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[Eagle of Fire]

wait, if the game doesn't use internet then why and how does zone alarm come in then? as far as i know ZA will only note oyu that programe is trying to access the web. and then you can allow it or not and also tick the box to always allow or always deny.[/b]

Exactly! I myself think the problem is a combinaison of two problems: the game doesn't even allow me to try to get back to the desktop, and it must be firing up ZA popup box at loading. What happen is that the game freeze at around 90-95% of loading, and won't allow me to do anything else. Not even access the task manager to try to kill either programs! That's moronic at it's best... All I have left to do is press the reset button, something I almost never did in my whole 3-4 years of owning this great gaming rig. Said gaming rig which I almost never have problem with, too.


Thanks everybody for your comments. However, this is not appeasing me the least. I find that your comments just complement mine, in a way or another... *sigh*

[Japo]

I said that the bottom line hasn't changed much, but I'll correct myself. It must be much easier programming for Windows than it was for DOS. But nowadays programmers are lazier. The games from the early 90s were coded in assembly, and later in extremely optimized low-level C. Take a look at the system requirements for Microprose's early 3D flight simulators of the late 80s (I'm talking about 4.77 MHz). And assembly programmers were later bewildered that Doom could have been coded in C and still run on a 486. Now high-level C++ is too low-level for most programmers. Take a look at the system requirements for some amateur freeware FPS that are technically inferior to Doom. Nowadays programmers want to code with one hundredth of the effort neccesary for the same technical result they would have got in 1990, and consequently they're way farther away from the way the computers actually work deep down.

Of course they're damn right. There's no point in optimizing to death if it doesn't add value (like in the OS, browser, etc.). The only reason why things are like this is because there's hardware capable of running advanced 3D games programmed in high-level code.

And about the popups, I forgot to say that the "set and forget" approach of scheduling tasks (or letting programs do it) is overrated because it doesn't always result in "sit and relax". You schedule tasks so that you don't have to worry about them, but then you discover that they're a bigger annoyance than if you had to perform them yourself, because they interrupt your normal usage of the computer. Scheduling tasks is useful when you have a very regular schedule yourself, for example you schedule the computer at work to perform a scan for virus or a defrag when you know you'll be out having a coffee everyday. But at home it's impossible to impose yourself a fixed schedule, unless of course you schedule stuff for times when you're at work or sleeping, but then the computer must be on.

EDIT: Oops EoF's post wasn't there before. :P
__________________________

But EoF, what does ZA exactly do? Or you don't even know because the computer becomes irresponsive? Have you tried creating blocking rules so that ZA doesn't popup any longer asking if it should allow or block? If you can't create the rule because you don't know which app tries to access, try this: block all traffic in ZA, then run the game, then consult ZA's log and see which app tried to access at that time, then create a rule to block that app. The info could make it to ZA's log even if you had to reset before being able to consult it.

[jg007]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Sep 4 2007, 09:34 AM) [snapback]308722[/snapback]</div>

Lately, I've purchased a new game named City Life. If you didn't hear about this game, it's just like a clone of Sim City, but instead of focusing on the city as an administrator, you focus on the city as a humanitarian and must agence everything so the six types of people who can come to your city coexist in peace.

However, what I have to say about this game doesn't really turn around gameplay... Which is a shame, because it does look interesting and quite original, and the game run quite smoothly when it does run... No, what I have to say about this is, unfortunatly, what doesn't work in the game... Namely, those incredible brains behind the creation of the game didn't think valid or usefull to code the game so it would be possible for a Windows user to be able to tab back to the desktop without crashing the game, or that it would not be important to see that the game is able to run without interferences from the most popular apps (free or not) available on the web those days. In my case, Zone Alarm... (which is a fricking firewall, if you by any chance didn't know what it is... And one of the most, if not the most, popular free firewall around.)

[/b]

I use ZA all the time and it can be a little bit of a pain to set up but if you have the new version you can turn on ' game mode ' by right clicking on the taskbar icon this will allow you to set all requests to allow although this is a bit of a blungt aproach !, you can also check the programs list for the program and ammend the internet settings before playing and set the trust level.

one other thing to check is the ZA 'program' logs as this will show what has happened abd if anything was blocked, also check windows event logs for any other issues.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Reason it's dying is because it's moving too fast, and all the supposed hardcore gamers are entirely in support of its rapid advancement.

The technology is too expensive, the constant demand for better graphics from the idiotic mainstream audience, along with the rising cost and development time means the industry is moving too quickly for its time and is using too much money and manpower to develop games with woefully unimpressive gameplay.

Now, it can take someone five minutes to make a tight system on a modern engine. Anyone and his grandmother with a little basic coding knowledge, can take a few models and slap a working game together using a simple marketed editor.

So instead of doing what they're SUPPOSED to be doing, which is attempting to create engines that can process multiple things beyond the "LOOK AT WHAT THE PC IS DOING, EVERYONE, IGNORE EVERYTHING AROUND HIM, IT'S HIM! OH MY GOOOOOOOOD!!!" and into a realm where the game is processing something beyond *dirty word* having your character jump around like a retard shooting bullets with fancy ballistics in place.

