...the United Federation of Planets (as in Star Trek) will some day build their HQ as is portrayed in the films. This is his way of making sure that won't happen.
When was the last time you can remember Microsoft saying they supported a standard? That is, not something they invented and submitted a RFC for, an actual, take it off the shelf and re-implement it without renaming it or "improving" it so it doesn't work with anybody else standard. C++? Basic? HTML? A video or audio codec? Java? Anything?
It's called SMTP. Research the facts before you post next time.
I interviewed for a position (a few years ago) at Airborne Express and was told that Airborne used to require all potential delivery drivers to take drug (pee) tests as a part of the hiring process. Only potential delivery drivers were subject to this.
Well, one potential driver candidate sued and won a case against Airborne Express. He argued that it was unfair that only drivers were submitted for Drug Tests. The Judge agreed and ever since every potential hire at Airborne now has to take a pee test.
They're dying to invest and create industries that aren't commercial avaitation related.
They would love to have other sources of cash to fall back on in case their commercial airplane division bottoms out again (which is about every 10-15 years).
Dolemite
...and this is a classic Activision/ID ploy
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 2, Offtopic
This is a copy of a letter I sent to ID and Activision a few months ago. These companies are loosing players in droves and the companies don't even care. Check out the PB forums and see the comments from all the irate players:
What happened to the Quake (2/3) Series?
This is basically an open letter to id Software and how little importance they
place in their products. They are loosing players in drovers and their
reputation is going down the toilet.
But first a little intro.
I began playing Quake 2 in 95 when some friends at work were having a DM/CTF LAN
party. Needles to say I was hooked. I went out and bought the game and
downloaded Map after Map. I Became pretty good and eventually became
one of the best Q2 CTF players around
.
The Q2 CTF MOD was, at the time one of the most innovative MOD's around and
pretty much dictated what a Capture the flag Mod should be like. I enjoyed
playing on the old YYZ CTF servers and testing new maps from some of the most
awesome mappers at the time (Hafhead and gizm0 to name a few). Everyone was
into the games, teamplay was amazing and cheaters were nonexistent because Id
was on top of various hacks (wallhacking excluded).
Eventually, my scores started to go down and I was ending up at the middle of
the pack at the end of rounds. I began spectating people and noticed that
people were gibbing enemies from the side and from behind them and discovered
the world of bots.
What is a bot?
Some n00bs may get confused by the definition.
There are two types of bots. 1) Used as an AI opponent on various servers to
fill empty spaces on servers. These AI players have incredible aim. These bots
are good if you want to practice aiming on the run. On Half-Life Servers you
can tell bots by their ping. (They all have a ping of 5)
2) Players use the bot components noted in #1 and integrates the auto aim
features into their character and play on servers with the auto-aim components.
I'm not going to post any of the bot links but they are out there. The people
who started using the bots to enhance their own playing experience were mostly
pretty stupid. They usually configured their bots to cover auto aiming in a
filed of vision of 180 degrees or more around them. What this means is that if
a player with a bot is looking forward and they hit fire, the bot will hit
anything 180 degrees or more around them without turning. Secondly, they will
usually just (if playing a CTF map) shoot and kill people and not work on any
of the team objectives.
One more thing to note is one other problem with Quake 2 was that Q2 Servers
were susceptible to IP Ping Floods and could take down a given server.
ID Software has a practice of Stopping builds and not releasing any further
upgrades or practices. Not long after this, I started to loose interest
in this game.
This was about time that the Q3 Arena Demos started to Circulate around. I
began playing this game and reading the advanced press from various sources.
When I learned that CTF would loose all the cool components that made Q2 CTF a
classic, it was time for me to find a new on-line game to play.
I wasn't drawn to this game very much. Sure there were some cool things about
it but I wouldn't buy it ($59.99 was the price I believe) when Q3 Arena came
out.
I chose to buy Half-Life and still play it to this day. It's an amazing game
and Awesome Mods are still coming out to this day.
In my opinion, if a company can't take what made a given game famous and remove
some or all components in a multiplayer game in the next release of a game, the
company looses face in the gaming community. No One Lives Forever 2 is a
good example of this. No One Lives Forever 2 was initially released without a DM or CTF
mod (DM were later added with the first Service Pack after MANY irate customer
complaints) the MODs that made NOLF1 a classic (running over people with
snowmobiles rock!!!).
