Double Agent
I Know Why You Want To Hate Me - April 3rd, 2000 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Because I'm beautiful, right? Don't say we didn't warn you.


Well, there's really only one thing that can be talked about right now: Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling that Microsoft as in fact broken the Sherman Antitrust Act. This is huge general news, huge technology news, and if not huge gaming news, then huge potential gaming news.

Well, maybe not, but that sounded really cool and authoritative. Actually as things stand Judge Jackson finding against Mr. Bill may have submitted us all to a long, long appeals process, by the end of which things in the computer world will have already changed even more than they already have, rendering everything done so far completely meaningless. One might think that this ruling would convince Gates to hurry up with the X-Box so that MS can make a sideways leap into home electronics should the government come crashing down on their current position, much like Bowser in SMB3. But to paraphrase some half-remembered line in The Hunt For Red October, "Son, a Microserf don't take a dump without a plan." Mr. Bill knows damn well what he's doing, and the blight that is X-Box will be released upon us all when he's good and ready. So ultimately, little has changed for us as gamers. As usual.

A little fallout to start with
(I'm not sure who's the agent for today in this column but I just need to give a good response to Jack Kroll.)

Well, that was interesting, being judged by a person with a view no-one else has except him, a view I find very insulting to the majority of the public and purposely meant to insult those who play videogames, it's not a meaningful view of videogames at all, it's an attack on those who enjoy things other than the traditional/classical arts, and might I also add that art is not restricted to crackling records, paintings, sculptures, and poetry, but the ingenuity of the people who create things who put their soul into it. But you know, I don't care, for this pompous basted will leave this world and us to inherit it without a person like him to disturb us. I'm a high school student striving to work my best in this ever-increasingly tough existence; how will I survive w/o a moment of peace? What would have happened to me if I lost that peace? Jack Kroll tries his best to take away that peace, thus making my life an even more difficult experience than ever. Why should he be given that privilege? I don't know, it's something I don't understand, because attacking people is something that's plain stupid in my opinion. Maybe he wouldn't like it if I attacked his aspects of life, but he probably doesn't care about that at all, for he is dead inside. Jack Kroll can no longer enjoy the fruits of life that keeps on evolving. I will hopefully live a better life than him and enjoy it. This man has so much bitterness inside I'm starting to taste his awful existence.

That's my two cents. (and Jack Kroll, I'm sorry if I might have stung you with my acidic words, but I'm just returning the favour. HOPE YOU LIKE IT)

~Richard

This was the only response we got back thinking the Kroll column was real that I'm aware of, but for every one that writes there's probably a hundred who feel similar. I can't make sweeping generalizations about Kroll's work, as I'm not familiar enough with most of it, but one thing that is pretty clear from his essay is that he's not worth getting worked up over when it comes to games. His essay mentions all of one real game, which I'm pretty sure he hasn't even played as it's a detailed historical tactical simulation and in Japanese to boot. He seems to discard all art that doesn't feature real people in it, or at least real photos of people, which pretty much trashes painting, sculpture, music, and literature. I could go on but those points alone are enough to reveal the piece as junk. My advice is to let it go, let Jack Kroll go  back to his musicals and let yourself go back to playing FF8. You'll feel better, really.

Just when you think you know someone...
I'm with Jack. Video games suck.

~Ian P.

This is a sad, sad day, brothers and sisters. A great mind has taken that irrevocable step into darkness. Because of Ian P's traitorous remarks, life seems a little less sweet. The sky is less blue, the fajitas less spicy. But I ask of you to remember not the senile dementia of Ian's latter days, but his wit and charm in the past. We can make him live again by keeping him always in our hearts, and by keeping his dreams alive for the next generation. Rest in peace, dear friend.

And now a word from our sponsor
Hey Chris,

I have to say that it's a pretty cool column you've been running since you started as DA. This is the first time that I'm even semi-regularly reading a column not written by a friend from elsewhere, take that as you will. Now for the real point of this letter.

