In the recent unveiling of its next-generation gaming console, the XBox One, Microsoft utterly failed to put an end to rumours of an always-on Internet requirement and used game fees. While it's still possible that Microsoft will see the light and avoid those 'features', it seems unlikely at this point. Given the overwhelmingly negative reaction to these possibilities by the gaming public, if Microsoft was in a position to deny the rumours, they would surely have done so at the product launch.

Regarding the always-on Internet requirement, it's likely to be more of a "console must phone home every day or it stops working" arrangement. Only slightly better than always-on, this will make a console with power and single player games a totally useless brick without an Internet connection. No more gaming at the cottage or during down time at overseas military bases.

As for used games, despite plenty of evidence that the used games market is a boon to game producers, Microsoft is apparently going to kill that market by introducing new transfer fees. I wonder if they'll drop those fees once the damage is felt in corporate pocketbooks.

Given the ongoing success of the XBox 360, the inability of XBox One to play XBox 360 games, and the likelihood of anti-consumer features in the new console, I expect discerning consumers to stay away in droves. I know I will.

The Verge has additional details.

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to do this any time soon. Well, I changed my mind. The 'Donate!' section in the right sidebar now includes a PayPal donation button. PayPal takes a percentage of any donation, but it's worth it for the convenience. You can donate using your credit card, your PayPal account, or (in many cases) your bank account. All donations are used to offset hosting, ISP, and hardware costs, and are tracked on the TPU costs page.

I tested all the available FH2 maps on the new BF2 server and found a few that still cause server crashes, so I removed them from the rotation. Some of these are maps that worked before the move to the Linux server, and others worked before patch B. I'll be working with the FH2 developers to try to resolve these issues.

Maps removed:

• Battle of Keren: server crashes about five minutes in, consistently.
• Operation Hyacinth: server crashes immediately after first spawn.
• Mareth Line: server crashes about five minutes in.
• Port En Bessin: client crashes on join; server sometimes crashes during map load.
• Eppeldorf: server crashes on join if playing Allied side.
• Meuse River: server crashes about 20 minutes in.

If you notice any more problems, let me know.

A couple of notes on BG42: first, the change I made to prevent the map from restarting when the second player joins wasn't working for BG42. I finally realized that the file I modified to fix the regular BF42 maps is different for BG42, so I changed that one as well and it should be fine now.

Second, I noticed that the BG42 map 4302-faid_pass was crashing the server repeatedly, so I removed it from the rotation.

The Battlefield 2 server is now running on the new Linux server PC.

The server name has been changed, to distinguish it from the Battlefield 1942 server (TPU). The BF2 server was previously named "[TPU]BF2_AIX2_FH2_COOP". The new name is "[JDR] FH 2.45 COOP Patch B". The server's IP address has not changed.

Anyone who was previously an admin on the BF2 server should still have the same admin permissions on the new server.

The BF2 server is still running Forgotten Hope 2 (version 2.45), but it has been patched with a special, semi-official set of fixes for co-op play, provided by the co-op gamers on the FH2 forums. This patch is usually referred to as the "Singleplayer Patch B for Forgotten Hope 2.45". Here's a link to the announcement on the FH2 forum.

To join the BF2 server, you need to install patch B on your BF2 client. The patch B installer is in the Files and links section of this web site. WARNING: once you install this patch, you won't be able to join any servers running FH 2.45 unless they have also been patched. Since only co-op servers are likely to be running patch B, that means you likely won't be able to join any non-coop servers. If that's a problem for you, just copy your /mods/fh2 folder to a safe location before you install patch B. Then, if you want to join a non-coop FH2 server, rename the patched /mods/fh2 folder to something else (e.g. fh2b), and copy your backed up fh2 folder back to /mods. You can flip back and forth this way.

When you run the patch B installer, you need to install on top of your existing FH2 mod folder (e.g. C:\Battlefield 2\mods\fh2). This will overwrite some existing files and add some new ones. This is not a full installer; if you install it to an empty or nonexistent folder, FH2 will not work.

In the ongoing comedy that is Ubisoft's utterly pointless attempt to protect its games from 'piracy' (free promotion), the latest news is that Ubisoft's uPlay DRM has been hacked. And apparently it was trivially simple. As a bonus that is sure to add to Ubisoft's enemy list, the hack uses uPlay to provide DRM-free access not only to Ubisoft games, but also to games from other companies. Hilarious.

In case you missed it, Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth recently shoved his own head way up his ass, very publicly. Responding to negative comments on the possibility of the next XBox console having an always-connected-to-the-Internet requirement, he posted a series of Tweets that clearly showed his utter lack of comprehension and callousness toward gamers. Backlash ensued, on Twitter and elsewhere.

Orth's response? He made his Twitter feed private. Microsoft's response? A vague apology and a 'no further comment'. Long-term fallout? How about this huge catalog of Adam Orth 'always connected' meme images?

Update: Aaaaaaaaand, he's gone. Microsoft fired him, or he quit in advance of a possible firing.

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Thanks to some help from the awesome folks at bfmods.com, I was able to modify the main BF1942 objects archive, adding 'game.setMinNrOfPlayers 0' to the 'objects\Soldiers\common\CommonSoldierData.inc' file. This stops the unwanted restart behaviour in all maps, since the modified file is loaded on every map load.

Please check it out and let me know if it's working as expected.

I posted about EA's Origin service when they first announced it. At the time, the big concern with the service was that running it would effectively allow EA to access your computer and do whatever they want with whatever they find there.

Now comes a report that running Origin exposes your PC to being hacked remotely. Thankfully, it's easy to avoid this problem: don't buy EA games. Or, if you simply must run some EA game, don't ever leave Origin running.

I discovered a typo in the orientation parameters for one of the willyspawners in the map's ObjectSpawns file. Once I fixed it, the map stopped messing up the server. So Gazala is back in the rotation.