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erichen · 12:57 PM

504 MB
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...perations.html

~Eric

http://homepage.mac.com/erichen

juanpacolopez · Aug 27, 2003, 01:43 PM

Originally posted by erichen:
504 MB
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...perations.html

~Eric
http://homepage.mac.com/erichen

My question is, WHY CAN'T THEY RELEASE AN UPGRADE!?!?!?!?

I mean COME ON. I already downloaded the 320Mb version from macgamefiles at what, 7k/sec... now I have to download another _500_ Mb at similar (slow) speed or pay money for a free game?

Lame... extremely, incredibly, unequivocally lame.

IamBob · Aug 27, 2003, 02:10 PM

Can I complain about only having dialup?!?

Yes? Good...

Try 2.3/sec for a while and get back to me. It sucks living in the middle of nowhere and being something of a geek. Sure, the scenery is nice and you can see the stars at night but that doesn't get me my files any damn faster.

What I wouldn't give for a no-nonsense CD/DVD distributer. Let me customize what goes on my disks in a native application (none of this web-based/ad-filled BS) and ship it to me for a reasonable price.

Maybe that's too much to ask.

juanpacolopez · Aug 27, 2003, 04:38 PM

Originally posted by IamBob:
Can I complain about only having dialup?!?

Yes? Good...

Try 2.3/sec for a while and get back to me. It sucks living in the middle of nowhere and being something of a geek. Sure, the scenery is nice and you can see the stars at night but that doesn't get me my files any damn faster.

What I wouldn't give for a no-nonsense CD/DVD distributer. Let me customize what goes on my disks in a native application (none of this web-based/ad-filled BS) and ship it to me for a reasonable price.

Maybe that's too much to ask.

While I feel your pain (I too lived on dialup fo a while)... I've done the 2-5k/sec route, trust me.

My point is, it's entirely a marketing strategy to get akmai more money

Think about it... if you release the game as a NEW 504Mb download, rather than offering a patch (which would be MUCH smaller) to existing users and then give them one of two options for the download:

macgamefiles (VERY slow at times... perfect for dialup but completely unacceptable for those of us "spoiled" on high speed connections)

akmai, which charges $6 for the privelege of downloading a free game.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that the AA folks and akmai had a sort of backdoor deal worked out for just such a purpose.

Keep in mind, I downloaded AA off macgamefiles the first time (1.7) @ 3.5k/sec. That's on my ADSL. So, I felt the awfulness of downloading such a large file at such a slow speed just like you did. I think I (and many others) have earned a smaller-download upgrade patch.

The fact is if they offered a patch more servers would be able to carry it/handle the load... essentially putting their deal with akmai in it's grave (who would pay for a 150k/sec download they can get for free on another site?). That's my theory at least.

nforcer · Aug 27, 2003, 09:59 PM

It's terribly lame that an updater of some kind is not provided. 3 days ago I finished downloading 1.70 over the course of a week, and now I might very well have to spend another week or two downloading this "update".

The akamai conspiracy theory can't be true. bzip2 is more efficient at compressing than .sit, .sitx, or any other proprietary format that is currently supported on the Mac, if I believe what I read (I will do some testing of my own on various compression formats on a later date and time to see what holds up best in most situations). If they really wanted to waste bandwidth, they would use another format like a huge uncompressed disc image, and have plenty of "junk" files (like nice 50 MB "instruction" PDFs) included.

redJag · Aug 28, 2003, 09:04 PM

A few things:
1) the game is not innovative at all, just another FPS with such a tiny, tiny twist that it barely counts
2) if they went from 320MB to 500+MB, then it sounds like they've overhauled quite a bit of code; translation: not something a patch can do
3) i don't suspect any "back-door" deals witk akamai (sp? that doesn't seem right), it's just a lot of overhead to provide bandwidth for a FREE game
4) bit torrent.

11011001 · Aug 29, 2003, 03:29 AM

bwahahah!! in your face!! I finally finished my download after 2 days!!

11011001 · Aug 29, 2003, 03:31 AM

Originally posted by 11011001:
bwahahah!! in your face!! I finally finished my download after 2 days!!

ah shiat!! in my face.. I saw the progress bar disappear.. but it timed out.. my God you have no idea how painful this. I have to start again! No! No! NOOOOOOO!!!

It's late.. skru this.

juanpacolopez · Aug 29, 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by 11011001:
ah shiat!! in my face.. I saw the progress bar disappear.. but it timed out.. my God you have no idea how painful this. I have to start again! No! No! NOOOOOOO!!!

It's late.. skru this.

Heh.

It took me about a day and a half of trying before I got it all

Off hand, the update is definitely worth it. Nice performance improvement (something that was sorely needed) and some balance changes.

