Mark this date in your calendars – Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – October 1st 2010. Below is a live action trailer of the game. Update: By the way, UbiSoft has been granted a trademark, by the USPTO, for the name Ghost Recon: Future Soldier?!?

Don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll. Reflect on your best and not so great moment of playing any of the Ghost Recon games in the comments below.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

xbox 360, logo, controller

My XBOX 360 is kaput! It’s at the point where it won’t even turn on. Well, it does, but it immediately powers off everything but the Red Ring of Death (RRoD). It sucks. I have been having some issue with the Xbox for some time know. Recently I wrote about how I was experiencing some xbox video problems. Well, about a week or so ago, I lost video on it completely. The TV knows that there is something connected to it, but all I get is a black screen. Amanda came across a tutorial on how to check what might be wrong with the Xbox 360, through getting it to show an error code. Well, the error code I repeatedly received was 0102, which indicated that the Xbox has no idea what the problem might be.

We have had the system since 2005. So it is definitely out of Microsoft’s manufacturer warranty. I figured there isn’t much to loose by trying some of the hacks and fixes people have described on the Internet. Since it was already broken, what could happen? Brake it even further than it is? ….. hahaha, funny, now that I write this after the fact. What can I tell you … I have  indeed managed to brake a broken Xbox 360!

Back to the Xbox 360 hack on the World Wide Web. After reading number of issues and fixes described by Xbox owners, I decided to go with the 360 Hot Air Gun fix. Supposedly if the CPU and GPU, and some times the RAM chips are heated up, with a Hot Air Gun, to the point where the solder melts, it possibly can resolve the problem with the cracked solder joints and lack of conductivity between the chips and the xbox motherboard. Unfortunately for me this fix did not work, and “broke” the Xbox 360.

It will be easier for me just to go out and get a new Xbox 360 around Christmas than to keep trying to fix a 2005 Xbox 360. Hopefully newer models do not have the same issues. Although, I thought about simply picking up a new Xbox 360 motherboard from eBay, but I see that there are Xbox 360 Elite motherboards with the same issue, 4 year latter! I will most likely post this one on Craigslist for $50 or so to help contribute toward the cost of replacing it.

xbox 360, logo, controller

Over the weekend I had some lack of video from my XBox360. Nothing that some heat couldn’t fix. Apparently most problems with the Xbox360 are fixed by that which kills PCs – heat.

I have an XBox360, which is one of those that was born with bugs and “genetic” issue – meaning an early version – one from the early ones, made before the red ring of death became evident  and all the various versions started to come out. Luckily, I don’t abuse and rarely spend massive amount of hours playing it, thus I don’t have very many problem with it! Other than the occasional screen flicker and the constant refusal of the DVD-Rom tray to actually stay closed after attempting to close it. Apparently the DVD drive gets a bad taste from DVD discs and refuses to work with them. HAHA. My solution for the latter is to place my thumb on the drive tray and prevent it from coming back out, then pushing the open/close button again!!

This past weekend I experienced something new – the XBox booted fine and there was audio, but no video. The digital TV detected an active video source, but there was no picture. At first I was going to disassemble the XBox to look for problem myself, because the warranty had expired a long time ago. But then I decided to wait for Monday and call Microsoft and possibly sent it back.

After researching the problem in the global knowledge fix and repair database, i.e. the Internet, I was able to determined that 1) it might not be worth the money spend to sent it in for repair, and 2) the issue could be related to the heat sync on the video chip. Something about the x-clamp (see x-clamp fix video at the end of the post). A problem which is most commonly fixed by wrapping the Xbox in a towel causing it to overheat. I again considered taking it apart and performing the x-clam fix, because I wasn’t willing to wrap the XBox in something to cause it to overheat and possibly cause heat damage to other components. Before proceeding, I simply opted out to just turn it on and let it run heat up. I’ve noticed how hot it can get! About 20 minutes later I came back to check on it. I turned the XBox off and back on. Voila, there was video again! Problem fixed.