What I mean is that they typically slap on the most basic functions, ie jumping, crouching, and shooting in a shooter, and instead of actually attempting to make the game a bit more unique in these aspects (IE Max Payne, IE friggin Half-Life for god's sake, at least make it cinematic you porkers) they slap on some pointless, and I do mean POINTLESS little gimmicks, like Prey's crappy gravity segments, or Crysis' annoying little "reinvention of death matching" when all they're doing is upping the speed by like %50 and making sure everyone will be pissed off by cheap exploits.

Radiant AI was a good step, but guess what, Bethesda goes GAGA and pulls the plug on the damn thing, leaving ALL the capabilities in the game, but stripping it down to the point where it becomes retarded.
All those videos and things they said were entirely true, someone just had a brain spasm and decided to flail around and delete anything that was good.


When games now are taking the amount of time and money it took to make an entire game in 1998, and instead are spending that time on money on, what, shaders? Bump mapping? Realistic ragdoll physics and world mechanics (hint at that shallow money-sucking sap-netting Star Wars game coming out soon) all cost ABOUT FOUR TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY, it takes to create HALF-LIFE in 1998.
This is far too evident, companies actually boast about this.
All it proves to me, is that someone made something fun and revolutionary in the space of time and money it took you to make an aspect that no one will remember.

Myst type games are no longer interesting. Crysis, while it may sell, is most likely going to be a pathetic game, and if its any good at all, it will be uninspired tripe.
The audience this industry has now lets anyone shovel anything down their throat without a single consideration of the gameplay.
Story, graphics, sound, ALL almost always take priority over simple *dirty word* gameplay, GAMEPLAY, something you can script in ten minutes, it doesn't take a GENIUS to make a game that can just do something different, it doesn't take a god damn genius to take a team of 100 *dirty word* people, tell them to use some simple code to MAKE A SINGLE THING DIFFERENT and instead of spreading peanut buttery crap all over our faces with their pathetically optimized 3D galleries of soulless crap, maybe they could have something that reviewers will actually like.

I dunno, maybe Starcraft rings a bell?
Simplest system EVER, but how different is it? How much effort did it take Blizzard to make the game? In comparison to other companies, not much at all.

In fact, compare Starcraft to the development cycle of Tiberium Sun, which was a total failure. For the amount of work and money it took to make Starcraft, Westwood spent nearly ten times as much creating a game with absolutely no unique aspects whatsoever.



The industry is failing because it's bafflingly stupid. Just like Rap, the only way to really save it is to tell everyone to stop, and start over at some point.

That's not going to happen, it's either going to crash like Hollywood did, then slowly start up again, or it's just going to continue to be the worst thing ever for anyone with brains.

[Eagle of Fire]

You know what's the worse part in all of this? This game is not bad at all. It been at least a dozain times now, in about three days, that I think "I'm bored. Time to play some game... What about this new game I just bought?"... And then, after a few seconds, I think "Oh... Right." and pick another game instead, as I'm already online talking on MSN or downloading something...

Sad. Talk about failing your mission at entertainment...

[velik_m]

First of all PC gaming is not dying and it will not be dying until the PC platform starts dying, which isn't any time soon.

Second ZA allows you to manually set programs permission, you don't have to wait for a pop-up.

[Blood-Pigggy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(velik_m @ Sep 4 2007, 05:25 PM) [snapback]308867[/snapback]</div>

First of all PC gaming is not dying and it will not be dying until the PC platform starts dying, which isn't any time soon.

Second ZA allows you to manually set programs permission, you don't have to wait for a pop-up.
[/b]

It's easily dying, it's been stripped for console gaming, things that made playing on the PC exclusively are becoming available in a much easier format on consoles, simple online play with score tracking and extra features, marketplaces, even mods.

Also games are being dumbed down for consoles, biased or not (which I'm not, I have a 360 and a Wii and I like them both) the games are getting simpler, and it's adversely affecting the PC audience as well.
I think the reasoning behind "PC gaming is dying" is not that the quality of the games or the strength of the industry is dying, but it's that innovation really is dead in the terms of gameplay these days.

The most popular excuse is "it's already been done" but that's ridiculous when games like Spore are such obvious concepts (make your own creature then expand with him) that can be easily applied to a gaming world. People are taking much too time to focus on the presentation of their game, and too little time trying to find newer ideas, or methods of expanding the gameplay.

You can play the same stupid shooter 20 times with a different label and enjoy yourself, but really, who's going to remember Prey or Bioshock in the next 20 years when games like Spore and Hellgate London are right around the corner.

[Eagle of Fire]

I think the problem lie within the game, not ZA...

[12turtle12]

For that matter, who really is going to remember spore or hellgate london in the next twenty years?

[Tulac]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cazgotsaved @ Sep 5 2007, 03:36 AM) [snapback]308898[/snapback]</div>

For that matter, who really is going to remember spore or hellgate london in the next twenty years?
[/b]

I remember before Sims came out, most of the press was talking - "Who the hell is going to play this game?"