Community spirit - "Off Topic"

[bobsobol]

Re: Rewriting PT

Yea! I love that sketch, and shared it with everyone I knew who'd ever used Macs. XD
I can associate with everything he says. But, honestly, that was the change over period between OS 8 and OS X. (OS 9 was the "compatibility layer" so you could run OS 8 software on OS X because .... There was no OS X software when they released it. Remember, it's Y2K.

Classic Macs still didn't have proper multi-tasking and while Steve had been away making NeXT the Mac OS hadn't changed much since that Classic Mac II I used. It got colour screens and more resolution, (Mac2 was "high res" 512 x 384? ) switched (quite gracefully) from 680x0 CPUs to PPC, and became a 3D grey. (about 7.6) But essentially, it was all the same. OS X was sooooo different.

This is the pinnacle of Classic Macness. This is why I worry what modern Apple can do now Steve has passed.

This is the first release of OS X. ... Woa! Say what!?
It's like Going from Win98 to Vista, only Vista can't run *any* existing Windows software! How would PC users react to that?

Unsurprisingly, many Mac users re-formatted the hard disk of their new Mac and devoted all of the drive to OS 9. XD

Most of those "shutdown" and "system lock up" things he's talking about are all "Classic Mac" problems. They where competing with the constant BSODs of Win9x. And it's the exact same problem, with a different "user experience". Classic Mac had true 32-bit protected memory from first Boot, where Win9x didn't, but Win9x had cludgy multi-tasking (multi-threading) where Classic Mac did not. NT, and OS X pushed all of that aside. NT is essentially IBMs Vax VMS kernel for the PC, (rewrite) and OS X is essentially BSD. (port & fork ... actually fork to Match-O Xen, port and fork again to Darwin)

Dragging files from a CD / DVD to the desktop on OS X 10.0 made a copy. (actually, you couldn't fit many icons on your dektop, and if you ran out of space, you couldn't see them and needed to open the "Homeesktop" folder in a window so you could scroll down to it, or just look at the "details" file list view XD) In OS 8/9 this was not the case. Anything over 2.88Meg was considered a hard disk and assumed to be "always available". :

In 800x600, (as above, and a common maximum res for "Apple" displays) the Dock was unwieldy. And in early Mac versions, you could make the "magnify" value stupidly high, so that the icons where 16px and zoomed to 128 when the pointer was over them. The solution is simple, if you don't know what you're doing, GTFO of the System Preferences! I cured the OS X haters "Every Mac I go to is set up differently and I can't find anything" by locking down all of the system areas from the bash shell and imaging a standard OS setup to all Macs. (Carbon Copy Cloner rocks... I want a version that works on Doze) Users needed to give the network admin password to mess with that stuff, but could "work" just fine. That, funnily enough, made them happy again.

Renaming system files is also a "Classic Mac" problem, but MS introduced "System Restore" to ME because Windows users where doing the same thing with OS where users regularly operate with "root" privileges. Classic Mac was a single-user system. Even networked, you only needed to "log in" to access network resources. Not to use the Mac! (Mac users where horrified when they had to click on their avatar to get to their desktop even if they didn't set a password too)

I can have lots of fun at the expense of Mac users too. But if you know one end of an OS from another, it's pretty good. Nothings perfect, and I can giggle at Windows users for much the same. Here's a common one, I get with Windows users "I left my pendrive in the PC over the weekend, and now I can't see it in 'My Computer'?" Hmm, well, it will have gone into hibernation over all that time, have you tried un-plugging it, and plugging it back in? Also, try a different USB port. (because you didn't "Safely remove" the device) Also... WTH!!!? You can't safely remove the pendrive and log off before you go away for the weekend? Are you 12 and need to forget about school and go play!? FFS!

The screen grab for 10.0 I took from

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and it's a modern Mac user who blogs about "Classic". This OT article, for his blog as well as this thread, is pretty sane. He says he missed these early OS X versions first time around, and I'm sure that's because everybody wiped them and used the companion OS 9 disc. So he also forgets that there was very little you could run that didn't come from Apple. (No Adobe, no Avid, no Macromedia, no nothing!)

