itch.io

There is no doubt about the fact that there is only one official team that develops WHDLoad (official page HERE), we are the first to recognize it without any problem, converting into whdload only what the official team has not yet converted because they have priority and deserve respect, for the rest you, not even knowing what you're talking about (or misrepresenting reality which would be even worse), continue to make confusion and therefore we are forced to clarify for the umpteenth time,  hoping that it will be the right time (but we strongly doubt it because you are really hard to understand):

You are clearly not a programmer and you are not able to convert a game to whdload from scratch, you are simply an amateur graphic designer who downloads the generic whdloads just ready to go from Amiga France (official page HERE), creates the icons of the folders and now – trying in your own way to compete with them obviously failing to do so – even slaves, sometimes renaming them to give them a semblance of customization that they don't really have. If, for example, tomorrow Amiga France stopped creating generic whdloads, you wouldn't know how to do it, because you are not able to develop whdloads independently; Maybe you could try applying their generic models, but it doesn't always work with all games and you certainly wouldn't be able to develop your own specific slave with game information and various customizations to improve compatibility.

We are a professional team initially founded by a single person, an Amiga user who is a programmer by profession, to which along the way we have added 4 collaborators, 2 programmers also by profession, one of whom is an expert in Amiga assembly programming, and two other users who deal with the management and promotion of the project on social networks and the various Amiga online resources. Thanks to the skills in the informatic field, our team is not only able to create whdloads from scratch but also to develop specific slaves for each individual entry without the need to use the generic slaves already precompiled nor the whdload packages of Amiga France or other similar resources. Obviously, since most of these are AmigaDos titles without any protection or already unprotected, there is a common basis in the starting code of generic slaves that apply to everyone, but being programmers we unlike you are able to customize them according to the specific needs of developers and users.

To better understand, let's take a practical example with the game available here, Wing Of Fear.

You have probably carried out the following process:

• You have downloaded and used the following package available on Amiga France: WingsFearDemo-WHDL.lha
• You have created the graphic icons for the folder and the slave
• You renamed the folder and the icon (info file) associated with the slave, but you did it only this time, the other times you didn't because you work randomly without following a well-defined process

Obviously we do not have your version with the graphic icons to test it because you, unlike us, having your project different purposes (we will come back to this concept later) do not make it available to download as a standalone package but insert it in your AmigOS setup, so we test the version of Amiga France to verify its content and functionality:

• The first thing we notice is the presence of 6 icons to run the game, generically called GenericKick31, Workbench13_*, Workbench 31_*, when it was enough to simply leave the one that is closest to the hardware requirements of the game (in this case Workbench31_1 or Workbench31_4):
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• There are also 3 ReadMe files present, each of which describes the generic slave reference without providing any information about the game in question:
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• The WHDLoad loading splash screen does not show the game-specific information but the information referring to the program to which that particular slave is applied by default (Kickstart 1.3/3.1 rather than Workbench 1.3/3.1):
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• The generic slaves used by Amiga France and applied to this game work perfectly on AGA systems (Amiga 1200/4000 with Kickstart 3.0/3.1), but if we try to use the same slaves on ECS systems (Amiga 500+/600 with Kickstart 2.05) the system crashes/resets/goes into guru meditation during the loading of the game with all the slaves proposed (try it to believe it). The situation improves if we put the kickstart 3.0 instead of the 2.05, Workbench31_1 and Workbench31_4 run the game but the second requires at least 8MB of Fast RAM, with 4MB Fast not even part, and in any case it is a considerable hardware forcing.

 Our Amiga Vault team, on the other hand, has carried out a much more specific and elaborate process than yours, which of course we will not explain in detail (you would like to!) but which is aimed at obtaining the following result that makes it exclusive compared to your proposal and that of anyone else who is not the official Whdload team or who at least does not follow the standard procedure of creating Whdloads:

• Slave created specifically and optimized for each single entry based on hardware requirements (CPU, CHIP RAM, FAST RAM etc.)
• Splash Screen Loading compiled with title, year, developer/manufacturer, version and release date of the WHD entry
• Unique custom dual state nice and colorful icon based on title screen, images and sprites of the released entry
• Hybrid icon with OldIcon, NewIcon LoRes and ColorIcon HiRes embedded to adapt to any AmigaOS/Workbench for greater versatility
• ReadMe file containing entry description and info compatible with all Amiga text viewers
• Check and clean up the startup-sequence for faster entry execution and running
• Removal of unnecessary data, libraries and other files contained in the converted entry to take up less disk space
• Tested and ready-to-go package for most Amiga hardware and software platforms, real and emulated ones

