Think of this as your digital safety net for those unexpected occurrences - like your hard drive frying or a virus infection. EDS means that with the purchase of your digital product, we’ll keep a copy of your file for two full years, so you don’t have to. You’ll gain peace of mind knowing that we have your program stored and ready for you to download again at your convenience.

A little extra protection on your order to keep your products safe? Why not!

Why not?  Because I’ve purchased the game from your digital distribution service and should never have to worry about it being unavailable.  Then again it’s EA, so I suppose it goes with their business model.  Perhaps this is the reason that Steam is so successful, purchase the game and it’s available anywhere you are whenever you want it.

I know this has been done a millions time before, however this is the list that matters to me and if others feel the same, great!  As stated, this list is purely subjective from my point of view, and all are free to agree or disagree with it. I don’t feel comfortable ranking these games, instead I’ll present them in a chronilogical orders and let you readers decide how they should be ranked.

Wolfenstein 3D

Who can forget their first experience with Wolfenstein 3D? I can still remember it clearly to this day, heading over to my buddy’s house as a kid to check out this “amazing” game his dad had gotten from a buddy at work. Loading the game up on his blazingly fast 386 cpu, the main menu screen popping up with it’s awesome midi soundtrack. As soon as I first got in the game, nothing else to that date had prepared me for such an awesome gaming experience. I also remember the disappointment that I experienced when I learned my friend’s dad got the game on 3.5″ disks and I only had 5.25″, with no way copy them to 5.25″. Keep in mind in the early 90’s computers were not near common place in a house hold, often costing $2000 and up.

While Wolf3D may have not been the “first” FPS game, it is the one that brought it to the main stream of FPS gaming. Battling your way through the game, killing countless nazis, taking countless (or so it seems) left turns had never been so fun. From the first time one would play the game, you could only see where this genre could and did go.

Doom

Good old Doom, the first FPS to bring the joys of Deathmatch to the masses. Not only could you work your way through numerous levels of hell demon slaying, but now you and your buddies could get together and kill one another. Back in these days there wasn’t any fancy internet multiplayer, instead users would have to dial into DWANGO to frag one another from their homes across the country. This led to ridiculous phone bills, but hours upon hours of fragging zen. If you were lucky enough to have enough friends or be in a commercial or educational institution you could take advantage of the network play.

With Doom gamers were first introduced to Mods of their favorite game. I remember the first mod I ever played allowed me to joyously walk about the levels killing countless Barney the Dinosaur enemies. The thing I find most amusing about Doom was the awesome soundtrack laid over the game as you mowed the baddies down in countless swathes. Doom started the FPS multiplayer craze and it only became more awesome as it went.

Quake I and QuakeWorld

Where to begin with Quake? This was my first real foray into online FPS gaming, sitting at home on my sweet 28.8kbps connection, playing against the myriad of other dial-up users. These were the days of “HPBs” viewing “LPBs” as cheaters, the infancy for “3D Game Engines” and most importantly the infancy of online FPS gaming. Quake’s network code was originally designed to be played over a LAN, however at the time of Quake’s release, internet was becoming more and more popular. With this increase in popularity the desire to play games via TCP/IP became evident, and in late 1996 QuakeWorld was released. Before the release of QuakeWorld, games were played via IPX emulation with such programs as the great Kali. From QuakeWorld came a server browsing program called QuakeSpy which later grew and turned into what we now know as GameSpy.

With QuakeWorld we saw perhaps the first major online game modification, the grand daddy of them all, Team Fortress. Team Fortress ditched the beloved deathmatch formula for a more structured, team-oriented, capture the flag approach. Team Fortress was a huge success, giving players unique classes with a variety of weapons and grenades (oh how we miss the grenades TF 2 Developers), and still kept to the roots of the fast paced, twitch, deathmatch style of gameplay. While Team Fortress wasn’t the only mod avaliable for QuakeWorld, it is by far the most popular, spawning spin offs of the original mod for later Quakes, Unreal Tournament and not to mention the wildly succesful Team Fortress 2.

Goldeneye 007

Whether you love or hate FPS games on consoles, one cannot deny the impact that Goldeneye 007 has left on the genre. Goldeneye 007 not only had quiet possibly one of the most refined split screen multiplayer modes seen in a game yet, but also was one of the first FPS games on any system to encourage and reward players to use stealth to their advantage. However where Goldeneye 007 shined was in it’s four player split screen mutiplay.