I wanted to write in and remind your readers to use some etiquitte when dealing with ftp sites and servers both on this site and others. For you see, I run one of the GIA's most regular mirrors and while most people might not realize it, I'm just a college student, the same as many of the regular readers of this site. A college student with a lot of bandwidth, though it seems a lot smaller in times like this.

What do I mean? you might be asking yourself, so I'll bring up an recent example as a case in point: the last batch of FF movies that the GIA released. You remember them, don't you? They were the ones that the GIA had to take down after a few days. Now, while movies like this are cool and no one wants to miss out on them, which is perfectly understandable, a number of people take that to an extreme that goes way beyond just annoying to a new level: downright malicious. And stupid, we musn't forget that it's remarkably stupid. In their eagerness to get their mits on the movie, many people set programs (or at least that's what I imagine they must be doing. After all, no human could click that quickly and stay sane.) The main problem with this is that while having a program try to download the file a couple of hundred times per minute might marginally increase your chance of getting it, it also blocks out the non-annoying, patient, considerate people out there. Now as I know that no one doing this type of maliciousness really cares about anyone but themselves, I'll list a few other good reasons to stop. For one, it eats up bandwidth and the computer's buffer space like crazy, forcing the person on the other end to restart the machine all the faster, and bumping everyone currently connected off. More annoyingly, oftentimes, those programs keep trying to get the file even after a user has two-three logins on it, and goes at it indefinitely.

But there are even other reasons beyond petty things like that. Did you know that while the GIA had those three movies (FFIX, FFX, and FFXI) up, the movies were so popular that a number of mirrors were overloaded and had to shut down? Now while that may sound cool and impressive when you first think about it, think again. I'd bet that most of the hits on those mirrors were caused not by individual users, but a few people out there with this kind of program. Aside from the obvious point that a server that's taken down means that the movies are that much harder to find, doing that to someone whose being nice enough to offer up their computer space is pretty damn rude and ingracious. But even more than that, is my favorite reason of them all. You could get banned. Yup, I said banned. As in, no downloads for you. If someone acts that poorly on my server, I have no second thoughts about banning them, and I doubt that any other ftp site maintainer out there does, either. And that means that not only won't you get a chance to pick up that movie/file, you may never get access to that ftp site again.

If those aren't good enough reasons to be polite, I don't know what are. Now, hopefully, we can all get back to our lives with a little more consideration for the guy on the other end of the internet.

Secret Asian Man

I honestly feel a little stupid having to even post this, it's like telling people to use a napkin when they eat or brush their teeth twice a day. But I've run into this exact problem in not being able to download choice media, and I have no doubt that it's because some dumbass is using a repeater to get 40 copies of the latest FF movie trailer rather than checking back at a less crowded time. Don't be assholes people, remember what they taught you in kindergarten and wait your freaking turn. And don't think you can get away with it because you're just one person, because that's what everybody else is thinking. End of rant.

Don't we have better ways of spending our time? Not really.
Hey, hey. I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I want to know what the very first video game with a boss was. The earliest I can recall is Super Mario Bros. (1985) with Bowser at the end of every world. Were there any before that? Help would be appreciated.

-- Shawn K.

Since SMB was the launch title for the NES, any earlier game would be on a prior system, and my knowledge of such systems ain't too great. I vaguely remember Dragon Stomper for the 2600 as having three main dragons that needed defeating, but don't bank on that or anything. If anybody has any ideas, send 'em in.

For when you can't stare at a tiny LCD screen long enough
Hello, and welcome to my nightmare. since all the letters I saw are about Final Fantasy, I got another one for you. One word: Pocketstation. I saw that cringe. Now I know it was never released in the US but I got one anyway. So now I have a Pocketstation and FF8's little minigame(Chocobo World) on it. Here's where the fun begins, I've been searching the net for weeks trying to figure out how to beat it, so far I've found out that you get to lvl 100 and you're supposed to be able to beat it so you can do it all over again with higher HP. So here's my question. How in the world to you beat it so you can start the game over on a better grade?

