23 replies to this topic

[ady]

As some know i've been within and totally enjoyed FME for a fair few years.

 

It's as little as Two years back the 1st thing i'd do in getting home is boot up DAD's and Fruit-Emu to see all the news and goings-on.

 

Of course I appreciate things are stale because of the used-up resources and Emulators that run all they can, but my interest has just weened away...........I don't know why that is if i'm honest.

 

Is it my age, personal circumstances changing so much or just 'I find it boring' now..........I don't know.....I have thoughts as to why, but as a single person/member I can't/wouldn't butt in as to make it this way.

 

This and other sites were thriving day-to-day weren't they!

 

I am really curious as-to-why it's now like this...nothing untoward in my thread, i'm just mythed as to all our reasons.

 

If you can reply it'll be great, if you want to say why and be anonymous PM a Mod or Alex to add it...

 

Be an interesting outcome I hope, and let us all address the issues and get us back to a lively common interest site/s.

 

Ady 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaun2097]

im guessing that what a lot of new members do, is download all that they need, and only revisit if they are looking for an old memory of a machine to dowmload.

I, like yourself ady, used to visit the sites many times daily, for new releases and re-worked machine layouts. the forum was a lot better and a lot more posting was done by many. Now days, i can not visit the site for a week....and nothing has changed or moved (the relase of "reflex" has been there for a while now, with nothing new to replace it at the top of the "Recents" list.)

 

I supposing that all us members aged 35-80 (the ones who knew and played the "classics") who were searching lost times of playing old fruities, have all been here and got what they wanted. if they are like me (im 46) the new machines (2005 onwards) im not interested.

 

FME is an invaluable resorce that CANT dissappear. I used to be a slot machine repair engineer myself. Hell, ive even owned an amusment arcade in Falmouth, Cornwall for sometime.....and as someone who has seen the "good years" of early friuts and the amount of lost resources that can never be recoverd....FME must live.

 

i know this doesnt really answer all ur post Ady, but just thought i put my thoughts over.

 

Project Amber is looking very promising though.....i liked the "virtual arcade" vid that was posted recently...looking foward to that.

[vectra666]

 Things are very quiet on here where as the mecca for instance still has  regular posting and that site still brings the odd hidden resources or too. As for resources, yes things are thin on the ground but that doesn,t stop the odd rom or machine to emulate from coming up, like my last release reflex and various ones I've done recently I'm always on the lookout for material like the red cops n robbers recently etc whether the members reply or not is another thing.

 So what can kick start this site up again, well the promised epoch emulator didn,t help as with the shutdown late last year plus other things (but that's in past now). hopefully gutiars new Amber2 will bring some life into this site but eventually that emulator will become like Mfme  and people always want the next new thing i.e Dond, partytime etc. most members on here as said above are only after downloading the free stuff and show no interest what so ever on the why the layouts are made. we need NEW blood as in rom collectors and layout creators again Afaik I'm the last "new" creator on here and that was sept 2012.

So is there any members wanting to take up the challenge!! there's always my layouts that could be upgraded to 1600wdx's.

 So again what if anything can be done to get this site to its former self

[spa]

The trouble is we all had it too good for so long. I think when I first stumbled into FME there was only a handful of layouts made, about 30 at a guess. The potential was huge! So many games to make, so much to talk about, so many resources needed.

 

Fast forward to now. All the resources have been obtained and all the potential layouts made leaving not alot to talk about sadly

 

I do fear if another tech is released it will get covered very quickly as everyone is itching for something new. Was similar when m1 was added, same with S4/MPU5. 

 

I do think the future is bright though. Still a hell of alot to emulate and stacks that are still missing in action within the current techs  

[mocochoco]

It's just not like it used to be... and I feel pretty safe in saying, that it will never be even close to what it was in the good old days.

 

I think the simple answer, is there is just not enough to care about any more unfortunately. In a way we are just victims of our own success. When you take a step back and think about what we have achieved as a community since we started, it really is a beautiful thing, The collection of emulators and layouts we have is unbelievable. In the early days we just had so much to keep every single one of us constantly busy and so many of us dedicated hours and hours a week to this, meaning that we probably achieved much more than we should have in such a short space of time. 

 

Think if Chris had of released later versions and continued to work on MFME, without anything getting in the way... at this point we would probably still be in the same position in terms of a dead community. Because we would have charged through all that was available by now, regardless.

 

There's just such a little amount left to look forward to, no matter what happens. However, I do think these websites will always serve a purpose, and I imagine will keep chugging along at about the same rate they are now, for a long time. But that's it.

 

Fruit machines, for a long time now, have been just terrible. They just are not even comparable to the classic machines we all originally came here looking for. And the new breed of gamblers that don't appreciate the classics, simply couldn't form or be apart the type of community that we had. Meaning that, in reality, we unfortunately always had a timer on how long it was going to last in the way that we all remember it.

 

I'm still around somewhat. I check the forums now and then. And I'm sure I'll be poking my head in and getting my hands dirty for bits and bobs in the future... but I let FME slide out of my life, a few years ago now. I'll always appreciate, miss, and have fond memories of the fun times we had, but I accepted a long time ago that it died out and is not coming back

[barcrest junky]

I absolutely intend to reply to this but haven't the time tonight.  An interesting point though.

[nails]

things will change when a new platform comes out.

[stardust]

As above posts have mentioned... I think all of us 'at a certain age' care about FME - whereas the younger (but not all of them) care for what is the latest releases and whether they are available or not.