Now if that darn DVD-drive tray could stay closed, it would be great.

Whois domain record: Microsoft, YouTUBE, XBox

[cb type="company"]activision[/cb]

I contacted their support staff and my conversation follow:

[11:39] yvebts: Hello
[11:40] ad4game: hi
[11:41] yvebts: I am trying to register on ad4game.com as a publisher, but your system will not accept my city, because the name has a space in it
[11:41] yvebts: I can’t use – or _ because they are not accepted characters
[11:42] ad4game: just use no space
[11:42] ad4game: or write
[11:42] ad4game: space
[11:42] ad4game: we will adjust it
[11:42] ad4game: what is your website please?
[11:42] yvebts: OK. thank you
[11:43] yvebts: hivemindsgaming.com and clanmp.us
[11:51] ad4game: allright
[11:51] ad4game: i see you havent finished registering yet
[11:53] yvebts: I will attempt to complete the registration at a latter time. Thank you for you assistance.

Even though I know that I can send a letter to any one address in the US just by writing down the ZIP code and 4 digit extension, I wouldn’t write “space” in the name, because it will irritate me when I see it printed on the envelop. I have observed and have experienced the results of doing something silly like that and from people making assumptions. To top that, I have seen some really odd town names, so if they actually have someone who manually enters the address, why would they think of changing the town name?

Lastly, I tried registering last night and right before I typed this post. They still have not fixed this. As a company that claims to have been in the game advertising business for over 5 years you would think that they are quick to respond and fix issues in their system. Ad4Games.com, if you ever read this, if you have really been in the business for over 5 years just think about the number of publishers you have lost on. Even worse, the amount of revenue from advertisers you have lost on, because your advertiser sign up form has the same issue. I am not going to register until this is fixed. Probably eventually I will forget about your site and will not register at all.

BTW, what does “… been in the gaming industry for more than 5 years.” mean? You have been designing, developing, selling, promoting …. games?!

UPDATE (2008-10-27): It appears that the type of character limitations in the sign up form has been fixed. When I was signing up I noticed that Ad4Game had made a positive step in password security by mandating that passwords be alphanumeric. Good job.

I really enjoy watching this video. I really love the fact that there are references of other games, movies, media and personal work of the actors. The fact that the content of this ad was not limited to just the game makes it a great video ad, which can appeal to all generations of gamers. A video to be watched over and over again.

Good job EA and long live Westwood.

Westwood Studios was the company behind the Command and Conquer games franchise. It was founded in 1985 as Westwood Associates by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle and was based in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1992 it was renamed to Westwood Studios and it was sold to Virgin Interactive. In August 1998 it was was bought by game publisher giant Electronic Arts. The company was liquidated in March of 2003 by EA. At the time its staff numbered over 100 employees. You can read more information on Westwood Studios here.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

I decided to send Valve a quick email, and I think that everyone that is agains this happenign should do as well.

Good morning,

TechCrunch and TheInquirer are reporting a potential acquisition of Valve by Google.

Please say it isn’t so. I’ve been a fan of you company and games since you guys first started. I have been following your company and enjoyed your products all these years. An acquisition by google might seem like a financially good choice but technology and product wise it is not.

Valve has managed to remain financially independent and overcome a variety of obstacles all this years. Please do NOT give into the google idea. Be yourselves. Visiting Valve headquarters and working for Valve is a dream for many people. Don’t destroy your fan base.

Sincerely,

Alexandar Tzanov

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

You can email Valve at contact@valvesoftware.com, or contact the company in the following ways

Telephone:
425-889-9642

FAX:
425-827-4843

Postal address:
PO BOX 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009

The community has already started a discoution on the Steam forums.

After watching the movie trailer, it think that it looks more than decent. In many people’s eye Uwe has the reputation of being the man with the ability to take a great game and turn it into a total shit movie. I have seen number of his movies and I do like his work. I have also watched interviews with him and at first he can come across as an arrogant prick, but he is “cool” and gets the job done, when others can’t event get off the ground.

