The Monster Truck Madness 2 website has been taken down
microsoft.com
microsoft.com
(C'mon MS don't be jerks, be proud of your history and leave that up!)
Edit: in fact, want to sell Windows' awesome backwards-compatibility? Make 1 edit to that site, detailing how to make the trial of the game run in Windows 8.1. Then leave it as a testament to the OS's huge legacy. Be proud of it. Wear it as a badge of honour.
This was a PR win before they took it down. They have the ability to turn it around and continue to make it a positive, but they have to do it fast.
I am fairly critical of Microsoft myself, but usually for stuff that they actually do wrong. Keeping a webpage about an old game unchanged online, what is wrong with that? It's not like they came out with 3 updates to the game without modernising their webpages.
My list of negative things about the article:
1. There is no author named
2. Picture of Bill Gates is irrelevant
3. Title is misleading
4. Second paragraph is too open to interpretation
- Should be "1 of 9^9^9 pages on microsoft.com remain untouched"
5. Third paragraph uses "such as" to imply there are more titles
6. Calling the hn thread fiery and inaccessible, what exactly is inaccessible about a thread on hn?
7. Second to last paragraph only tried to poke fun at microsoft. Essentially like complaining that a tesla car only runs on electricity.
8. Last paragraph, why not just add another 500 words explaining all the other browsers that the webpage might not work on without doing any testing.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/ny-post-bill-de-bla...
However, there are widespread, strong claims that in American media, everyone is _free_ to share their opinion, leaving it up to the American people to take in the numerous opinions and decide for themselves.
What you see here, a bunch of people freely pointing out that one of these media is utter garbage, is absolutely how the system is supposed to work. We accept a bit of chaff, rather than let vested interests dictate to us.
It's a shame that enough people believe in shit like the NYPost to keep them in business, but it's nothing compared to the hell we'd be in if we accepted the news sources of non-free government sources unflinchingly.
We are all worried about durability on the web (after all, that's Archive.org mission), and when somebody does it, there's always someone to spit on them for "being stuck in the 90's". WTF.
I mean, hell, the game even runs on Win 8.1! [1]
Shame on the journalist.
[1] https://twitter.com/DeonHeyns/statuses/397560196605562880
For example: I made once a Arcade game (cabinet, code, everything). And took it to Campus Party Brazil.
One of the journalists took a photo and put a label on that photo on their site while I was not near the machine.
The label was:
"Some dude brought this illegal counter-strike server disguised as arcade game." (counter-strike was illegal in Brazil for a time, sadly, despite our constitution also having free speech... but the arcade machine I've made had no networking equipment, I still wonder where the journalist got that idea)
And the most flattering report on the cabinet had as headline: "Game addict bring his own arcade game."
Fuck journalists, they cannot be trusted. (also NONE of the ones that interviewed me avoided twisting my words).
Sounds like an interesting project, and unusual for a DIY arcade cabinet for having custom code. Do you have a write-up about it or a public repository? I'd like to read more about it.
As for
>"Some dude brought this illegal counter-strike server disguised as arcade game."
that's a pretty absurd claim. Did your machine run any arcade games that vaguely similar to Counter-Strike (like VirtuaCop 2)? That's the only way I can think of a person who knows nothing about video games could come up with that idea without simply lying.
Edit: Are anti-gamer hit pieces common in Brazilian media?
And my game was a Arkanoid clone of sorts, but I never finished it actually, the version on the arcade cabinet was more of a prototype, also I was writing about it and I was going to put the engine source on github, but I never had time to do it, and the machine with that stuff is not near me (I left it in my parents house to start my own startup in other city).
But the site is http://paddlewars.agfgames.com mind you it is a really ugly site, and the game is quite unfinished, but you can download the desktop version of it and play a bit (also the desktop version is older than the arcade version, back then I had no version control and managed to lose the arcade version source).
Oh, and the cabinet was made for the code, not the code for the cabinet! The cabinet thus has its features designed around the game (for example it has a trackball and eight buttons, to match the game control scheme).
Here is a photo: http://coderofworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mauricio...
The guy in red is a journalist.
Also I made a mistake on the design of that cabinet: I designed it thinking about the average height of most people here... and forgot kids, it became common to pass by the game and see a couple of chairs around it with kids on top of the chairs playing.
I would be damn proud if I had a page like that still live and available 15 years later.
I wonder if the reason for the removal was because of an expired licensing agreement?
The websites, for computer games such as Motocross Madness 2, Midtown Madnessand Monster Truck Madness 2, were rediscovered by readers at software coding website Hacker News, kicking off a fiery yet inaccessible 160-comment thread about backwards compatibility and PC system requirements.
Maybe I misread this but what was inaccessible about that thread?
These two are still available in all their glory, at least:
The first website I ever built was dedicated to that game and I got tens of hundreds of thousands of visitors. How I managed to do that when I was like 14 or something I'm not sure.
I had every cheat, trick and hack under the sun, fully documented with photos.
My favorite was also the Motocross Madness throttle bug. If you went to buy a specific joystick and used the throttle hat, it would instantly gas the bike up to like 50,000cc's and you could do jumps so high that it would glitch, like a mile in the air.
So, you mean millions of visitors? That is impressive!
Feeling nostalgic.
In particular, I wouldn't want them to go on a purge of old game pages now they're aware they still have some, all because of Hacker News + a NY Post article.
EDIT: There were older versions of it, I just wanted to grab that snapshot in time. Here is the bookmarklet I use to do this:
javascript:void(open('//web.archive.org/save/'+encodeURI(document.location)))
They are ashamed of their own history and have no sense for public relations. Many successful companies build museums and archives, support outdated products, sponsor enthusiasts of old crap, etc. In return these companies have dedicated fan bases, enthusiast clubs and whatnot.
But MS doesn't get it, because they are too concerned with their quarterly earnings and the only marketing they understand is paying an agency big bucks for pretty lies.
http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/
its an incredibly odd site, but they seem proud of what they've built. list of classic cameras from days of yore.
http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/film/chrono_1933-1...
Maybe it just broke for the first time in 15 years. ;)
1. Business users. So unbelievably locked down it's ridiculous. Anytime they ask for access rights it's "can't, because of audit".
2. Application IT users. As locked down as possible while still allowing them to somewhat do their job.
3. Infrastructure IT users. Domain admin rights with their standard user login. Ability to bypass any proxy server restriction by default.
It's basically the worst of all worlds. The business users and application IT people can't do anything in the name of following "security best practices" while the infrastructure IT people (including the business analysts and non-technical people in that group) have carte blanche because "they couldn't do their job without it". They don't even follow basic security practices like using a non-privileged account for everyday use and having an elevated account for when they need to do something. It's a complete mess.
So thinking about it more - the infrastructure IT people make instant changes all the time.
And then in 2006, on some message board, a gamer discovered that the 1-800 number advertised in the game was still running, and you could still call in and hear the voices of Wally Bear, Toby Turtle, and all their friends. As soon as word spread about it, though, the 1-800 number was disconnected. By the time I had discovered it, Wally had already been silenced... forever.
Let's hope someone with some history at MS rectifies the situation and rel-launches the site with the accompanying HN post announcing it.
Likely the only Microsoft page with the words "YEEE HAAAAA!" on it.