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[holydiver95]

yes that was what I got to say (I mean Japo's and MrFlibble's post) The Shareware Episodes of Wolfenstein 3d and DOOM 1 are today free! One more good reason, why you can put it up I would make screenshots and a Review at this weekend (just tell me yes and I will start do it )

And with the Music: send me a PM with your Mailadress and I will send you them to the Musiccollection of Abandonia.

[Paco]

Originally Posted by holydiver95

yes that was what I got to say (I mean Japo's and MrFlibble's post) The Shareware Episodes of Wolfenstein 3d and DOOM 1 are today free! One more good reason, why you can put it up I would make screenshots and a Review at this weekend (just tell me yes and I will start do it )

Shareware are always free. You only have to pay if you want to play the Full-Version.

Besides Shareware are automatically rejected. See Rules here.

[Japo]

I meant that the difference between some shareware (rejected) and freeware (approved), as well as other kinds of shareware and a ten minutes demo (rejected), is a choice of words. If you chose to say that each episode of Commander Keen or Wolfenstein 3D or Doom is a separate title, the first one would be freeware and approved. And we do have Commander Keen 6 on the site! You could choose to say that's a sequel to the first 5 games, or to the first one game that included episodes 1 to 5. By the way those episodes could be bought separately, as the episodes in every Apogee/3D Realms game.

The rules are no argument, they were decided by the staff when neither of us two were in it, we could change them if we agreed to (it seems we don't).

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by Paco

Besides Shareware are automatically rejected. See Rules here.

What if someone writes a nice review of a shareware game? It is my understanding that diskspace problems aren't top issue, and besides, if the shareware or demo download is available elsewhere, you could just give a link to it.

[The Fifth Horseman]

* In case of a game released in an episodic manner, each episode is treated as a separate "game" for the site's purposes - this includes status verification. Free episodes of such a series can be added to the site without any problem.

* If, instead, the game is a complete singular product, we will NOT add a demo version as the main download. If the final version of the game was never released, then the demo is considered the next best thing.

* Reviews of protected/sold games CAN be added to Abandonia.

* All reviews must be based on the full version of a game - NOT on a demo.

[TotalAnarchy]

Just to make it clear. Reviews for sold titles are accepted. They're just going to be put on site with a link to the respective store.

Now the Shareware business is a little more complicated. In my opinion there are a lot of factors to be taken into account:

• Shareware types. Releasing either the full game as shareware, but limiting it in time/content - you get access through a code received from the dev, after you contact him etc. Or releasing an episode and the rest of the episodes being available in a different package which you can buy through mail/contact etc. Doom is from the second type of course. But the first shareware episode is not a full game. They clearly referred to the other episodes as the "full game". "If you want to play the full game, order the rest of the episodes." Consider it more like a demo is what I'd say.
• Biased reviewer. The reviewer already played the rest of the episodes, so when reviewing only a single episode, the shareware one, he will most likely score it based on the full game. He will never take into account that as a single episode, it obviously lacks in content. I would give the first ep. of Doom not more than 3/5 for example. Yet most will just give it 5/5.
• Commander Keen. Keen is special because not all the episodes were released at the same time. The first three were released in a batch, then 3.5, then another batch with parts 4 and 5, and lastly the 6th alone. So if you played the shareware episode of Commander Keen in 1990 and ordered "the rest" of the episodes, you'd only have Commander Keen 1,2,3. As such on many game databases you'll see the "episodes" of Commander Keen as separate games (Moby, Gamespot etc), but almost never will you see the Doom episode for example as a separate entry.

Edit: Fifth was faster than me.

[Japo]

We agree but we don't have a clear definition on what makes an episode a separate title or not. If it's being sold separately at the time, both Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D qualify--not sure about Doom right off the bat. But we could decide another criterion.

And there can be many nuances. For example if we decide that some episodes are technically separate titles, is it really worth it having a separate review for each one? If we did they wouldn't be equal reviews, in any game reviewing website expansions will have "update" reviews compared to the original vanilla game.

The fact is that we have been equaling shareware and demos, and deciding what's shareware depending on what the publisher called it or promoted it as (back at the time shareware was supposed to have positive connotations), instead of depending on the actual terms.

I myself think that these cases are exactly identical to what the modern gaming industry calls expansions, in the particular case that the game itself without expansions is freeware, but they charge for the expansions.

Some day, soon, games with "expansions" (promoted as such) will become abandoned. If we decided right now how we're going to include them in Abandonia, we will resolve this old shareware issue at the same time.

[holydiver95]

Japo is right!

[DarthHelmet86]

Doom and Wolfenstien had a shareware Episode 1, with the other episodes greyed out in the level select menu. Paying for the game unlocked those levels (wether they were there all along or not I don't know) this makes it feel much more like a demo, a taster of the full game. Games like Commander Keen gave you a .exe that was a whole game for the shareware title, buying the extra games meant getting extra .exes to run the new games.

Seems like a big difference to me, the Doom shareware was a demo of a full game, Commader Keen 1 was a full game, with other games that could be brought to finish the story. But why argue about it here, if there is a game someone wants on the site they can request or offer it and we can decide then if it belongs on the site. Doom 1 is sold, offering the Shareware version will just lead to be people complaining that they didn't get the whole game.

[Professor Oak]

From now on, could I recommend that the term 'The Ultimate Doom' or 'TUD' be used to describe the first Doom game, so that people will not get confused between that and the 1 episode shareware edition?