Bought Q3 Gold
I was at a Wal-Mart one day and noted Quake 3: Gold for $19.99 and bought it for
the heck of it. I was interested in seeing what became of the game and was
looking at what it took to map CTF maps. I've been looking into getting into
mapping and wanted to do some research into what is needed to create Maps. I
soon learned this was a kettle of workms that I probably should not have opened.
Install a pain on XP Long story short, Quake 3: Gold has to be installed in a
specific manner (it has to be a complete install) on the primary partition, in
the default 'suggested' path (XP Pro) (this information was found on the
Planequake forums
).
I soon found out that this install was to be the source of some of the issues
I've been receiving.
I also use The All Seeing Eye
to connect to games and because Q3 wouldn't work in the manner I wanted to
install the game in, ASE wouldn't work.
PlanetQuake, Fileplanet other quake related files
Ok, when I played Quake2, planetquake.com was the place to go for all
information, patches, maps, etc. I went back to this site and went to the Quake
3 section and began researching what would be needed to update my installation.
The planetquake site was slow (I'm on a Cable Modem) to load and took a good 2
minutes to load a page. When I found a given page on maps or mapping, the links
that were available were outdated or didn't work. There was no definitive 'manual' on how to
find different mods or what programs are needed to map and which files were the
most up to date. The links they provided (when they worked...which was about 10%
of the time) were anything but helpful. I found four different mapping
programs, none of which I've gotten to work correctly yet.
I found the Q3 MODS and patches on fileplanet but due to the new structure of
the site (wait in line?!?!?...LAME!!!) I would have had to wait 4-5 days just
to download a few files. I searched all over the net for the files I needed on
other sites and was able to finish the download in a day.
Once I got some semblance of a Q3 install completed, I connected to a Q3 Server
through ASE.
I remembered in the Q3 Install and patch that a program called
Punkbuster
which is a program that would detect cheaters and bot users. I thought 'cool'
Id is doing something about bots and cheaters!'
Punkbuster a nightmare to upgrade
When installing and upgrading Punkbuster to current Standards I was not able to
either through the game or using the command line update util. I found out that
the problem with the PB (again on XP Pro in Non-Domain mode patched to current
standards) is two fold:
1) The Quake Final Patch Release does not install a couple of key files for some
reason or another (I found this out on the
Planetquake forums
).
2) XP has a
default behavior
in that all system directories are 'read-only' and cannot be changed no matter
what you try (Group Policies, ACLS, command line attributes, removing simple
file sharing, etc.). In the case of Quake 3: Gold on XP, the default install
dir is 'Program files' directory. Punkbuster needs to convert a couple of HTML
files to binary and since the Read-Only Attributes are pushed from the Root
Level of the primary partition, PB can't make the conversion.
New Cheats out that render Punkbuster Useless
I'm not going to go in depth about this but there are a couple of serious
issues with some cheats out in the wild that PB can't handle at the moment. One
issue seems to be addressed. The other is a bot that is undetectable by PB and
is being used more and more on Q3 servers.
Players are furious that this issue isn't being addressed (myself included) by
ID.
Read the Punkbuster Forums
. Just about every single post is a rant about when/how is ID/Punkbuster will
be addressing the current hacking issues and how ticked they are on how this
issue isn't being addressed. (Side note: as of approx 27.Jan.2003 Punkbuster's forums have been removed and this site is taking the brunt of the PB issues.
I played on some of ThreeWave's
CTF Servers (A killer MOD by the way)the other day and played against bot
users. Some of these players are so stupid they turned their bot settings to
180 degrees or more and all players on my team wereable to spot this
immediately.
Before I wrote this article I played a Vanilla CTF Game on a Q3 Server and
there were a couple of players who were killing players in midair with weapons
with the littlest fire power or hitting people in midair (from long distances)
so they fell and cratered.
Needless to say, the team that I was on were trying and were winning in caps
for a while (but not gibs) slowly left the server after many of the players on
my team left (we started with 8 and when I left there were 3 versus 7 on the
other team).
What's going on ID?!?!?
You're loosing players that used to be hardcore Q2/Q3 players in droves and
they probably won't buy any more of your games due to the lack of attention
you're giving to the cheaters and hackers.
Also, as a result of my experiences, I have since turned my mapping interests
to the Half-Life Mod 'Day of Defeat' and the new James Bond Game '007:
NightFire'.
