Thread:Deathstalker666/@comment-1496755-20180827202615/@comment-1496755-20190220211603

I suppose complete deafness isn't really an option, since you'd still want to hear your music or games sometimes... so I guess there is (currently) no salvation from the noise.

True, a cool villain is essential to having a good story. A good villain must have convincing motives behind their "evilness", otherwise they look pretty dumb. It's usually some mix of past suffering and disillusionment. Come to think of it, we both could make decent comic book villains with some extra leather suits and steampunk tech ;)

I've talked about this to people but the usual reaction is "there's no way the servers can get down, are you crazy?". Growing up with frequent power outages teaches you a thing or two about taking technology for granted. There are quite a few ways servers can fail completely, even if people don't realize it. And then the only people who could still play and enjoy these games would be the pirates. Oh, the irony...

Beta3 is a good example of how things are never black and white. It is a very valuable piece of history indeed, providing valuable insights into the game's development, just like those silent Doom Alphas. There are also cases when a game was not even released, but its Alpha/Beta was leaked, and thus is the only way people could ever experience it. Technically illegal, but priceless from a historian's point of view.

Indeed, it;'s not always about price. TBH, there were times when I couldn't really afford games, but this is not the case nowadays. The main reason I keep "hunting" for stuff on abandonware sites is because lots of things simply can't be found anywhere else. Or they can be found, but in a format that is useless to me (e.g. floppy disks - where am I supposed to read them?). I don't feel shame or guilt when I don't have legitimate options to get what I want... and I am not the kind of person who'd give up getting what he wants. I liek to indulge myself.

Well, the Steam version of Quake will probably be unplayable without cracking some day. Good thing the original release doesn't have any protection mechanisms - you install and it's ready to go. Just the way we like it. And this is why it's so important to preserve the CD's as best as possible... as well as backup images because physical CD's will deteriorate sooner or later.

Sometimes I download games I already have because I'm looking for a different version. This is especially true for older things, from the time before patches became common. With no way to upgrade (or downgrade for that matter), the only way to try a newer (or older) version of such a game is to find a complete package of that version. And the really annoying thing is that they usually did not include any changelogs, so you'd wonder what the difference between this versions was (unless it is some very obvious change). To make things even crazier - I've had cases of the same version number, but with different compile dates! Luckily, I was able to resolve one such case when I noticed some minor features were missing from the game in the executables with the older compile dates (features that you wouldn't even notice unless you are an obsessive nerd), only implemented in the one with the latest date.

BTW, a funny story - Emuparadise removed their downloads after being threatened with legal action... but someone came up with a browser script that lets you download from that site. So the files were not removed, it's just the download mechanism that was disabled. But the script circumvents that. Pretty sweet.

(strokes his wise white beard) Life often requires sacrifices, indeed. I took a course in microeconomics once and a major theme there was the concept of trade-offs, which is a form of sacrifice, though with the promise of future gain. An example of this is when I started having conflicts with my boss at my prvious job (the translation agency). At one point he directly asked me if I wanted to keep working for him... and my soul screamed "NO!" but my mouth quietly said "Yes, I'd like to keep working here." Felt almost like someone else was speaking and I was just passively observing it as it happened. I didn't like this decision at all... but it was a necessary sacrifice. I don't remember if this was before or after the purchase of my new home (most likely before), but keeping that job and the stable income it provided were crucial for accomplishing my dream of living on my own. So I swallowed my pride and my rage, kept them buried deep below. And this paid off eventually. It was a good trade-off. It wasn't easy, though - I bet you know how much it hurts when you have to swallow your anger and conceal it.

Something new I am trying out - the "sleep buffer". Meaning going to bed significantly earlier than usual in at least one day, in order to balance my energy levels fro the remainder of the week. Wednesday is a good choice for this, since it's the middle of the week. Will help me stay frosty untikl the weekendd, when I finally get the proper sleep.