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| April 15 |
AoE2 wish list
Someone should make a list of the best and most often posted AoE2 suggestions so people will not keep repeating the same wishes (like "more ages, gates, musketeers" etc.). I am afraid that I do not have enough time for this; if someone wants to help me, please send me a mail.
Printing html pages
If you encounter pages with a dark background and light text, you will have problems if you want to print them. Just choose "Always use my colors, overriding document" in the color preferences of your browser, and the page should become printable if you have set the colors appropriately. Some lines (e. g. titles with <font> tags) will still be hard to read, but the text will be black on a grey background. This works only with a real browser (i. e. Netscape).
Startup phase tips
I have updated the page about the startup phase. However, it does not nearly go into as much detail as Ken's guide Bronze Age in 13 minutes. I recommend reading it if Ken's guide is too complicated for you or if you need some general tips.
| April 14 |
ICQ list update
For a few hours, adding entries did not work; that problem should be fixed now. I hope that deleting entries will be possible soon, so you can correct typos etc.
New multi player fun scenario
It's called "Trench Warfare" and is a huge archer battle in a maze. Download it from the scenario section.
| April 13 |
New ICQ list software up!
Finally, the new improved ICQ list software is working. With more than 400 entries, it was really necessary :)
Now you can search the list for people in your country! This will allow you to play with minimal lag. Check it out! Alternatively, you can also display the latest 100 entries.
An option for deleting entries will be added ASAP.
MS sues itself
This is not AoE related, but it is a pretty strange story worth reading:
Microsoft going to court against itself
Microsoft Switzerland has reported itself to the tax authorities. The software giant has not indicated stock options on their wages slips for years.
These stock options were given to employees as an addition to their (extremely poor) salaries without declaring them to the authorities. About 50% of all employees received such bonuses. Microsoft justifies their omisson with "uncertain legal positions, different statements from tax consultants and authorities".
By sueing itself, they try to compensate for their sins in the past. It is also a tax trick, for the penalty is max. 25% of what they would have had to pay if the authorities had sued MS. It is still surprising that the report had not come earlier. Tax authorities in Zurich have shown MS how to declare their options back in April 1997.
The bad thing is that Microsoft's employees have not been informed before MS has come forward itself, so the actions came completely surprising for the employees. The truly evil thing is that Microsoft is not going to pay the penalties - they will leave that up to the employees. Some of them have not known about this problem before, and they have to pay a substantial penalty that they cannot afford. Microsoft has started a hotline for tax problems for their employees in order to help them.
| April 12 |
Kali 1.44 out - with TCP/IP launch option
If anyone gets a chance to test the TCP launch capability in Kali95 1.44 please email us with the results (good, bad, or whatever). Send email to win95-support@kali.net.What am I talking about? It's an undocumented feature in Kali95 1.44 that will allow you to use either TCP or IPX in most Win95 games played through the global launch system. Games that don't run as well under IPX might run better under TCP. Games like NetMech95, Total Annihilation, Outlaws, Links LS98, and maybe other. Feel free to try other games as well.
Just make sure everyone has 1.44 and everyone uses the TCP options to join or host games. You won't need to know the host's ip#. Just press enter if the game asks for an ip# and see how it goes.
This has not been tested so we're not sure of the results. If it works well we might consider making this option available through server-based games as well.
| April 11 |
AoE bug and 2nd patch
If you have not read about the "wood bug" yet, please scroll down to the news from April 8 and read about it there. I wish Ensemble did announce the bug (and the patch) officially at their page or Microsoft's page, to prevent players from being cheated by people exploiting this bug.
I am sure that they will find a clean way to fix the bug and to prevent cheaters from using the old version of AoE against honest players. I hope that Ensemble Studios will post the patch ASAP at their ftp servers so people can test it before it is released "officially". They have lost many sympathies by not informing people about the bug or the patch.
| April 10 |
New information about the next patch
This has been posted in the AoE newsgroup by Dave Pottinger, programmer of AoE:
Okay, here's the info.Thanks to Leo for sending it in.The info has gotten out that we are indeed going to do a patch... Based on the way the last patch went, we had hoped to avoid giving that info out until we knew exactly what the patch would contain, but those things happen...