Many hours as well as money have been spent playing Goldeneye 007 in impromptu challenges and tournaments with friends. While my first love was always Team Fortress not everyone had internet access, let alone a computer, but to play Goldeneye 007 all you needed was a Nintendo 64, 4 Controllers and a moderately sized TV. Many of a day’s wage was lost in a Goldeneye 007 tournament pool, however even more was won from my friends. Hardcore gamers and casual gamers alike could grab a controller and have a blast chasing one another around, not to mention healthy selection of maps, options, and characters that could be chosen to play with.

Half-Life and Counter-Strike

Half-Life rushed on to the scene introducing gamers to the story driven fps. No longer was your goal to kill hundreds of enemies, find a key, unlock door with key and proceed to the next level, now you had a reason to turn off a piece of scientific equipment before slaying a baddie. Half-Life came out of nowhere, from an unknown company founded by a couple of ex-Microsoft employees, however since the day of Half-Life’s release Valve is a name known by gamers right up there with Blizzard. While the idea of story based FPS gaming may seem rather tired by today’s standards, Half-Life stuck you in the shoes of Gordon Freeman. Heavily scripted game sequences gave the game a truely cinematic feel without disrupting the game play to show a pre-rendered cut scene.

As great of a game that Half-Life was in it’s self, perhaps the greatest accomplishment that came from the game were modifications, most importantly Counter-Strike. Mods are what brought Half-Life it’s staying power, whether it was Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, or Firearms, Half-Life would have never had the staying power it has had without the prior. Counter-Strike was and still is one of the most popular FPS titles ever, people are still playing the original, as well as having professional competitons, nearly ten years later now. Counter-Strike sucked gamers in with it’s quasi-realistic gun play, tactical objectives, and close knit tactical teamwork. Counter-Strike also brought upon the prospect of a third-party modification becoming an official commercial product. Half-Life and it’s mods are still played for tens of thousands of hours a day, ten years later, and will probably stay the same for another five years.

In the next part of this series, we will kick off from the end of 1998 untill 2001 or 2002. I’m trying to keep these articles limited to five games each, to allow myself time to polish them without feeling rushed. So keep an eye out, and feel free to share your opinions.

With that being said, I’m planning on starting a little Call of Duty 4 Modification that will at first tweak the weapons so they have a more “realistic” feel.  Some of the features planned will be:

• Bullet Travel Time on Sniper Rifles
• Bullet Drop on all weapons past a determined range
• Weapon Damage tweaked for Hardcore Mode

Once these three basic features are implemented, I’ll step back, and take a look at the mod to determine where I’ll go from there.

Update: Well, I was looking forward to taking this project on, however as of now, the Call of Duty 4 Mod Tools are not compatible with Windows Vista…. so it looks like this will be put on the backburner untill a compatible version of the tools is released.

Update 2: I’ve gotten the mod tools working with Vista, so stay tuned!

Update 3: Work has ended, no desire to carry on.

Perhaps the most talked about new feature of IE8 is the private browsing feature dubbed “InPrivate“, aka Porn Mode.  Basically what InPrivate allows you to do is browser the web without any of your actions being traceable on your computer.  This is done by temporarily disabling the browser’s caching feature as well as denying cookies as they are sent to your browser.  However, using this feature does not truly make your web activties “Private”.  This isn’t an issue, however one needs to remember that your IP will still be logged on the website you visit as well as on your ISP’s end.  Apple’s Safari has a “Private Browsing” feature that functions basically the same way.

Microsoft has also planned some new features to provide user’s with rich web content outside of normal websites.  User’s can view selectable content from a website via a “WebSlice“.  Basically, a WebSlice is a kind of a “rich, designable” .rss feed that will be proprietary to IE8.  Instead of providing users with a .RSS feed that they can decide how they would like it to be displayed and/or utilized, WebSlices are little web apps that user’s can choose to view as designed by the web developer, thus taking out all of the work of using an RSS feed.  This could be an interesting concept, however will we EVER see it be cross browser compatible?  I doubt it, thus leading me to believe it will never really catch on.

Finally, Microsoft is touting full CSS 2.1 compatibility with IE 8.  With IE7 web designers still had to use several CSS Hacks to get around the atrocious CSS rendering.  Hopefully IE8 will actually adhere to W3C specifications.   As soon as I get it downloaded and give it a good looking over, I will follow up this post with a Hands On review.

I’m all for music evolving, but there is such a thing as going too far.  With Metallica they’ve crossed the point of no return.  Why has Metallica changed so much over the past 15 years?  One can only guess, could it be,  sobriety, maturity, selling out, getting old;  who knows.  They’re in their mid fortys, rich, have families, and frankly are probably having a blast.  Life is a lot different when you have more money than most can visualize, especially when coming from such humble beginnings.

Armani is METAL!

