From the way-back machine:

September 1, 2004

How to get files

Here on the XXXXX Inc. website we only make a handful of files available. New releases are up and ready for download shortly after they are created. However, to get older chapters, you’ll need to get into IRC and download the files that way. As this is a moderately advanced use of the internet, as far as most people are concerned, this document may be of some assistance.

This document is not geared toward any particular IRC client, though mIRC and BitchX are long-standing favorites amongst the oldtimers. Use whatever IRC client you please.

Getting started

• Acquire and install an IRC client. Configure it however you please, but you will want to enable DCC sends.
• Connect to irc.XXXXX.net. This is the server that the official XXXXX Inc. channel is on, and the only place we can assure you that these files will be available on. The commandline syntax for this is /server irc.XXXXX.net.
• Join the #XXXXXinc channel. The commandline syntax for this is /join #XXXXXinc.
• Once in the channel, you’ll be greeted by the current topic. This will typically include a listing of the group’s most recent releases.

Getting Files

• From here you’ll have two main means of getting files. One is to take advantage of the md5 “bot.” A listing of everything on this bot is available at www.XXXXXinc.com/xdcc/.
• The other means is through fserves (file servers). Various people run fserves with a variety of content, not all of it related to XXXXX Inc. at all.
  1. To obtain a listing of fserves available, enter !list in your chat window.
  2. You will be presented with a number of advertisements for people’s file servers. This will include the trigger for each server, and (with any luck) a description of its content. They’ll look something like the following:
     

     -XXXXXinc- [Fserve Active] – Triggers:[/ctcp XXXXXinc manga & /ctcp XXXXXinc other manga] – Users:[0/4] – Sends:[1/2] – Queues:[4/24] – Bytes Sent:[91.11GB] – Message:[XXXXX Inc. and #A-Z manga] – SysReset 2.53

     This advertisement is telling us that the person logged in as “mangainc” has an active fserve. It has two triggers, /ctcp XXXXXinc manga and /ctcp XXXXXinc other manga. Each of these triggers will make different files available to you. This fserve also has zero users currently connected to it out of a possible four. It is capable of sending two files simultaneously, but is currently sending one. Of twenty-four queue slots, four are currently being used (probably by the person that the server is currently sending to). The advertisement also claims that this fserve has sent 91.11GB of data, that the fserver contains XXXXX Inc. and #A-Z manga, and that it is using the SysReset2.53 fserve script.

  3. Enter the trigger of a server that looks promising, and it will initiate a separate, private chat with you.
  4. Most fserves will give you a welcome message including a list of valid commands. Typical commands include dir, cd, and get.
     • dir: This works just like the dir in MS-DOS. It will give you a listing of all the files and directory in whatever directory you are currently in. Enter dir right when you get into a fserve.
     • cd: This works just like the cd command in MS-DOS or UNIX variants. It allows you to change directories. The syntax is cd DIRECTORYNAME. Once you have issued a cd command, it may be a good idea to issue another dir command to see what is available. Tip: “cd ..” will take you back to the parent directory on almost all fserves.
     • get: This tells the fserve that you want to get a particular file. Syntax is get FILENAME. The fserve will either immediately start sending the file to you, queue it for delivery after other transfers have completed, or inform you that it cannot send you the file for some reason.
• Once you’ve found the file you’re looking for and issued a request for it, you may want to go ahead and ask for another file. Some fserves will let you queue literally dozens of files at a time.

Caveats & Admonitions

• Some channels have set rules of behavior. It may be to your advantage to enter !rules when you first join a channel that you’ve never been to before.
• Stay in the channel. If you close out of the #XXXXXinc channel before you’re done downloading your files, fserve gremlins will infest your computer and haunt your dreams. Oh, and you won’t get all the files you have queued up.
• Don’t be a nuisance. Repeatedly sending requests at a server that has all of its queue slots filled doesn’t help anything.
• Don’t complain about slow transfer speeds. The people hosting these servers are not being compensated for their bandwidth, time, and effort. If you are downloading and not contributing back, you are a charity case.

