March 2018 - Reflections of this Year...

[Reg]

All things considered, March was a great time from Fruit Machine Emulation and also on reflection this site as well.

First let's look back at MFME.  On the final ever day of March 2018, @Wizard gave us the execellent MFME 6.1 which you will find in the MFME development area of this site.  This has a very intersting set of changes that are going to make some new games possible with types of reels that we could never use before - for infomation regarding this, take a look at the change log.  This is now accessed from clicking on the MFME logo within the About box of the emulator.  One feature that I like this time as well, you can now drag PNG files to the flyer / cabinet tabs and they will convert to JPG and drop into their relevant folders.

MFME has come a long way, take a look at this picture...

...two machines side by side that I owned.  This was back in 2008 that this picture was taken.

It is astonishing that so many of us are still here from that time period.  I could list bucket loads of you, but one the risk of missing somebody out, I will not.  The point is MFME has gone from strength to strength.

Now look at these two photos...

  

...in 2018, we have both the same machines running on MFME on physical hardware that accepts money and also pays out.  The real deal but in digital format and more ironically, the machine is located excatly where the Club Coronation Street one was originally.

Apart from the fact the photo done in 2008 was done at the same time that others were done to make these layouts, in the case of Club Temptation some years later by myself, the Club Coronation Street ones were provided to @Mort to do his magic.

This shows a couple of things to me.  The great skill and magic of @Wizard to bring MFME forward the way it has come and also the need for photos.

I would say that the photos of both these machines made cracking layouts that still stand the test of time today - this was done on an aging camera in 2008.  If you come across any machines now - if you truely love FME and want to help the scene - you must capture photos.  A good example is a couple I've just uploaded to the gallery today - On A Roll ( from a machine I once owned ) and Road Hog Club ( unknown source ).  These pictures will make great photo DX's and if each one of you can capture something on your travels that will preserve a machine, it's worth doing.

The one difference between the old days and now is the amount of designers we have.  That being said, it is a pleasure to see anything and everything that comes through from the people I term FML Artists.  You are the life-blood of the scene and it's great to see what you are making.

For anyone who has never tired it, there is a guide to get you going here...

...it's worth a try and remember your first results may not always be the best - but it's the taking part that counts.  Here was the first layout I ever did...

...although that is version 4 of it, it never changed too much and that is in 2001 !

Over the past few weeks, something changed on this site and it went from strength to strength.  I want to thank you the community for being part of this and the input you have here, but espically want to call out a couple of things.

@nails suggested to me that I change the look of the site a little with the portal, this was the beginning of the change of activity here.  Initially I rejected this, but he was right.  I did have balls to admit that I was wrong and drop him a note of thanks as well.

@Pook allowed me to assist him by hosting a dedicated ( but shared membership ) for his wonderful DX'Cellent site.  This again brought change to this site which was wonderful.

@Wizard very graciously linked this site from MFME and when you click on the MFME home page, well here you are.

We have a donation system in place now to assist supporting this site.  This was something that was never going to happen when it was here for just my stuff, however I felt that we had change and were heading towards a community type world then where we were before and the time was right.  Again, a big thank you to each donator who has helped here.  Every penny goes back into this site and profit will just simply cashflow if we ever get to that point.  Note that I am going nowhere, but if the time did come to move on - this site will never be sold but it will be passed on to a successor and all fundings used at that if were are in the positive side of the balance to extend licenses and hosting fees.  Again, I have zero plans to go anywhere but the most important thing for me is this site continues and watching how it's evolved and changed this year, it is my job to not break anything that isn't broken and not fix anything that does not need fixing, while keeping it relevant.

Speaking of growing, we have a lots of these...

...let's be nice to them and remember when some of us started FME, they were not born / barely born and some of the questions and things that they ask may see like "yeah whatever" to us, but we've been here a long time.

If you are a new member, then a post in the Introduction area will go a long way.

Above all, have fun and to each and every one of you - thank you for being part of this site, be it DX'Cellent, the MFME area or Desert Island Fruits.

Happy Easter !

[pbb]

Hi Reg

Also love the video's from Chopoholic, makes me come back every other day for an update!!

The site also needs more of your reviews too as they are very entertaining, otherwise it is turning into what Fruitemu was before all the problems etc.

But love the site.

Thanks for all your work.

Pete

[evo1]

Couldn't of been better put there reg!! I will just say adding to newbies ask questions,i myself have found that sometime trying to get involved in this scene quite hard tbh and some search engines on sites are shit or there just to much info around one matter that confuses newbies and if they asked they get shot down and told search for the answer. Which them gets them no where and they just go not to come back, or on the other hand mfme has moved to fast that unless your on here 24/7 its easy to get lossed.But on the other hand i can sort of see why they get told this,because of long term members that know how to do/sort things out when things go wrong or have been here since year one and brought resources to the table and layout creators have gained respect and when a newbie comes along he/she gets treated with only maybe a little respect or in some cases none at all. Because people have been allowed over the years to just come take and go with no control.

It does take the piss that people do this with out getting involved and even just donating just  £1 FFS so can understand why this goes on.

One other example when chris/wizard asked for sounds of coins etc,a handful of people came to his aid yet how many people in this scene own fruit machines?? and couldnt help chris out but are happy to download a new mfme!!