He's using a 466Mhz iBook, but I think I was on a 600Mhz iMac / eMac when I played Diablo II and WoW. Diablo II was fine. I couldn't have any complaint, but it was fine on a 166 Pentium too. WoW was pretty good, considering a RISC processor (like the PPC G3, or the ARM CPU in most of your phones) will take about 5 instructions to de the same task as 1 on a CISC processor. (like i386) So you should consider it to be equivalent of about a 133Mhz Intel CPU. My PC was a 1.2Ghz AMD, and cost much less. XD

 

[Vormav]

Re: Rewriting PT

I worked on Mac very shortly and I just can't get over some bugs, Apple call them "features" =P


I will never get used to default mice, unless human hands evolve into this:

Other bad thing about mac is that it's actually one big part...

I would say I will stick with PC.

We can look on how innovative Apple is on this example:

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(248, 247, 244); ">


I really don't know why people say that Mac is better, first of all in what is better? In look? It's not a platform for games, even linux is doing more in that direction. It's not platform for professional video editing, 3D modeling, music editing, graphic... Mac is like fashion in hipster sense XD



And that's why I think that Mac don't deserver PristonTale port

 

[bobsobol]

Very far off-topic response to

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.

4shared gave me 15Gig of free storage from which no files have disappeared in the 2 years since I registered. Registration is free, but the files are, now, linked to my eMail address. Uploads made to 4shared without logging in (or if you haven't completed even the free registration) do not stay.

The problem is finding somewhere you can share a couple of gig without providing a valid eMail address, or getting an eMail account which isn't linked to another eMail account which will eventually link back to personal details about your IRL identity.

If such things are a concern for you, then finding a decent host is very difficult. In GNU terms, registration with Google or 4shared is not "free". It may not be charged for, but it does come with attached restrictions and responsibilities, and certainly destroy the freedom of anonymity the internet is famed for providing. :

If you are thinking that that is great because it leaves nowhere for paedophiles and pirates to hide, you are correct. However, it's also a bad thing because it makes it very hard for positive activities such as whistle-bowing. Actually, in order to work, many of us take on contractual responsibilities with our employers and trade unions which mean that any private work associated with our real identity is also a reflection on our employer. Private personal works may be legal to share, but in breech of such contracts *if* they can be traced to us personally.

This is particularly important for writers, reporters, artists, engineers and inventors. Software development of any kind is covered by many of those headings. We do write, both code and documentation, we report on security issues, we are termed software "engineers" and we invent new routines and algorithms all the time, and in entertainment software, the level of artistic assets is always high.

Imagine an Artist at Blizzard North has a secret passion for Priston Tale. They would love to create models for the game and share them with us all, but their contract with Blizzard states that any 3D modelling they produce during their period of employment be owned solely by their employer. This is a very common clause in an artists contract of employment, as it's generally understood that artistic inspiration doesn't only come between 9 to 5 on weekdays, and if an employed artist leaves a rough sketch on a napkin in a diner, their employer needs to know that their rivals won't put it up in their game before they go to press. However, Blizzard North aren't ever going to use Priston Tale models, so that article is pointless here.

If that artist hosts those files in such a way that someone traces back their identity and breaks a story "Priston Tale assets created by Blizzard employee" he is instantly dismissed and will find it very difficult to find work anywhere else. If Blizzard want to find grounds to dismiss him without making redundancy payments they may investigate such minor contract breeches themselves. :

It has been common for writers with such responsibilities to use a pseudonym, or "pen name" for centuries. With the current level and speed of digital forensic detective work, such pseudonyms must be very carefully thought out and executed if they are to be effective.

 

[Vormav]

Long Long time ago in galaxy far far away on 4shared server I had my first release of ubuntu PT server... it lasted 2 months, end of story, but who knows maybe things changed since than.
Google drive look reasonable, it's also assigned to your mail but google love collecting data. Gmail when started had unlimited space XD but now it's only 10 GB. So things will change... they always do.

If you need valid mail that will not lead back to you than here it is:

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Also if you are concerned with with legality of your files you can always crypt data and call it "myfiles".
Piracy is a very long subject and I think everyone should support company they like. Problem is that sometimes you can't...

Let's just hope that blizzard never touch PT '3'. They really know how to make short simple games that will sell when you hype them enough. If they planing to make good games instead then they have a lot to learn...
Here is how D3 should look like:

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+ this is MMO, D3 is not a MMO.