Good cast also.

Yes, games used to be all adventure. I love playing the old quest games. Today’s games are all about “pushing” the limits of the hardware, but when it comes to console gaming, this concept is just a “concept”. Unlike PCs, consoles cannot be upgraded, unlike PCs, you can’t swap the hard drive, CPU or video cad for a bigger, better, faster model. With consoles you cannot use your favorite brand of hardware. You are STUCK with whatever is the cheapest and decent peace of hardware that the manufacturer can trow in the case. There are adventure games, and there are few that are great, and there are some, which are awesome - BioShock, Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

To conclude I will simply quote something I read long time ago, but I am not going to bother looking for who the heck said it or where it was published. It went something like this: “Console gaming is retarding games and staling the rapid advancements in hardware.” To paraphrase this, back in the day hardware like CPU and VGU were constantly in the development process, because PC gamers demanded more and more power. But in today’s gaming world, the console has the majority stake in gaming, it is used by people who could care less about more power, and because there are 5 to 7 years between releases of new generation consoles, hardware manufacturers are not “pushed” to develop new, better and faster components as fast. Game developers are forced to retard graphics and functionality of games just to make them compatible with today’s console variation.

I am sticking to PC gaming, when possible!!

Personally I hate dealing with players like this, unless it is my own clan mates and we are on the server for the sole purpose of screwing around. It is one thing having to put up with people that you know. It is completely different having to put up with a guy or a few, who decided to be complete dicks to everyone on the server.

I did like the trivia portion if it.

Is this video supposed to represent what happens when no one else will join your server, except someone random during a moment of incredible boredom, or while waiting for open slots on their favorite server?

I have been on both sides of the coin. I can say, it feels pretty much the way the video shows it. I am sure that most gamers, who play online multiplayer shooter games or have plaid at one point , not MMOGs, have experienced the same.

Kind of long and repetitive, but that’s the whole point.

Good job Lit Fuse.

Someone needs to explain to the seller what or best offer means. I saw that there were some previous offers, which were declined, but I could not see what they were. My offers started at $25 and ended $30, and I still did not get the best offer. That left me wondering what is that guys’ understanding of or best offer, because if his minimum for a best offer, for the game, is couple of dollars under his buy now price, than how does his minimum fall in the concept of “or best offer”. For a best offer to be worth anything to someone there has to be some noticeable difference between the selling price and what the acceptable best offer could be, and not a fraction from the selling price.

If the minimum is so close to the manufacturer’s price, why not just get the product from the manufacturer? That way the product is guaranteed and the warranty is valid.

On another note, I noticed that Fantasy Flight Games has published a StarCraft board game. Pretty sweet.

So far … no luck!

Well, tonight, while I was looking through the auctions, I noticed a “Buy Now” auction for $9.99. My reaction was just like it would have been anyone else’s, I said to myself – finally, here it is. BUT, oh wait, what is this? It is the shipping fee, which was $75. WTF?

Is that person really hoping that someone will bite the hook? The reaction they are looking from buyers is both achievable, but very misleading and unethical. They are hoping that someone will prematurely jump and buy the product without looking at any of the auction’s details. People see the extremely low selling price and they rush to buy the item.

-Hey, why am I paying all of these money for shipping? Are you sending a console to go with this adapter? Or maybe some rocks?!
-Oh, sorry. Our mistake! We “unintentionally” entered the wrong amounts.
-Buzz off.

Because of tactics like this, I would not shop for other items from sellers who use them, even if these other items are with reasonable shipping rates.

Now that I no longer play Travian, and I am not as active as I was a year ago with browser based games, I have decided to go back to working on starting a gaming clan with PC and console gamers. I have plaid PC games since I was 8 years old. With the XBOX 360 popularity and explosive numbers of the Nintendo Wii, I am looking to find some other gamers who are also playing on these systems and interested in some organized play.