Again Benjamoose what a talent but,have we as a community frighted this guy away?? Who cares who he is or isnt,with talent like that we need to keep them.

Hope this scene does grow but with resources disappearing fast we need to grab every opportunity that comes along cause once its gone,well thats it.

Its nice to see a reboot of a new mfme site here with reg and desert island,new fresh ideas that could turn this around.

Rant over

Dave

 

Ps  Happy Easter!!!!

 

[Reg]

18 hours ago, pbb said:

Hi Reg

Also love the video's from Chopoholic, makes me come back every other day for an update!!

The site also needs more of your reviews too as they are very entertaining, otherwise it is turning into what Fruitemu was before all the problems etc.

But love the site.

Thanks for all your work.

Pete

That is good feedback on the articles, there are some challenges that I explain in the one I have just psoted - but is this the kind of thing that you enjoyed ?

 

[pbb]

Hi Reg

 

Yeah the reviews were always fun to read, plus gave us non designers an insight in how much work actually goes into producing these amazing layouts.

Peter 

Quote

 

 

[Wizard]

Just now, pbb said:

Hi Reg

 

Yeah the reviews were always fun to read, plus gave us non designers an insight in how much work actually goes into producing these amazing layouts.

Peter 

 

 

Would you believe that writing and maintaining MFME is no stroll in the park either.

[shaun2097]

27 minutes ago, Wizard said:

 

Would you believe that writing and maintaining MFME is no stroll in the park either.

i dont envy the amount of work you must put into MFME chris.

how many man hours have you devoted to this?  87,600hrs+??  (10yrs)  give us a rough estmate...ill bet its a shocking amount of time and effort...

i can only say, you are devoted to the cause...

you are dedicated and a clever man....

THANK YOU.

 

Edited April 2, 2018 by shaun2097

[MPU_FIVE]

 @Reg Brilliant thread, glad to see this site and everything in the world of FME is going from strength to strengh.

@Wizard Thank you for making MFME - a truly brilliant piece of software, and was the reason i first bought a PC.

and a big thank you to all the brilliant layout designers for some awesome layouts...

Long live FME

[wearecity]

I'm really enjoying the forums here as we are seeing a forum, that is pretty much FME hardcore.

The move to have a Dxcellent forum here, was a very good move.

It's great to see @Wizard really participating as well and I'm happy he has chosen here to be the new home for MFME.

At the moment, there is a very good vibe around FME and I think a lot of the apprehension about whether FME can really move on, has passed. We may not be able to make up for the loss years, but I think we are having a damn good try to.

I know I may talk like FME is the most important thing in life, but at times when I've not a lot going on in life, it's the main thing I turn to and enjoy and have known a lot of people for 17 years now, including having several connected on Facebook.

[Benjamoose]

On 4/1/2018 at 12:05, evo1 said:

Again Benjamoose what a talent but,have we as a community frighted this guy away?? Who cares who he is or isnt,with talent like that we need to keep them.

 

Came across this randomly! No worries, I'm still around.

I think to a certain degree all tightly-knit and long-term communities end up with their controversies, dramas and awkward members from the past.

As I mentioned over on Fruit-Emu, I've experienced similar things when I ran a gaming community for 5 years, and there are often members who you think are gone for good or have moved on, but then resurface again only to cause more headaches.

So in that sense, I understand where they came from with all the attention I got. I will admit I felt maybe went a bit too far, but ultimately I think their hearts were all in the right place.

I'm glad to see Reg's site getting more open and more attention in general. I'll likely post her for my community/WIP sides of things and just make sure to cross-post my releases to Fruit-Emu for those that only visit that site.

I've been kinda quiet lately as these kinds of projects end up consuming all of my free time and it's not until I get heavily towards completion that my speed picks up and I get excited. So I've held off.

That said, it does seem like Homer's Meltdown uses a lot of the same artwork as Homer's Beer Guide so I'm ramping up to start working on that!

At the moment I'm just collating as much high quality source material as possible! So if any of you happen to own a physical machine, let me know!

Edit: I also have to second what you said about information being scattered evo. When I started Homer's Meltdown there are so many conflicting websites on Google results with either outdated information, stuff that just isn't helpful or just doesn't go into detail.

It wasn't until I got one of Reg's guides that I was able to figure out some of the specifics of what I wanted to do.

One example is the many terms such as DX, HDX, etc. For a newcomer there are too many of these that either mean the same thing or are redundant. Or in some cases, people have different opinions on what defines one or the other.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Benjamoose

[serene02]

There are so many setups, people have portrait monitor cabs. I'm only creating layouts at a constant 2160 deep going forward now that mfme supports large scale. I don't really want to release different sizes, just makes extra work.

I was toying with portrait setup but machines don't fit those dimensions that great.

J

[ROLANDRAT71]

The issues are a lot better these days with fit to screen issues

[superbank]

Good thing Chris moving the MFME-related stuff over here IMO. The Mecca will always be my home but it is definitely less emulation and more repair/collection related.

Hopefully by moving MFME here it will encourage people to donate to this site and keep it going for a long time to come. Also hosting the fabulous DXcellent site.