 

In fact I think this has always been the case within FME forums - a lot of members have joined in the hope that they'll get the latest emulators and releases to try and find any cheats and code errors - only to be bitterly disappointed when they find that FME is basically for preserving past fruit machines from yesteryear, with the exception of one or two modern techs in.

 

I think therein lies the rub - there isn't really a lot of fresh blood coming in, especially those with talent, to keep FME the way it was. As we've been let down, disappointed and all the other things that have happened throughout the scene over the years, a lot members moved on and they haven't really been replaced with any fresh talent that could come along and say, code or step up to the layout designing team members ( with the exception of 'vectra' here, whose layouts have vastly improved and I'm very impressed with his latest releases - well done lad - you see I can heap praise when I feel it is warranted! x )

 

That is why I feel the FME scene, not just Fruit Emu, DAD's or Fruit Forums is like it is now... it isn't being replaced with newer members who can fill the shoes of past members who could code, create and gather resources like they once did.

 

I hope FME survives - there is no reason why it shouldn't with all the techs that can still be emulated before we get to the modern-day video crap! But I believe the scene needs newer members to join ( and be made welcome by everyone ) to encourage them to stick around, help them wherever you can and encourage to actively participate in keeping the fruit machine emulation scene alive.

 

Peace and love guys  

 

Daryl x

[richy1976]

I agree with it being a age thing, people who cant remember the old machines aren't really interested.

[fuzion]

Nothing lasts forever unfortunately and up till now we've pretty much only had emulators that are over 10 years old.

I often read my old Sinclair User magazines and it's clear once you get to the later issues, that the ZX Spectrum was done. Same with everything.

I don't think fme will ever be the same, I'm glad i was around at the start.

Hopefully new emulators may come and inject a little life back into fme.

J

[vectra666]

argee there daryl only about three creators that are relative "new" myself, andy-1 and samson81, if Amber really takes off we need layout designers old and new as if the design tools are too complicated or there's a need for BIG layouts then that's where my journey will end sorry to say again we need fresh blood designers that are capable or producing the big layouts on large monitors and these guys will eventually be able to produce the likes of dond n astra clones etc which is their era of gambling memories, mine are the nineties which I'm glad to be able to emulate n play. As said before we need a section for layout resources just like Dadsfme has for blank dat.files and reel symbols etc

linked in download section or galleries because if there are any new designers around there's nothing apart from flyers to get em started on here. this is an emulation site but with no emulation resources (apart from flyers) I'm willing to help out on that score if I,m authorised to do so, may not be much, maybe too little too late but at least it could help.

[Pook]

Eeeeeee, it were all green fields in FME when I were a lad. I got an orange for Xmas and was grateful too!

Nothing lasts forever, FME was brain dead a few years ago, it's only a few of us stubborn f***ers refusing to turn off the life support.

I think a lot of people are in denial.

[fuzion]

Indeed only the fme diehards remain. 

 

Guitar is working on a very interesting project with Amber 2.0, 3D, possibly touchscreen, online features etc.   Personally looking forward to that though.

 

J

[stardust]

I think a lot of people are in denial.

 

Aahh - that great Egyptian lake - that stinks to high heaven...

 

...rather like FME can on the odd occasions!   

[saynowt]

this site in my opinion is like a museum for all us older members it gives us memories good or bad playing these machines when they were in the wild reminding us of places visited money won/lost ,whatever happens this 12 years of hard work by dedicated members must not be allowed to fade away and be forgotten

[Guitar]

It's been through a stage of very little happening, and very few people making layouts.

 

I used to love seeing a new layout release and then playing it, but lately I've done little except code.

BWB MPU4 games will run in MFME how many have been done yet? (its entirely possible I've missed some).

 

Amber 1 fizzled out due to lack of interest on my part, followed by the vb/c++ issues.

KC's emu I don't know what happened.

 

We're an emulation scene with very little emulation going on. I'm hoping to change that in the near future. There's an interesting effort on DadsFme to get a DOND emulation going in MAME. A few people putting in some real effort for one layout. While I'm no fan of DOND machines, its at least something going on to further the scene.

 

For me the Mecca moving to being all about the real machines ruined it. I like the real machines but they left the emulation side behind, though there are some members there who don't visit here who do like the emulation stuff. There's just never any emu threads there really.

[ady]

Thanks for the replies to date guy's.

 

It's just interesting to see different perspectives.

[fuzion]

The common theme is that there is little emulation going on. An fme dedicated site is always going to struggle.

J

[vectra666]

Main problem with the current situation is resources whether it be roms for classic layouts or images, photo's or even flyers they're all getting in short supply.  We,ve roughly created about 1600 machines to date, how many machine were actually produced from say 1980-2003 I bet far more than currently emulated so in theory there's loads more to catalogue/Make just a small problem with resources.  The same will happen in the future with mpu6 scorp5 etc unless we gather now for future emulation, we all want Dond and Partytimes to play now but say in 10yrs time when they'll be actually playable on your virtual touchscreens or implants will it be to late to gether the resources needed to make them???

[fuzion]

The main problem is emulation, there are still many fruit machine resource opportunities out there at many seaside resorts, absolutely anyone involved in fme can take pics if they really wanted to.   There is very little motivation without a new emulator and only a handful of fme enthusiasts left unfortunately.   We'll be moaning about mpu6 and scorp6 , pluto fruit machines in the future when there are literally 100's of opportunities for those right now. 

 

J