I began inquiring among the people, who I see often and spend time with during the week, about who plays games and on what systems. About a dozen people expressed interest, so I collected names and email addresses. I composed an introductory email, touching on who has expressed interest and how to get in touch with him; which consoles each one has, most everyone had an XBOX360; owned games and games of common interest; as well as where to buy an XBOX Live Gold membership for 13 months subscription period and under $40.

After the email went out, with the exception of 1 person, no one responded to the email or registered on the forums. Disappointingly, after a second – reminder – email, and asking in person if they are receiving the email no one else from the dozen or so names on the list is showing interest in becoming active player, even though they all expressed interest two weeks prior. It is discouraging! But maybe Marino, the only other person who register and is still actively expressing interest in playing, and I can find more people online and get them to join the Hive Minds Clan -[HM]-.

If you are a gamer and are looking to make some friends and participate in some noncompetitive game play comment on this post or register at the forums and let me know that you are interested.

The game, as always, looks great and I can hardly wait for it to be released. Unlike the LEGO Batman game, which I am not particularly excited for. Lets just hope that Lucas will not do the same they did with the LEGO Star Wars games, where they re-released both games as one – LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (as if the first two games were not complete), with new levels, effects and characters. Causing for a lot of people to have to go out and buy the game a second time. Although, this time it is also on the Wii, which is probably the platform I am going to buy it for. Now I just have to decide on which platform I want to play LEGO Indi – the Nintendo Wii or XBOX360.

The similarities between previous adaptation of this game concept and The Simpsons Wrecking Ball end here. In this variation you can adjust the distance from which you start your approach for the hit. But due to the mechanics used in the hit, you are driving a demolition ball crane, hens the name, greater starting distance doesn’t always mean “quality hit”.

The game is fun, and is definitely a nice approach to the distance genera games. I am looking forward to what is next, but for now, I will be playing The Simpsons – Wrecking Ball. You should too.

British censors banned the upcoming Manhunt 2, describing the game as an unrelenting focus on sadism and brutal slaying. Personally I think this is great news. Games like this, Dead Rising and few others shouldn’t be even thought of, let alone produced and put on the market. I don’t like it when people, like Jack Thompson for example, and some groups try to ban games. In their entirety that is! Action/violent games are needed, they are also fun. But the violence should go only so far, and not cross the psychopathic line, and thus reach deeper into a person’s character, exposing them to torture and sadism.

Not to be byes, but the same goes for some of the “scary” movies that have been produced in the last year. They are pointless and repulsive. People’s senses become dull and when outrageous acts of violence are presented in real live, people simply accept them without thinking twice. That is not right.

In closing, I am glad that standards and regulations exist, and be enforced to certain level. I just think that project, where the whole point of the game is to go around and torture people shouldn’t be considered.

read more | digg story

After watching the video, I definitely like the game. It looks like they are using the same game engine that is in Lego Star Wars and Star Wars II. The game is appealing and I am looking forward to its release.

It starts kind of slow. The middle was OK, definitely liked the loud mouth ownage. The ending was great. Oh and Dave is back

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Last night she playd for 15 or so minutes and then wanted to switch with me. Today though! Today is a different story. I had her sit and play on her own instead of watching me. At first she was unsure of herself, but that soon changed! After playing for only 20 minutes she started to turn things around. I mean, her score was way better than my average, and I have been playing the damn game for years. When she talks she uses all the game’s terminology. In-game she moves and has an attitude like a veteran gamer. She puts my years put-in to shame.

All of her advancements in skill and attitude surprise me greatly, because tonight, unlike yesterday, most of the players on the servers are a-holes. I love all this, in addition to having a geeky and smart girlfriend, I have a girlfriend who likes to play games, also. A play all, in so many ways!! Simply awesome.