I tell you one thing, I'll never buy another ID product again.
Software is easy to fix, reputations are next to impossible to fix. Get
with the program ID!!!
Dolemite
This is a Classic EA ploy.
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
EA has a history of stopping services of an online game community when a new verison of a given game has been released to the masses.
For example, I used to play NHL 2002 pretty religiously. However, when NHL 2003 came out, all Online methods (within the game) for NHL 2002 players to play against each other stopped and EA focused on NHL 2003 MP efforts. In addition, all other game updates stopped as well.
Fortunately, there is a Huge community of NHL 2002 players that took it upon themselves to produce up-to-date roster lists, uniform updates, and other tweaks for each season. I also saw that someone created their own Online program to connect players together for NHL 2002 from scratch.
Ever since, I've not been able to play NHL 2002 online (within the game). After seeing EA's stance on producing new games every year and seeing EA screw owners of previous versions of a given game out of being able to play MP Games, I haven't been a fan or bought any more of their sports products ever since.
I'm also investigating something in Battlefield 1942 (another EA game) as well. On the bottom back of the box, there is a blurb that says something to the effect that there will be no more Multi-player support after September 3, 2003.
I'm wondering if this is a NHL MP ploy being used on another product. I've been hesitating buying BF 1942 for this reason. There is a huge community in BF 1942 that is continually growing and will probably be pretty hacked off if EA yanks the BF 1942 master MP servers.
Dolemite
Notes from a Sims Online Beta Tester
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I Beta Tested the Sims Online and didn't think it was anything special.
Here are my comments:
- I spent over 60% of my time downloading updates. There were always updates I had to download. At one time Players had to download a 70MB update. This update came from one source (EA). When updates come out
- The Sims world seems to be too homoginized, too politically correct. If you want to add some fun, let players choose if they want to be crime lords. Let players be whomever they want to be.
- The UI isn't too intuitive. People who don't play the Sims have a huge learning curve.
- Finding a place to start isn't easy. There should be some sort of 'want ads' or gathering place for new people.
- Their monthly prices are not worth the minimal gameplay you get in return.
- The game can consume too much of your time. This can become very adicitve for some people.
- What am I working towards? Nirvana? CEO? President? Playing this game is like a cross between watching fish in an aquarium and watching grass grow.
- If this game is to be a Simulation of real life why can't there be variables to have sucess and failures? I'm not able to gather a bunch of investors for a business venture and see if I can used the pooled money to become a mega conglomerate. I want to sell stock! I want to sell junk bonds!
Seriously tho, Carson Daly's show will promote piracy even more due to the creation of specific shows, of specific music, aimed for specific audiences.
You know, the best job I ever had was working at one of the Top Computer Science Departments in the nation (University of Washington) as a contractor.
The job was tough because I had to learn Unix Administration in a Trial by fire manner for the Department's support desk (the CS department is a Unix shop and were beginnig Unix/Windows integrations) and it was a very high paced environment during the school year (especially midterms and finals where the insanity level increased!).
Anyways, one of my jobs was to set up Windows/Unix projects for the Undergrads (servers, workstations, programs, etc). I would always get questions from the students about specific technologies work and how to use said technologies for their projects (usually in a manner in which the programs were not designed to be used for).
I spent hundreds upon hundreds of unbilled hours after work sitting down and teaching students how things work. As long as the students wanted to learn, I was always available for questions. I loved this part of my job.
I doubt that I will ever find a job like this again but, I hope that everyone finds a job or hobby that gives them the overall fufilment like I did in my previous job. Just do what you love, the rest will come.
1. 'Star Trek - Planet of the Hippies' (Insurrection) left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
Not even Oscar Winner F. Murray Abraham could have saved this movie. This movie should have never been made. Horrible Story, horrible script. Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) did a pretty good job directing with what he had to work with. It took me a long time to decide on wether or not to go see Nemisis based on the terminal putridness of this movie.
2. Very Poor Script Selection for the Entire ST:TNG movie series.
Let's face it, most of TNG movies should have been ditched in pre-production. I can't beleive there weren't better movie scripts to choose from. If I were the producer, Nemesis, Insurrection, and First Contact would have never been made.
