Games

General posts about Games, be it games played or rants of how bad the game is or how good the game was prior to an event.
… or such in general

The Cold, The Old Pirate and The Administrative Officer

Posted by Wighar Stamfaste on March 5, 2010
Posted in: Games, Life, World. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

A heavy cold

This years winter was heavy compared to how it has been the last 10 or so years, and I have indeed missed the chill of a real winter season, an oddity though is that I have been struck with a heavy cold this year and its a first for a very long time, last time I had one this bad was when I was like 15-16 years old.
During a cold I will often blend about 1L of hot water with a flavor enhancer or normal household orange juice that upon consumption will increase my inner-body temperature to battle the cold from within, Warm Chicken Soup or indeed most soups for example will do your body good during a cold as it keeps the body hot.

The Games of old

Looking around in my game collection I found my Sid Meier’s Pirates! box, all CDs still in superb condition, so having a bit of nostalgia I installed the game and began to play, to my surprise however the game seemed to have constant loading pauses during play, like it was loading things every 0,3~0,5 seconds thus making the game visually lag, not sure if its my graphics card, anti virus or anything else that makes this behavior, I started to check what I could possibly turn off to make it run smooth as it should, tried all compatible modes and there was no difference at all.

I tried turning off all antivirus and internet security software and apps, I unplugged my computer from the network prior to turning everything off of course.
This did nada as well, So I am currently stuck with a superb game with a constant graphical lag like state… oh well, guess I’ll find a solution for it later.

Dedication and Explaination

Onward to the world of Online Gaming, as many of you may have seen and read in my posts earlier that I started to run a site for Dedicated Game Servers, which are paid for by public donations and the ad revenue from the Google Adsense program that I have on my blog and the community forum here at stamfaste.se

I did get a few question about “what stamfaste.se is?”, questions like “Is Stamfaste.se a Company Name?”, “How many owners does Stamfaste.se have?” and “Is Stamfaste.se for sale”…
Well first of Stamfaste.se is simply a Website I created and is owned by me, and is used as a project platform for various web based projects by me and my friends, I do not see Stamfaste.se as a company or anything like that, mostly cause I have no idea how to run a company and besides I don’t ask for anything in return for usage of the site, as I explained in earlier posts and such all money that comes in to Stamfaste.se in donation or ad revenue are used for Stamfaste.se server payments and such.

A question I got from a friend was “Have you thought of joining a Affiliate program?”, I have indeed thought about it, though I am not sure I understand them enough to consider them, mostly it’s cause I can’t be bothered to read thru several pages of license / ToS documents with a dictionary to join one, and in most cases you need to join the program to get to see what you actual get to utilize or what is required of you…

The Community and Association

Wish I had so much to write that I could type a post every week instead of whenever I get a feel to do so, but that is how it is, other than Stamfaste.se I am also an administrator for Thesecondsun.org as Head Community Manager, thus I take care of the forums and most community management requirements that the community may need or want.

Though lately I haven’t done much as I am backing of my role to basic management control keeping the forum up and as of late fixing so that the forum is a part of the community rather then the base of the community.

The community being a MMORPG player Association means we have guilds in multiple MMO’s trying to keep a stable and friendly community between the games, as of recently I was given the guild leadership of the World of Warcraft Guild “Children of Twilight” by the Game Master as our leader had been offline for a extended period of time and It was noticed that my bank alt that was in the guild still had the most activity in the guild, I hope that I can restore parts of the guild with a council command structure where my character has a central role but I put the overall command to the council.

I don’t have much else on my mind right now but I hope to make a longer post next time, so see you all then and please do visit my webshop Stamfaste.se Webshop

Signed and Done, Radiation and Biology

Posted by Wighar Stamfaste on February 14, 2010
Posted in: Games, Life, World. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Signed and Done

I payed the invoice last night for another 3 months on the Left 4 Dead 2 Server designated [Stamfaste.se] Left 4 Dead 2 Server #1, I had some donated money that was given to me by hand, though I prefer such be done via paypal as I can keep track of the donations better that way :)

So why do I do it?, I mean rent game servers that then are payed for with help of donations?
Well the thing is that I enjoy gaming like most and like being able to provide an enjoyable atmosphere for players like my self.
Enjoyable atmosphere?, As in a place where players can enjoy liberty from bad behaved players and cheaters, and can fully enjoy the game without distracting elements.

Query: But you suffer from panic attacks and lowered stress tolerance and should not do anything that increases stress or such things?
Answer: Indeed I should not and I hope that players that are respective and are able to share the burden of administrating the servers, keeping the players on the server following the rules of the game and those In-house rules that we expect players to follow to keep the atmosphere as I mentioned a enjoyable one.

Query: So why donations then if you are so generous and well meaning on your part, why not pay for it in full yourself?
Answer: If I had a job and didn’t have the issues I have, I probably would, but such is not the situation, I hope that I one day can be cured of my stress issues and attacks so that I can get a normal life and can provide more to the online community.
I know that relying on public donations wont expand or keep this up in the long run, but it is my hope that players that enjoy the same values in gaming as I do, consider it a cause worth the investment, after all the money is not used for my own benefit but the players.
If by luck the donations and the ad revenue from the google adsense program goes over that of the total cost of the servers rental period payments, then they will be invested/focused on the next payment period or even on additional servers or new game servers.
So how does this profit me?, my profit out of this might seem strange to some but it is the happiness that people gain from what I wish to provide them, life is to short to simply focus on ones own enjoyment so to go on an old cliche “sharing is caring”, Would I profit financially from this?, from the donations, No as I explained earlier they allready have a use and they would not benefit my own economy, my own economy has sufficient funds to keep me up with a computer to play the games on, a roof over my head and provide me with food and medicine so I don’t see a reason to profit financially from all of this, If i had any specific need that requires additional funds then those that my economy cant handle, I still would not use any of the donations for my own benefit as those donations are for the game servers and not my own usage.

Anyway let’s move on..

Radiation and Biology

So I have this week played BioShock 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of pirpyat, I was amazed of how much more improved graphics and feel BioShock 2 has against its predecessor, the new content and additional rework of the special skills makes the game more vibrant and the story makes the game a good qualifier for replay value and a desire for a next installment of the series, dosen’t matter if it be in rapture for a 3rd time as long as the story benefits from it.

If you never played BioShock, BioShock 2 wont be any problem, it will however give you the desire to buy the first game just to get more into the plot of the story :D

Let’s not forget S.T.A.L.K.E.R CoP (Call of Pripyat), once more you are back in the Zone, now as a Major of USS undercover as a Free Stalker to investigate a failed military operation into the Zone where 5 helicopters did not return.
The graphics have been improved in some aspects as well as many of the functions, and as in Clear Sky the Zone once more suffer from emissions that will kill you if you do not find sufficient cover, investigate the Zone for clues to what happend to the helicopters and what secrets is hidden in the radiation of the Zone.

I believe it is time to end this post here as I can’t think of anything worth of writing.
until next time, have fun and play fair.