I will probably end up writing more and updating this entry latter in the week or this weekend. We will have to see! It is my birthday this weekend, so, right now it looks like I will be acquiring few more games. I.E. I will be busy playing them, too.

But, damn, I just want to say that DoD has turned into a sweeter game. Just incredible. I am a WWII junky and I loved playing DoD, but with DoD:S, ohhhhhh I just cannot wait to see the maps people are going to start coming up with. So much detail. It will defiantly make the experience a kick in the sensory. The maps, now, can get so much closer to the places they are spoused to represent. I just cannot wait to see them.

Whoaaa. I am so freaking excited.

The computer enthusiasts and techies, yes their knowledge caries from one subject and environment to another. But, not every one possesses the same information nor do they understand it. One does not have the right of criticizing another if they know nothing about him or her or without helping to improve the situation. This is what I wrote back to that guys comment in which he called the first person a noob:

I don’t think it will confuse them any further. It’s the exact same thing s/he would find in the help file of the plugin. I am just giving the same info in a different form, and I am saving him from posting the same question for another plugin. I am simply expending on the subject of how it works and what s/he should have in his or her file. Examples are always good, isn’t that how the majority of people learn?

If s/he is confused s/he will ask more questions, but it is better than giving it to him or her ready without explaining and teaching the matter. Next time s/he runs into a problem will have to ask again and be called a noob once more simply because no one explained how the damn thing works the first time. Thus not being able to better phrase the question or provide more detail.

Probably should have written more, but I think that was enough. I do not think he will be able to comprehend what I am saying if I had made it more complex and had exposed him to logic. LoL

I know it might sound witty or funny. It might make you look like you know more, but fucking keep it to yourself. Especially when all you are doing is ostracizing without providing any solution to the problem on hand. If you have tried helping in numerous ways and have exhausted your patients with that person, then you can call him or her nood. But in that case it would be more of an idiot or stupid.

In my opinion, one can only call another person a noob only after a goof up. Now for that condition to exist, both persons must know the same material or have the same skills at a minimum. In addition, the one calling the second a noob should maybe poses a little bit more knowledge or skill than the first one. Thus having the right to call the first a noob. Jokingly of course. But do not call me that, I won’t be laughing.

Last update: Thursday January 01, 2004 12:45:33 PM -0500

Hi everyone,

I hope this will be useful for all of you, who are having issues with updating to STEAM on Linux.

Here it is how after three days of sleepless headaches and swearing left and right at anyone and anything and trying to update HLDS 1.1.1.0, a Linux server update can be accomplished in 3 minutes.

The -(MP)- server is hosted remotely. The host company does not provide any support regarding Half-Life, only actual hardware and administration support.

To translate the above, I, as an admin of the account, have to do all installations and configurations of HLDS by myself and rely on what I can find on the Internet.

I did not have access to the root directory only the directory allocated to me by the host company. This means that I HAD to use – hldaupdatetool.bin, simply because the destination path is hard coded in the standalone installation file – hlds_l_1120_full.bin

This guide is on how to migrate* to STEAM with or without administrative privileges on the hosted / remote server.

* This is if you have an HLDS (1.1.1.0) installed but it is still under the WON system.

Go into the directory which contains the HLDS server. It usually is hlds_l

You need the steam file from the Valve FTP server. I use wget here to get the file, if your Linux doesn’t have wget, use the FTP program provided with your distribution to get it.

For those who get it by FTP, this is the server to get it from:

Server: ftp.valvesoftware.com
User: hlserver
Pass: hlserver
Remote dir: /Linux
File: hldsupdatetool.bin

bash$ wget ftp://hlserver:hlserver@ftp.valvesoftware.com/Linux/hldsupdatetool.bin

———–

You can get the file on the server by uploading it from your machine, as well.