3. Expectations from Star Trek 2.
I don't know about all of you but, 'The Wrath of Kahn' was the best Trek movie. It made the best use of all elements of the Trek world. (Bringing a character back from a single episode, Space battles, classic Kirk dialogue, scenes at home, training scenes {Kobiashi Mauru test}). I think nemesis tried too hard to set new expectations for Space battles based on the final battle in Trek 2.
4. Evolution of Characters/TNG World.
The only character evolutions in the ST:TNG movies were Data, Jordi, and Riker/Troi's revisit of their relationship. What about the other characters? What about the evolution of the ST:TNG world? What happened to the sexual tension Between Capt. Picard and Dr. Crusher? How do the character development in the movies move towards the characters portrayed in the final TV episode of TNG?
In the Original Star Trek Movies Characters, there were attempts to show evolution of characters/the Trek world (Sulu's own command, Kirk's promotion, and Klingon Peace).
5. Q. Not one movie even touches on Q. A great movie could be made from this character.
6. Use Movie Screen writers instead of Trek TV writers.
ST:TNG is notorious for it's anti-clamatic endings, most books (Non ST books) on the market today are written this way. You'd get a great story, great character development, great build up....but the ending really sucked and left you scratching your head on how this ending came to be.
7. The Mistique of the ST:TNG TV series hasn't been transferred to the big screen. It seems like the actors are just going through the motions in the films.
8. Let Nicholas Meyer Write/Direct again!
This is the man who directed ST 2 (The Wrath of Kahn) and 6(the Undiscovred Country) and wrote ST 2, 4 (The Voyage Home), and 6. Nicholas Meyer seems to have a grasp on a good story and character development.
I think the people at Paramount have some serious thinking to do before another Trek movie is made.
Some patching is going to be part of server maintenance, no question. However there are issues with this. You can't just go and apply a patch to a production server that is supposed to have 4 or 5 9's uptime and is taking in many thousands of dollars in ecommerce orders per day without first doing some testing. This patching process costs real money, takes time and introduces real risk. Microsoft releases a LOT of patches. Some organizations decide not to apply hotfixes because of the economics of this - and guess what, the service pack with the fix for this vulnerability was only released a week before the attack.
And this is Microsoft's fault?!?!
The fault still lies with the companies that didn't install the patches on their SQL servers. Companies that are supposed to maintain 5 9's of uptime are supposed to have plans in place to install patches.
Sounds to me like IT Managers or people higher on the management food chain are the ones that prevent servers from being updated to protect against potential attacks....NO MATTER WHAT THE OS IS!!!!
I can just see future Dilbert cartoons being created about the stupidity of managers prevent servers from being patched.
So, in essence, we will be seeing an article in the future on how someone hacked into the Shuttle (Just like the Mars Lander was) and was telling the shuttle to do some (driving) donuts in space?
Also, if the shuttle network goes down? How can they get e-mail support from the volunteer Linux Czars?
Is is me or does this article read like the cross between a propaganda article, a typical narrative from a Batman TV episode ("Will our heros be able to complete the task? Stay Tuned Bat-Fans!!!"), and a recruitment Ad for the FBI, CIA, or any of the Armed forces?
Slashdot Mirror
...how lazy game manufacturers are now a days and how little they care about game issues until something like this happens.
Dolemite
(In addition to all of the above)
Barry White or Marvin Gaye.
'nuff said
Dolemite
If you ask a store owner why they don't accept credit, they'll say that they don't trust it.
Not only for that reason, but small business owners get reamed for service charges by credit card companies for credit purchases.
Dolemite
...the United Federation of Planets (as in Star Trek) will some day build their HQ as is portrayed in the films. This is his way of making sure that won't happen.
(/sarcasm)
Dolemite
When was the last time you can remember Microsoft saying they supported a standard? That is, not something they invented and submitted a RFC for, an actual, take it off the shelf and re-implement it without renaming it or "improving" it so it doesn't work with anybody else standard. C++? Basic? HTML? A video or audio codec? Java? Anything?
It's called SMTP. Research the facts before you post next time.
Dolemite
I interviewed for a position (a few years ago) at Airborne Express and was told that Airborne used to require all potential delivery drivers to take drug (pee) tests as a part of the hiring process. Only potential delivery drivers were subject to this.
Well, one potential driver candidate sued and won a case against Airborne Express. He argued that it was unfair that only drivers were submitted for Drug Tests. The Judge agreed and ever since every potential hire at Airborne now has to take a pee test.
