Domain was sold

So I am not sure what I would call this blog now, lol, its not like I was using it actively anyway.

And money was something nobody sane would have turned down. All five dot coms that I was still holding on to are now sold. I am dot com less but fully capable of permanently retiring now.

I'll probably be spending lot more time down where water is not polluted.

Complexity

First there is a mountain,
Then there is no mountain,
Then there is

I read that twenty years ago in some random Zen book whose name I do not remember. Yet as I went through life it is incredible to how many things it applies.

I am taking a break from online life and catching up on offline life.

The 8 Billion Dollar ipod

I do not usually watch things like this but this time I made random exception and ...

Westfront PC The Trials of Guilder

While cleaning out some old USB sticks I found one where I backed up all my 3 inch floppies before throwing out the last computer that had drive to run them.

Among tons of things I forgot about, there is a copy of one of the first games I owned, Westfront PC The Trials of Guilder.

To run it on my computer today I have to use DOSBox.

I still remember where I got stuck in it. Yeah, I never beat it. I was supposed to 'appease the wolf'. Nobody on any of BBS's I frequented had a clue what this game was, nor how to appease the wolf, there was no place to look it up, so I set it aside and forgot all about it for all these years.

I Googled the name of the game to find how to appease the wolf, or at least read a summary of what actually happens in the game, and found this page:

http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=yurg8ah4pdcapc5g

This game is now in public domain (used to be shareware). You can download it at that link for free.

Edit: I just found out that Paul Allen Panks, the creator of Westfront PC The Trials of Guilder died back in 2009, 5 years ago. More specifically I found out about it by reading this:
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2063

I was not aware of anything he said/did other than this one game. And as it seems that there were lot of people who disliked him and as he is not around to defend himself, I feel need to add this here as well. I cannot post on that page as it does not seem to have a comment box any more, but I can clone post that I wholeheartedly agree with that somebody else posted and that reflects how I feel about it today:

Thank you Paul.

BEST MMO IDEA EVER (I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST THO)

While back I was thinking how great it would be to play MMO that actually replica of Earth, but perhaps in Fallout-like setting, or Shadowrun. I prefer Shadowrun setting, as much as recent Shadowrun games butchered it, but Fallout setting would be far easier to manage.

Years went by, and as I am not game developer but a gamer, nothing came of that MMO idea. Until now.

Randomly today I  chanced upon these guys:
http://rerollgame.com/

If they make it, it will be like dream come true for anybody into this type of thing.

First part is set for release at some point mid next year (2015), and as Elder Scrolls Online just made me lose hope in gaming companies actually producing what they promise, I'll defer my judgement on this until I see what they wind up creating.

The IDEA of it tho, is where gaming companies should be aiming. Create worlds, not dozen crappy, empty zones. Populate those worlds with players, not with stupid AI. And then let me PK all those carebears and noobs in that world without repercussion, and let them try to do the same to me.

ESO going F2P or shutting off servers

Its a prediction.

And I'd like to say, before anything else, that anybody who purchased Elder Scrolls Online is financing regurgitated garbage that these wannabe developers are throwing out. You should be ashamed! Crap like ESO should be denied support, people who got to make decisions which resulted in failure and waste of resourced should be blacklisted and never be left in charge of anything again. By being complacent you are getting exactly what you deserve: garbage.

Anybody that knows me knows that finances are a non issue for me. I buy several games each month and whether game has cash shop or subscription, or both, if I like it, I'll support it.

But when I play MMO, it is not just about me and my own likes and dislikes. MMO's are also about community and population. You cannot do 60 man raid if there are only 40 people playing on your entire server at any one time.

That is why Warhammer Online failed. I actually got two free copies from two different friends who each preordered extra copy because they wanted me in their guilds. They were on different servers so I joined both as I was touched by the gestures. At first it was ok, but then I got to mid-range levels and most quests seemed to be designed for groups, but there were no groups. I tend not to play during primetime. Solidly populated MMO has people around 24/7, average one just has people during 4-6 busy hours. I guess if I was not there to play with friends I could have switched to different timezone servers, like Oceanic ones, where their primetime would be dead hours when I have free time. When population starts to dwindle, its a ripple effect, it does not get better without outside influence, such as promotion, new xpac, etc. Whoever was making final decisions for WAR was simply incompetent as far as promoting and running a MMO goes. So many people on WoW servers saw WAR as WoW Killer that WAR should have succeeded by default.

ORIGIN is giving away FREE GAMES

Yeah. Really free.

