This poll was taken at a Windows page! I think that's pretty funny ... I could not resist from taking a screenshot. Maybe the 100,000 slashdot readers influenced the poll a little bit ;)
| April 30 |
Blizzard hit with privacy suit
Thank to Krank for letting me know about this story:
"An Albany, Calif., attorney has filed suit against Blizzard Entertainment and its parent company Cendant Corp. for extracting information from some users playing Starcraft over Battle.net. (...)Gamespot has the full story. I hope that this lawsuit will teach other companies not to steal private information. It will also give Blizzard a reason to release a new version of Starcraft. I still cannot understand why Blizzard did this (see news from April 20 to 23); how could they ignore all the privacy laws and think that all Windows users are too lazy or dumb to check the content of the packets sent away?Driscoll, [the attorney,] representing a non-profit consumer watch-dog organization called Intervention, Inc., is not asking for money damages but wants Blizzard to accept returns from Starcraft buyers for a full refund and to supply a new version of Starcraft without the part of the program that can upload registry information."
| April 29 |
Speed up AoE and Windows
Kelvin Joe has sent in FreeMem Professional, a program that lets you control the memory management from Windoze and get a better performance. He said that it can speed up AoE pretty much if you have only 32 MB of RAM.
The program forces Windows to swap unneeded memory pages to the harddisk, freeing up memory for the programs you need. I did not notice a difference with 96 MB, though. AoE consumes about 12 MB of RAM, so I recommend running this program if you have 32 MB (in this case, Windows will have little RAM free after the startup).
A good tip in the help file was to disable the "Microsoft Office Fast Start" if you have it. It consumes a lot of your RAM and slows your computer down a lot, making the start of M$Office in fact slower than before (on systems with 32 MB RAM). It's funny that a program that is called "Fast Start" slows the start down - well, it is from Microsoft ;) I never let it come that far :)
Picture of the day
This poll was taken at a Windows page! I think that's pretty funny ... I could not resist from taking a screenshot. Maybe the 100,000 slashdot readers influenced the poll a little bit ;)
Internet gaming zone for everyone
"REDMOND, Wash. -- April 27, 1998 -- Microsoft Corp. today released its latest update for the Microsoft® Internet Gaming Zone (http://www.zone.com/), featuring support for Netscape 4.0 and the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The new version makes the Zone accessible to the majority of Internet users. With this new version, the Zone also introduced the new Zone Rating System, which allows game players to determine how they fare against other players. Chess and Age of Empires® will be the first games with the Zone Rating System, and new games are scheduled to be added to the system in the coming weeks."
| April 27 |
AoE2 database
Finally, I have completed a first version of the AoE2 database! Check it out, I have gathered the best suggestions from the AoE2 wishlist and sorted them by their topic. Please read it before posting a new message; duplicate messages will thus be prevented.
It is also visible that there should be more ideas for naval warfare and priests, while other topics have been very well covered at the AoE2 message booard.
I will not have enough time to bring the list completely up to date during the next week, so if someone wants to help me, please let me know. I am sure that the people from ES will like this convenient way of checking AoE2 suggestions.
Save Povray.org
Povray.org is in trouble due to bandwidth problems. The best raytracer (available for all platforms) has become too popular :) If you know a company that could provide financial support, please inform it. It would be a pity if this traditional and excellent program disappeared from the web.
| April 26 |
Spaceguild.com has opened!
Spaceguild.com, a new site that will host pages about Dune, has gone online! Follow that link and check it out. We are looking for good pages about specific aspects of Dune. Read more at spaceguild.com.
New scenario
There is a new multi player scenario where you have very little resources, but an elevated starting position that can be defended easily by archers - hot battles are guaranteed.
| April 24 |
Make web pages printable
There is the option "Always use my colors, overriding document" in the Preferences menu of Netscape, but it does not override <font> tags. So I have written a CGI script that makes pages printable on every system. It works with all pages, and unless the html code is screwed up, it even parses all image locations (which must be changed since the script is not located in the same directory as the html document) and links correctly. The script would work with any page but requires setting a base path, so it will only work for my page.