Dolemite
They're dying to invest and create industries that aren't commercial avaitation related.
They would love to have other sources of cash to fall back on in case their commercial airplane division bottoms out again (which is about every 10-15 years).
Dolemite
This is a copy of a letter I sent to ID and Activision a few months ago. These companies are loosing players in droves and the companies don't even care. Check out the PB forums and see the comments from all the irate players:
What happened to the Quake (2/3) Series?
This is basically an open letter to id Software and how little importance they place in their products. They are loosing players in drovers and their reputation is going down the toilet.
But first a little intro.
I began playing Quake 2 in 95 when some friends at work were having a DM/CTF LAN party. Needles to say I was hooked. I went out and bought the game and downloaded Map after Map. I Became pretty good and eventually became one of the best Q2 CTF players around .
The Q2 CTF MOD was, at the time one of the most innovative MOD's around and pretty much dictated what a Capture the flag Mod should be like. I enjoyed playing on the old YYZ CTF servers and testing new maps from some of the most awesome mappers at the time (Hafhead and gizm0 to name a few). Everyone was into the games, teamplay was amazing and cheaters were nonexistent because Id was on top of various hacks (wallhacking excluded).
Eventually, my scores started to go down and I was ending up at the middle of the pack at the end of rounds. I began spectating people and noticed that people were gibbing enemies from the side and from behind them and discovered the world of bots.
What is a bot?
Some n00bs may get confused by the definition.
There are two types of bots. 1) Used as an AI opponent on various servers to fill empty spaces on servers. These AI players have incredible aim. These bots are good if you want to practice aiming on the run. On Half-Life Servers you can tell bots by their ping. (They all have a ping of 5)
2) Players use the bot components noted in #1 and integrates the auto aim features into their character and play on servers with the auto-aim components. I'm not going to post any of the bot links but they are out there. The people who started using the bots to enhance their own playing experience were mostly pretty stupid. They usually configured their bots to cover auto aiming in a filed of vision of 180 degrees or more around them. What this means is that if a player with a bot is looking forward and they hit fire, the bot will hit anything 180 degrees or more around them without turning. Secondly, they will usually just (if playing a CTF map) shoot and kill people and not work on any of the team objectives.
One more thing to note is one other problem with Quake 2 was that Q2 Servers were susceptible to IP Ping Floods and could take down a given server.
ID Software has a practice of Stopping builds and not releasing any further upgrades or practices. Not long after this, I started to loose interest in this game.
This was about time that the Q3 Arena Demos started to Circulate around. I began playing this game and reading the advanced press from various sources.
When I learned that CTF would loose all the cool components that made Q2 CTF a classic, it was time for me to find a new on-line game to play.
I wasn't drawn to this game very much. Sure there were some cool things about it but I wouldn't buy it ($59.99 was the price I believe) when Q3 Arena came out.
I chose to buy Half-Life and still play it to this day. It's an amazing game and Awesome Mods are still coming out to this day.
In my opinion, if a company can't take what made a given game famous and remove some or all components in a multiplayer game in the next release of a game, the company looses face in the gaming community. No One Lives Forever 2 is a good example of this. No One Lives Forever 2 was initially released without a DM or CTF mod (DM were later added with the first Service Pack after MANY irate customer complaints) the MODs that made NOLF1 a classic (running over people with snowmobiles rock!!!).
Bought Q3 Gold
I was at a Wal-Mart one day and noted Quake 3: Gold for $19.99 and bought it for the heck of it. I was interested in seeing what became of the game and was looking at what it took to map CTF maps. I've been looking into getting into mapping and wanted to do some research into what is needed to create Maps. I soon learned this was a kettle of workms that I probably should not have opened. Install a pain on XP Long story short, Quake 3: Gold has to be installed in a specific manner (it has to be a complete install) on the primary partition, in the default 'suggested' path (XP Pro) (this information was found on the Planequake forums ).
I soon found out that this install was to be the source of some of the issues I've been receiving.
I also use The All Seeing Eye to connect to games and because Q3 wouldn't work in the manner I wanted to install the game in, ASE wouldn't work.
