Reason #42 Why I Hate Windows Vista - Some CDs appear blank to Vista's Windows Explorer, but read fine when done from a Command Prompt window

Ok, most of you have heard my gripes about Windows Vista verbally, so the title doesn't make sense to those of you that haven't.

I've decided I'm going to start ranting about the problems I run into with Vista here in hopes that if enough people do the same (and believe me there are plenty out there...) Microsoft will get some of this crap fixed.

I have two older video games that I've tried to get to work with Vista that have previously worked with older Windows operating systems.

Two of them exploit a very interesting anomaly in Vista. If I put the CD in, it's name won't show up in the Vista Windows Explorer interface; though it will show the size used on it. If I try to Open/Explore the CD, I get the blank CD dialog that asks how you want to format the disc.

If I open a Command Prompt Window, on-the-other-hand, and do a "dir" command; I can see the files just fine. I can then proceed to launch the install of the game.

How did I find out about this? Luck of the draw... does it mean the given game will work? That I'm not sure... I'm installing one as we speak (Star Wars: Jedi Academy.)

The other I've tried is Titan Quest. Titan Quest works until I click on a merchant. Once I do that, I get booted out of the game and to the Windows Desktop without warning or reason why it did so. I'm not sure if that is a related bug, but I can reproduce it consistently on my laptop and find it equally annoying.

I'd love to hear from others who have had similar experiences; and to hear from those that don't have the same issue with their Jedi Academy and Titan Quest discs.
I have an Asus G2S-A1 laptop with Vista Home Premium.

Incidentally, both games work without these issues in Windows XP Pro and Windows 98SE (Jedi Academy) on multiple desktops in my home.

EDIT: Looks like Jedi Academy seems to work fine so far... I played some multiplayer with Brennan and had good luck... we'll find out later how Single Player fares.

Viva UTOPIA!!!

This screenshot brought to you by a business client on UTOPIA with Xmission as a provider and a 30Mbit/30Mbit package for $125/mo. (Residential clients get 15Mbit/15Mbit for $39.99/mo - see below; and notice that it's ~1MB faster in both directions than what the package states.)

Both pictures are courtesy of two of my friends located in Murray, Utah.

I'd like to see Qwest and Comcast even ATTEMPT to make that happen on their current systems as they exist today. It's time to ride the light, folks... the light that runs on FIBER OPTICS!!! You know what they say: 9/10 doctors recommend fiber for relieving internet constipation.

Notice the upload speed is nearly 10.8Mbit faster than what the package states they'll get... 10.8Mbit alone isn't even available on Qwest's or Comcast's networks...

Qwest offers a 7Mbit down package, but it's ridiculously overpriced and only available to people that live within spitting distance of one of their "COs." Then you must hope and pray that the planets are aligned and the moon is full to be able to get that kind of connection. Otherwise, it's 256k-ville or 1.5Mbit-land for you; still at the skyrocketed price compared to pricing on UTOPIA providers.

Comcast cranks their download connections up more - to around 8-9Mbit for over 1.5 times the cost of UTOPIA providers... and their uploads are only around 1Mbit... so 15x LESS the speed for more money... hmmm, that's smarts. But what do you do when you don't have a choice?!

Did I mention that all of my neighbors are also on Comcast, because our only other option in my neighborhood is a lousy 256k connection. After all, that's all Qwest promised the city of Taylorsville in 2004 when they convinced the City Council to pull out of UTOPIA... no kudos to the short-sighted Taylorsville City Council that somehow lost the vision they once had.

That said, I only achieve the full speeds listed above on the Comcast system when I'm using it at 3:00am after all the neighbors have gone to bed and aren't using theirs.

Ah to have the splendid best of both worlds... where I could have a dedicated line like Qwest provides (not shared with neighbors) - and speeds much greater than Comcast offers and for a lot less money... That's why I'm moving out of Taylorsville and seeking residence in UTOPIA cities.

Remember folks, it's not just about faster internet... it's about the future of all your communications: phone, TV and internet (even though phone and TV are even now being handled over internet as well); and it's about competition and options... something the Qwest and Comcast monopolies haven't had, nor provided. Instead they continue to charge us premium prices for lackluster services... and provide little to nothing in terms of customer support... Don't believe me?

Read my story about dealings with Qwest during my fight to keep Taylorsville in UTOPIA.