If you could not print some pages here due to the color set, try that script - you will like it. Note that you have to enter the entire URL, including "index.html". Post your comments in the message board; if people like it, I will maybe add a button to some of the pages so they can automatically be converted.
| April 23 |
IGZ team plays against CGW crew
"We're always up to a good challenge so we decided to schedule another! This time, the Zone team has dared the folks from Computer Gaming World (CGW) to a Battle Royal. 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."Check the news archive for more details.
Blizzard's official statement
Krank was the first one who told me about Blizzard's statement that can be found at PCGamer:
"The information that was gathered was used to determine whether the problems stemmed from manufacturing issues or software piracy -- and no other reason. By collecting the information, we were able to contact several customers directly and solve their CD problems. With the exception of that seven day period, Blizzard has never collected player information other than that which is commonly collected by Internet browsers and also via user registration cards."It still would not feel comfortable using Starcraft - Blizzard has installed their Trojan Horse with it that allows them to do data mining at will. If it was just for finding out the source of a technical problem, why didn't they ask then? Why didn't they use a real CD key that is required for installing the product?
| April 22 |
Starcraft's "Thought police" feature
So far, there has not been an official statement from Blizzard towards that topic. 100,000 people have read it at Slashdot yesterday, and some of them claim that they have proofed the rumor, others say it is not true. If you have Starcraft, go to this page with instructions how to verify the rumor. Most Windows users do not care much about their security, which is probably the reasons why this has not been extensively tested yet.
Keep in mind that such registry sniffing actions will hurt a lot of honest customers: people whose key has been warezed before they could use it, and people who mistype the key. It also means that Blizzard cannot be trusted; next time, another company will maybe go for the entire [SOFTWARE] tree in the registry or more. What I cannot tolerate is the logic "I think you have stolen something, now I will break into your house to proof it."
Beta patch
The following bugs are fixed:
Poll results
Has the game industry become less inventive during the 90s? was the question, and the result may sound discouraging: only 20% of all people answered "No", and most people (66%) think that the major part of the companies are just recycling old ideas without adding much new stuff. Alas, they are right.
Must see
Check out the quicktime movie in this report from CNN where an assistant of Gates demonstrates Win98, and the blue screen that we all know so well appears. He plugs in a device, then Win98 notices something new, and then poof! it's gone :)
| April 21 |
Test the patch today!
Matt Pritchard (from Ensemble Studios) has just
confirmed that ES is "able to release the 1.0b patch as "beta" (with disclaimer) today." If you want to test it, download it from the gamestats or this server and
try it out! Keep in mind that this is a semi-official beta release, so backup the old .exe file first. It seems like this poll has been good for something :)
Official statement about the patch
"I wanted to clarify the question raised by my earlier comments. Microsoft is not delaying the patch in the sense that they have it and are sitting on it. Whenever we send a patch to them, they perform full regression testing on the entire game. That means they go back and play every single scenario that comes with the game and every random map type to make sure the game plays the way it is supposed to. That alone takes a few days. Then, because of the type of bugs we are fixing, they have to beat the hell out of the multiplayer testing, using all sorts of techniques to add different amounts of lags to connections to see if they can break it or find a way to cheat or break the game. Add several more days for that. Then after that, they have to get any program updates, and the setup and readme files translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese, Which takes a few more days to get the files sent off and returned back. Because we are publishing with Microsoft, the patching process is more involved than with other publishers and games which are English only. If people know what is actually involved (and that the MS testing team is working their butts off) it makes it a little easier to understand. Finally, there is always the chance it'll finish up earlier than expected, we try to error our estimates on the conservative side."
| April 20 |
Starcraft steals private information
Blizzard's newest game, Starcraft, illegally retrieves your name and e-mail address from the registry and sends it to Blizzard if your CD key is wrong.
Go to Slashdot.org (where I have found this) for more info and comments.
I had considered buying
the game (I have not played it yet, nor seen it in action), but now, I
will never buy any software from that company again. It is totally
outrageous what Blizzard is doing, and I cannot understand nor
tolerate such actions.