They are starting with Dead Space, available for free until May 8th 2014:
https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/on-the-house-ANW.html

I already have it, without Origin, so this is not incentive enough for me to get Origin just yet. After all, I even use cracks on my legally purchased Steam games just to avoid having Steam on, so last thing I want to do is install yet another unneeded DRM piece of crapware that might interfere with something else.

I much preferred when I could just buy the game in store and not need to activate it online.  All they are doing with all this online DRM is making people like me use cracks so that we can enjoy our legally purchased games.

It just makes no sense that pirated products give you less headache than buying directly from manufacturer.

Price of Progress: In Support of Piracy

If internet was decade and a half ago as it was today, I do not think my trip would have been as fun.

I remember using popup blockers and deciding on what are morally correct ways to serve ads to my visitors (for example, I never used popups nor exit crap that tries to make last minute sale). But I look at what I run today and I could not possibly advise anybody not to do same and run Malwarebytes, AdblockPlus, Noscript, ...

When I started out I think I was getting infected by random virus every week. In last decade I have not had a single infection. I do however see 'blocked' by Malwarebytes and Avast about three times an hour.

I also remember what it was like to contact small game developer with an issue, or talk to sysop at random BBS, before there was internet. And how much more polite interactions were. How much higher value individual customer had when getting product to individual customer was harder.

So with progress, and ease of getting in touch, price was human decency.

Remove shop for music menu item in windows 7

I have checklist for services to turn off and things to do right after reinstalling operating system, but one thing I always forget to do is remove that annoying "Shop for music Online" in right click context menu.

If you need solution, its to save this as reg file (ex. "shop.reg") and run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Audio\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\WMPShopMusic]

Blizzard Entertainment departments do not communicate among each other

Update (April 2nd 2014): I communicated to Blizzard Entertainment CS Department on Twitter as well, and they are just as incompetent there. They want all their customers using real names with RealID system. Sure, I have no problem with that. But then they have all their employees hiding like cowards behind ridiculous handles while abusing paying customers.

My issue was simple. I did not earn a forum ban, I simply wanted somebody to look into it and tell me why I received no email stating what was the issue. Instead of looking into it I got no less than SEVEN representatives of Blizzard Customer Support to give me DIFFERENT emails that I should email. That is RIDICULOUS behavior! They all claim they are powerless to do anything. So, apparently Blizzard employs all these incompetents, gives them limited power, and wastes everybody's time. They got just over $500 from me in last month (two accounts), somewhere in vicinity of $6000 over past decade (family accounts for WoW, half of which had subs being paid with no time actually spent using them for several years), and now I'll find different company to throw money at as I lost all faith and confidence in Blizzard Entertainment following this streak of incompetence on behalf of their employees.

Just received this as response to my CS ticket complaint about my forum account on Hearthstone getting suspended with no cause given (btw, took them TWO days to answer, and they probably broke record in doing so):

Blizzard Entertainment wins in the "The WORST Customer Support" category

I apparently just got banned from Blizzard's Forum.

I do not know for what exactly, nor for how long. No email was sent to me, no message of any kind.

Customer support response times are about THREE DAYS. So forget asking them.

For Gaming Company they sure allow ton of hate filled against them posts to remain. My posts were actually all Pro Blizzard. Which is why this is ridiculous.

The way I found out is by trying to post. Instead of posting it just stated 'Account Suspended". That is the lamest ban I have ever got from any forum in about 30 years of posting on Bulletin Board Systems, MUD's and after Internet became popular, Internet.

From company I gave around $500 this month alone and who I always spoke positively about.

Thanks for opening my eyes about you Blizzard.

How to share individual photos via link from Google Plus photo album

1. Click on your image

2. Open it full screen

3. Right click it and select "Copy Image URL"

One would expect simpler solution, but after messing with it for a while this is only one that worked when I tried to link image to a forum.

IMAP vs POP3: Which is better?

I was trying to explain difference to somebody, then found this video on YouTube that explained it better than I could in a rush on the spot. So I figured I'd share. Cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK4ng6Gcits

Btw, IMAP is far better for me and I would suggest it for most people as POP3 can result in lost emails that cannot be recovered.

Free Elder Scrolls Online Beta Weekend Codes!!!

Raptr Giveaway.

It costs 10 points, which basically means play one game with Raptr running.

More info here:
http://raptr.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31637

Weekend ENDS March 16th 11:59pm EDT, it starts 14th noon, so if you want to try ESO, heres your chance, don't miss it.

Good luck.

IMGBURN and how to get rid of adware in its installer

Download Imgburn here:
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Do NOT run that exe.