Read about another friend's unfortunate experiences with Comcast.

I really hope that Qwest and Comcast will either start bringing their systems up to handle the technology we need to get our state and our country back in the technology race; and enchance our quality of information connectivity... or get onboard and start providing on UTOPIA so they can give their customers the same speeds they're currently charging for.

Want to know more? Check out UTOPIA's web site and then start hounding your City Council to help them understand the benefits of getting it in your area.

Wish me luck in my quest for UTOPIA. Start your own and help grow the list of cities I can look for homes in!

Attention all Multi-Level Marketers... I'm NOT Interested!!!

It never ceases to amaze me the tactics Multi-Level-Marketers (or Pyramid Schemers, or Scamwayers or whatever other terms you're familiar with -- it's all the same... yes, MLMers, IT'S ALL THE SAME!!!) use to try to get people on-board to make them money.

I get a phone call last night from a guy who was referred to me by a friend. It was a friend that knows I'm not now, nor ever will be, interested in MLMs because they asked to remain anonymous; or the guy on the phone lied to me.

What I love is that they act like they already know you and are sure you're the one to get involved in this highly (and quickly) profitable company and that I just MUST get on board with all the benefits that these programs have to offer.

I love the claims they make...

• "I was sick of making other people money..."
  
  What do you think you're doing now? You're under someone else and your cha-ching is trickling into their pockets... not to mention you're busy trying to get me under you so I can do the same for you... hello?!?!?!!!
  


• "I was tired of not having time with my family..."
  
  Um... you're calling me at night which means you're not spending time with your family - you're busy bothering me on the phone trying to get me to sell-out my friends and family in the pursuit of the green.
  


• "You sound like the perfect person for this..."
  
  Dude, you've spoken to me for a total of 2 minutes on the phone... if you're able to make that kind of accurate judgment call - YOU'RE in the wrong line of work...
  


• "The person that referred you wishes to be anonymous..."
  
  That tells me they truly believe in what you're doing... that or they couldn't get you off their case until they gave you some names; so they gave you some to get you to leave them alone... Either way, I'm still not interested...
  

Friends, I love you. I love keeping in touch with you. I don't love keeping in touch if your only motive of doing so is to get me in your MLM projects. I hate MLM projects... I hate the tension they put into relationships that were otherwise solid... I hate how pushy people are with them, I hate the fact that I've built websites for some and they've been crooked, corrupt, evil companies that only like to take money from their downline suckers and don't like to pay their own bills.

Also, if the person calling me about the MLM IS my friend... don't pull an ACN groveling technique saying you need a favor. Groveling tells people you don't truly believe in the product/program you're selling, so why on Earth would they join?!

Please don't refer me anymore to MLMs... If you're doing it to get them to leave you alone, that's one thing -- but don't "remain anonymous" ... contact me and warn me before they call so I know what's coming.

If you're referring because you think I'll get hooked up... I NEVER WILL - so please stop referring.

-- End of Rant --

The PC Motocross Dream Is Dead...?

It's all but official. My last hope for a resurrection of excellent PC motocross gaming is all but dead.

Holy crap this rant is long... if you'd like to get to the point quicker, feel free...

In January 2006, Rainbow Studios released MX vs. ATV Unleashed it's first PC motocross game since Motocross Madness 2; released in 2000.

The Motocross Madness (MCM) series wasted any other motocross games on the PC hands-down with it's excellent graphics, realistic (for its time) racing feel, super sik high air, intense racing, mega-fun tag mode, stunts and more.

The game had infinite replay value thanks to the ability to create custom content. "Kamshaft", of Cameron Graphics fame, hosted the biggest central repository of this custom content on the web ... and it was awesome. The whole MCM community participated in the forums and MCM file sharing at his site. The site was put up as "Motocross Madness Central" for the first game in the MCM series. It then turned to "Motocross Madness 2 Central" when MCM2 was released.

In late 2005, Kamshaft took down the site after bandwidth restrictions and cost of running the site became too much and MCM2 play had lowered significantly over time with the advent of newer games with better graphics and what not. Yet there were some still dedicated to the game (like my own Team FNG.)

Kamshaft was still offering his entire MCM2 custom content collection on 6 DVDs for $80, which I purchased. 19GB of compressed custom content ... the game will never die for me.

