As part of the EA takeover of DICE, Lawrence Brown has had his position as Mod Coordinator “eliminated”. Apparently several other staffers will continue working with the mod community, but this doesnt sound like good news for Mr. Brown or the Battlefield 2 community.
Read his announcement at the BF2 Mod Tools Forums
| # | Artist | Song Title | Album | |
| 1 | Mudvayne | Happy | Lost And Found | |
| 2 | Slipknot | Wait and Bleed | Slipknot | |
| 3 | Slipknot | My Plague (New Abuse Mix) | Resident Evil Soundtrack | |
| 4 | Pantera | Cementary Gates | Cowboys From Hell | |
| 5 | Korn | A.D.I.D.A.S. | Life Is Peachy | |
| 6 | Slipknot | Wait And Bleed | 9.0: Live [Disc 2] | |
| 7 | Slipknot | The Nameless | Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses) | |
| 8 | Killswitch Engage | The End Of Heartache | The End Of Heartache | |
| 9 | Disturbed | The Game | The Sickness | |
| 10 | Tool | Prison Sex | Undertow | |
| 11 | Slipknot | Vermilion | Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses) | |
| 12 | Rammstein | Amerika | Reise, Reise | |
| 13 | Pantera | Walk | Vulgar Display Of Power | |
This list is generated weekly from a ranking based on your votes in the Live365 playlist window.
Yesterday at CES in Las Vegas, Tivo debuted the new Series 3. This is the Tivo all Tivo Lovers have been waiting for. It has the ability to record two shows at once or record a show and watch another show. It can even do this with 2 HD channels if you have two HD cards.
It also adds HDMI , Component Video (woohoo) SVideo and Composite Video. On the audio side of things, it has Optical Digital Out and RCA Stereo. Finally getting smart, there is a built in 10/100 Network connection, USB and get this, an external SATA port. Thats right. You can add a SATA drive to your Tivo without voiding the warranty.
Now, before you start thinking you can share your stuff with this external drive, keep in mind it runs the internal hard drive and external hard drive in an array where data from one show will be stored across both drives. Remove the SATA and you loose everything stored on both drives. I know it sounds like a PITA, but its a smart move if you ask me. You will be able to easily add HD space for all that HDTV hard drive eating content and they keep the evil Media Moguls off their case for allowing people to easily pirate content.
You can get the full scoop on the Tivo Lovers Website along with a whole bunch of mirrors of the Pictures taken at CES.
I stumbled upon this at Planet Battlefield today and it sounds interesting for those running an unranked BF2 server. According to their website, “Alternative Battlefield Ranking is a collection of scripts, which provide the same functionality as the original official battlefield 2 ranks, without having to pay for a ranked server.”
EA/DICE has recently given permission for this effort to go forward regarding Battlefield 2 and Related Products, and it will offer support for general unranked servers as well as those running mods similar to that seen from BFTracks and BFStats in the Battlefield 1942 and Vietnam days.
Check them out here: Alternative Battlefield Ranking News
Robert Fripp, guitarist and composer, from the band King Crimson could be found a few weeks back recording the soundtrack for the new Windows Operating System “Vista”. I found a Video of the session that you can view.
Watch Recording Session 25minutes:42seconds
Download Recording Session 94.1MB
I just received our December stats from Live365. I thought you might be interested in seeing them.
Heres a recap of your stations stats this month:
Total Listening Hours
Last Month: 43927
This Month: 42278
Total Station Launches
Last Month: 55156
This Month: 53996
Station Presets
Last Month: 8045
This Month: 8597
Favorite Station Designations
Last Month: 496
This Month: 542
Our stream was launched almost 54,000 times in the month of December. That blows me away. Thank You for listening. If it wasnt for you, this would not be worth doing.
I played my first MORPG (not Massively, but definitely Multiplayer) game on AOL way back in 1996. It was a single server that would hold 500 people at any given time. The name of this game? AD&Ds Neverwinter Nights. This was the original online gaming social fest for me. In 1997, AOL shut it down and I have never been the same since. I have been trying to recreate the fun and adventure I had in that game without much luck.
With nothing better to do, I joined TEN (Total Entertainment Network) and picked up AD&Ds Dark Sun Online. Graphically, it was a much better game. Overall, it lacked the fun factor I had experienced in oNWN.
Soon after, I jumped into Ultima Online and it was fun and all of the old NWN guild came along. We were a thriving group of 50 or so players. We had a good social network and we enjoyed working together for a goal. However, it lacked something. I could never put my finger on it, but this was no oNWN.
Well, I think I finally know what it was missing. The recreation of the paper and pen D&D games I had enjoyed through my late teens. Meeting once a week with the same group of people to make it just a little further down the path set before us. It was exciting and enjoyable. It was social and fun gaming all at the same time. The one thing it was not was about getting “Phat Lewt”. Sure, we loved getting cool new items, but we always put the need of the group before the needs of the individual.
This is the problem with todays MMORPGs. They are all about the reward and never about the adventure. They require the efforts of large groups, yet only reward the individual. They are about instant gratification and never about the adventure.
I can hope this will chance soon. Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach may be just the game to bring me back to the days of Neverwinter Nights on AOL. It may not appeal to the “l33t G4merZ”, but it should appeal to those of you who are just like me. Looking for the adventure along the way rather than the reward at the end. If this sounds like something you are interested in, check out this article on DnD Vault. It goes a long way to describing what type of adventure you can expect to find in the new Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach. In the meantime, Ill keep my fingers crossed that my Beta application will be accepted so I can get my first taste of adventure.