:XI: · Aug 30, 2003, 12:29 PM

I just got 1.7 off a macworld coverdisc. got it in about an hour. (to and from the shop, copy to hd and decompress)

at least it plays ok over dialup.

PacHead · Aug 31, 2003, 02:21 PM

I haven't downloaded 1.9 yet, but I probably will in the next couple of days.

I don't understand what all these unfortunate 56k dialup people are ranting about though. I mean, the whole net must suck for you, and not just the downloading of this one particular app.

People are actually complaining that a game is 500 meg ?

Would it be better if it were 10 meg, with stick figure soldiers running around ?

Even when you get this game download, the gaming experience will still suck for you people, since you will have worse pings compared to anybody else. Since these people have dial up and not any form for broadband, i will have to assume that they barely meet the minimum machine requirements for the game also.

When I download 1.9 and join a server, my ping will be in the teens. If I see somebody with a ping in the hundreds, I will assume it is one of these 56 k people who have spent days downloading this game, and they are now gracing everybody with their presence and sharing their lag with the rest of the world, making for a not very pleasurable gaming experience for anybody involved.

Hey if dialup people can rant, then so can I. I am sick and tired of laggers !

redJag · Aug 31, 2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by PacHead:

Since these people have dial up and not any form for broadband, i will have to assume that they barely meet the minimum machine requirements for the game also.

Bad assumption there chief. Well, my mac is three years old (Quicksilver G4) so maybe it works there. But I have a P4 2.4Ghz and an AMD XP 2600+ and use dialup. I see no relation between the abilities of your box and the abilities of your modem. You may get pings in the teens, but I get pings in the...ZERO. LAN games :-)

juanpacolopez · Sep 1, 2003, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by PacHead:
When I download 1.9 and join a server, my ping will be in the teens. If I see somebody with a ping in the hundreds, I will assume it is one of these 56 k people who have spent days downloading this game, and they are now gracing everybody with their presence and sharing their lag with the rest of the world, making for a not very pleasurable gaming experience for anybody involved.

Hey if dialup people can rant, then so can I. I am sick and tired of laggers !

This is just silly for several reasons.

First, you're assuming that just because someone wants/can afford a high speed connection that they can actually get one.

Fortunately I (and presumably you) live in a very large city, so I could go pretty much anywhere and get DSL... so could many people here, who also live in/near larger cities.

However, there are a GREAT number of people who live in areas where it simply isn't available. Doesn't mean they don't have nice gear outside their connections. You imply that many don't have high speed access because they can't afford it or don't care, that's just not true.

And just so you know, there's no such thing as "sharing lag" as you so aptly put it. In most cases, all traffic for a given match/game is handled by a central server (as is the case in AA). If someone else's connection is slow it won't magically "slow yours down" or anything silly like that. At worst it creates a situation where you might try aiming at the person in question, only to find them jump across the screen. That's not a problem with YOUR connection and it should be specific to THAT player only (for them, EVERYONE will be bouncing around; hehe).

PacHead · Sep 2, 2003, 12:36 PM

When I was reffering to lag, I didn't just mean AA 1.9, but internet games in general. I have been in a few AA 1.7 games though, were the lag was so bad with choppy/jumpy action, that it was best just to quit and find a different server.

I play alot of Age of Empires 2, which can have 8 players max, and in that game there definitely is a correlation between people with bad/slow connections and how this affects everybody playing the game. The overall lag in the game seems to be directly connected to how bad the worst ping is in the game. When I play AOE2 now, people with crappy pings are simply kicked from the game, and banned. I have no patience for those kind of people, nor do most others whom I play with.

As for people not being able to afford broadband, I think this is true for quite a few, as many people who have these terrible pings have told me that they will get broadband as soon as they can afford the $30-$40-$50 or whatever a month. I agree that some people do not have access to broadband at all because it is not available where they live, though I don't think this applies to the majority. Some of them are probably kids too, but that's their problem.

There's also idiots who do have an ok connection, but they leave other apps open or D/L stufff while they are playing a game, which is absolutely moronic.

I liken a lagger to a smoker. If somebody is smoking and pissing off a lot of nonsmokers with their pollution, the same would apply to a lagger. Their lag definitely affects the other people they are playing with on the net. Smoking is banned many places now, and laggers are also banned from many games, which is appropriate.

I've haven't played AA1.7 that much, and I agree that it helps with a centralized server, though I have experienced those jumping screens before, which is not a lot of fun.

In short: Laggers - stay away from me, and all is good.