PlanetQuake, Fileplanet other quake related files
Ok, when I played Quake2, planetquake.com was the place to go for all information, patches, maps, etc. I went back to this site and went to the Quake 3 section and began researching what would be needed to update my installation. The planetquake site was slow (I'm on a Cable Modem) to load and took a good 2 minutes to load a page. When I found a given page on maps or mapping, the links that were available were outdated or didn't work. There was no definitive 'manual' on how to find different mods or what programs are needed to map and which files were the most up to date. The links they provided (when they worked...which was about 10% of the time) were anything but helpful. I found four different mapping programs, none of which I've gotten to work correctly yet.
Planetquake has gotten lazy in their old age.
I found the Q3 MODS and patches on fileplanet but due to the new structure of the site (wait in line?!?!?...LAME!!!) I would have had to wait 4-5 days just to download a few files. I searched all over the net for the files I needed on other sites and was able to finish the download in a day.
Once I got some semblance of a Q3 install completed, I connected to a Q3 Server through ASE.
I remembered in the Q3 Install and patch that a program called Punkbuster which is a program that would detect cheaters and bot users. I thought 'cool' Id is doing something about bots and cheaters!'
Punkbuster a nightmare to upgrade
When installing and upgrading Punkbuster to current Standards I was not able to either through the game or using the command line update util. I found out that the problem with the PB (again on XP Pro in Non-Domain mode patched to current standards) is two fold:
1) The Quake Final Patch Release does not install a couple of key files for some reason or another (I found this out on the Planetquake forums ).
2) XP has a default behavior in that all system directories are 'read-only' and cannot be changed no matter what you try (Group Policies, ACLS, command line attributes, removing simple file sharing, etc.). In the case of Quake 3: Gold on XP, the default install dir is 'Program files' directory. Punkbuster needs to convert a couple of HTML files to binary and since the Read-Only Attributes are pushed from the Root Level of the primary partition, PB can't make the conversion.
New Cheats out that render Punkbuster Useless
I'm not going to go in depth about this but there are a couple of serious issues with some cheats out in the wild that PB can't handle at the moment. One issue seems to be addressed. The other is a bot that is undetectable by PB and is being used more and more on Q3 servers.
Players are furious that this issue isn't being addressed (myself included) by ID.
Read the Punkbuster Forums . Just about every single post is a rant about when/how is ID/Punkbuster will be addressing the current hacking issues and how ticked they are on how this issue isn't being addressed. (Side note: as of approx 27.Jan.2003 Punkbuster's forums have been removed and this site is taking the brunt of the PB issues.
I played on some of ThreeWave's CTF Servers (A killer MOD by the way)the other day and played against bot users. Some of these players are so stupid they turned their bot settings to 180 degrees or more and all players on my team wereable to spot this immediately.
Before I wrote this article I played a Vanilla CTF Game on a Q3 Server and there were a couple of players who were killing players in midair with weapons with the littlest fire power or hitting people in midair (from long distances) so they fell and cratered.
Needless to say, the team that I was on were trying and were winning in caps for a while (but not gibs) slowly left the server after many of the players on my team left (we started with 8 and when I left there were 3 versus 7 on the other team).
What's going on ID?!?!?
You're loosing players that used to be hardcore Q2/Q3 players in droves and they probably won't buy any more of your games due to the lack of attention you're giving to the cheaters and hackers.
Also, as a result of my experiences, I have since turned my mapping interests to the Half-Life Mod 'Day of Defeat' and the new James Bond Game '007: NightFire'.
I tell you one thing, I'll never buy another ID product again.
Software is easy to fix, reputations are next to impossible to fix. Get with the program ID!!!
Dolemite
EA has a history of stopping services of an online game community when a new verison of a given game has been released to the masses.
For example, I used to play NHL 2002 pretty religiously. However, when NHL 2003 came out, all Online methods (within the game) for NHL 2002 players to play against each other stopped and EA focused on NHL 2003 MP efforts. In addition, all other game updates stopped as well.
Fortunately, there is a Huge community of NHL 2002 players that took it upon themselves to produce up-to-date roster lists, uniform updates, and other tweaks for each season. I also saw that someone created their own Online program to connect players together for NHL 2002 from scratch.
Ever since, I've not been able to play NHL 2002 online (within the game). After seeing EA's stance on producing new games every year and seeing EA screw owners of previous versions of a given game out of being able to play MP Games, I haven't been a fan or bought any more of their sports products ever since.