All this really requires a lot of work and time, which you continue to despise with your false accusations, but let's move on with testing our version as well, we find the above:

• The presence of a single icon to run the game, so that the user knows exactly how to start it; We also notice that the icon adapts by showing a different dual-state image, in Hires or Lores, depending on the operating system:
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• There is also a ReadMe file, only one rightly, which correctly shows the information of the game in question:
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• The Whdload loading splash screen correctly displays game-specific information as well as other custom messages that only those who know programming and know how to develop slaves are able to enter:
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• The specific slave generated by us works perfectly both on AGA systems (Amiga 1200/4000 with Kickstart 3.0/3.1 and 4MB Fast RAM) and on ECS systems (Amiga 500+/600 with Kickstart 2.05 and 4MB Fast RAM), try it to believe (we have released an updated version to the developer that is already present on our Gdrive repository and will soon be published here on itch.io)

Finally, comparing the contents of the two folders and the files inside it, it is clear that our version is much cleaner and more optimized, avoiding copying empty folders and extra files that are not part of the game and are useless, thus reducing the size of the whdload both when it is compressed (595KB vs 671KB) and when it is extracted (660KB vs 828KB): obviously we are talking about features of secondary importance, but for us it is the details that make the difference:

Now, drawing the conclusions of this in-depth analysis by us, you say that we are both amateurs, we both use the generic slaves and we do the exact same thing but the facts show the exact opposite, on Wings of Fear and on all the other whdloads made by both: the comparison just does not hold in terms of quality on the individual whdloads proposed, otherwise it would not explain the fact that 18 (!) developers have chosen our WHDLoad version as the official one for their game,  and as far as we know no one chose yours despite the fact that for most of them you showed them your version and therefore they had another option of choice, an alternative to choose from but they didn't even take it into consideration because it is clearly inferior to our proposal: you really have to resign yourself and accept it once and for all.

The concept also and above all applies to our projects in general, what is not clear to you is that the purpose of our projects is completely different:

Your goal is to provide a high-end Amiga operating system, very graphically beautiful and with a complete collection of Amiga games accompanied by really well made folder icons,  We recognize this because unlike you we are intellectually honest, your setup is really fantastic and has an edge over many others.

Our goal, however, is quite different: although we also offer complete collections, we focus more on offering single whdload titles, not only games but also demos, magazines, cracktros, programs, music-disks etc., following a precise standard aimed at making them compatible on ALL real and emulated Amiga systems, hardware and software, and not to include them in a single compatible operating system only a certain type of Amiga hardware (and obviously with an emulator that makes it reproduce). 

It is no coincidence that all the developers who agree to collaborate systematically choose our version, because they need their single game in whdload and as compatible as possible with the various systems, and not 6 generic slaves and a couple of graphic icons that are good only for certain systems, nor an operating system complete with all the games like the one you propose:  They like that you consider them and include their game in your setup but that's the end of it, your work is not useful to them because their goal coincides with ours, not yours. Finally, those few who decide not to collaborate with us create the whdload by themselves, often using generic slaves (there is one that applies to all scorpion engine games), so if your goal is to propose your own Whdload version hoping that it will be chosen by the developers, forget it, It will never happen or if it does it will only be because they will not have other credible alternatives.

Therefore, in light of all this, comparing our two projects or even competing as you do, who post your icons on itch.io where we propose our whdloads only for pure competitive spirit and not altruistic for the community (otherwise you would propose your work everywhere and not only where we propose and only AFTER we posted our proposal) makes absolutely no sense and is just a waste of time for both:  both projects are worthy and there should be no hatred, contrast or challenge between us, but you persist in not understanding and continue to hurt yourself and undertake your silly personal battle against us which is already lost from the start, because then we respond with facts, your insinuations are punctually denied and you make a fool of yourself in front of the entire Amiga community.

Wouldn't it be much more sensible, productive and beneficial for the Amiga community if you focused on your project without wasting your time on putting a spoke in the wheels – failing miserably – on those of others? To posterity the arduous sentence...