Korea know how to do good MMOs and they do lot of them too.

 

[bobsobol]

Good tip on 10 Minuet Mail. I used to use

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or

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if I need to respond.

Lineage Eternal looks identical to Diablo III in it's artistic style, but the "gestures" control system looks fantastic. : Personally, what I liked about the previous Diablo games was that they where Multi-player, but *not* MMO. It's what I liked about the Dungeon Siege series too. It's nice to play with friends and family, and the open forum on BattleNet was a nice idea for finding new friends on-line to play with before "social networking" was all the rage. However, I made a point never to take Diablo, or D2 on-line, because of cheats (town-kill and hacked items mostly) and because Blizz kept changing my beloved game.

D3 is just the same. Seems they weren't making enough money from the RMAH, so they have just made it practically impossible to get any kind of decent drop except by competing at difficulty levels they initially said they didn't intend to be even vaguely possible. :

So I guess I need a private server for that now too. Just so I can retrieve the decent game that was initially released. It's not like it's even that old!

Back at Apple and it's funny mice: I'd love a PC (Windows or Linux) driver for

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! It's the same price as a replacement MagicMouse for your iMac. (okay, my dream iMac ... except, I prefer Macs that aren't All-In-One, for reasons Vormav illustrated above)

It's just a Bluetooth device, but I don't have a "rotate" function on any existing pointing device on my computer. Not my Trackball (which does rotate, but that doesn't achieve anything but a pointer giggle) or my tablet. (Still hating those funny hand-held puck devices on any OS XD) If they made 360 Connect drivers before the XBox had them... why not this? And what would rotate do when you're trying to read a badly scanned PDF? ^_^

 

[DarkKnightH20]

I LOVE 10 minute mail. Use it all the time

*DK over and out*

 

[Vormav]

Re: Bug "mark" of party minimap

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@DarkKnightH20
We need to go deeper!

​

@sexypt
Going back to previous version and checking what you changed could fix your problem.

 

[Vormav]

Back at Apple and it's funny mice: I'd love a PC (Windows or Linux) driver for

You must be registered to see links

! It's the same price as a replacement MagicMouse for your iMac. (okay, my dream iMac ... except, I prefer Macs that aren't All-In-One, for reasons Vormav illustrated above)

It's just a Bluetooth device, but I don't have a "rotate" function on any existing pointing device on my computer. Not my Trackball (which does rotate, but that doesn't achieve anything but a pointer giggle) or my tablet. (Still hating those funny hand-held puck devices on any OS XD) If they made 360 Connect drivers before the XBox had them... why not this? And what would rotate do when you're trying to read a badly scanned PDF? ^_^

My god not apple again XD, touchpad was invented for laptops and is very bad for stationary computer! But for apple anything stupid is "innovation"....

Another stupid apple "idea".

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Because "spring" is too "mainstream" XD

 

[bobsobol]

Hmm. I've not come across that one before. I can tell you that getting the SIM out of my (second hand) iPhone is a complete arse, and while it's the same size as a normal SIM, it's pin configuration and position is completely different, so I can't switch handsets when the battery dies. (Hey... it's an iPhone... the battery is *always* dead ) The last phone I had, I kept a spare battery charged up and switched those out around mid-day... I really don't fancy unscrewing the bottom of the iPhone, using a sucker to pull the screen out, disconnecting the 3 micro ribon cables which attach it to the main-board and removing the hard-disk to get to the battery and switch it out every day either. I did like the magnetic clamp-on power line on Mac laptops. I'm forever tripping over laptop power lines to answer the phone or turn the dinner down or something. It's never an issue with a Mac. Yea, they are expensive and slow, but *some* of the ideas like that are pretty neat. I guess you have to try an awful lot of useless ideas to get the occasional nifty one. But fair's fair. They *do* try.

I never plug a "mouse" into a laptop unless the touchpad is broken. But have purchased several keyboards with either a built in trackball or touchpad for my PC, so that I don't need the massive desk space waste of a "mouse". XD Never had a "multi-touch" one though. :

I used to love Mac people who lost the floppy disk from their desktop. Mac has no "Eject" button, so if you can't drop the icon in the "trash can" you can't eject the disk. XD Apple recommended a paper-clip to resolve this issue too. But actually, you could send an eject code to the motor by writing a simple program... assuming the ejection motor hadn't packed up.