I'm also investigating something in Battlefield 1942 (another EA game) as well. On the bottom back of the box, there is a blurb that says something to the effect that there will be no more Multi-player support after September 3, 2003.
I'm wondering if this is a NHL MP ploy being used on another product. I've been hesitating buying BF 1942 for this reason. There is a huge community in BF 1942 that is continually growing and will probably be pretty hacked off if EA yanks the BF 1942 master MP servers.
Dolemite
I Beta Tested the Sims Online and didn't think it was anything special.
Here are my comments:
- I spent over 60% of my time downloading updates. There were always updates I had to download. At one time Players had to download a 70MB update. This update came from one source (EA). When updates come out
- The Sims world seems to be too homoginized, too politically correct. If you want to add some fun, let players choose if they want to be crime lords. Let players be whomever they want to be.
- The UI isn't too intuitive. People who don't play the Sims have a huge learning curve.
- Finding a place to start isn't easy. There should be some sort of 'want ads' or gathering place for new people.
- Their monthly prices are not worth the minimal gameplay you get in return.
- The game can consume too much of your time. This can become very adicitve for some people.
- What am I working towards? Nirvana? CEO? President? Playing this game is like a cross between watching fish in an aquarium and watching grass grow.
- If this game is to be a Simulation of real life why can't there be variables to have sucess and failures? I'm not able to gather a bunch of investors for a business venture and see if I can used the pooled money to become a mega conglomerate. I want to sell stock! I want to sell junk bonds!
Dolemite
...some listener in the middle of Iowa will be listening to a countdown and will eventually hear something like this:
Carson Daly: "...and in the next spot in our countdown is..."
Hollow Computer Voice: "....error in line 24...file not found...please contact an administrator..."
Dolemite
....I formerly thought this was the main sign of the impending apocalypse for the music industry.
Seriously tho, Carson Daly's show will promote piracy even more due to the creation of specific shows, of specific music, aimed for specific audiences.
Dolemite
You know, the best job I ever had was working at one of the Top Computer Science Departments in the nation (University of Washington) as a contractor.
The job was tough because I had to learn Unix Administration in a Trial by fire manner for the Department's support desk (the CS department is a Unix shop and were beginnig Unix/Windows integrations) and it was a very high paced environment during the school year (especially midterms and finals where the insanity level increased!).
Anyways, one of my jobs was to set up Windows/Unix projects for the Undergrads (servers, workstations, programs, etc). I would always get questions from the students about specific technologies work and how to use said technologies for their projects (usually in a manner in which the programs were not designed to be used for).
I spent hundreds upon hundreds of unbilled hours after work sitting down and teaching students how things work. As long as the students wanted to learn, I was always available for questions. I loved this part of my job.
I doubt that I will ever find a job like this again but, I hope that everyone finds a job or hobby that gives them the overall fufilment like I did in my previous job. Just do what you love, the rest will come.
Dolemite
1. 'Star Trek - Planet of the Hippies' (Insurrection) left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
Not even Oscar Winner F. Murray Abraham could have saved this movie. This movie should have never been made. Horrible Story, horrible script. Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) did a pretty good job directing with what he had to work with. It took me a long time to decide on wether or not to go see Nemisis based on the terminal putridness of this movie.
2. Very Poor Script Selection for the Entire ST:TNG movie series.
Let's face it, most of TNG movies should have been ditched in pre-production. I can't beleive there weren't better movie scripts to choose from. If I were the producer, Nemesis, Insurrection, and First Contact would have never been made.
3. Expectations from Star Trek 2.
I don't know about all of you but, 'The Wrath of Kahn' was the best Trek movie. It made the best use of all elements of the Trek world. (Bringing a character back from a single episode, Space battles, classic Kirk dialogue, scenes at home, training scenes {Kobiashi Mauru test}). I think nemesis tried too hard to set new expectations for Space battles based on the final battle in Trek 2.
4. Evolution of Characters/TNG World.
The only character evolutions in the ST:TNG movies were Data, Jordi, and Riker/Troi's revisit of their relationship. What about the other characters? What about the evolution of the ST:TNG world? What happened to the sexual tension Between Capt. Picard and Dr. Crusher?
How do the character development in the movies move towards the characters portrayed in the final TV episode of TNG?
In the Original Star Trek Movies Characters, there were attempts to show evolution of characters/the Trek world (Sulu's own command, Kirk's promotion, and Klingon Peace).