[originally] Posted by Burrowowl at September 1, 2004 07:06 AM

Multi-classing in Final Fantasy XIV is a lot more wide-open than I had initially expected. Having a sub-job is one thing, but being able to pick and choose between most of the abilities of all of your disciplines is something else entirely. I don’t expect to have the time to sink into mastering all the disciplines that have skills that are beneficial to playing as a Gladiator, I hope to be able to get up to level 10 or so in a handful of them before too terribly long. You can only stack up so many “action points” worth of skills at any one time, so that should help me pace myself a bit.

At 1st level you’ve only got 6 action points, but frankly I don’t anticipate spending a lot of time down there. At 4th level I’ll have 6 AC worth of Gladiator skills, Red Lotus and Rampart, but will have 9 action points available to me. Clearly the designers want me to spread my wings a little and dabble elsewhere. What should I go for first?

Some thoughts on picking & choosing skills follow.
Continue reading →

Regarding Final Fantasy XIV:

I’m a little worried about the rate at which my character’s underwear is being damaged by routine timber harvesting and mining activities. None of my other starting gear got this ragged this quickly.

A few days ago I got myself the Final Fantasy XIV open beta client and brewed up a little Lalafell Gladiator to give it a whirl. I’ve found it to be rather sluggish on my old-timey Radeon 3400 graphics card, and a lot of folks have complained about frequent server downtime, but I’m seeing a lot here that reminds me pleasantly of Final Fantasy XI.

• Job Switching: You aren’t tied down to what you started your character as. If you originally made a Thaumaturge and would like to try your hand as a Gladiator, just get a sword and equip it. Voila, you’re a Gladiator. This is an improvement over FFXI where switching jobs was a bit of a chore, and a damn sight better than most other multiplayer games, which force you to create a whole new character.
• Crafting: FFXIV treats harvesting raw materials and crafting them into usable items as a series of minigames, providing a bit of interactivity to the process. Instead of telling the interface to turn a Willow Log into Willow Chips and waiting to see if it succeeds or fails, you have multiple opportunities to affect the quality and durability of your end-product. Success and failure at resource harvesting is partly reliant on skill and timing.

  Supposedly user-crafted items will be an integral part of the in-game economy, by which I mean that most of your good gear will be stuff you or another player created, as opposed to quest rewards or loot taken from fallen monsters. I seem to recall hearing this about most online games. Right now it looks like they’re living up to this pledge, but this may be a symptom of Square-Enix not having put out all the content yet. I’m taking this with a gain of salt, but the fact that harvesting and crafting skills are presented as full character classes is promising.

• Group Dynamics: This is part of the game that I really need to dig into further. I haven’t had a chance to explore the Battle Regimen system, but I understand it is at least superficially similar to the skillchain system in FFXI.
• Macros: I used macros a lot in Anarchy Online and Final Fantasy XI, and I expect to get some use out of them in Final Fantasy XIV as well. I currently use macros in the beta to switch between jobs. I currently have one macro for Gladiator, one for Miner, one for Botanist, and one for Carpenter. I’ll be brewing up another for Blacksmith next time I play. The following is what I use to switch from whatever I currently have equipped over to my mining gear:
  

  /equip main "Weathered Pickaxe"
  /equip sub "Bronze Sledgehammer"
  /equipaction 2 "Lay of the Land"
  /equipaction 3 Prospect
  /equipaction 4 "Wrist Flick"

  Some things I’ve found are that capitalization seems to count when writing macros, and any time you are selecting an item or action with a multiple-word name you’ll need to enclose the name in double-quotes (note that Prospect did not need the quotes in my example). Also, you cannot switch your gear when you are in “active” mode. If you have a weapon in your hand, you cannot switch jobs.

