Chocks Away Squiffy!
January 26th, 2012 by Bone Head
Its been a few years since I last played IL2, in fact it has to be 3 or more. My joystick has been sat limp and flopped to one side for all that time, but that’s a personal problem and I shouldn’t be discussing it here, although I have to admit I did find it quite alarming when I placed my hand around the Microsoft FF2 and felt it ‘stiffen’ under my grip, but like I said that’s none of your business.
So I found the disk, which wasn’t too difficult as I have all my old games on a shelf gathering dust, inserted it into the slot (stop it!) and waited for it to start to install, now I’m sure those of you who are in the know, know what happened next. Yes. Sod all! The drive sounded like ti was fighting for breath or having a seizure. Modern computers it seems don’t like the old cacky copy protection. The way round this is to use explorer to open the root directory of the drive and double click on A.exe, that should get you going in the right direction.
The next dark cloud on the horizon which needed navigating around is getting the thing patched. I know what a pain in the backside this can be especially after having several servers that need patching and rebuilding from time to time. Knowing what order things need doing in and where to find the damned things is one of the reasons I fell out of love with it.
So that is where I am at now, searching for patches and installing them. This isnt too bad though as out of the box IL2 1946 is already at version 4.07 where as with a server you have to prety much start from scratch.
Still I’m sure it will be worth it when it is all done, and I crank the old girl up again and gently coax her into position, tighten the straps and check the my joystick one last time before giving her full thrust ready to deliver a heavy load …. oi I ve told you before behave!
Rise Of Flight Server
January 5th, 2012 by Bone Head
Ive just finished updating the RoF server, let me know if there are any problems with it via the usual channels in the forums.
You Couldnt Make It Up!
December 24th, 2011 by Bone Head
I must be turning into a grumpy old man. I seem to do nothing but moan lately about all things, but technology is starting to twist my melons. For years and years (more than I care to think about too much) I have avoided automation on my PC, preferring to sort and store files myself, use photoshop to manually edit my images rather than using the software that came with the camera and back up when I feel like it rather than letting some piece of software look after the job. OK, OK, maybe the last one might be best left to the computers brain rather than mine, but you get the feel of what I am saying. Maybe because I am old, I don’t trust the PC to do what I can do.
One of my most treasured possessions I have to admit is made by Apple, the Iphone. After years of slanging all things Mac I have to admit that as a piece of technology it cant be beaten. Although in the past I have used an HTC windows Mobile phone, which was very familiar, easy to use, worked well with windows and was very automated. I plugged it in, it synced, job done. I appreciated its automation, with approaching 300 phone numbers and email addresses on my phone it makes sense to let the phone swap changes and new numbers with the PC automatically.
In a vane attempt to stop work ringing me on my days off I decided to buy a second phone, just to be used with work. I decided to get my Ebay fix and after a few attempts I ended up with a Windows Mobile 7 phone. All excited I charged it up and plugged it in to my PC. After about 15 minutes the phone was updated, the Zune software was downloaded on my PC and all was well, at least I thought it was.
The thing is it seems that the latest version of WM 7 cant sync with Outlook. Android phones can Iphones and every other kind of phone not made by Microsoft pretty much can. What a complete crock! What were the engineers and designers at Microsoft smoking when they came up with this idea; I know, lets make it so the only way to get all our addresses and numbers on this is to make the users have to create an account on Google or Live, transfer all their numbers to the Internet and then move them back from the internet and onto their phone. No one will ever want to just plug the phone into the PC and have it sync in the ‘old fashioned’ way.
So my advice to you is steer clear of Windows Mobile devices, unless you have access to an exchange server and go for a much more compatible Apple Iphone!
Rant mode dissengaged.
Seasons Greetings!
December 21st, 2011 by Bone Head
Where does all the time go? It doesn’t seem like a year ago that I was panicking trying to work out when I was going to get my Christmas shopping done and here I am again doing the same.
I’m sat here in an empty airport departure lounge waiting to go to work for the next 3 days. I’m just hoping I make it back home from Milan in the early hours of Saturday morning. The problem being that Air Traffic Control get tied up looking after the reindeer on the evening of the 24th, apparently and the people who make my work roster hate me so watch this space!
Anyhow no matter what happens to me I would like to wish all my friends and those of you I don’t know too a very merry Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate it then a merry whatever you do celebrate when it comes along.
Take care all of you and ‘see’ all soon!
Bone
Lets Keep It Nice
December 10th, 2011 by Bone Head
For years we had a home page on this site, you know like all sites used to have in the old days when people had more time and patience and a home page with a picture, title and maybe a little bit of blah about the site on it. Ours had a little motto “doing our bit for world peace!”.
I dreamt this up a long time ago because I really do believe that Battle-Fields.com has brought thousands of people together both in our servers and via the forums. This can only be a good thing.
I think generally we are very tolerant of others and those of us who have been around for years are also quite good at forgiving peoples slips and comments, often just putting it down to a cultural difference. Which is why I was a bit concerned to hear someone may have caused another player some anguish by coming out with a comment that might have been said in fun but was by the look of it taken out of context.