In around November of 2005 (maybe a little earlier...) we caught wind of news that Rainbow Studios had finally decided to give another shot to the PC crowd by releasing MX vs ATV Unleashed in January 2006. Kamshaft put up a new "MX vs ATV Central" site and the community once again flocked together in eager anticipation for what we hoped would have as much heart and soul (and endless fun) that the MCM series provided us.

Sadly, the game failed miserably for several reasons:

1. The game was released later than promised; and when it finally was, it was a ridiculous search to try to find which stores actually had it. (I pre-ordered two copies paid in full from a local EBGames shop and didn't have mine on release day. Online orders placed the day before release day from EBGames site were sold to those people who had their game on release day... which enraged me, but that's another story...)


2. By the time we finally got the game... it's user-interface (UI) was completely horrid. It was a direct port from the console version of the game with no modifications to the navigation menus which could've been done MUCH simpler for a PC version.


3. Related to the UI issue was the fact that only half the PC gamers could get connected to games online. The defacto was provided was through in-game menus connecting through GameSpy. If the fact that we had to go through 15 menus to just set up a game for people to connect to wasn't bad enough... you had to click through 2 extra screens to chat with the people in your game lobby, and then click back through two more to get back to the "lobby" to see who was in your game. It was pathetic


4. Once you had your lobby set up, no one could join your game, because the required ports to play through today's firewalls were incorrectly documented; and despite spending several hours myself testing and discovering the correct ports... half the community had resorted to using Hamachi to try to set up private VPNs to play on. Since there was no good central place to matchmake, the online portion of the game pretty much died; essentially killing off the greatness of the game.


5. They kept the console approach of "We're going to lock all of the tracks and let you 'unlock' them, to simulate the feel of "new content" since we can't offer you the ability on a console to create new content yourselves. Two words... Weak... sauce... Thankfully, there was a cheat code to unlock them all so we could *ahem* attempt to get online and race. But since we couldn't get online and race... the few tracks available in the game got boring real fast.


6. Stunt mode sucked. Stunts was one of my favorite aspects of the game, taking unrealistically high air and coming down and landing it was an adrenaline rush like no other... Stunts in MX vs ATV Unleashed were fun for about 10 minutes, and only because we could pull backflips and 360's. But the fact that your score dwindled dramatically for trying to pull the same stunt/combo more than once, it was extremely difficult to pull any REALLY high scores; especially because the only way to get a high score on a given jump was to pull a backflip or 360 combo. In their attempts to make the game feel more realistic, they went too far and limitd the amount of air you could take on your jumps as well - and even when you springloaded for extra air - it the landing ramps weren't conducive to landing things that high... maybe I'm just still used to how MCM2 worked, but it tanked.

The game's only saving grace was the fact that they did still provide a way to make custom content for the game. Some of my favorite track creators returned and made a few new tracks. But alas, by the time the new tracks had come out... the community had peetered out from the online scene due to reasons listed above.

One racer posted a link to a new game a few weeks later called TrackMania Nations. It was a free racing game created for the Electronic Sports World Cup, created by a French company named Nadeo.

Yes, many of you already are familiar with this, because it was the nail-in-the-coffin for MX vs ATV Unleashed as far as FNG was concerned. It consumed all of our time for nearly a year. We were so sucked in, we bought the previously released versions of TrackMania as well. In late 2006, we were even more amazed by TrackMania United.

Why is TrackMania so successful?

1. Easy to use interface - setting up local or online games is incredibly easy.


2. Not only did they provide a full-blown in-game track editor, they provide a full-blown replay editor, so you can show off your awesome runs with incredible camera effects. Like the MCM series... endless replay value


3. The same intense racing rush and high flying action (with the added benefit of driving on walls, through corkscrews and other fun action...) that MCM used to offer... just a lack of motorcycles.

So why am I writing this rant?

During the hustle and bustle surrounding the excitement for the release of MX vs ATV Unleashed back in late 2005, I discovered that Robb Rinard of MCM fame had defected from Rainbow Studios (makers of the MCM series) and with some other colleagues created a new company called 2XL Games.

I emailed Robb back then, in fears that this console port would disappoint (because I'd previously played MX Unleashed on the Xbox and was sorely disappointed... went right back to my Motocross Madness 2.)

