Thread:Deathstalker666/@comment-1496755-20180827202615/@comment-1496755-20181122205259

Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow - I think I've finished anything that can't wait until December (or next year), so the Vice-Dean shouldn't have any reason to need me anytime soon. Which would mean I'd be free to enjoy some well-earned rest.

Some kdis find it hard to beluieve that games vback in our day didn't need updates every few days in order to stay stable. It's magic, perhaps?!?

You are quite right - this whole submachine gun mess is mostly due to the influence of CoD where you have numerous weapons that are pretty much the same thing, with minor differences. The only exception is the sniper rifle (when the target is distant), but when it comes to close-quarters combat, you just stick to whichever gun you can find abundant ammo for (which is usually what the enemies are carrying). And the whole concept of variety goes down the drain. A CoD player would probably get a brain hemorrhage just from trying to figure when to use which weapon in Quake. Yes, simplicity is one of the defining concepts of many old classics, and some modern titles are actually trying to emulate this - both for the sake of nostalgia and to revitalize the genre. One good example is the Serious Sam games, where the gun variety is fairly similar to Quake's, but with a few special twists. And players really have to pick the best gun for the situation at hand, if they wish to survive - the CoD approach guarantees failure.

Minecraft got pandas too? I know how this feels - the arrival of the pandas was the point when I knew for sure WoW had lost everything that made it a global phenomenon back in its early days.

Well, since we can't find such strategy guides, our only option is to write some ourselves. I bet they'll be pretty insane and people would have nightmares after reading them. But at least they'll learn how to properly play (or not) the most obscure Quake maps in history. And that will be our contribution to human society.

Heh, we are reaching a point where even Doom may seem too complicated to some kids. The first somewhat non-linear map they run into drives them into utter confusion.

Oh yes, the server is a quiter activity (except for my giggling whiel chatting), so it will definitely be more convenient to schedule and perform. Soon!

They say practice makes perfect - this applies to things like DOSBox and virtual machiens too. I am lucky to have a lot of old experience with Windows 95/98 - I may have forgotten a lot of stuff, but it still helps a lot. I remember what a shock it was when we switched to Win 95 after all those years of DOS and the considerably less user-friendly Windows 3.11 - it was a time when messing around with Windows was actually fun. It was all new to us. But if you have a passion for this sort of stuff, you'll become good at it too, given enough time. Despite their huge differencews, there are still quite a few things in those old OS that have barely changed until today and still work the same way. DOSBox was a similar experience - I was pretty clumsy at first, especially while I still didn't know all the mounting options and what conveniences they can offer. The fact that I started at a time when it wasn't as stable and powerful as it is today didn't help either - I was often wondering if it was worth it. Again, it took practice and patience to master it (my childhood experience with DOS 5.00 and 6.22 helped too).

Wow, I've almost beaten a whole campaign in Red Alert 1... in PCem (Win 95 - a "modest" Pentium 120 machine). For this particular game (and ones similar to it) it definitely is a better option that all the frustrations I endured while trying to run it with workarounds and wrappers (and in the wrong resolution). Keep in mind that this is a game that requires some minor workarounds even on Win XP, so it is beyond any doubt designed specifically for Windows 95/98 and not suited for newer operating systems. Such compatibility issues are a major factor in my decision whether a game is better off played in PCem or with workarounds.

Fear not secrets, for they cannot stay hidden forever. The benefit of game secrets is that they aren't really going anywhere - they'll always be there, waiting for you to find them, no matter how much time passes. I hope this thought makes you feel a little better.