Welcome to jdrgaming.com Saturday, November 02 2024 @ 05:05 PM PDT

Yet another reminder that Nintendo hates its biggest fans

What is it about Nintendo that makes them want to destroy the work of their biggest fans? It seems like the more love and effort you pour into a game port or remake of a game (all without any kind of compensation, aside from glory), the more likely it is that Nintendo will shut you down. Usually that happens when all your work is done and you finally publish. Sometimes Nintendo even approves your work in advance, only to shut you down anyway later on.

The latest move from Nintendo's "crack" legal team is to shut down a Commodore 64 port of Super Mario Brothers. Seven years in the making, there's no conceivable way that this work would ever hurt Nintendo's bottom line, or set some kind of legal or copyright precedent if it was allowed to live. But bullies be bullies, and Nintendo is one of the all-time worst. Seriously, screw Nintendo, and screw their idiot laywers.

The good news is that anyone involved with the emulator and ROM scenes is probably going to have no trouble finding the game. It just won't be available on any site that's easy for the legal geniuses at Nintendo to find.

TPU stats reset for 2019

It's a new year, so the stats for TPU have been reset. All the stats for 2018 are still accessible via TPU Stuff > Statistics [archive] in the sidebar.

In 2018, the overall points winner was Johnny James with 22.55, and the next closest player was Big Ed with 19.90. Keep in mind that points are calculated using a formula based on several factors: (((attacks*1)-tks+(heals/10)+(otherrepairs/100))/rounds_played)+kdrate. This formula is designed to reward players who take flags, heal players, repair vehicles, and don't team kill. The formula is always open for revision; let me know if you have any suggestions.

If you aren't interested in ranking by points, remember that you can always sort the TPU stats by another column, such as S/R (score per round), Score, Kills, Deaths, K/D (kills:deaths ratio), gold/silver/bronze stars awarded, TKs (team kills), attacks, rounds played, heals, or repairs.

Johnny James walked away with the top score in almost all categories in 2018. He had a K/D ratio of 19.4114, ahead of Big Ed in second-place with 17.0075.

The only place Johnny James didn't nab top spot was in S/R, score per round. The winner in that category was Tanos with 76.9231. Johnny James came in second, with 70.2736.

Congratulations to Johnny James and Tanos, and happy new year to all!

Forgotten Hope 2.54

Forgotten Hope 2 version 2.54 was released on October 25. Rather than re-test all the maps individually before upgrading the server, I've decided to rely on players to report any issues they encounter. So the JDRGaming BF2 server is now running Forgotten Hope 2 2.54.

Players should use the Forgotten Hope 2 launcher to update their game client to FH2 2.54. It will offer to upgrade when you run it.

Several release announcements describe the changes in 2.54: part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4. There are some new Russian units and weapons, as well as a few tweaks to eastern front maps. Text fonts used in the game have been updated and now work better at all resolutions.

As always, please let me know if you encounter any crashing or freezing problems with any of the FH2 maps. Click About/contact in the top menu on jdrgaming.com for contact details. If I get reports of reproduceable problems on a map, I'll remove it from the regular rotation.

JDRGaming BF2 server now running FH2 2.53

Version 2.53 of Forgotten Hope 2 was released on May 25, 2018. The release announcement describes some of the more interesting changes, and there's a change log that has additional details.

New FH2 releases tend to have problems with co-op and single-player modes, so I wanted to wait for fixes before upgrading the JDRGaming BF2 server, but decided to go ahead with the upgrade on July 21.

You'll need to upgrade your FH2 client to play on the JDRGaming FH2 server. The easiest way to upgrade is to run the FH2 launcher, which will detect the new version and ask whether to proceed with the upgrade.

Please let me know if you encounter any crashing or freezing problems with any of the FH2 maps. Click About/contact in the top menu on jdrgaming.com for contact details. If I get reports of reproduceable problems on a map, I'll remove it from the regular rotation.

Minecraft 1.13 released

The latest version of Minecraft (Java edition) adds a bunch of water-related features: new creatures, blocks, and items that all appear underwater.

The JDRGaming Minecraft server has been updated, and is now running version 1.13.

IP address changed

There's bad news, and good news. The bad news is that the IP address for all JDRGaming servers has changed again. As of 2018May12, the IP address is 184.71.170.154.

If you're having trouble joining TPU, please refer to this post for assistance.

The good news is that we're finally on a business Internet plan, which has several advantages. The IP address is static, which means it's much less likely to change randomly. And the available bandwidth has increased from 25 Mbps download / 2.5 Mbps upload to 75 Mbps download / 15 Mbps upload. The increase in upload bandwidth in particular should mean less lag and connection problems when there are a lot of players.

Buried treasure: review for a game utility I developed in 1983

I paid my way through university with contract programming, writing for Computist, and developing and selling software. My first software product was Ultimaker II, an Apple II program that allows Ultima II players to print maps and edit their character. Customers included folks in Japan, the UK, and Scandinavia.

Recently, I was poking around in the indispensible Internet Archive, which now includes video, audio, and print archives, and discovered a review for Ultimaker II in the December 1983 issue of the Washington Apple Pi Journal.

I had no idea Ultimaker II was ever reviewed! In case you were wondering, it's positive: "Overall, this reviewer found Ultimaker II to be helpful indeed in enhancing the play of Ultima 2."

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