Cheap answer 1: I mock you pitilessly for being so socially inept that you voluntarily spend all your time starting at a pathetically small Gameboy knockoff. This enshrines me as a hero to the readers and hides the fact that I don't have a clue what the answer is.

Cheap answer 2: I admit that nobody here knows the answer, and rely instead on the kindness and wisdom of my readers to pass on the correct info.

Cheap answer 3: I point you at Gamefaq's Final Fantasy 8 FAQs, although nothing there seems to be much help.

You must choose, but choose wisely.

PC FF players - someone even lower on Square's priority list than the rest of us
Hey Chris,

With all the concern about the up-coming Final Fantasy titles, I thought I'd add my perspective as a PC Final Fantasy player. I like the Playstation, but I really didn't feel the need to buy one until I played FFVII at a friend's house. Then, I heard that it was going to be released for PC, and I thought all my troubles were solved. I subsequently bought FFVIII, and just assumed that the trend would continue. Now, with FFXI being produced for the Play Online network, I might not be able to play the game at all, without shelling out the money for a PSX2. I like the console-style RPG's, but most of my other gaming interests (Starcraft, Thief, HoMM3) fall outside the console's realm, so I can't justify buying a PSX2 at the moment. (Not that I have a real steady influx of cash, anyway.) For now I'll just have to see if and how IX and X get ported. If Electronic Arts doesn't improve on the technical glitches fouling up VIII, I might have my problem solved anyway. It won't matter if I can get on Play Online or not--if the PC versions continue to be inferior products, I won't want to play them.

Just my opinion,
Vyktori

If I remember correctly, Final Fantasy XI is probably the most likely FF to see a PC port, as Hironobu Sakaguchi's said he wants people to be able to access Play Online from computers and arcades as well as their PS2s. If true, this would also mean that you wouldn't have to worry about port quality so much, since FFXI would be less a game than an interface to a game engine running on someone else's server. Play experience would hopefully be pretty uniform.

Never give up, never surrender
I saw the piece you did about that strange-looking-yet-intriguing game, Vib Ribbon. I can sympathize with those gamers out there that would like to see Vib Ribbon released in the US, because I, too am wishing for a game to be released over here: Tokimeki Memorial. I know that it may seem like an odd game, but let's face it: With recently released games like Thousand Arms and Harvest Moon that feature a sim-dating aspect, how does Tokimemo seem any more strange than, let's say, Seaman, which on the other hand, has been scheduled for a stateside release?

Andrew P

Conventional wisdom states that anyone who tries to petition a Japanese company to release a game in the States that they've already passed on is gonna be in for a disappointment. In this case, a full tilt dating sim seems even more unlikely. But from time to time I like to buck conventional wisdom, so I'm gonna give a slight word of encouragement to those who are out to get weirdass games translated: it's not completely impossible. I never thought I'd see a legit translation of Final Fantasy V in the US, but one's sitting not five feet away from me. Once upon a time Square didn't want to release Xenogears or Front Mission over here, and now we've got more games from them than we know what to do with. And as Andrew says, the fact that Thousand Arms and Harvest Moon have both already made it over here is a good sign for anyone interested in Tokimeki Memorial or any other longshot game. So do a good deed for the day, get on Google, search out a petition to get something translated, and plop your name down on that list. The enjoyment you save could be your own.

Closing Comments:

Not much to say in closing, but I would like to suggest a topic of discussion for tomorrow. Dragon Quest 7. Why should we give a flying leap? Lots of people have written me talking about how beloved the DQ series is in Japan, and that's great. But why should that translate to something that'll make up for DQ7's apparent technical faults? Nostalgia can only keep a series running for so long. Why should American gamers care, since the last two games weren't released over here? I mean, we haven't seen a DQ game since the freakin' NES. What does DQ have to do to get your attention? I await your reply.

 

-Chris Jones, not being eaten alive by ants

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