Instead, get 7zip here:
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

Then use 7zip to extract Imgburn setup. Delete plugins folder from that (its just malware), and there goes all the adware.

Its sad how low some people sink just to make few bucks.

Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms ... its FREE

Amazingly enough, it exists and its free.

I did not look for it before as I remember them not having it when I started using 64 bit OS. Yesterday, totally randomly I found out at some point Adobe released this, so as there is possibility of this post pointing it out to somebody who, like me, assumed they still did not have it, here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025

Fallout 3: Fix for freeze/crash on Quadcore

I just installed Fallout 3 GOTY on my newly built power rig running Windows 7 64 bit (I actually got Windows 8.1 free but uninstalled it same day I tried it. I'll wait for Windows 9 to move on up from 7) and it froze dozen times before I could even get to B-Day Party.

Here is solution that worked for me:

In My Documents/My Games/Fallout3 folder there is fallout.ini file that needs to be slightly modified

CTRL+F bUseThreadedAI=0 and change that to bUseThreadedAI=1
then hit Enter, and on next line place
iNumHWThreads=1

Save and you're done.

How to Completely Backup Blogger Blog and Template

On Wordpress I have automated plugins that do it for me, as all my actual money making blogs are still strictly Wordpress. I've tried several small CMS's and Joomla and Drupal, but Wordpress just suits my usage best.

Since I am currently trying out Blogger for fun, it was inevitable that I'd need to look up into backup/restore option as well. I'll spare you boring details and experiments, here is how to do it properly:

Kickstarter Hacked

Yeah, it happens to everybody sooner or later.

Quite frankly I am surprised that it has not happened sooner.

Image of email sent to me, and probably everybody else that gave money through Kickstarter below:

Royalty Free Music Can Get Your Videos Removed From YouTube

I do not buy, nor use intentionally, any royalty free music. Unfortunately, some of the gaming companies whose videos I wanted to promote do. What that resulted in is waste of time, bandwidth, and by extension money. However a valuable lesson was learned.

Google/YouTube and copyright infringement clowns and trolls only care about copyrights when it means they can abuse you, the consumer. They on the other hand have no qualms about breaking laws to make money.

Youtube Monetization and Copyright Ownership

When you are waiting in line at the grocery store you probably see those trash magazines that claim various celebrities did some outrageous things. Most of those claims would prove to be untrue, yet virtually no celebrity ever sues those magazines. Why? Because whatever they say about you is better than when they stop talking about you if what you want is to be in the spotlight and remain relevant.

Same applies to games and gaming companies. Sure, there is such thing as too much negative publicity, and sometimes that happens no matter how much money you try to shut up honesty with, like in case of Star Wars MMO and Warhammer MMO, but overall gaming companies do want you to talk about their games, especially if you have something nice to say.

Hearthstone: Opening 146 Expert Packs and odds of what you will receive

Its split into 2 videos, first one was supposed to be 40, but due to unforeseen circumstances recording starts with 26 packs remaining:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-MsoCcVElU

And second video is opening 3x40 packs (I was looking for specific Legendaries, not getting them I simply acquired more packs until I was able to disenchant for dust to get what I was after):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbwRFmOhDgw

If you are curious, odds are about 1 Legendary per 40 packs. I got 5 in 120 but I did open about 100 other packs earlier from gold rewards, my first purchase which was $3 just to get gold Legendary Beta Promo, etc, and I kept track of #'s of rarities acquired overall.

Now, I also found info where they claim actual odds are:

Hearthstone: #1 Ranked Player's Supposed Decklist

I am far from pro at Hearthstone at this point, but I did win number of tournaments for Magic The Gathering and honestly these games are very similar to each other. So as I was curious about metagame at top of the ranked play I found decklist posted by Railedlol who Blizzard themselves listed as #1 on list of top 50 ranked players. Perhaps game was different when he got that place, maybe ton of things changed since, but I just don't see this deck doing all that well. He is Australian and apparently tried to have stream, but when I found link to that as well, he does not appear to be streaming at all. Cause stated was 'Australia has bad internet', me living in North America cannot confirm nor deny that.