However having a comfortable, wealthy life doesn’t seem to be too kind to the metal attitude.  If the newish Metallica is your thing, more power to you, however growing up on Kill ‘em All, Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets and Justice for All, the Black Album, Load, Re-Load and Download(errrr  Death Magnetic, wtf?) just don’t even come close to the early stuff.

Just to see how awesome their failed attempt at returning to their “Thrash” roots is, you can check out their newest single “My Apocalypse” by clicking “More” below.

My Apocalypse on The Gauntlet

Keeps are once again made up of two main sections, the outer wall and the aptly named central keep.  The outer walls hold a gate to be knocked down by attacks or a quicker ram.  Hopefully we’ll see climb spots or even siege ladders added in at a later time so tanks or the Witch Elf or Witch Hunter can access the battlements.

The central keep has yet another set of gates, however inside this one there are all kinds of big NPC Guards as well as the super beefy Keep Lord.  On top of keeps you can find Renown Gear Merchants as well as a Renown Trainer.  In Tier 2 and on, all Renown Gear is purchased from keeps your side holds.

You can see from the screenshots above the keeps are massive, with plenty of places to mount defense from.

So, why is this conundrum not resolved?  Upon 1and1 failing to notify me that my credit card had expired, they turned my account into collections.  My balance with 1and1 was a meager: $49.95, however they decided to turn me over to collections, which added an awesome $18.00 fee, NOT TO MENTION, I’ve been reported to collections.  The bill I’ll pay, no big deal, but I’m not paying collections when I was never notified!   So now, I’m in the interesting position of having my domains hijacked by my prior hosting provider, as well as having a debt in collections.

I contact 1and1’s billing department and am promptly shot down, (e-mail transcript on full view)  so it’s now to continue or not.

I’ve tried to pay 1and1 directly, however they will have none of it and insist on me paying collections first.

So should I continue fighting it or just suck it up and pay?

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for contacting us.

I am sorry for this inconvenience.  However, we had tried to contact you
numerous times regarding this billing issues.  We had sent a number of
emails to the email address on the account.  We tried to freeze your
account to get your attention.  The issue persisted for long enough to
the point that we had sent the account to NCO the collection agency.
Please resolve the issue with NCO the collection agency and they will
remove you from any list that they have.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

–
Sincerely,
Michael Quinn
Technical Support
1&1 Internet

> Called NCO, and found out they’ve included a $18.75 collection fee on
top of
> the balance owed.  The problem with this is 1.) I was never notified
of the
> Credit Card’s expiration being expired 2.) I was never notified of
this
> being turned over to collections.  Now instead of paying the Balance
owed to
> your company directly, I am in the hand’s of a collection’s agency
that I
> had no knowledge that I was being turned over to, furthermore now I
run the
> risk of this incident being reported on my credit score.  Paying the
> required balance is not a problem, however being turned into
collections,
> being charged a collection’s fee WITHOUT ever being notified of such
actions
> is a problem.  I sincerely hope we can come to a common ground in
addressing
> this issue.  As stated I received absolutely ZERO notification of any
> problems with the credit card, furthermore I NEVER RECEIVED
correspondence
> in regards to my balance being handed over to Collections.  The
> aforementioned is very sketchy business practices.
>
> As said, I do hope a common ground can reached, however I DO NOT feel
the
> way this has been handled on your end is in anyway fair and proper
business
> ethics.
>
> Regards,
> xxxxxxxxxx
>
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:22 PM, <billing@1and1.com> wrote:
>
> > Dear xxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Thank you for contacting us.
> >
> > Unfortunately since your account has an overdue balance it has been
> > forwarded to collections. To resolve this matter please call
> > 800-709-8625 and the administrator will transfer the call to the
> > assigned collector. Please mention the following #: xxxxxxxx as it
will
> > reference your account at NCO. The collector will then be able to
take
> > the payment right over the phone, or make payment arrangements.
> >
> > Once full payment is made your account will be unlocked within three
to
> > four business days.
> >
> > We apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused you.
> >
> >
> > Sincerely
> > Christopher Flagg
> >
> > Billing Department
> > 1&1 Internet Inc.
> >
> > You can also contact us via phone at (877) 300-8316
> > from 9am till 5pm EST Monday to Friday
> >
> > > MailType=Form-Mail
> > > MailTypeFlag=Begin
> > > KundeID=XXXXXXXXX
> > > TopicPath=usbilling;General
> > > MailTypeFlag=End
> > >
> > > text=
> > > Customer ID:xxxxxxxxxxx
> > >
> > > I have updated my billing information and would like to be charged
and
> > have my Account unlocked ASAP.  Thanks in Advance,
> > >
> > > xxxxxxxxxxx
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
>