Hello Stefan.
First and foremost, i really appreciate you taking time to get back to me, on my 2 (lengthy) posts.it's only via people like yourself taking time to let us (Team ST Gamer) know what you liked/disliked and why, that we can attempt to produce the best 'all-round' material for the community.If we did'nt take time to listen and take on-board decent feedback, there'd be simply no point in producing anything.
Often it's far too easy to get carried away and 'write' something that appeals only to yourself, whilst forgetting it needs to be aimed at the many.
Yes, ST Gamer is a paid for production, but the KEY aspect here from my point of view that i do kinda feel has to be said is:it relies on contributions from freelancers like myself and many others, simply giving up a lot of spare time for the love of the subject material and the community.we are not 'bound' by any legal contract, nor do we ask for ANY form of payment or plan to use our works to pas ourselves off as jurnolists or use it as part of a CV to try and get a full-time, paid position in the UK press be it website or physical magazine and thus, to be fair you really cannot 'expect' the same depth of research you should from someone say getting £50 a page for professional work.
Sure we did'nt face the same strict deadlines as paid for freelancers do, but we did have deadlines (both personal and to get everything done in time) of our own.
The Les Player interview, not being in ST Gamer? easy enough to answer:it was'nt originally even planned as i had 2 Ex-Atari UK people lined up for interview:Darryl Still came through in spades, from the off, utter joy to talk to, could'nt be more helpful etc, sadly due to work commitments person number 2 could'nt spare the time to answer big list of email questions, despite numerous attempts.It's tragic, but it's happened a few times since, you just have to expect this.
Also, see it from my point of view:not everyone is going to buy a copy of ST Gamer so i have to consider where interviews often 'fit' best...easiest solution is often to spread interviews out among sites like RVG/Grumpy Old Gamers/Sega Site etc (that way everyone gets something from myself, which i hope acts as a 'draw' to the site or publication and i can then promote it (hey buy ST Gamer as it's exlusive interviews with...) or link to via other sites.That way the interviews get best possible coverage.
Another thing i'm finding (and perhaps should of expected) is i do interview with 'Bob' and 'Bob' has been in industry for over 20 years, written across countless forums, friends of mine who work on websites of their own message me saying: 'wow! Great interview with 'Bob' could you interview him again/or message him to ask if he wanted on Konix/C64/ST/CPC/Speccy Game X?
which i don't mind, but i have to bear in mind just how damn busy 'Bob' and fellow coders are and chances are, i've had my 'time' with them.
So, i set out to find 'replacements', thought ok, strength in numbers, bet at best i'll get 50% to reply back.Boy was i wrong.People responded and boy did they respond so i was faced with 3 KEY ST based interviews as was (safely 'banked' with Greyfox as i speak) so much content and also A8 etc related info, i think plan is to include UNCUT versions of interviews as DVD style extras.Since then things have gone mental, interview wise, in a great way.....i'm awaiting a further 5 interview questions to come back in, sent out 'feelers' for another 2, so rest assured wether it be via ST Gamer Vol 2 and/or various websites, you'll be seeing a lot more FRESH interviews from myself to go along side the one in ST Gamer and one's i've linked to on here.Plenty to tide you over i'm sure.
The Triva section: just to clear a few things up here.ST Format? although i read back in the day, never kept ANY copies of, nor scrapbook pages from, personally found mag far too stuffy for myself.ST Action? think i only read a handful of copies so again, not a 'research source'.Mags i did use, i tried to select the most 'balanced aspects of...games that could of been, how coders got around ST limits, where ST code turned up etc etc.
Whilst it's easy to assume it was a copy n paste affair, if you had any idea just how long it took to trawl through magazine sources covering the St back in the day right through until the present day (The Bubble Bobble triva and others came from sources in periods far later than the ST era itself) i think you might 'appreciate' it a little more
To be honest if it was'nt for fact that when i 1st come off Night shifts and felt like doing NOTHING but dredge through hours of old material for the crumbs, i honestly don't think i'd have done anything for it.
Humour here, before reading the triva piece, were you aware PS1 Bubble Bobble using ST code or all the Lost games covered or plans for 1 meg enhanced versions of certain ST games or a 1 Meg version of It Came From The Desert etc etc? or the earlier point about what could of been for ST Gauntlet, had coders had their way?
It's bloody impossible at times to know what's best to send Greyfox (or anyone else) in terms of Raw Material, as i simply don't know exactly what folks want to read about.I personally love Lost Games and interviews, but to others these might be the very sections they skip.you can never try and please everyone, lol, you just have to throw enough stuff in, pray there's enough for everyones taste.
I wanted to inc some 'techy' quotes to show the frustrations coders had with the machine, but (and coders, please don't lynch me here..) i find the technobabble stuff far too 'dry' and cannot code, so i kept it to a pure minimum, plus since article was just general triva, it really would have needed to be be a lot more 'focused' on the inner workings of a conversion from coin-op to ST and personally i'fd have covered that via interview-ie just ask coder the question, let them talk about the technical side.
like i say Dragon Ninja? lol, i'm last person to comment on, not a fan of it (nor Shinobi, which seems to get similar praise and lordy, never ask me about Bomb Jack...)
Again, cannot personally comment on the Converted article, i did'nt write it, nor where Atarimania got their info from, i have an account there, but only signed up to pass on info i had regarding an A8 game, which i got direct from the coder himself, so i'm 100% sure the info i supplied to them was as factual as i could get it.
Thing is we've so far done what? Atari Gamer and now Vol 1 of ST Gamer, we're all still very much learning what works/what does'nt.How long has EDGE been going, let alone Gamestm with it's Retro section or Retro Gamer (well over 130 issues now) and they still 'stumble' as they go...ST Myth was never released, Defender Of The Crown was'nt on ST 1st, Sega never wrote MS Strider etc etc.
Sometimes it's human error, sometimes your stuck with the limited resources you have to work with, despite numerous attempts to dig deeper (seriousily, you might be surprised by number of Ex-coders i've contacted who very politely have made it clear, they closed the book on their time in the industry and refuse to speak about any aspect of it, some won't get involved unless there's something in it for them.Thankfully 99.9% of those i've spoken to have been fantastic, as i hope you'll see in ST Gamer Vol 2 and various interviews i put up online).
The expectation aspect is a valid point, i leave my interviews in the rawest forms for websites, if someone wants to proof-read them before they go up? that's fantastic, but i'm more about The Message than ensuring everything is in the Queens English.
If i subscribe to a magazine with advertising partners like Rockstar, Nintendo, Sony, MS etc then hell yes i expect the highest standards of jurnolism-these guys are world wide, budgets of lordy knows what.If it's a digital mag, made by a small team of people just trying to offer something different, whilst juggling day jobs, family, life in general, then i'm just bloody glad someone made a stab at getting something different out there, get coverage of people, aspects of hardware etc mainstream press tend to over-look.
Also a HUGE thank you to EVERYONE so far who has given their time for interviews, hell i don't even answer the phone to people i don't know, these guys were happy to chat to me, without knowing who i was andno 'ohh i work for (err you mean your submitting an article to...right?) Ye Oldie Worlde Gaming Monthly' to give myself any 'credibilty.
guys!!!
and no feedback yet?, well I must of done my job good and proper 
I did of course not expect a masterpiece but it was still far too below my expectations, there simply was to much errors. But i do still like this kind of projects.
It was made by Ocean (Ocean France more precisely).