Anyway, YES, A PATCH IS COMING. NO, WE WILL NOT DISCUSS WHICH BUGS IT'S GOING TO FIX UNTIL WE'VE LOOKED AT THE CODE CHANGES AND MADE SURE THOSE CHANGES ARE ONLY FIXING THE THINGS WE WANT TO FIX AND NOTHING MORE. Before you all start a long thread wondering about what will and won't get fixed, I'd just ask that you remember how well the first patch went (where we pretty much fixed/improved all of the major complaints).
As far as timeframe goes, the patch will be out when it's ready (i.e. been through tons o' testing); WE DO NOT HAVE A TIMEFRAME ON DELIVERING THE PATCH. We're going to start testing the fixes soon, but all plans will get blown to hell if we find that the fixes broke something else, etc.
ES and MS remain committed (as always) to making sure that everyone who's bought AOE remains happy. We certainly don't like bugs anymore than you all do, but they're a fact of software development. Fixing them in a patch is a long, tedious process. In the end, we're 100% confident that the patched AOE will remain the #1 RTS on the market.
Dave C. Pottinger
Engine Lead
Ensemble Studios Corp.
New poll
Having seen OGR's top 50 games list (news from April 3), it was obvious that games were more varied a few years ago. During the 80's, the standard genres we know today (action, adventure, strategy, sport, simulation and role playing games) had not established themselves yet or did not even exist! Now, there are many companies who try to recycle old ideas (just look at the RTS sector: dozens of titles were released during the last Christmas season). Is the gaming industry still evolving or has it become limited to adapting to new hardware?
Find the answer in the new poll!
| April 9 |
Poll results
The results of this poll are: more than 50% of all players have mastered learning all hotkeys and would like to have more hotkeys in AoE2. 10% do not use hotkeys at all, and the rest likes the current system (hotkeys for unit commands, icon for upgrades). I strongly recommend learning the hotkeys to the 10% of all players who do not use them yet; they will speed up your unit control a lot.
A new poll will be posted tomorrow.
New European mirror
Finally the European mirror server runs under Linux. It should be more reliable than the old one. Unfortunately, the admin has forgotten to plug it in, so it is not reachable right now...
| April 8 |
AoE bug - but a fix is coming soon
This description by Leo was sent in by Brian:
It works this way:Matt Pritchard from ES has announced that a bugfix will be out very soon - so there was no reason not to post this news. It is good that the people at ES still fix bugs; this one would have ruined Internet games (since this cheat is impossible to detect if used in a subtle way).Due to lag and the fact that you get 50% of the resources back when you delete an UNFINISHED building, you get your wood back every time you press delete. Since (due to lag) the building IS STILL THERE, then the resource give-back is still working.... over and over...
- If there is NO LAG - CREATE SOME (by running a file transfer in the background, for example... Finish it when you're done).
- "Build" an expensive thing (like 150 wood or more...)
- Send the villager back to whatever he was doing first.
- Select the building in construction.
- Now, IN RAPID SUCCESSION, press Delete, as many times as the system records it, but does not take action on the building, due to lag.
Bronze Age in 13 minutes in .pdf
Ken has converted the postscript file about getting into the Bronze Age into the Acrobat reader format (.zip, 36 KB), so users who do not have ghostview can view and print it.
Sendmail tool needed
If someone has a sendmail script that can send one binary attachment encoded correctly in base 64 as a part of a MIME message, being run from the command line, please send it in. The program will run on an ULTRA SPARC under Solaris and will use Sun's mail program. I don't care whether it is a Perl or shell script or a compiled program, it would be cool to have it soon :)
Alternatively, I could use a good documentation about multi-part MIME messages. I have written such a script but it still does not work 100% correctly.
| April 7 |
Bronze Age in 13 minutes?
Ken Stanley has written a very interesting guide how to get to the Bronze Age quickly (under optimal conditions and no attacks in the first 11 minutes). It is based on thorough observations and statistics and certainly worth to check out!
| April 6 |
Zone for Netscape
There is a beta version of the "new improved" zone available at beta.zone.com but no one uses it yet. I have to admit that I was not excited about the entrance page (the text "16 players currently playing Age of Empires" was shown in big letters). If you are a zone user, you should check it out and provide feedback because it will be the interface you will have to deal with for a while. Thanks to zx75 for the info.
| April 5 |
Poll
The link to this weeks' poll: "Icons or micromanagement?" has been screwed up. So if you have not voted yet, do so quickly, because the poll will close soon.