The lawsuit against Sony for including rootkit software with its music CDs has been settled. The company agreed to compensate those who bought the CDs that had the XCP copy protection and provide them with utilities to uninstall the software from their computers. Buyers can exchange the XCP CDs for non-copy-protected versions, download free albums and/or receive a cash payment of $7.50 plus an album download. You have to return the XCP CD to Sony or send them your receipt where you returned it to a retailer.
Raze had a big suprise up his sleeve for everyone this Holiday season. He was secretly working on a new theme for the site. Check that baby out! Woohoo! Hold down ctrl and click refresh a few times. Watch the header change. How cool is that?!?!?!?
All I can say is Raze is da Man!
On a side note, you may have noticed some problems reaching the site lately. One in particular said exceeded bandwidth. Well, ummm, thats not true. You see, we have our own server and plenty of bandwidth, but yours truley made a slight mistake on the set up for this website. Needless to say, it has been corrected.
Another issue recently was the inability to reach the site. Once again, the shame is all mine to bare. We were running on an older database version and I upgraded us to help speed up the site. I did that yesterday and everything ran fine through the night. However, today all hell broke loose and the problems starting appearing. Needless to say, with the help of David the SysAdmin where we host our server, everything has been restored back to normal. The upgrades are all in place and I promise to stop tinkering with the server. At least for another year. 😉
Hope you enjoy the increased speed and the awesome new look. Heres to the start of a great new year!
| # | Artist | Song Title | Album | |
| 1 | Slipknot | Wait and Bleed | Slipknot | |
| 2 | Disturbed | Down With The Sickness | The Sickness | |
| 3 | Mudvayne | Happy | Lost And Found | |
| 4 | Pantera | Cementary Gates | Cowboys From Hell | |
| 5 | Mudvayne | World So Cold | The End of All Things to Come | |
| 6 | Slipknot | Wait And Bleed | 9.0: Live [Disc 2] | |
| 7 | Avenged Sevenfold | Bat Country | City Of Evil | |
| 8 | Slipknot | Duality | Vol 3 (Subliminal Verses) | |
| 9 | Korn | A.D.I.D.A.S. | Life Is Peachy | |
| 10 | Disturbed | Voices | The Sickness | |
| 11 | Disturbed | The Game | The Sickness | |
| 12 | David Draiman of Disturbed | Forsaken | Queen Of The Damned | |
| 13 | Cold | Suffocate | Year of the Spider | |
This list is generated weekly from a ranking based on your votes in the Live365 playlist window.
By now, you have heard about the “Booster Packs” EA is releasing in early 2006 for the BF2 game. I have too much free time on my hands this week. During that free time, I have been thinking a lot about this issue. In fact, it has consumed me.
I have a few thoughts on these “Booster Pack”.
1. The term Booster Pack is very telling. A Booster Pack is something you buy with card based games like Pokemon and Magic The Gathering. There are tons more. They appeal to a younger generation than our typical crowd. A Booster Pack gives you a chance to obtain something your opponent does not have. It does not guarantee you anything other than the opportunity to get said reward. I believe it is being used as a marketing term to reach this younger audience because they have been exposed to its marketing for many years.
2. I love custom maps and would love to get more maps, even going as far as paying $10 for a good set of professionally created maps.
3. This is not a map pack. It is an attempt to create a new revenue stream through the MMORPG carrot on the stick syndrome. It is not about maps. It is about weapons and being able to get weapon unlocks that others can not have.
4. EA in their attempts to create additional revenue is actually going to alienate their core audience of players and while these gamers already spent their money on BF2, the backlash will happen down the road. It may not be today or tomorrow, but it is building steam and momentum.
With all of this said, I have reached a turning point. After buying every single BF game and expansion pack, I will not be purchasing the “Booster Packs” or traditional “Expansion Packs” for that matter. In fact, I imagine I will no longer be playing the core game with the exception of Mods.
In the future, I will no longer purchase a DICE made game simply because I think they “are/were” a great company that developed great games. EA has taken the reigns and things are quickly going down hill.
Should DICE develop a new WWII FPS, I will consider purchasing it. However, if said game includes any “Booster Packs”, you can count me out.
Its a shame really. After deep reflection, I feel like I just broke up with a long time girlfriend. Battlefield, its been fun, but I must move on….
A while back Intel was sporting a new logo design as well as logo sticker designs for their products. They removed the images soon thereafter.
Funny thing about the new logo stickers for the new processors supporting dual core and single core processors, they did not have the name “Pentium” on them.
Check the new logo and the lack of Pentium.
Could Intel be moving on from the Pentium name that they have successfully stood behind around 13 years?
As some of you may know, I am a huge Henry Rollins fan. I enjoy his spoken word and have liked all of his music back to Black Flag. Henry is one of those guys who has known many bands and seems to know every guy who ever picked up a guitar. He has resumed a show he did last year from Indy 103.1 http://www.indie1031.fm/ called Harmony in my Head. Its on 8 PST on Tuesdays the website is: http://www.harmonyinmyhead.com/
This is a cool show where he DJs for about 2 hours. He plays music that he likes, and he cover quite a range of genres. For each song he gives a lead-in about why he likes the song and typically he will tell some “back-story” about the band.
You can stream this from the Indy 103.1 website, check it out.