According to rumour, Microsoft is planning to buy Mojang, the company that develops Minecraft. This would be kind of weird, since Markus "Notch" Persson - the creator of Minecraft - has been a vocal critic of Microsoft in the past. If the rumours are true, one wonders how long it will take Microsoft to mess up Minecraft.

Update 2014Sep15: It's confirmed. Microsoft is buying Mojang:

• Mojang's official response
• Notch is leaving Mojang
• The Verge's take on the deal

Minecraft 1.8 was released to the general public today. The new version fixes a ton of bugs, and adds numerous new block types (including several special blocks), new mobs, new mob behaviour, a spectator game mode, new stats, new server rules, and much more. Client performance has been improved, as has the server list.

You can find all the details about the new version on the Mojang blog, the Minecraft forum, and the Minecraft Tumblr page.

Your client should update itself to the latest version automatically. The JDRGaming Minecraft server will be updated to the new version later today. The Minecraft page will be updated at the same time.

By now most avid gamers are well aware of the attitudes of game producers towards anyone who dares to create work based on commercial games. Even if there's never any intention to make money from artwork, mods, game conversions, platform migrations, graphics updates, or any of the other millions of ways a game can be celebrated by its biggest fans, the lawyers almost inevitably step in and shut it all down.

But perhaps the worst case scenario for these hard-working and dedicated fans is when they have what appears to be approval from the game producer, only to have that approval pulled after a ton of work has already been completed. That's what happened to the people migrating the 1987 NES game Metal Gear to the Steam platform.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about these ridiculous take-downs is that the work being done by these fans is essentially free promotion for the original game and the company that produced it. The kind of thing big game companies pay other big (advertising) companies to do on a regular basis. Maybe this is part of the copyright mindset, in which if something is 'free' it should be regarded with suspicion. What a waste.

As you're by now hopefully aware, Gamespy recently kicked the bucket. Gamespy's master server and login/account servers for Battlefield 2 no longer exist. Anyone running Battlefield 2 will notice long delays as the game tries to contact these now-defunct servers, and attempts to log in will fail. You can still play the game, but only offline.

The good news is that the developers of the BF2 mods Forgotten Hope 2 and Project Reality created patched versions of the BF2 server and client. These programs have been modified to communicate with new, alternative master and account servers. The JDRGaming BF2 server was updated to use the modified server program on July 1. If you use the modified BF2 client program included with Forgotten Hope 2 2.47 (or higher), you won't see the delays, and you will be able to log in. You will also see servers listed on the Internet tab in the in-game server browser.

However: I just finished testing the new BF2 server - the modified server provided by the developers of Forgotten Hope 2 and Project Reality to get around Gamespy's demise - and found that the in-game server browser only shows FH2 and Project Reality servers. Vanilla BF2 servers are not listed, and neither are other mods such as Hard Justice and AIX2.

Because of this, the JDRGaming BF2 server will no longer run Hard Justice or AIX2, unless someone figures out how to get servers running those mods listed in the in-game server browser. Players would still be able to join directly using the server's IP address, but that's not a long-term solution.

I do plan to look at Project Reality, and if I like what I see, I may start running it on the JDRGaming BF2 server occasionally.

The Forgotten Hope 2 server list shows FH2 servers that use the new PR/FH2 master browser.

The JDRGaming BF2 server is now running Forgotten Hope 2 version 2.48. The new version was pushed out on Monday in response to problems with the FH2 client launcher and main program that were causing long delays. The problems started when the Gamespy master server finally went offline a few days ago.

The FH2 client launcher should offer to download version 2.48 and update your client files automatically. You'll need to do that before trying to join the JDRGaming BF2 server.

The new version also includes some changes to maps and single-player/coop gameplay. Here are some links to the related announcements:

• The Road to Forgotten Hope 2.48: Part 1
• FH2 2.48 downloads
• Single-player and coop changes in FH2 2.48

I just received an alert that the computer at 69.10.30.248 (where the Gamespy master server resided until today) has stopped responding. That probably means that the Gamespy master server is gone for good. Originally slated to go offline on June 30, the server has stayed up and working until today, leading some to speculate that it would be rescued from oblivion somehow. Those speculations seem to have been incorrect.

TPU has been using a replacement master server since June 14.

There was another problem with the TPU stats in the last few days. The problem has been resolved and the stats should now be up to date.

The Daily Dot has an interesting post about the Battlefield series, and how it's been plagued with problems in recent years. They recommend NOT buying the upcoming Battlefield Hardline until it's been out for a while and patched, because it's almost certain to have lots of problems.

Personally, aside from the Bad Company games, I've had no interest in any Battlefield games since BF2. Almost everything that made the earlier games great is missing from the newer games.

The JDRGaming BF2 server is now running Forgotten Hope 2 version 2.47.

An earlier post on this site describes all the changes in version 2.47.

The most important change in 2.47 is that the server code uses a new master browser instead of the Gamespy master browser, which will soon disappear. This new master browser is also used by the new FH2 2.47 client. Once you've installed the FH2 2.47 client, you should see the JDRGaming BF2 server in the in-game server browser.

According to the FH2 developers, the new server code should also work with other mods. I'll be testing that over the coming days with the AIX2 mod. Once I've figured that out, I'll post more about it here.

I've posted the FH2 2.47 files in the 'Files and links' section of this site, but you should use the FH2 launcher to update your installation of FH2 if possible.

Please let me know if you have any problems connecting to the JDRGaming BF2 server.

The JDRGaming Minecraft server is now running the latest version, 1.7.10. All of the changes in the new version are related to Realms, so there's nothing of interest for anyone playing on the JDRGaming server.