymore.

To get the intention to the others right:

Unit and me are friends, and i respect his opinion but needed to get things right. We are of course still friends, since we are man enough to talk about stuff of that kind without a problem. Its not that we are really bashing each others here.

I can probably understand that you felt that the text on the index was blaming the Dextrose Visitors for not giving me their money. It is not, Sorry. All i can blame is
actually the German Phonecompany with their incredible high rates.

And usally i come along with SOS very good too in my opinion http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif But your comments were really a bit out of line, nevertheless, this is a discussionboard, and i discussed all of the comments. In my position as bashing-dextrose-leader i could have deleted your lines plus your account too, right ? (plus banning from IRC etc...). That would be bashing and killing sprouts....

And finally, when the phonebill is paying itself (for example by flatrate) and Dextrose is still alive, my promise is, that Donations are no more asked for (and so put down) and the lottery will still go on for more or less free, whenever that happenes.

I will close the topic if no more urging discussable comments will appear soon. Thanks for the lively discussion. I hope people get the right intention of what is actually happening here.

-act

[This message has been edited by actraiser (edited 05-21-99).]

[Simsense]

WHOOOO!

Ok, I have NO idea what any of you are talking about, but I didn't mean for the discussion to get all whacked out like this.

All I said was that the CD64 sucks and the GBXchanger is too hard to get working. Violia!

[silver]

Actraiser writes:
"Next: Sage = Bung = V64.com, any more comments needed on that ? Question is, who tried to bash someone by spreading rumours.
I even talked to the Boss of Bung to make Sage stop that shit and he apologiesd."

This is totally crap, Bung likes to think Sage works for them because he is a good connection in the gaming industry. Sage runs his own company and works closely to Bung, in return Bung give him good prices and information about new products. Secondly I don't know the "shit" that actraiser is talking about, this is between actraiser and sage and should not involve bung, v64.com and myself.

SOS writes:
"I quit Interstate 64 because I didn't have time to do it anymore, but I was constantly harassed by you, and other members of Dextrose/MSFTUG because of the site... Why? I never knew... Never stole anything from you (though you claim I somehow hacked the Dextrose 2 in construction web-site and out of all the cool things it was sporting, I stole the name "The Library" -- I mean its such an ungeneric name, two people COULDN'T have thought of it)... In reality you just didn't like the fact that you did have competition... I updated more frequently, and had a little more "style", and it drove you nuts... So don't go saying you welcome any competition, cause you don't."

Now I totally agree with this statement, current my IP range and probally all of the country I live in actually is banned from www.dextrose.com, I get a DNS error viewing dextrose. This was changed from a redirection to www.fbi.gov, so if I tried to view www.dextrose.com I got redirected to www.fbi.gov - This is the lamest of lamest things I have ever witnessed in my computer life. I now view dextrose "other ways". This stemmed from some pictures that actraiser claimed I stole from his website on a N64 emulator. But the truth of the matter was that the author send the photos to Hartec on IRC and then emailed me and several other people the same pictures. When actraiser accused me of this theft I told him about the email that I recieved and instantly his story changed to "You stole those thumbnames from dextrose", which I didn't I just resized them to make them easier to view.

Don't get my wrong I don't hate dextrose, I'm not a child, it's not worth my time to think about it. I feel for actraiser having to work 20 hours a week on a production line, I also live in a country with timed phone calls and no cable modems. I work 50-60 hours a week and even saturday's because it's the law in the country I live in. If people can donate money to dextrose thats great, but I will never recommend visiting dextrose.com anymore after what actraiser did. Actraiser was all friendly like when I was going to get him some dreamcasts, I even tried calling his house in Germany so sort something out (friendly like), he just hung up on me when he heard my voice.

Finally before my message is editted I recommend visiting http://www.v64.com, which will be open shortly again.

[unit]

to simense : hell yeah. that what it was all about! http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

Lets close this thread with the word up that people who feel comftable with the lottery should indeed spend to this great site - others who dont feel like to : he happy to enjoy the latest information gathered here!

To Actraiser:

Im going to do a real "Kaiserschmarrn" now
and eat it. If you feel like you want one
to - i invite you to my place in the austrian alps this summer! http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif


end
unit/hs! http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

[actraiser_old]

Silver you dont have the slightest idea about Sage's relation to Bung as you personally told me once.
And your IP is banned for a wide range of reasons, and yes, dont call me at 5am in the morning, i would appreciate that.

As for your comments, they are wrong, and btw i work 20 hours per weekend (incl nightshifts from 9pm to 5am, and not per week.

Now I totally agree with this statement, current my IP range and probally all of the country I live in actually is banned from www.dextrose.com, I get a DNS error viewing dextrose. This was changed from a redirection to www.fbi.gov, so if I tried to view www.dextrose.com I got redirected to www.fbi.gov - This is the lamest of lamest things I have ever witnessed in my computer life. I now view dextrose "other ways". This stemmed from some pictures that actraiser claimed I stole from his website on a N64 emulator. But the truth of the matter was that the author send the photos to Hartec on IRC and then emailed me and several other people the same pictures. When actraiser accused me of this theft I told him about the email that I recieved and instantly his story changed to "You stole those thumbnames from dextrose", which I didn't I just resized them to make them easier to view.

Now thats a case for Kindergarten Cop.
This misunderstanding was settled within 24hours man so dont imply that is the reason you are banned.

Finally before my message is editted I recommend visiting http://www.v64.com, which will be open shortly again.

Ah, so probably you got a new ISP then to steal copy and paste updates here (hint: its a joke) http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

Unit, thx for the final words.

Topic Closed.