************************* DOOR WORLD MAIL BAG!! ******************************** Questions and/or comments may be sent to Door World Magazine at the following locations: FidoNet 1:321/227 PhoenixNet 33:900/0 also the NUGI echo in PhoenixNet InterNet nugicon@delphi.com Or any of the FidoNet door echoes Dear Fellow Door Authors: In trying to put together a door authors association for the purposes of marketing our door products at ONE BBSCON, I have had a chance to have netmail "discussions" with several very talented door authors. One curious problem was brought up repeatedly to me: that pre-registered doors sold on individual disks at conventions would not fit in well with their existing key procedures and as a result they felt they would not be able to do this. Folks, I thought we were in this business to make money? If your existing key procedures are standing in the way of the possibility of your mass merchandising your door products, then IMHO you need to reconsider the restrictive nature of the key procedures you are using. Times are a changing in the BBS world people, and we need to change with them if we are to survive, prosper and mature with the rest of the BBS industry in the coming years. If we are in this "business" to make money, than we must treat it as a business! What are the two purposes of a key in the first place? First, again IMHO, it is to ensure that sufficient quantities of Sysops register our products so we can all make enough money to perhaps do this as a full time business some day. The key, as used in this case, "unlocks" crippled features or disables "beg screens" which is the all to necessary incentive to the sysop to register our products. Second, it is to hopefully ensure that our products are not pirated by dishonest sysops. On the first count it succeeds admirably and on the second it has succeeded poorly at best and has become more a hindrance to us authors than a deterrent to dishonest sysops. The trends in the rest of the computer software industry have been for the most part away from restrictive copy protection with the understanding that a percentage of piracy will always occur no matter what we do, and that is the unfortunate price of business. Am I advocating dispensing with keys? No, not in the least! What I am advocating is that we simplify our key procedures to allow us to move more into the main stream of marketing in the coming years as the rest of the BBS industry has. As of now I would say that doors command 40% of the interest in a BBS by users. The remaining 60% would be divided between file downloading and echoes in the level of interest by users of BBS's. Yet considering we are 40% of the BBS world, why are we not in the main stream of marketing? Well for one reason we are all budding individualists to begin with and for the most part don't work well in teams or want to be part of one. In the coming years BBS software, such as doors, will become so much more complex that the day of a single programmer doing the whole ball of wax, will become much more rarer. This is already happening big time in the computer gaming industry. As of now most top money games are produced by teams. When BBS software moves to windows and other GUI formats over the next two to three years, there will be a very large shakeout in our industry due to the sheer complexity of the door programs we will have to produce just to keep up with the BBS software in appearance. These door programs will have to be written specifically for a BBS platform and the tools to make those doors will cost more and have a much larger learning curve then is now the case. On the flip side we will be able to charge much more for our doors. Doors written for the Major BBS are an excellent case in point. As for marketing, conventions will become a major source of revenue for us door authors, IF we design our products with mass merchandising in mind. A few years ago BBS conventions were a rare event and only drew a small number of hard-core enthusiasts. Now they are cropping up all over the place. ONE BBSCON in Tampa is expected to draw over 7,000 sysops and hobbyists to that convention. That's a big potential captive audience with bucks to spend, and that's just one, albeit the biggest, of the several conventions this year! If we don't ease up on our restrictive copy protection/key procedure practices, than we are going to miss that boat big time. What am I recommending? Simple: design your key procedures so that you do not have to send out a highly individual encoded key for each door that is registered. My key procedure is a case in point. In my key procedure there exists a user editable three line text file which is read by the program to check if the user has registered the program. As a result I can include a non-changing registered key on a disk OR just send out a form letter which makes it easy on me and ensures that the user gets his key that much faster. Whoa, this makes it easy to pirate, you say! Perhaps, but I accept that risk as the cost of doing business, and I'm here to tell you that I expect to do a LOT of it at those conventions. No matter how much we try, dishonest sysops, which thankfully in my experience are few, will not care if the door is shown on his BBS as being registered to someone else. What user is going to care enough to read it, let alone report him to us authors? Have you EVER gotten a report from a BBS user outside of your area that a dishonest sysop was pirating your door? Hasn't happened to me yet, nor do I ever expect it to. Afterall, in reality what is the incentive for the user to do that deed? Personally I want to see our portion of the industry get the respect, recognition and profits it has long deserved from the BBS world and, unfortunately, for the most part seems to be lacking. Just look in any BBS or On-Line magazine and see how much we are mentioned as proof of what I am saying! To change that we are going to have to mature and change our old anti-profit ways. Simplifying our key procedures is the first step and organizing a marketing oriented door association the second. Just something to think on. Thanks for taking the time to read this "soap box" editorial from an "old" retired soldier who is now in the business of door programming AND marketing..... Bob Dalton Author of GodFather of Crime, Rise To Power, etc.. Co-Author of the DDPlus Door Programming Toolkit for TP 7.0 --- DDPlus - World's Best Doorkit * Origin: The TANSTAFL BBS, Harrison, AR (501) 741-5699 (1:391/3010) QUESTION: Can somebody please tell me how to kill someone, when they're in the Inn, and they're weaker than you? (re: LORD) I need to exact revenge on a couple of people (don't we all) but when I try to go into the Inn to slaughter them the bartender says, "A child could kill that weakling!" and he won't let me! The only way I can kill 'em is by doing it when they're NOT in the inn. Can I bribe the bartender extra to shut his eyes to let me kill weaker players? ANSWER: To kill them when your stronger you would have to wait until you can catch them in the fields. To put a bounty on them, just find someone who is a level above below or the same as the one you want to kill and offer them money if they do so. QUESTION: Are there any other Jennie cheats besides "babe"? ANSWER: Sure are! Here's some more for you to use. BABE - Extra forest fight SEXY - Extra user fight LADY - Gold, 1000 * Level (Example: Level 6 you get 6000 gold) DUMB - Nothing STAR - Nothing NICE - Nothing DUNG - Turned into a frog FOXY - Extra gem FAIR - Nothing UGLY - Kicked out of LORD, and hitpoints drop to 1 HOTT - Extra hitpoints Have fun!!! QUESTION: I have heard a lot of people who are able to strike it rich in BRE, like earning a billion credits a turn. Does anyone one know how that is possible? ANSWER: You need to get into the investments. Invest for 2-10 days and soon you will be getting more money. I think the limit is 2bill in 0971 but in 0956 and below you can get up to 20billion. QUESTION: I am having trouble with Usurper8. I have only one node setup and when a user enters the game, it loops with the "Performing maint. on another node". Anyone have any ideas? ANSWER: Delete maint.flg in your Usurper directory. Maybe even put it in your batch fiel befpre running the door. þ