~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

This may affect some people: Microsoft abandons Outlook Express

I guess the trend is towards more and more people reading and writing email on the web. Hotmail users especially, and MS is making more money by pushing Hotmail and the advertising on everyone (in MS Messenger, as part of Windows, etc) than by letting them use Outlok Express for free.

Also, it seems they want more corporate users to use (and pay for) Outlook (the program that comes with Office, not to confuse with OE). Which is silly thinking, because noone in their right mind is going to buy an Office license for every employee just so they can read mail.

It also appears they also don’t care about usenet a lot. With Outlook Express gone, there won’t be a single usenet program left in their protfolio.

I guess they’re playing into the hands of Mozilla. Absolutely brilliant Mailtool & Newsreader. It’s pretty, it converts all your old mail, comes with a spam filter, and is all-around he most standard-compliant mailtool around. And unlike Outlook Express, it’s not going to go away.

Going through my recent email, people have been sending me mail using these mail tools:

– Outlook Express: 65 users

– Mozilla: 36 users

– GMX Web Interface: 22 users

– Outlook IMO: 19 users

– KMail: 11 users

– The Bat!: 11 users

– web.de Web Interface: 10 users

– Mutt: 9 users

– Outlook: 9 users

– Outlook CWS: 8 users

– Eudora: 6 users

– AOL: 6 users

– Yahoo: 5 users

– Ximian Evolution: 4 users

– Apple Mail: 3 users

– Forte: 2 users

– Opera: 2 users

– IMP: 5 users

– NOCC, T-Online, PocoMail, Ultrafunk, Juno, cityweb Bluewin: 1 user each

No Support for you!

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

In a surprise move, Neocron has decided to suspend support for the Saturn dimension because of players that harass the GMs. I really don’t see how that is going to help them, and it’s definitely unprecedented.

Update: They clarified tht they will suspend the support only for troublemakers. So there’s a blacklist of players that won’t be given support. Sounds like it makes a lot more sense. Still, I would always prefer to kick troublemakers from the game, because if they can’t behave towards a GM, they’ll be even more abusive towards players.

Game Masters are a very essential part of an online game, and we’re lucky to have an excellent program in Anarchy Online (the ARKs). If someone decides to abuse a GM repeatedly, those players should simply be banned. Or alternatively, support should be a payment option, as it is in some other games. But suspending all support for a server cannot be good, and I don’t see how it hurts anyone except the poor people who really need the help of a GM…

I persoanlly believe in banning abusive players permanently – or at least for an extended amount of time that gives them ample time to reconsider, like a month or two. Being too nice to the people who are out to spoil other players’ fun always backfires.

The Longest Journey 2

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been waiting and working a long time for this day. Funcom has announced our plans to finally make a sequel to The Longest Journey, the world’s best adventure game ever made. I can safely say that without selfpraise, because I didn’t work on it. But I loved playing it, and I’m looking forward to working on it – I hope I will. We’re looking at making this for a number of platforms, unlike the original TLJ, which was purely a PC game.

The second new game that we’ve been workin on for a while now is a massive multiplayer online game. This one is a very exciting title, and we’re putting all the experience gained from Anarchy Online into it, to make it a killer title.

We’re also producing an Expansion and a Booster Pack for Anarchy Online, but I won’t be having to do much with those, because I’m working on the new stuff.

Good news indeed, don’t you think?

Lofoten

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

I’ve just come back from a trip to Lofoten, and I’ll have to write something big about it. In one word, though: Amazing. Only got to climb in one place, though, which is one of the few grudges I have about the trip, but the climb itself was really, really nice (and scary for someone with a fear of heights as extreme as mine. The picture below is of someone doing the same route that we did.

Jumping on the goat

Vacation

~ Enno ~ 1 Comment

I’m having vacation, and the weather turned beautiful just in time. It’s been the best days of summer so far, and there are more to come. Starting a little sunburn.

So far, vacation has been all about going to the islands, to Huk beach, and enjoying life. I started a week earlier by working half days, working off overtime that had accumulated. So by the time vacation started, I was already pretty relaxed and low on stress 🙂

If there aren’t many updates in the next days, it’s because I’m not on the net. Had to catch up on more than 200 mails today.

Juggling on Hovedoya

Currently Reading: Neverwhere

~ Enno ~ Leave a comment

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is definitely among the top 3 books I’ve read this year.

Just as in American Gods, Gaiman invents a whole society that’s right before our eyes but that we cannot see any more. This time they are not forgotten gods, but an underground “London Below”, a society living under London, in abandoned subway stations, WW2 tunnels and abandoned places. I’m two thirds through the book, and I want to savour every page of it. Next on the reading list: Stardust.