5. Q. Not one movie even touches on Q. A great movie could be made from this character.
6. Use Movie Screen writers instead of Trek TV writers.
ST:TNG is notorious for it's anti-clamatic endings, most books (Non ST books) on the market today are written this way. You'd get a great story, great character development, great build up....but the ending really sucked and left you scratching your head on how this ending came to be.
7. The Mistique of the ST:TNG TV series hasn't been transferred to the big screen. It seems like the actors are just going through the motions in the films.
8. Let Nicholas Meyer Write/Direct again!
This is the man who directed ST 2 (The Wrath of Kahn) and 6(the Undiscovred Country) and wrote ST 2, 4 (The Voyage Home), and 6.
Nicholas Meyer seems to have a grasp on a good story and character development.
I think the people at Paramount have some serious thinking to do before another Trek movie is made.
Dolemite
....they changed my life dramatically.
Check these books out along with with limekiller4's suggestion in the Topic "I Don't Know, But I'm Sure the Book Doesn't Either".
As the 'other' Canadian Rock Power Trio (Triumph) says..."Follow your heart".
Good Luck!
Dolemite
Since the AVN/Porn Conventions happen on the same week and in the same place as Comdex in Vegas, why can't the porn industry bail them out?
From what I read, everyone goes to the porn convention anyways.
heh
Dolemite
Some patching is going to be part of server maintenance, no question. However there are issues with this. You can't just go and apply a patch to a production server that is supposed to have 4 or 5 9's uptime and is taking in many thousands of dollars in ecommerce orders per day without first doing some testing. This patching process costs real money, takes time and introduces real risk. Microsoft releases a LOT of patches. Some organizations decide not to apply hotfixes because of the economics of this - and guess what, the service pack with the fix for this vulnerability was only released a week before the attack.
And this is Microsoft's fault?!?!
The fault still lies with the companies that didn't install the patches on their SQL servers. Companies that are supposed to maintain 5 9's of uptime are supposed to have plans in place to install patches.
Sounds to me like IT Managers or people higher on the management food chain are the ones that prevent servers from being updated to protect against potential attacks....NO MATTER WHAT THE OS IS!!!!
I can just see future Dilbert cartoons being created about the stupidity of managers prevent servers from being patched.
Dolemite
...at Wal-Mart for Under 10 Dollars.
Dolemite
It smells like sewage, it feels like sewage, and it tastes like sewage.
Too bad we didn't step in it.
Dolemite
Do you want to get a sacry glimpse of where this economy is heading in, say, 25 or more years?
Read this book.
Buckle your seatbelts kids, it's going to be a gnarly ride!
P.S. I though the sucking sound was Anna Nicole Smith at an all you can eat restaraunt.
Dolemite
This technology as been around for at least two years.
I though these new fangled band-aid's would be available to the public by now.
Razor cuts are a pain to clot when using a new Gilette.
Dolemite
Here's a tesla coil for you!! (Standing 20 Feet Tall)
With shows like:
A CALCULATED FORECAST OF ULTIMATE DOOM: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement
...and...
A Carnival of Misplaced Devotion: Calculated to Arouse Resentment for the Principles of Order
...and, of course...
The Best of SRL!!!
Pretty friggin cool 'eh?
Dolemite
I used to have this console trying to be a computer of a game.
I can't beleive this game wasn't included in this list!!!
Just look at the games you have to choose from:
- K.C. Munchkin (*cough* Pac-Man Rip off *cough*)
- Computer Intro
- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!
- Las Vegas Black Jack!!!
- Bowling!/Basketball!
...and last but not least...
- Alien Invaders - Plus! (Just in case plain Alien Invaders wasn't enough for you kids!)
How this console is no longer popular, I haven't a clue!
(/sarcasm)
Dolemite
So, in essence, we will be seeing an article in the future on how someone hacked into the Shuttle (Just like the Mars Lander was) and was telling the shuttle to do some (driving) donuts in space?
Also, if the shuttle network goes down? How can they get e-mail support from the volunteer Linux Czars?
Dolemite
Is is me or does this article read like the cross between a propaganda article, a typical narrative from a Batman TV episode ("Will our heros be able to complete the task? Stay Tuned Bat-Fans!!!"), and a recruitment Ad for the FBI, CIA, or any of the Armed forces?
Dolemite