Obviously a lot of how a game like this will work depends on the release of full content, opening up all the playable areas, and the player community developing. This means I cannot make a strong prediction one way or the other, but my nostalgia for FFXI and the overall strength of the Final Fantasy brand has me quite optimistic.

Three years and two months ago, I was pretty stoked about the prospect of a Starcraft sequel:

Blizzard Entertainment has finally caved in to the inevitable, and in a bid to preempt military action by a rabid South Korean fanbase have announce that Starcraft II is far enough into development for a web launch.

Back in the stone age when the original Starcraft came out, my coworkers and I would stay late after work for multiplayer games, eschewing Battlenet and its uber-teenagers. I never cared for the Protoss and their rather impressive end-game abilities, preferring to get the fight started relatively early on. Sometimes this resulted in accusations of “Zerg Rush” cheapness, but really it’s just part of the game; I could never mount a credible defense against a well-built carrier force.

I look forward to seeing what they’re doing with the Terran and Zerg units. Blizzard apparently wants to trickle new information out on a per-faction basis, starting with my least favorite. I can wait, though.

I understand the need to dial things in. I understand that balancing accessibility and depth in gameplay was a key factor in the staying-power of the original Starcraft title. I certainly understand what a joy it can be to deny a friend or coworker that last deposit of precious Vespene gas and pulverize his bases with artillery fire. What I don’t understand is how people could still have any excitement for Blizzard’s new opus a full three years after seeing it demonstrated. Basically everything I’ve heard folks raving about regarding new units and game features were already on the table in 2007.

There’s an old saying that the worst thing a political candidate can do is to peak too soon. This should apply to pre-release hype as well. I said I could wait, and I did. Now that I’ve waited, I’m pretty sure I’ve got better uses for my $59.99. Maybe I’ll report back in three more years when the price has come down. It is truly a testament to Blizzard’s strength as a brand name that Starcraft II isn’t the Daikatana of 2010.

My ISP just put up a Tradewars 2002 server available for subscribers, so I figured I’d get my feet wet again after over a decade of not having touched the thing. There is an awful lot I’ve forgotten about plying the ANSI spaceways, but one thing I recall clearly is that there’s little more frustrating than trading in a perfectly good ship for a clunker. For most of your gameplay, you’re going to be either trading or stealing, both of which require you to move around a lot and have a lot of cargo capacity. For a small minority of circumstances, you will be fighting stuff.

There are several arguments to be made in favor of ships like the Merchant Freighter, CargoTran, Mule, and Starmaster, though it’s pretty much universally understood that the Corporate Flagship and Imperial Starship are the two best overall ships in the game. Getting into the finer points of these ships’ merits is beyond the scope of this article; you can do fine with any of these. The following ships, on the other hand, are simply to be avoided:

Merchant Cruiser

     Basic Hold Cost:   10,000   Initial Holds:     20 Maximum Shields:   400
     Main Drive Cost:    1,000    Max Fighters:  2,500  Offensive Odds: 1.0:1
       Computer Cost:   20,300  Turns Per Warp:      3  Defensive Odds: 1.0:1
      Ship Hull Cost:   10,000        Mine Max:     50      Beacon Max:    50
      Ship Base Cost:   41,300     Genesis Max:      5 Long Range Scan:   Yes
 Max Figs Per Attack:      750 TransWarp Drive:     No  Planet Scanner:   Yes
       Maximum Holds:       75 Transport Range:      5 Photon Missiles:    No

You start out with one of these, but there’s no good reason to keep it when you can trade it in for a Merchant Freighter on your first day of play and get more cargo holds, faster warps, and spare change right off the bat. It’s nothing special in a scrap and not efficient for trading.

