Final Edition

A few words from the editor..

This is it, the final update of the Hornet Charts page. It is the work of one person, Andy Voss, aka "Phoenix" of the now inactive PC demogroup Hornet. Thus, the pronoun "I" will be used frequently throughout this page, starting now. The reason I didn't use "I" much in the past year was to give the image the charts were a group effort. While the charts were of course endorsed by all other group members, no way in hell would they have had the spare time to devote enough time to help to make it worth it - it was my project from the beginning.

"OK, so why did you really create these charts?"

In 1998, I consider myself to be a bit of an "oldskooler". That is, my happiest times spent with the demoscene were probably between 2-4 years ago, not right now. Upon discovering the ECS Amiga demoscene through wonderful emulators like Fellow, I looked back through many issues of Eurocharts - and realized just how active their scene really was. And I believe, it was active because so many people wanted to top those charts, to be the best, heck, to just plain gloat. Today, I see co-ops and let's-all-join-our-groups-together bullshit. If we're all one big orgy of a group, where will all the fun in competing go? Anyway, I digress. My point was, I hoped the charts would bring back a tiny bit of excitement similar to the early 90s Amiga days.

"Did the charts meet your expectations?"

At first, I was overwhelmed with the immense response. In the first 2-3 weeks, I received 100 votes. Within 5-6 weeks, I had 200 votes. Number 300 voted somewhere in April I think. I implemented a four-month expiration rule to keep the charts fairly up to date. What I didn't realize was how bloody hard it was to get people to renew their votes. Most just voted once in January or February then got on with their lives and plain forgot about the whole thing - even when I did send everyone an email reminder. Basehead/FM noted this trend and considered it a sign that the charts were "dying" - well, I don't know if he was jinxing me, but he was right in the end. But, it's no huge surprise - the scene is most active around The Party (December/January), and least active during the lack of fall parties (September-November). To answer this, I think the charts were, in the big scheme of things, a success.

"Why are the charts going away?"

Everyone in Hornet is pretty much retiring from the archive for the same reason - we want to take a long vacation from our scene duties. Yes, duties - for most sceners, it's all fun, but especially during the past year it's been mostly work for people like me. I would like that vacation to include the charts. But, I can't say the charts are their strongest right now either - 169 active voters at the end, compared to over 300 at its peak. They probably could have lasted a little longer, and would have picked up after The Party 8, but for that I regive my first reason.

"So... now what?!"

I'd just say, "go back to reading diskmag charts", but.. what diskmags? I think Hugi is the only recently released mag with global charts.

scene.org has plans to create its own online charts. I've already had several conversations with md, the brains behind the plans, on the subject. Unfortunately, they have many higher priorities at hand, so it seems like it may be a while before you see charts on their site, if ever. All I can say is, hang in there. I suppose I could also mention Doose Charts at this point, although, no offense to their creator(s), I don't consider them very reliable and definitely not "the best charts available today" as they state on the PC Demo Fan Club links page.

Drop a line

If you'd like, you can send me email to xproject@erols.com.