Resistance is futile against my wishes 
What I enjoy the most is to see my ideas, which are usually too innovative (especially cyberpunk ideas) and non-understandable by the majority of people, into action. Even if not the way I wanted. What counts, for me, is the final result. As well as for what I own: what counts are the contents and the usefulness. Music is a good example. I don’t need cd-boxes, I just need the music, that’s why my entire collection is in mp3. I even converted all my original CDs in mp3, as it’s too boring for me to put the CD in the cdplayer each time I want to listen a few songs.
Anyway, to come back to what I was introducing…
My complaint in the novaworld forum was only an anticipation of what I was going to do and that I did in the last days. I don’t like to complain without doing something to solve my problem myself.
That’s why I downloaded the Escalation iso from bittorrent, my favorite peer-to-per (leeching) program. The speed is really high.
Then I had to buy a valid cd-key. as, since a while, I’m doing shopping on ebay, I bided and won it there. I asked to the seller if he would agree to send me the cd-key only, by e-mail, without charging me the shipping costs, and he agreed.
I got my expansion pack for 19.5$, about 23.- CHF. In Swiss German shops the game can be found (German version) for about 38.- CHF. As I already spent 78.- CHF, saving some money here wasn’t a bad idea. I would have done the same also for the original game, if I knew before how practical is to do so.
Anyway, I think that games like this, with a server side cd-key check upon game load, should let the iso version available for download, maybe using some innovative (and smart) ways to save some bandwidth: by using peer-to-peer sharing like edonkey2000 or bittorrent networks.
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March 1, 2005, Category: Personal
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This is what I posted on the Novalogic Forums, because I’m really pissed to wait for an expansion pack which is already available in USA and Germany since 2 months.
Just to make you understand: Joint Operations is my favorite videogame, and Novalogic is the software house that released it.
Read on what I posted:
28$ for an expansion pack… it’s too much, NOW.
I would have paid such an amount 2 months ago. But now I lost 2 months waiting for it…………..
I’ve waited till now for the expansion to come out in the shops of my region (Italian part of Switzerland, Europe), and now I’m really thinking that when it comes out, it’s no more worth paying for it: I would rather get it for free as bonus in a magazine after so much time. If I have to wait a lot I would like to see, at least, a discounted price.
Also to order an English copy is not an option, because the shipping and the wait time is too high.
The game has already a copy protection: the CD-KEY, so why don’t you sell an online version of the game? People need to have a fast connection to play it, so some people would be happy to buy it online, download an ISO version and burn it on their own. And play it as soon as it’s out, and not 3 months later when they finally can get it in the shop.
I understand that, some people want to have a manual and a CD-case in their language… if they want to wait… but some people like me want the game in English, even if they live in a non-English speaking country.
I understand that you want to make more profit by selling the nice manual and nice package.
I understand, but I don’t like it, it seems that you are lazy towards your international fans. You could do something for your international fans… but USA is the main revenue, so who cares about the rest of the world, right?
Why don’t you do something "innovative" (I think some serious software companies already do something like this) and sell the game online: so people can pay it via credit card, download an ISO file, burn it, install it with a valid CD-KEY and play it?
Why is there piracy? Sometimes people get a pirated copy or leech it from a peer to peer program (maybe the day after the game is officially released in USA) because they don’t want to wait 4 months to get a game they can get in a few hours of download…
Open your eyes: begin to sell ALSO online. Go on selling your packaged copies but don’t tell me that it’s too hard to create an online e-commerce facility to send an e-mail with a download link + CD-KEY.
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February 22, 2005, Category: Personal
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Today I received the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro that I purchased on ebay.
It’s nice to get something that you were waiting for a couple of days.
The shippping has been very fast. The card has bin shipped from California on February, 3rd and arrived today. It took 6 days to arrive. I calculated some swiss customs taxes to pay, but I had to pay nothing. That’s what I’m enjoying the most! I spent 195$ (shipping included) without additional taxes!
The trick: the seller wrote in the customs declaration: "May be opened officially - gift" - "Used ATI 9800 video card - value 40$". The package was very small, considered a letter. That’s whay I had to pay nothing: it was considered a letetr and wasn’t checked at the customs.
By the way, I hate these stupid customs: it’s a waste of time, money and it demotivates me to buy things online. Anyway, this time I’ve been lucky.
I tried the card and it really rocks!
I played Joint Operations maps which previously gave me problems, without any problem at all.
Well, to be honest I encountered some problems, caused by Skype. Skype uses a lot of processor power, thus I’ll look for another vocal chat alternative. Team Speak isn’t the best but shouldn’t create such performance problems.
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February 8, 2005, Category: Personal
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