Scout Marauder

     Basic Hold Cost:    5,000   Initial Holds:     10 Maximum Shields:   100
     Main Drive Cost:    3,000    Max Fighters:    250  Offensive Odds: 2.0:1
       Computer Cost:    5,200  Turns Per Warp:      2  Defensive Odds: 2.0:1
      Ship Hull Cost:    2,750        Mine Max:      0      Beacon Max:    10
      Ship Base Cost:   15,950     Genesis Max:      0 Long Range Scan:   Yes
 Max Figs Per Attack:      250 TransWarp Drive:     No  Planet Scanner:   Yes
       Maximum Holds:       25 Transport Range:      0 Photon Missiles:    No

She’s fast, but no faster than a Merchant Freighter, and with under half the cargo capacity. It gets great per-fighter combat odds, but only carries 250 of them. If you find yourself in a position where this is the only ship you can afford, trade up as soon as you can, and shame on you for not keeping a little money in the bank.

Tholian Sentinel

     Basic Hold Cost:    5,000   Initial Holds:     10 Maximum Shields: 4,000
     Main Drive Cost:   10,000    Max Fighters:  2,500  Offensive Odds: 1.0:1
       Computer Cost:   25,000  Turns Per Warp:      4  Defensive Odds: 1.0:1
      Ship Hull Cost:    7,500        Mine Max:     50      Beacon Max:    10
      Ship Base Cost:   47,500     Genesis Max:      1 Long Range Scan:   Yes
 Max Figs Per Attack:      800 TransWarp Drive:     No  Planet Scanner:    No
       Maximum Holds:       50 Transport Range:      3 Photon Missiles:    No

Sorry, it just isn’t worth the money. 400% fighter strength on the defensive sounds good but there’s just no fun to it. Worthless as a trading vessel, worthless as an attacking vessel. Just not worth the credits.

Interdictor Cruiser

     Basic Hold Cost:    5,000   Initial Holds:     10 Maximum Shields: 4,000
     Main Drive Cost:   50,000    Max Fighters:100,000  Offensive Odds: 1.2:1
       Computer Cost:  380,000  Turns Per Warp:     15  Defensive Odds: 1.2:1
      Ship Hull Cost:  104,000        Mine Max:    200      Beacon Max:   100
      Ship Base Cost:  539,000     Genesis Max:     20 Long Range Scan:   Yes
 Max Figs Per Attack:    15000 TransWarp Drive:     No  Planet Scanner:   Yes
       Maximum Holds:       40 Transport Range:     20 Photon Missiles:    No

If there’s an argument for the Tholian Sentinel, there may be an argument for the Interdictor. Would be a good attack vessel were it not for the prohibitive turns-per-warp stat. Its good personal transporter range makes it easy to leave behind, but it’s hard to justify spending over 500,000 credits on a ship you’re going to basically abandon somewhere.

I’m generally disinclined to buy ships like the Corellian Battleship or Havoc Gunstar in favor of the Starmaster, but I understand they have their merits.

It’s October 22, 2009. Time for our buddies at Microsoft to release their newest, sexiest operating system. And here I am not using it. A few simple reasons:

Sexiness

Windows 7, despite what people may tell you, is an operating system. It manages the resources of a computer, such as the memory, storage, input, and output. Whatever Steve Jobs tells you to the contrary, this is just not exciting.

Utility

I already have an operating system on every computer I own. All of my computers work. This really is more a lack of a reason to upgrade than a particular reason not to.

Fear

Not much of a motivator compared to the others, but time-honored principle of “If it ain’t broke, don’t break it” is a factor. Everything about my current setup works, so there is probably greater risk in changing than in leaving well-enough alone. This isn’t meant to be a criticism of the quality-assurance folks at Microsoft, but rather my confidence in them.

Not only do I not want to have to wrangle with my system to make something that used to work for me run again, I really don’t want to go to war to fix the strange stuff my wife uses (like spreadsheet software). The intrinsic frustrations of troubleshooting aside, it undermines the perception in my family that I am any good with these electronic thingamajigs.