I asked Robb if they were going to make another really fun motocross game for the PC. He said he couldn't tell me yet what they were up to, but that they were in the process of making a framework for some incredible new games that would start being available maybe 2 years later or so. I decided I would be as patient as possible and wait.

Well, with the death of MVA and TrackMania consuming my game time for so long... I decided to check in on the 2XL website the other day to see if any updates had been posted there. This is what I found...
"2XL games is currently developing multiple console titles on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for a major game publisher..."

HELLO!?!?!!!!! This is what pissed me off about Rainbow in the first place... they sold out to consoles because they could crank games out faster and potentially make more money since games were harder to pirate. While I can understand that business decision, my heart was crushed as I had seen the demise of good PC motocross racing. And with each subsequent Rainbow release, it felt to me that the heart put into their games was less and less and it was now just a cash-flow machine and not a team devoted to making fun games.

So now my dreams for a new PC Motocross game with the same magic and fun that the two MCM games provided are once again dashed to pieces.

Don't get me wrong... the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are great pieces of hardware, but online gaming in the console arena is still in its infant stages; and with the lack of user content creation for console games... it's simply not as fun as the PC gaming world has been. Sorry, but it isn't.

So I try to go to Kamshaft's MX vs ATV Central site to post the bad news, and when I went to the old link... mxvsatvcentral.com I was redirected to the Xbox Addict website.

Buh-bye any hopes for new PC Motocross games that will be worth playing... it was a nice dream while it lasted. Nadeo, don't pull a Rainbow.

... And this little piggy cried Wii, Wii, Wii all the way home ...

So the video game industry has been throwing a few wild wrenches in the gears as of late.

First, there is the issue with Battlefield 2142 and in-game ads. They're charging the normal $50 for the game and including in-game ads. Hello?! That makes me feel equal to when I go to the movie and pay $7.50+ for a ticket only to be lambasted by 20 minutes of "television-style ads" after the lights go down and before the trailers for up-and-coming movies start. If I wanted to see those, I'd stay home on my couch and watch them for no extra charge on my television.

NADEO a French based company, created one of my all-time favorite games... TrackMania Nations. This was the first game I'd seen that implemented in-game advertising. But it was alright becuase

1. The game is completely free to download and play


2. Racing games always have billboards with ads now they're just dynamic


3. Did I mention the game is free?!?!

Trackmania Nations was my first introduction into the world of TrackMania, and I was so sucked in that I went and bought TrackMania Original and TrackMania Sunrise. (And I'm mega-stoked for the future release of TrackMania United.

What I don't understand is why EA doesn't drop the price of the game since they're making cha-ching on the in-game ads... If I wanted to pay to see advertising, I'd go to the movies...

Next issue. My friend Dan send me a link to an article on Windows Vista and how they've moved sound rendering into the DirectSound software and out of your sound hardware and its drivers. For you non-technical people, let's just say that the ultra-cool Creative SoundBlasters I've been putting in my machine for years will pretty much be rendered void of their coolness; and games on Vista will tank cause software rendering always means the game's performance takes a hit.

When I first heard this, the gears started spinning wondering why Microsoft would do something so stupid. Is it a ploy to force developers to develop against weakest link, meaning we're one step closer to the marriage of Xbox and PC Gaming? (Another step involves XNA.) It definitely smells like a step towards an "It doesn't matter what kind of PC you buy, because the $300 junker whose brand won't be mentioned will be as good as the custom $2500 rig the hard-core gamer built. Next thing you know, they'll move 3D rendering all into DirectX and out of the hardware and its drivers... so the whole nVidia/ATi rivalry that has brought PC gamers everywhere gaming delight with ultra-cool performance gaming video cards would fade-to-black also.

Luckily I haven't heard wind of Creative throwing a fuss yet, so maybe it's just a rumor, or it may not be how things really are when Vista ships.

Either way, both pieces of news near the same time threw me into the PC Gaming doldrums. If that's how the future is looking for PC Gaming, I may just find myself cuddling up with the kids in a year or so in front of our Nintendo Wii... at least they never disappoint with their classic franchises that have lived on through five generations of Nintendo consoles. Wii will... Wii will rock you. (Can't wait to play Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.)

Honestly though, I hope it doesn't come to that, because nothing beats gaming online with your PC.