scafativ

I had a completely repeatable problem- if I changed the game's video resolution and then changed maps *without* logging out first (which is when options are actually saved to disk), I crashed, reliably. I installed the very latest NVidia driver (November), even though I had updated fairly recently (maybe August?), and the problem is completely gone. The moral of this story? Update your drivers. scaf

I'm going to reply to this because I may have pertainant info. I have an older laptop (POS Dell D830) that has windows, my unpreferred O/S. It ran the previous version of the client fine. After upgrading to the new client, it crashed a few times, in short order, and there was a weird issue with the tile map flickering when moving about- the tiles would become transparent and you could see objects that penetrated beneath the tile level. I experimented with video settings, primarily to address the tile map issue rather than the crash issue, and found that by selecting "Vertex Buffer Objects" the tile flickering ceased. Also, as a happy side effect, n'ere a crash since. I haven't tried this new noclusters exe because.. it's all working happily now. I hope this is useful- let me know if you want me to try any specific experiments. scaf

/agenum #about - "My bot owner is Labrat" An additional way for bot owners to promote their bots, and to document ownership, is to set their bot's bio on Gossip. Many players do "abouts" on bots, via Gossip, every day. If your bot specializes in magic jewelry, and hangs out in EVTR, you might as well publicize that on Gossip. Since Gossip ignores other bots, if you want a bio set , send me a gossip with what you want on whichever bot. scaf

For the record, there are protections in place to prevent someone from being spammed by gossip. scaf

Great contest! Thanks to those of you that put your time into planning it- very nicely done. And the good news is- we didn't lose a single contestant to a dragon! scaf

I have a coordination removal stone up for auction. Place your bids here- Opening bid 15k or more, 25k bid will win it as a "buy it now". Auction is over at the end of Saturday, September 8, US Central. Scaf

Sold on a 25k buy it now by an anonymous bidder! Thanks! VcS

I made an 'experimental' music video and stuck it on YouTube, but hardly anyone has watched it, so I figured I'd stick a link here. It's good for: Metallica Fans Classical Music Fans People who like conceptual stuff Pyromaniacs It's bad for: People who like to draw inside the lines People who love old houses Scaf

Here's another vid about a project that I did a few years ago. Scaf

16 hours left, last call.... Scaf

I'm in Wisconsin as well. Well, the problem seems to be with above.net again, and since it reoccurred exactly 24 hours later, they clearly didn't fix the root cause. I opened another ticket with them, referencing yesterday's tickets... scaf The latest from above.net: Email_Message : Sir, While there was a temporary fix in place yesterday, it turned out to cause more problems than it fixed. We are currently working with our peers to resolve the issue permanently. This issue has been escalated to the Director of IP-Operations for resolution Thank you. Doug Ayen Sr. IP Network Engineer Abovenet NMC You had two tickets open yesterday for the same problem: 20070814-182 and 20070814-183 I believe that someone named Jay from your NOC worked with AT&T to resolve the issue yesterday. The exact same problem has happened again exactly 24 hours later, so clearly the root cause hasn't been found and mitigated. Please have a look at this- it seems as though a good chunk of the US is unable to access continental Europe due to the issue.

I'm in Wisconsin as well. Well, the problem seems to be with above.net again, and since it reoccurred exactly 24 hours later, they clearly didn't fix the root cause. I opened another ticket with them, referencing yesterday's tickets. It seems as though they're updating a router table with a corrupted one, or something like that. Annoying. scaf