May I just remind everyone that the server rules apply not only to our game servers but to all our servers, Team speak, IRC and the forums. If you are unaware of our rules may I respectfully ask you to take a quick look here.
You Don’t Need Paypal!
November 29th, 2011 by Bone Head
That’s right folks, in order to support your local (or not so local in many cases) servers you no longer need a Paypal account you can just use a credit card or debit card.
So now there is no excuse not to chip in and help us keep things going, well there is an excuse I suppose if you don’t have a card but surely you don’t want to see me in suspenders and stockings do you? (see the post below!).
Selling My Body
November 25th, 2011 by Bone Head
We have had a fairly high level board meeting at B-F, well when I say high level more of a chat over a few beers with regard to our financial situation. As all our regular visitors will no doubt know B-F is a labour of love and a hobby for those of us who keep it well oiled so we usually end up short of cash each month when it comes to paying the rent. As B-F is ultimately my baby I cough up for the shortfall, which isn’t such a problem apart from my job is looking like it will be suffering like many others recently and I will end up taking a significant reduction in money.
So it has been decided that I will have to go on the ‘game’ and we aren’t talking about TF2, IL2 or anything else with a 2 in it, we are talking about drastic measures here, and talking of well oiled above is starting to make me feel a little queasy! Anyhow Smurfy is going to be my pimp and when I can get a hold of him we are thinking of offering Kaiser too as he is a bit younger than me and although he isnt as good looking as me you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you are poking the fire …. apparently.
The other option would be to perhaps have some of the people who enjoy the servers and the comaraderie of battle-fields.com to chip in a little to help out. There are various ways you can do this, the best for forum members is to go here and join the supporters, or if you would like to get more involved then go for the Syndicate membership if you are known to us by clicking the syndicate cadet application. If you don’t hear from me about your Syndicate application please send me a PM to let me know you have applied.
Remember Battle-Fields isnt just for Christmas its for life!
No do the right thing and help me out these high heels are crippling me and the g string is cutting me in IL2!
Crafty Mining
November 22nd, 2011 by Bone Head
Minecraft has to be one of the ‘squarest’ games to make it onto a monitor since the early 90′s. Now I realise probably many of you reading this cant remember the early 90′s and not because of some long lasting acid trip but because you may still have been in liquid form or at least still ‘going to the toilet’ without having to actually going to the toilet, I guess something that some of our older visitors may be doing again but I digress.
The thing is that for some of us here who do remember the 90′s will also remember blocky graphics first time around. Games like Pong, Pac Man and Frogger were cutting edge for some of us once, in fact I can even remember buying my first ever calculator. I couldn’t afford a new one so I got it from a second hand shop, imagine that, people didn’t throw old calculators away, they took them to a second hand shop, and people like me bought them.
My First Calculator
Trouble is it used a 9v battery which didn’t last very long either, its amazing how things have improved since then, a bit like computer games, they just keep getting better, well usually, lets forget about the launch of ClOD for now.
So why are we going backwards in terms of graphics? I’m sure the calculator I had wont be making a comeback, at least not needing a 9v battery that lasts less than a week when using it for about 10 minutes a day it wont.
So why is Minecraft so popular? Is it because its retro looking? I doubt it. It must has something to do with the game play I suppose, I say suppose because I haven’t actually played it, not yet anyhow, although I am feeling a tempted towards the square side, in a similar way that I still like the look of LED watches and calculators and old mobile phones that remind me of my youth.
Anyhow, when I started typing this I was just going to briefly mention that I have installed the latest version (1.0) of the Minecraft server on some new more powerful hardware as blocky or not it seems to use server memory not unlike my old calculator used PP3 batteries but as usual my age took over and I started reminiscing about the good old days.
So now you know about the B-F Minecraft server, my work here is done, now what else was I going to do …… oh yes pay a visit to the toilet ….. I remembered, Im not that old yet!
Chuffing CLoD!
November 1st, 2011 by Bone Head
I was going to say I have wasted a day and a half messing with our new Cliffs of Dover server but I am now wiser than when I started so I guess I can say I haven’t wasted time.
I couldnt get the server to start without throwing errors up that seemed to relate to the network, using my best thinking head (usually only fitted for special occasions) I had a guess that it might be the second network card on the server that was causing problems. Seems I was right.
Whyare flight sims so poorly supported in the dedicated server department? Lets face it the developers aren’t going to sell so many games in the first place but not getting support out with the launch of a new sim for a simple dedicated server is just asking for trouble. Mind you, having said that, CLoD didn’t even launch with a playable game so a good server wasn’t going to help much.
Just think about Lock On, if there had been a dedicated server for that when it came out we would all still be playing it on dedicated servers even now and people would still be buying it.
So will CLoD last as long as IL2 Sturmovik? Who knows, but unless we get the online debacle sorted out and some folk with ponytails and sandals with white socks can get their heads around the mission editor maybe not.
Right im off to wash my socks.
RO2 Servers Updated
October 22nd, 2011 by Bone Head
I have just carried out the ancient ritual of updatetheservers on our two Red Orchestra 2 servers.
I have also tested them both using some high tech equipment for continuity, compatibility and apathy, all seems well.
As a reminder both servers can be found by searching for battle-fields.com (don’t forget the – though!).
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