The same issue does persist with optical drives on a Mac today. But honestly, I can't remember the last time I used my optical drive. :/: I even install from USB or PXE most times. It's so much easier to slipstream the service pack on a thumbdrive or tftp server. ^_^

 

[DarkKnightH20]

Re: Bug "mark" of party minimap

​

@DarkKnightH20
We need to go deeper!

​

@sexypt
Going back to previous version and checking what you changed could fix your problem.

Hahahaha.

 

[bobsobol]

Re: Bug "mark" of party minimap

Oooer. Deeper, deeper. Yes, yes. Yes... Oh yes! Right there. Do it! YES!

Hold on... there are people watching us. :O: Is that you mother?

 

[Vormav]

Re: Bug "mark" of party minimap

Hold on... there are people watching us. :O: Is that you mother?

No it's me, Steve.

 

[Vormav]

The same issue does persist with optical drives on a Mac today. But honestly, I can't remember the last time I used my optical drive. :/: I even install from USB or PXE most times. It's so much easier to slipstream the service pack on a thumbdrive or tftp server. ^_^

I still keeping my optical drive for live CD/DVD in case something goes very wrong >=P
But yes even MS let you install Win 7 from pendrive using

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. Some older PCs don't support booting from USB so optical drive is still a must. Most games and apps now have digital distribution so it's not a problem when you scratch/lose CD because only your CD key is important.

 

[bobsobol]

I usually live boot from USB too. There are still some 10 year old PCs at work and a couple will only boot USB formatted in a certain way, but they all have the ability to USB boot. Thing is, you can format a USB drive like a floppy, a CD or a Hard Disk. The location of boot information is different in the three different modes, and they are not compatible enough for you to create an image on the device which has the boot code of all three. Specifically, Floppies have no MBR and contain a single partition with no partition table where a Hard Disk contains the partition table (even if there is only one partition) where the floppy would have the boot sector. :S The CD image would usually have the session catalogue there IMS.

 

[Vormav]

Thing is, you can format a USB drive like a floppy, a CD or a Hard Disk.

Not really, some of my friends still have 'few' (3~4) years PCs that don't support booting from USB, some BIOS don't support USB sticks at all. If you would like to boot on PC like that than you will need USB stick with special chip that will emulate it as external CD drive. I think you still can still buy those somewhere.

 

[bobsobol]

Most USB memory devices emulate a block level device attached to an external IDE controller. If you take an ISO and block level copy it to the raw USB device the stick looks like a CD to your BIOS.

At least, the sticks I've tried always do, but I know what you mean about different sticks working differently. Of course, they all have different IDE controller emulation and stuff. I know it often doesn't work with MP3 players, digital cameras or phones, because their firmware has certain expectations about the filesystem and such. Even a format instruction often fails on those.

--- EDIT ---
OMG! Was looking up "Goody Two Shoes" for another post, and found this!

Good memories. Adam Adamant owned. XD But wait!!! ... Is that where Jonny Depp got his inspiration for Cpt. Jack Sparrow?

 

[Vormav]

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This guy is more Bavarian than Bavaria XD

 

[DarkKnightH20]

 

[Caustik]

I was told I could introduce myself here
Hi, I'm Adil, a 15 year old with too much spare time on his hands . I came to the Prison Tale section after stumbling across some interesting discussions about private server development and client reverse engineering. I also came seeking escape from Habbo (yes, I know, it's a stupid game). Prison Tale also seems like quite an interesting game.
So anyway, hi PT section

 

[bobsobol]

Hi Caustik!

Yea, PT is kinda old, and unnecessarily complex. Compared to Habbo, reversing it is pretty intense. XD I hope you really do have a lot of free time. ^_^

Have you played PT? Did you get a dev server up yet? If not, here's my number 1 tip, don't try to install it on your main computer. Use a virtual machine instead.

Good luck. If you get stuck, have a search around and if you still can't figure it out, by all means ask us. Please keep a note of the threads / posts which you tried to follow. That will avoid us pointing you to stuff you've already read that, for what ever reason, didn't help.