Ok, so I SSHed into my server from my blackberry, ran a traceroute, and posted here, without the benefit of my reading glasses. If you're not impressed, you're not technical *and* you're nearsighted Here's my trace: 1 firewall (192.168.0.1) 1.862 ms 0.968 ms 0.973 ms 2 firewall (192.168.0.1) 10.796 ms 10.926 ms 8.083 ms 3 deleted... 4 deleted... 5 deleted... 6 deleted... 7 12.87.94.5 (12.87.94.5) 11.098 ms 10.368 ms 12.915 ms 8 tbr1.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.122.99.38) 23.101 ms 23.496 ms 23.423 ms 9 ggr1.chail.ip.att.net (12.123.4.13) 22.004 ms 23.487 ms 21.441 ms 10 so-5-0-0.mpr2.ord7.us.above.net (64.125.13.21) 15.569 ms 14.692 ms 15.201 ms 11 so-0-0-0.mpr1.ord7.us.above.net (64.125.30.137) 24.476 ms 15.513 ms 15.746 ms 12 so-0-0-0.cr2.ord2.us.above.net (64.125.30.142) 20.166 ms 16.286 ms 24.046 ms 13 so-2-0-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net (64.125.27.14) 46.509 ms 52.182 ms 46.047 ms 14 so-6-0-0.cr1.lhr3.uk.above.net (64.125.31.185) 118.604 ms 134.438 ms 118.702 ms 15 * * * 16 * * * 17 * * * 18 * * * 19 * * * 20 * * * They're pretty clearly having a bad day over at the above.net long-haul watercooler. scaf

I'm having the same problem, as is gossip, along with quite a number of other players, based on how low the current number of players online is this morning. I did a traceroute and learned that there's a router in the uk that seems to be belly-up atm. Hopefully, someone will get it reset soon. scaf

I'm having the same problem, as is gossip, along with quite a number of other players, based on how low the current number of players online is this morning. I did a traceroute and learned that there's a router in the uk that seems to be belly-up atm. Hopefully, someone will get it reset soon. scaf

Well, put me on the alt list, please. Me as well! scaf

Yes, my understanding is that we don't want to be #1, because the winner is removed from the running for a year. We want to be number 2-5. scaf

No, not me. The house was burned by the local fire department when the owner wanted to build a big subdivision there. :S scaf

I think that I agree with you, but what a great opportunity for a formal experiment. What I would like to see is to have the announcements stop for most changes, but then to announce a couple of changes that are comparable to unannounced changes. You could then prove or disprove your hypothesis. Fun! scafativ

In the evil, I mean windows version- if you look at the properties of the executable (right-click in windows explorer>properties>version tab, version 1.4.0 claims to be 1.3.3. I know that this is minor, but it may be suggestive of a config management issue, so I thought I'd mention it. scaf

Thanks ttlanhil. It was a very minor problem, but it's good that it's resolved. And thanks to you and the entire dev team for all the work that you do. A release w/o a subsequent roll-back is a very good release indeed! Scaf

Well, I voted "no" in spite of the no-multiplaying rule being a pain for me and my wife. It really does suck when you can't work/fight/trade with your spouse/SO/sibling, but I voted a firm "no" anyway. Why? Well, I think that many of the changes in the game have been very positive over the last year. I think that there have been some very effective gc sinks, which was needed, and many of the new items have been very, very heavy, which was needed to cool what I'll call the XP economy. I hate how much gypsum weighs, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I think that all of that progress will be nullified with an army of alts. You can make a lot of money in this game by harving then alching, so people could multiply those earnings by however many alts they can wrangle at once. It reminds me of those kooks that play 40 Bingo cards at the same time. Not cool. Another positive that would go by the wayside would be what I'll call the "Slow Dung Movement" (please forgive me). I think the slowness of the dung harving is a good thing, but if I set up 15 characters to do my dunging, it's nullified. Lastly I agree with those who believe that it will have a negative impact on the social nature of this game. Who will have time to chat if you have to be managing your pair of fighting alts, while tending to a half-a-dozen harving alts. You'd have to do that to be competitive in the game- you'd have to keep up with the Jones. What I am wondering, Ent, is: what problem is this solving, other than to allow family members to trade? It seems like an awfully big and risky change if it's just for that. scaf P.S. An observation: the overwhelming majority of the comments here have been opposed to multi-playing, yet the voting is close. Why is that, I wonder?

I know someone who had very similar problems clicking outside of the EL window- with a few more bizarre symptoms as well. She updated her GeForce/nVidia drivers, and it all cleared up. scaf

I agree that we need to spend more on healthcare, but it would also be nice if the money for the war on terror was spent on protecting us from terror, too. It would be a nice change. Scaf

They were all hiding on Tie-Dye tee shirts when they were caught. scaf