RGB · Sep 2, 2003, 05:59 PM

Anyone else having authentication problems in 1.9 still? Either it forgets my password when logging into a multiplayer server, or I just can't connect at all. I was hoping 1.9 would fix all connection problems.

macenthusiast · Sep 2, 2003, 08:42 PM

even if it's the new patch, the authentication servers are still the same. so the authentication issues will continue.

I got a radeon 9800 pro in my 1 ghz dual processor G4 and when I play 1.9 I see all different bright solid colors as sky and fog. it switches based on the color of the text chats. Anybody know if that's because of my video card, maybe it'sn ot supported. Need to enable something?

Dyeus · Sep 3, 2003, 06:51 AM

when I play 1.9 I see all different bright solid colors as sky and fog. it switches based on the color of the text chats. Anybody know if that's because of my video card, maybe it'sn ot supported. Need to enable something?

That is what I get when I open the game.... can not read anything, only the logo and the "for teens rating" I can see (they appear perfectly normal)

siegzdad · Sep 3, 2003, 03:14 PM

The changes from 1.7 to 1.9 are drastic. From experience, I recommend you not ever upgrade this game. I've been playing it on the PC side since the 1.0 Recon days, and every time I upgraded it, I had problems.

benb · Sep 3, 2003, 03:38 PM

Someone make a Torrent and seed it. Problem solved.

a2daj · Sep 3, 2003, 05:22 PM

AA works fine with my Radeon 9800 Pro.

macenthusiast · Sep 3, 2003, 09:14 PM

i realized that it seems to only does this on certain maps.

ex. bridge.. brigde SE and all other maps that have anything to do with heavy fog. my card is turning the fog into bright colors for some reason

roiler · Sep 9, 2003, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by juanpacolopez:
This is just silly for several reasons.

First, you're assuming that just because someone wants/can afford a high speed connection that they can actually get one.

Fortunately I (and presumably you) live in a very large city, so I could go pretty much anywhere and get DSL... so could many people here, who also live in/near larger cities.

However, there are a GREAT number of people who live in areas where it simply isn't available. Doesn't mean they don't have nice gear outside their connections. You imply that many don't have high speed access because they can't afford it or don't care, that's just not true.

And just so you know, there's no such thing as "sharing lag" as you so aptly put it. In most cases, all traffic for a given match/game is handled by a central server (as is the case in AA). If someone else's connection is slow it won't magically "slow yours down" or anything silly like that. At worst it creates a situation where you might try aiming at the person in question, only to find them jump across the screen. That's not a problem with YOUR connection and it should be specific to THAT player only (for them, EVERYONE will be bouncing around; hehe).

Thanks for answering the Mr. Acids post before I did. I have a very nice 933 maxed out on ram and is certainly not a dog. I could probably buy and sell Mr. Acid several times over. I just happen to live far enough out of the mainstream that broadband is not available to me.
I spent 20 hrs dl 1.7 at 5kbs and went through the full training course twice to make sure I had it down pat. The first online game I entered, some asshole called for a vote to kick me 5 minutes into the game. The elitist (the ones this applies to) can kiss my a$$.

PacHead · Sep 11, 2003, 12:12 AM

I have a 933 also, a great machine. I have multiple macs, and that is my favorite one so far. Hopefully I'll get a G5 soon also.

If you got booted 5 minutes into the game, then what was the reason ? Was your lag ruining the game for everybody or ? There are admins on the official servers, and you most likely will not get booted if there is not a legitimate reason.

I'm sorry that you live in the middle of nowhere, and do not have broadband available to you, but why should that ruin other people's gaming experience ?

And I know you probably think I'm an ass, but If I was in that particular game, I would have been one of the people who voted yes to boot you, if I saw that you had a crap ping.

PS - is Mr. Acid supposed to be an insult or something ?, because it really didn't come off as such.

alligator · Sep 15, 2003, 05:22 PM

Can anyone tell me why some special training is not offered? Are there specific times, or skills needed first?

I'm new to this, but have DSL and downloading was not a problem. In fact, my wife kicked me off 1/2 way through, and it only took another 1/2 to download. If people want it bad enough, why not have a friend ship a CD to them?

uochris · Sep 28, 2003, 07:04 PM

Take a look at this tidbit from the developers blog.

While I�m on the subject of maps, I want to remind everyone that we raised the system requirements a bit when we released 1.9. This really didn�t have much impact on the content of 1.9, but is will be a big factor in 2.0. In particular, to play most of the new maps you�re definitely going to need at minimum a 64 meg video card. For those who want to play with all the bells and whistles, you�ll want 128 megs or more. The game has been out for over a year now, and to take advantage of some of the Unreal engines more advanced features, we�ve had to push the envelope a bit. To compensate though, we�ve added many new detail options, so users will be able to better customize the game according to their own systems. Overall, I think you�ll find that the payoff is going to be big.