Internet Gaming Zone news
Beta version out:
"The Zone will be running an open beta until its full launch." Right now, the Zone is still not accessible to Netscape users; I wonder how they want to test Netscape compatibility that way.
April 8: OGR Team challenges IGZ team
The Internet Gaming Zone has challenged Online Gaming Review to a battle in Age of Empires. Come to the War Cry room at 5 P.M. Pacific Time and see if the Zone team can beat the OGR civilization or if we'll have to run away with our tail between our legs.
April 23: CGW Team challenges IGZ team
This time, the Zone team has challenged the folks from Computer Gaming World magazine (CGW) to a Battle Royale. Who will be left standing, and will anyone get to the Iron Age? Check out the action at 6 P.M. Pacific Time in the Age of Empires War Cry game room.A while ago, the Zone team has been beaten 27-21 by Zone members - but a rematch is already planned :)
Script for Netscape users
The "Personal toolbar folder" in Netscape has become annoying to me. Under UNIX, you cannot delete it, and it always takes up space in your bookmarks. If you delete it, it will just reappear a minute later. I have written a Perl script that deletes that folder (1 K) but keeps your bookmarks intact. (Shift+click to download.) Just keep running it in the background. I even had to write a little shell script (1 K) that runs the Perl script as a "poor man's cronjob" since we are not allowed to have one. I am sure there may be a way to disable the appearance of that folder, but it is a cool hack anyway :)
Troubles with reparitioning
I have shrunk my NT partition and given more space to Linux. The NT partition was no longer bootable afterwards so I had to install everything again :(
I recommend putting NT at the beginning of the extended partition and the Linux boot partition into the first one. Like this, you can shrink the NT parition and enlarge all Linux partitions other than / (root) without many problems. Of course abandoning Windows is also a solution - AoE and ICQ are the only programs for which there is no Linux version or equivalent :)
I have lost a few mails that I had forgotten to backup, but I could restore all the rest.
| April 3 |
Telcontar is back
I am back, and there will be many updates during the next days. Keep checking back this page for Ken Stanley's guide to the Bronze Age, an entirely new ICQ list feature, AoE2 info and more.
Starcraft is out
Finally, the sequel to Warcraft 2 is out (at least in the USA) - Blizzard's Starcraft has hit the shelves yesterday. I am not sure whether I will buy it, after all, it does not have any groundbreaking new features, but the graphics are excellent for sure.
OGR's all time classics
OGR has a special about 50 all time classic games at their site. What is surprising is that Total Annihilation (rank 31) beat Age of Empires (not in list). There are lots of cool classics in the list, and there is also a list of top games before the PC got popular (e. g. Elite, the best space combat/trading game ever). Thanks to Yehat for the link.
The best RTS game was Warcraft 2, "more addicting fun than any title has a right to have." The number one is, guess what, Doom, the most popular game of this century: "The editors could think of few experiences as laden with adrenaline as their first deathmatches (Glenn actually brought up a couple, but they're not fit for print)." :)
It also becomes obvious that the game industry has restricted itself to some established genres, and only few people (Peter Molyneux, Richard Garriot, Sid Meier) are willing to try something completely new :(
Kali 1.43 out
"The latest software is Kali95 Version 1.43. This version introduces built-in TCP/IP support so you can see the running servers for popular games like Quake 2, QuakeWorld, and Jedi Knight."Get Kali from this server or have a look at the list of all kali mirrors. Many people keep asking me what the best way to play multiplayer games over the Internet is, and the answer is clear: Kali. If you are too cheap for a life-time $20 fee, there still is ICQ. I would not consider the Internet Gaming Zone a good option; it is very slow, a pain to install, and it's from Microsoft.
New 2D/3D graphics adapter
2d+3d graphics with tv outputThe card cost only $149 - which is not much for a card with 8 MB and a TV adapter, but the price also shows that the new Voodoo 2 chip is going to dominate the market eventually.
3dfx voodoo rush 8mb
These cards are new oem packed with drivers and manual; see the following site
| September '97 - March '98 |
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