Editorial

First the good news - congratulations to Alex van Kaam for winning
the SynTax Contributor of the Year 1994-1995 award.  Well done,
Alex! In second place was James Judge, third place went to Neil
Shipman, fourth to Phil Darke and fifth to James Jillians. They
should all have their prizes by now - a Myth and Magic figure
each, Alex's coming on a wooden base with a specially engraved
plaque. They have also each won free issues to SynTax - a year's
sub to Alex, 5 issues to JJ and so forth. My best wishes and
congrats to all the winners and my thanks to them, and to everyone
else who has contributed over the year, for making SynTax such a
lively magazine.

I'm feeling proud of myself ... that's four years now that I have
gone into a local shop and bought 5 M&M figures for the awards and
I _still_ haven't treated myself to one! I almost succumbed this
year to one in the catalogue that caught my eye but luckily (?)
they had sold it!

But now the bad news ... it has been brought to my attention that
some of the contents of previous issues of SynTax, solutions and
some hints, have found their way onto a bulletin board and, from
there, into another magazine.  I can only assume is that a SynTax
reader is responsible, either directly by uploading it
him/herself, or indirectly by giving away a copy to someone else
who has then uploaded it.

I've contacted the BBS and magazine directly and I'm not blaming
either of them because they used the information in good faith,
assuming that it had been uploaded legally. Now they know the true
situation, they will be on the look-out for any similar files. I
have, in similar circumstances, re-used some solutions / articles
of interest which have been found in the public domain, believing
their inclusion to be genuine. And in cases such as Belisana's
excellent Serpent Isle solution, where it said at the end of the
file that it could not be re-used without permission, I obtained
that permission before publication.


To whoever has done this, I'd just like to say - stop! Think hard
about what you've done.  You may think you're being helpful by
providing solutions ad lib, but you aren't.  It's illegal to
distribute anyone else's work because you are breaking their
copyright. If they want to use their own work elsewhere, that's
their decision.  You shouldn't make it for them. SynTax and its
contents, as I've said many times before, are NOT Public Domain.
Distributing it in any shape or form is unfair to the authors, to
people who subscribe to the magazine, and to me as the publisher
and editor.  I can only apologise to those authors whose copyright
has been breached in this way.

James has been more vocal on the subject and his article on it is
in this issue's Features section.

Robbie is settling in well though being rather destructive in a
playful kinda way. He's taken down net curtains, unpotted my 25
year old Bonsai tree and attacked washing on the line. He's also
digging down to visit Bev in Australia! Once we have sorted out
the pecking order and he knows that he isn't "top dog", things
will go a lot smoother. He's growing like a weed and is already
over 2 stone at just 16 weeks of age.  Unfortunately, we still
have to carry him downstairs, he can go up okay, but not down.

Through coping with Robbie, I haven't got much adventuring done.
Lands of Lore is finally finished and I'd recommend it highly,
especially to anyone new to RPGs.  I hit a snag near the end as I
didn't have a strong enough rogue. A warning to anyone planning to
play it ... you need one at least level 4 by the last section and,
take it from me, it's a real pain to have to chuck things down
corridors or fire ranged weapons night after night to build up one
from level 3!  I'll do a short hint file of some sticky moments in
the game for next issue.

I got a cheap copy of Master of Magic from Silica and it is
brilliant. I've only had two full games so far but I love it.
Civilization with magic, that's my kind of game!  I also went back
briefly to Theme Park, great fun. I wish I could stop the little
people throwing up though! On the adventuring side, I've installed
Freddy Pharkas and will also be looking at Lost Eden some time
soon. Kyrandia 3 has been put to one side for the moment; it's a
most illogical game and I wasn't enjoying it as much as Hand of
Fate.

My apologies to ST readers for the shortage of ST-related reviews
in this issue. There is just so little ST software about apart
from the PD side and only a few ST readers / reviewers left. I do
as much as I can for the STers but, largely, it is out of my
hands. If any more of you would like to contribute yourselves, I'd
be very pleased to get the reviews.

Right, on to Issue 37!
                                                  Sue






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