We now have the file we need, now lets run it!

bash$ chmod +x hldsupdatetool.bin
bash$ ./hldsupdatetool.bin

This will extract the steam utility. Now make it executable.

bash$ chmod +x steam

Now we are all ready to create an account for steam, and to get the files! But first, you MUST have the box administrator or yourself, create .steam directory in the root directory. Root in my case was the home directory of my account. I hade .steam permissions set to 777, just in case. The only file which will reside in the directory is a text file – ClientRegistry.blob

(1) You must have the .steam directory, for the utility to work.
(2) Change steam’s (the utility) permissions to 777.

./steam -create < username> < password> < question> < answer>

Here is an example how the fields will be filled out:

./steam -create you@youraddy.com hard2guess “is STEAM a pain?” yes

Now you know how it must be done so lets do it. Go make and account. Run:

bash$ ./steam -create you@youaddy.com hard2guess "is STEAM a pain?" yes

Steam will now update the steam client to the latest version

Getting version X of Steam Linux Client
Downloading. . . . . . . . . . .
Linux Client updated, please retry the command

It is updated, now we must restart the program.

bash$ ./steam -create you@youaddy.com hard2guess "is STEAM a pain?" yes

If all goes well it will respond with: Account Created successfully.

———–

If you have any problems with updating, you can run the process again, but make sure you have deleted ClientRegistry.blob file from .steam directory. After deleting the ClientRegistry.blob file, when you run the process from the beginning of section 3, it will be like you never executed the commands before.

To update the engine run the following command:

bash$ ./steam -update valve

This will update the HLDS engine. You will see it download all of the update files to the designated directories and sub directories. When it is done, all you have to do is start the game the way you have always started it.

Any questions and problems, feel free to contact me: Alexandar Tzanov

Ahhh I have it

It’s 3:01 A.M., w00t, finally:grin:

Now time to play it!!!

to Victory

We had our first scrim after last FAL (Fire Arms League) season. It was against -|[FxR]|-, and surprisingly -(MP)- got pummeled. We lost both rounds due to the lack of moral and action on our part. This is something that the clan has to seriously turn to and improve on. We need to start acting as one again. The new FAL season is around the corner and we need to be ready. There are number of new clans, which formed after last FAL season, so we will have some competition, but, we have an advantage. We are one of the oldest clans still in existence. Our rules and traditions set us apart from the rest, but our skill and unity sets us ahead of them.

Last FAL season, we were one of the clans who made it to the semi finals. We had a shot at the title of FAL champion, and we came close. We can do it again this season, and we can win that title. There is some new blood in our ranks, members who are very skilled. After being on the server on Sunday night and seeing 11, yes eleven, -(MP)- members waiting to fight filled me with optimism and happiness. I saw that we are active and we are ready to fight. We just need to work on how we interact and follow orders. If Wind, The Pro and Defen were able to join us, I saw them on AIM, we would have had a full server of just clan members. This is AMAZING, it is something I have not seen before. This is why I was happy to see you all guys, and I know in my heart that we can win this FAL season.

FAL starts in a week. Our first match is against -|[FxR]|-. I also have screen shots of us in the gallery.

Good luck and God Speed.

There is no “I” in clan nor -(MP)-

Alex aka Vulcan

Natural-Selection requires for player to work as a team to win a round. Some guard, some build, other recon, but without the communication and team work the rounds could never be won. Even with the combat maps, the players have to work together to bring a devastating and round deciding punch to the enemy.

I must say again, over all the graphics and environment of the Source engine are amazing and enjoy them more and more every time I play the game. With the lighting and object effects I could just imagine what DoD or NS would look and feel like. I also looked through the mod n mod and I found some upcoming mods, which look like they would be pretty entertaining. There is especially one that cough my attention and I can’t wait to try: Empires. Funny thing is that, while looking through the mods list, I found number of WWII mods. I find this wired because up to now the only WWII mod for Half-Life was Day of Defeat. Oh, and I found a Cold War mod and Israelis vs. Palestinians mod.

Uhhaaa! Now back to tweaking the settings and enjoying the game.