Here is decklist:

Hearthstone Hidden Quest List

Here’s the entire list of hidden quests in Hearthstone:

• Complete a game in play mode – Award: 1 booster pack
• Unlock every hero – Award: 100 gold
• Get any class to level 10 – Award: 1 booster pack
• Win 100 games in any mode – Award: 300 gold
• Win 1,000 games in any mode – Award: 300 gold
• Defeat all expert AI – Award: 100 gold
• Disenchant a card – Award: 95 Arcane Dust
• Enter the arena – Award: Free arena entry
• Own every pirate card – Award: Captain’s Parrot
• Own every golden pirate card – Award: Golden Captain’s Parrot
• Own every Murloc card – Award: Old Murk-Eye
• Own every golden Murloc card – Award: Golden Old Murk-Eye
• Make a real money purchase in the game – Award: Golden Gelbin Mekkatorque (beta only)
• Collect every card in the basic set (all classes to level 10) – Award: 100 gold
• Collect every card in the expert set – Award: 100 gold
• 
  
Thanks to Vedmak.

How to completely uninstall Punkbuster

Get tool from this link:

http://www.evenbalance.com/downloads/pbsvc/pbsvc.exe

Run it. Done.

Free League of Legends Tristana and Alistar + some skins

Simple.

For Alistar:
http://youtube.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/youtube#

For Tristana:
http://woobox.com/potb6z
or
https://na.leagueoflegends.com/facebook

How to Install League of Legends WITHOUT PANDO Media Booster

I detest garbage like Pando Media Booster. Its used by companies to steal your bandwidth to save themselves money. Its torrent client, but without any settings you, the consumer, can change easily. If you are paying for your bandwidth that can result in rather large, yet unexpected, bill from your internet service provider.

Basically it uses your upload bandwidth to seed, send to others that are trying to download. It is despicable disregard for customers by any company that uses it. If I cannot find download without crap malware like Pando I simply skip game involved.

Anyway, if you want to download League of Legends and need links to clean installs, here they are:

North America:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseNA.exe

Europe West:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUW.exe

Europe Nordic and East:
http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/Installer/SingleFileInstall/LeagueOfLegendsBaseEUNE.exe

After you click on one of these 20 MB installers they will install crap-free League of Legends game whose patcher will then download 800 mb-2gb (whatever its at now) rest of the game.

If you wish to use torrents, learn how to use them, how to control your upload speed and how to turn them off when you want. Do not use garbage like Pando as there is no sane reason to do so. If you already made a mistake and have Pando installed, uninstall it.

Who knew preaching campaign could look so fun!

I ran into this kinda randomly, but it was just so cute I felt I should post about it.

Basically, its some kind of atheist group on indiegogo collecting donations to put up cool looking, colorful, religious messages. Except, this is kind of stuff I'd like to see.

I'll use break on this one so if you want to see images beyond first one click more.

TERA Rising: Issues with creating new account and downloading: Easy fixes

This blackscreen thing actually never happened to me previously, so its bit strange, but in case you experience similar issue this might help.

I was trying to create account with Enmasse so I can try Tera MMO. However, all I would see is webpage with black page, nothing on it. I tried Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, Avant, and got same result with each.

What got me through to signup page was using TOR browser, which is available here:

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

I received email followup, confirmed account creation, and then encountered another issue. Game uses something for streaming which did not want to play nice with my antivirus and firewall. So, what did work was torrent of it found here:

http://support.enmasse.com/tera/downloading-tera-via-torrent

I was also pleasantly surprised with quick, friendly response on Twitter by somebody from Enmasse, and even got a chance to try their customer support which quickly dealt with minor issue.

Now off to actually try gameplay.

Cool Portable book reader: Sumatra

I tried dozen readers today, and this is first one I liked, so I'll share the link.

It reads number of formats of interest to me: CBZ/CBR, CHM, ePub, Mobi and PDF, and is barely 5 MB in size.

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/download-free-pdf-viewer.html

They do not make them like they used to

Few weeks ago I picked up some games I used to play decade or so ago from GOG and Steam.

Master of Magic, which I never actually owned as full version previously. What I had was magazine promo 3 inch diskette with demo version of Master of Magic. Due to free time limitations I was under back then I never even got my fill of that demo. So it stayed as something on my 'to do' list, to be done when I get a chance.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate 2 with Throne of Bhaal, also Enhanced Edition, from Steam. While I did actually play sequel quite a bit, all I got to see of first one is Candlekeep. It was during 30 minutes prior to 8-man team match of some FPS, I do not remember which one it was, and as we were in LAN internet cafe and waiting for couple guys to arrive, we were checking out some other games. Among others, I saw Baldur's Gate, and did not expect much as previous computer DnD games I tried (stuff from 80's) were pretty bad from my point of view. RPG's I played back then were on Sega Master System (Y's and Phantasy Star), Nintendo, Super Nintendo, then Playstation, which was last system I bothered to buy as I switched exclusively to PC gaming as of 97.