Last week Philip of MSXgamesbox needed some kind words, now Sandy of Generation MSX needs a motivational boost. The topic of his post on Generation MSX has been on my mind for a while as well.

Allow me to elaborate. Looking back at the past few years, we've seen an amazing increase of the activity of quite some MSX developers, who have been increasing in numbers as well. The success of the MRC Challenges and the MSXdev competitions speak for themselves, while even more software was released outside those challenges.

New websites and magazines appeared, new groups have been formed (anyone ever heard of Kralizec or Infinite in 2003?), the MSX Revival is getting it on... in essence, there are many reasons to be positive, many reasons to give those who make it happen (and in many cases: have been making it happen for many years) a pat on the shoulders. Somehow, it seems that the increase of activity mostly brought an increase of negativity with it, though.

The "that'll never work", "first see, then believe", "why even bother" and "who gives, MSX is dead anyway" mentality that has been proven wrong time and time again is still haunting the MSX community every now and then. MSX Community: the fact that Sandy and Philip are wondering why and for who they are maintaining their great MSX websites is a sign. More than once I have been told by people who have offered their software for distribution in our downloads section that the only feedback they receive to it are the download statistics, if they make it to the top 10. And of course comments when there's a bug, typo or other error to report. Is it really that hard to turn those frowns upside down and give things a positive twist from time to time? To let those who are actively trying to keep the (memories of the) MSX computer system in all its aspects alive know that you appreciate what they are doing? That you like what they have created? To accept the things you might dislike about a website, person or project and cherish the good things it has to offer? Or to at least turn those negative feelings into a positive form of feedback?

It doesn't have to take a lot of effort. You don't have to send flowers, money or snailmail. An e-mail, forumpost or reaction to a newspost is often more than enough to let people know there are quite a few out there watching the 'active few'. It takes so little efforts, but it's oh so important to keep the MSX computer system truly alive. So, MSX community, what -do- you want?

World domination is what I want ofcourse. And some more positive reactions now and then to the active ones are a good thing too. The maintainers of websites can also see the interest of the public back on their website statistics.

Eh, people don't have to send money Snout? Where did you get that?

I think that it is very clear. We need female MSX users! Is there a better motivation than a cute girl playing Salamander alone, and then she ask you to join the game with the dualplay mode? (F1 + F5).....

Nah... just dreaming. Now that I got awake again.... where is the girl playing Salamander? T_T

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I think that it is very clear. We need female MSX users! Is there a better motivation than a cute girl playing Salamander alone, and then she ask you to join the game with the dualplay mode? (F1 + F5)..... Nah... just dreaming. Now that I got awake again.... where is the girl playing Salamander? T_T

you said it yourself; in your dreams

We need new users instead of developers. IMO, MSX hardware and MSX community are very attractive for developers that wants to have fun with assembly or with the problems involving programming for a very limited machine. But there is not much beyond Metal Gear and Vampire Killer that brings attentions of the masses to our system.

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where is the girl playing Salamander? T_T

Which girl playing Salamander?

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We need new users instead of developers. IMO, MSX hardware and MSX community are very attractive for developers that wants to have fun with assembly or with the problems involving programming for a very limited machine. But there is not much beyond Metal Gear and Vampire Killer that brings attentions of the masses to our system.

The community needs both (new) users and developers to keep it successful and afaik Metal Gear Solid has attracted new MSX users just to play its originating titles. This does not mean they will stick with just Metal Gear.

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The community needs both (new) users and developers to keep it successful and afaik Metal Gear Solid has attracted new MSX users just to play its originating titles. This does not mean they will stick with just Metal Gear.

What I wanted to say is that we need to focus especially on new users, since we have a good number of developers.

Also I wanted to say that Metal Gear and Vampire Killer are not enough to bring sufficient new users to MSX. I suggest we create a challenge like MSXdev without restrictions in hardware usage, but the game must have some mass appealing theme. Another day I was navegating on the web when I saw some screenshots of a GTA version for the NES, fan made obviously. IMO, this is the kind of thing that would take quite some attention, adaptations of famous games to MSX. And with the quality that MSX developers have, we would do much better than other communities.

I think the MSX world it's very alive nowadays...

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Nah... just dreaming. Now that I got awake again.... where is the girl playing Salamander? T_T

My ex-gf played Nemesis 3 much better than myself

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My ex-gf played Nemesis 3 much better than myself

T.T!!!

At Karoshi Corporation we are proud to say that nowadays we are receiving a lot of feedback about our games or projects. Sometimes you must put things easy for the users, that's our conclusion: people are lazy to write an email. So, with our website and forums, we can say that now we know how much the MSX scene support our work. So, thank everyone who dropped us a line, and we invite all MSX users who haven't done it yet to visit us and give us feedback too.

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We need new users instead of developers. IMO, MSX hardware and MSX community are very attractive for developers that wants to have fun with assembly or with the problems involving programming for a very limited machine. But there is not much beyond Metal Gear and Vampire Killer that brings attentions of the masses to our system.

I remember that in the netherlands, once there was a MSX text editor sold for gathering money to support multiple sclerosis research (MS). Read that in the MSX-Contakt! So why not dedicating a new game for such a purpose to bring attentions of the masses to our system? So developing for MSX would have a higher purpose and buying and playing of course, too! Maybe that could be applied to MSX hardware products, too, if they'll not get to expensive.

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The "that'll never work", "first see, then believe", "why even bother" and "who gives, MSX is dead anyway" mentality that has been proven wrong time and time again is still haunting the MSX community every now and then. MSX Community: the fact that Sandy and Philip are wondering why and for who they are maintaining their great MSX websites is a sign. More than once I have been told by people who have offered their software for distribution in our downloads section that the only feedback they receive to it are the download statistics, if they make it to the top 10. And of course comments when there's a bug, typo or other error to report. Is it really that hard to turn those frowns upside down and give things a positive twist from time to time? To let those who are actively trying to keep the (memories of the) MSX computer system in all its aspects alive know that you appreciate what they are doing? That you like what they have created? To accept the things you might dislike about a website, person or project and cherish the good things it has to offer? Or to at least turn those negative feelings into a positive form of feedback?

What happened to the idea of adding reactions to the downloads then? Down the tube already or moved to about a kabillion years in the future?