I write software myself, and I know how piracy hurts the industry - but
illegal actions are not the right response.
New scenarios
I have reviewed a bunch of new scenarios in the past week. I have added some new single players scenarios to the scenario section. I am still looking for good multiplayer scenarios, so if you have one, send it in!
News about the patch
Brian has informed me that the new retail versions of Age of Empires are already patched (with the 1.0a patch of course). This makes it more convenient for players that are new to the game or have no Internet access (in the latter case, they will not require the 1.0b patch anyway). The price for AoE has been reduced to $30 at some stores, so watch out for that if you have not bought AoE yet.
| April 19 |
LAN tournament
I was at a LAN tournament yesterday so I could not update this page. Since the wood bug does not work on a LAN, playing it without a patch caused no problems.
I have also played a few Quake patches, and I can recommend the "Rocket Arena" and "Battle of the Sexes" patches. You should be at least 8 players for playing the latter "Capture the Flag" variation, though. The new version is very funny with the new effect for players that are injured. Look for that patch at some Quake II page!
| April 18 |
News about the patch
"We (ES and MS) are testing the hell out of it... Assuming the testing goes well, there's still a lot of other work to be done (localization issues, setup program, etc.). I won't give a firm date (for obvious reasons:), but we'll release it the instant it's ready."
Microsoft's policy delaying the patch?
"We can now formally say that a patch will be forthcoming for AoE.However, it appears as if it will be at least 2 weeks minimum before Microsoft releases it. Ensemble finished the patch a week ago and sent it to Microsoft."
Should the testing for the patch be public?
With a public test for the patch, Microsoft would gain time and have a wider variety of platforms (the combinations of all Windows releases with all patches for them is infinite) on which the patch is tested. What do you think? Tell us your opinion now, and maybe Microsoft will change its policy (although it is highly unlikely).
| April 17 |
Starcraft "Wood" Bug is Discovered
This is from the Imperial Guard Web site (link sent in by Leo):
Last night, during a practice game between IG members, Rman_IG discovered that the infamous Age of Empires "wood" bug exists in Starcraft as well. We were all disappointed to see that minerals and gas can be conjured from thin air using the following steps:I have not bought Starcraft yet (I am waiting for a Linux version), but this is truly embarassing ... how many "wood bug infested" games are we going to see in the future? :) Please tell me if you find one - this is truly funny. Now we can see who patches their games faster ... and maybe Blizzard will break the records with shortest time span between a release and a patch ;)You will find that sometimes you get back more than twice as many resources as the building costs. For example, if you build a Protoss Stargate, which costs 200 minerals and 200 gas, the cancelling will sometimes bring in over 400 minerals and 400 gas. As was the case with the AoE bug, it seems that the more the game is lagging, the easier it is to conjure up resources.
- Start a building.
- Select the building.
- Before the building is complete, hit the Escape key as many times and as fast as possible.
New graphic adventure ;)
I have read this today in the "Visions" (magazine at the department of computer science):
"I am looking for a really exciting graphic adventure that is truly challenging me." - "Ever tried Windows 98 Beta?" :)
New scenarios
I have received quite a few new scenarios and campaigns; I will post the best ones of them as soon as I have evaluated them. Keep sending in your scenarios but keep in mind that I will only post really good scenarios that have something special about them. I have had more than 1000 scenarios in my War2 page, but most people are more satisfied with a few good ones. I will also add a Perl script soon that lets you vote for your favorite scenarios and post your comments about them. If you want to help me with that scripts, please send me a mail.
| April 16 |
Perl/CGI programmers wanted
There is a huge project around the corner (I will soon tell you more). Right now, we are looking for people who can write Perl programs (mainly CGI scripts). If you like the coolest programming language ever and have a basic understanding of CGI and Linux/Unix, join the team! You will get in touch with the latest technology that is used for professional pages (which will help you a lot when looking for a job in that sector), and you will be able to see your work online.
| September '97 - April '98 |
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