Peer Pressure

I work at a place where our servers run Linux. Several of my friends own Apple products of various descriptions. We tease each other about such things. It’s merciless.

Pig-headedness

This is a serious factor in a lot of my decisions. I picked up Vista Home Premium a while ago, and found I rather liked it. Hell, I even appreciate the much-criticized admin authority auth bongs. They make me much more comfortable with letting my three-year-old near a keyboard.

Cost

Windows 7 Home Premium costs $199.00. This brings up some sub-points:

• I’ve got bills to pay.
• I could buy a netbook for what it would cost to buy a license for my home system and existing laptop.
• If I had $199.00 burning a hole in my pocket, I’d much rather spend it on booze. Or booze and a copy of Tropico 3.

The Real Reason

I’m lazy. There is nothing about the newest version of Microsoft Windows that budges me out of my OS inertia. I am presently an object at rest on such matters. All my devices work to my satisfaction, all the software I want to run works properly, and I fully expect this to be the case for at least as long as I’m satisfied with my processor speed (which may be several years with that Core i7 I’ve got under the hood on my home system).

Best of luck with your new OS, Microsoft.

Several months ago I saw somebody mention a new mail client that had much better threading behavior than most. There wasn’t any description of the behavior itself, nor any reasoned critique of what is wrong with how mail clients like Outlook Express or Thunderbird handle threads, but I was intrigued, so I went to check it out. A beta copy of Postbox was soon running on my laptop, and would shortly end up on my home and work desktop machines.

There are supposedly a number of Social Media / Web2.0 reasons to use Postbox, which explains the presence of a Facebook button that I never clicked. Other features I didn’t get much mileage out of (your results may vary) include a sidebar when viewing a message, containing contact information (ooh, a silhouette where the photo I don’t maintain of my coworker would go!), a listing of all attachments and external links in the message. This proved mildly useful maybe twice. Maybe I’m just old and set in my ways.

The real selling point here (selling point? more on that in a moment) is the threading, though. Take for example the following mailing list discussion with over a dozen responses, first in Mozilla Thunderbird:

In Postbox the whole thread is displayed as a single item by default. Selecting that single line will display the whole conversation formatted much like you’d expect from a mailing list digest. No expanding a thread into a big messy tree is necessary, but if you feel you need to pick out a single message from the discussion, everything’s presented cleanly and sorted by whatever criteria you are currently sorting the folder by (in my case this is nearly always chronological, but hey).

A small touch that I rather appreciated with Postbox what that old threads will display by the date of the most recent reply, not the date on which the thread started. This worked very nicely for me; it is a behavior familiar from web bulletin boards in which people will frequently “bump” a topic to the top of a forum and thus revive a discussion. I’m not in the habit of deleting mail as I read it, so getting to a new post in a week-old topic would frequently involve some digging around. Not efficient.

The only problem I ran into with Postbox was the new-message alerts. I was repeatedly notified of unread messages as though they were new. I may have retrieved a new message five minutes ago, but that does not mean I necessarily read it. To have a pane appear notifying me of new messages while I’m in another application is a useful feature. To be repeatedly notified about the same unread status message from some automated system I don’t actively care about at the moment is just a nuisance. A minor nuisance, one I’m willing to live with.

Then the dealbreaker: a notification that I had 14 days to register my copy.

I don’t normally think of myself as a cheapskate. I am not in the habit of clipping coupons or attending short-term pricing events at local retailers. I’ve been known to occasionally purchase brand-name acetaminophen.That said, I’m not in the habit of paying for stuff that I’ve had free-of-charge for years. I can switch back to the mail client that came with my operating system and be reasonably content. I can switch back to Thunderbird and be quite content. I like Postbox, but I can’t value it at $39.95. I wouldn’t pay that much for a web browser, either.

I recommend Postbox 1.0 as a mail client for anybody who is operating on a somebody-else’s-money basis.

Hey look, 1000 days of uptime. Maybe I should back up my data or something.