Footnote on Presentation

Anything over 2 seconds is too long. If I make a request to a system and have time to actually think about counting, I've waited too long.

GTA IV is the bomb. It's got some pretty harsh political criticism tucked in the corners, which is awesome. The "more realistic" controls are taking a bit of getting used to. I keep mashing buttons to accelerate and brake when I need to be using the triggers.

Media Replacement

I've recently run into a little known Xbox 360 issue. Actually, the small amount of info I have found seems to indicate the problem goes back to the Xbox era as well, but I never had one of those. It seems that the media are a bit on the fragile side and prone to cracking when being removed from the case. It manifests in the form of a tiny crack running radially from the spindle hole. This, of course, makes the disk unreadable. Which is probably a good thing as a cracked disk has a chance of flying apart. Which I have to think would not be real good for the drive.

I don't want to blow this out of proportion. The vast majority of disks are OK and will last you the lifespan of the game, and probably the guy you sell it to. But, like any manufacturing process, it's not 100%. Stuff happens. If I had to guess (no testing here), I would think the choice to embed a hologram in the reinforced spindle ring in order to prove the disk is "real" is what is causing the issue.

I've taken to keeping the games in sleeves, thereby reducing the number of opportunities to crack the disk by accident. The real problem is, I now have two busted games. The first to go, HALO 3, is going to cost $10 to replace. Microsoft has a media replacement program, but only for a very short list of titles.

The second, Lego Star Wars Complete, I'm just going to have to buy, I guess, because Lucasarts insists I have my proof of purchase. That would be the receipt. You kept that, right? Even if I had the receipt, being outside the legally mandated 90 days, they want $15 for a replacement disk. Which brings me to my beef.

Why are you charging me $15 to replace a broken disk? I'm sending you the disk, you can see it's legit, which means I already paid $60 for your license. I'm sure it costs all of about $.50 to make one of these disks now. And I know you don't want to spend $2.00 on shipping, so charge me $5.00 and you've made some.

I'm sure there is some deeply guarded secret of manufacturing that I'm overlooking here. But I have to admit, on the surface, this looks more like customer anti-support.

Like painting with stone hands

I've been banging away with the new engine for almost two weeks solid now. After floundering around, I've settled on a remake of "the Realm". Which was my attempt at making my own version of Talisman while it was out of print. As a board game it was ok. The guys actually voted to play it few times, which with my crowd of friends/testers is actually high praise.

Working with the tool is a mixed bag. I think it's what happens when you try to do fine art with crayons. If you're really good, it can look nice.

That's not the point though. The point is I'm in the zone. The road gets tough, I slow down, I push through. I haven't got any public storage, but once I get some, I'll link to builds as they happen. I may have an alpha in two weeks, assuming I keep my pace.

How about now?

And now the hot sheets are saying it's gone gold? How can that be if the "beta" test is just starting (fileplanet started giving out beta keys yesterday)?

Stop calling it a beta test when it isn't. It's a pre-release demo.