The server that hosts this web site was down this morning. I reported the problem to the provider (A Small Orange) and they fixed it.

The new TPU Monitor (top of the right-hand column) is showing team numbers that are not quite right. I've identified a bug in the PHP code and am working on a fix. I hope to have it working properly in the next day or so.

UPDATE: It's still not quite right. Sometimes it fails to count all players. Working on it...

A few announcements:

[1] Wildcard days are now Wednesdays. We'll stick with DCFinal on wildcard days for now, but there's been some discussion of changing to BF1918 soon, to see if that generates any more interest.

[2] Meanwhile, Tuesdays are now dedicated to DCFinal.

[3] There was a problem with stats processing on Tuesday, but it is now fixed and the missing stats should be on the stats page.

[4] There are some problems with the AI on a few of the BG42 maps. In particular, on Omaha Beach, the Allied bots don't seem to want to move off the beach. I'm going to start a new forum thread about AI problems in general. One thing we have yet to determine is whether we can make changes to the AI on a map without forcing clients to download the changed map.

[5] There are a few misbehaving maps in DCFinal: Bocage (day one?) doesn't run and when voted for, sends you to a random map; also the server seems to get stuck on Mimoyecques. I'll be taking a look at those issues today.

UPDATE: I tried DCFinal Mimoyecques on TPU and it seemed to work fine. Not sure what it was doing earlier since I didn't see it for myself, but perhaps the problem fixed itself. As for Bocage, the first one definitely doesn't run. I'll fix or remove it.

UPDATE: Unable to determine why DCFinal Bocage doesn't run on the server, I removed it from the DCFinal map rotation. There are still two other Bocage maps in the rotation.

UPDATE: DCFinal Market Garden was also acting weird so I removed it.

Thanks once again to the efforts of DarkRyda, a bunch more BG42 maps have been given the TPU touch. What does that mean? It means you won't spend much time walking, because there are rides aplenty.

Here's a list of the maps updated today:
4508-yamashita_treasure [okay]
4504-crossing_the_spree
4212-tebourba_breakthrough [fixed]
4504-volkssturm [okay]
4504-seelow_heights [okay]
4503-cologne_trainstation
4301-stalingrad_winter
4106-battle_of_brody
4104-thermopylae
4104-battle_of_keren
4103-koufra_raid
4011-kalamas_line
4005-stonne
4005-kornwerderzand
4005-hannut_steel
4005-grebbeberg [okay]

Most of the maps have just had their tank and plane spawns bumped up, but these deserve special mention:

4504-crossing_the_spree has two new tanks for each side, a flamethrower for the Russians, and some other new units.

4212-tebourba_breakthrough - changed a lot of the cars to tanks.

4508-yamashita_treasure - changed the cars to floating tanks and boats, added small ships (destroyer type, landing craft and subs), changed the tanks and support vehicles to much stronger units.

Should be loads of fun.

This morning I changed the 'server bandwidth limit' setting for TPU from 'no limit' to 2048 Kbps. This setting is just under the actual upload bandwidth limit for the Internet service I'm using. Please let me know if you notice anything different - good or bad.

According to Sisko, the regular BF1942 Battle of Britain is still causing the server to crash repeatedly. I've played that map myself on TPU recently, so I know it's not happening all the time. I had previously assumed that the problems were caused by the B17s, which led me to remove them from that map, but clearly there's more going on there. Any additional observations?

Is anyone else having problems with the regular BF1942 Guadalcanal map on TPU? Whenever I try to join TPU when that map is running, my game client crashes. The server keeps running fine, though.

This Techdirt article summarizes the much more reasonable approach to 'piracy' being taken by some of the more enlightened game developers:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/2011...hing.shtml

A notable quote: "If the game gets pirated heavily, if it's a good game that people really like, they're going to either buy it eventually or they're going to tell other people about it. Either way it's just going to come back to a sale."

Exactly!

Reports from players and my own observations show that some of the DCFinal maps are a bit flaky. In particular, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima are causing client crashes. I have removed both of those maps from the DCFinal rotation. If anyone notices any other problems, please let me know.

Et tu, Blizzard? Abandoning your single player, LAN gaming base is going to be a costly mistake. Sure, plenty of Diablo fans will buy Diablo III despite being required to have an always-on Internet connection, but those of us who still fondly remember Diablo LAN parties will shake our heads sadly and give D3 a pass. Blizzard, what do you think made Diablo so huge in the first place? Do you really think you lost any sales because of LAN gaming? No. Even if a dozen people at a LAN party all played with one copy of Diablo, the promotional value made up for any imagined loss in ways you clearly have never imagined possible.

To make matters worse, the real-world-currency market in D3 is going to give wealthy people a distinct advantage in the game. Yes, that's what the world needs: more advantages for rich people.

Screw you, Blizzard, and screw your accountants and lawyers who pushed for these changes. You just lost a customer. And speaking of promotional value, don't forget that it comes in negatives as well.

Ghastly details: http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/08...tion-House

UPDATE: Blizzard responds to the outcry with more bullcrap. Details below.

UPDATE 2012Jul26: The backlash against Diablo 3's senseless DRM ramps up in Germany:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/2012...ents.shtml