Apprentice

I would add a third option: non-existent and/or "economised". I don't think that QA troubles are the sole reason for botched releases, I do think that people should look into the direction of (big) publishers such as EA and ActiVision. They are ones who are funding the project and at a certain point, they want to have a return of their "investment". The rest is known history and if you are a small developer, you simply don't have the means to do anything about it . . .

My first soundcard was an AdLib which was followed by a SoundBlaster 2.0 some years later. My last separate soundcard before I started to use the onboard things, was a SoundBlaster AWE 64 which I found the best card I ever had. For my new rig, I am still pondering to get myself a separate one once again . . .

Ahhh MS-DOS, fond memories. First game I ever played (on a 286 machine IIRC): Alley Cat Most used command: arj a -v1457664 doom.arj -y Most played prank: format c: /autotest /u /v:U1D10T When I was still in school, I and several other knew more about DOS and Windows (3.11) then our computer science teacher did. Note: computer science was still in its infancy and IT was more an afterthought then a mainstream thing. This resulted in a popped up phrase on all networked computers there regarding a certain teacher and a certain dog's apparatus . . . :D :D

In general: botched up releases are only happening because of: 1) We the consumers decide to buy those games in pre-order anyway, so basicly those developers and publishers already have our money so why releasing a complete product ?? As long as people are stupid enough to pay upfront especially to companies such as EA and ActiVision, then botched up releases remain the standard instead of an incidental occurrence. 2) There are no rules & regulations regarding software products on the consumer/business market(s), at least not if compared to other consumer products such as cars, fridges, washing machines, washing dryers, drills, mobile phones, tablets, laptop, etc, etc. For all the latter, there are tons of rules & regulations in which the product have to comply to in order to have it allowed on the consumer market but for software, those rules & regulations simply don't exist with botched releases as a result. It really is an interaction between (1) en (2) and as long as both are allowed to roam free, then it will only become more and more . . .

It's fairly easy: start at the beginning !! For starters, I have everything situated within my F:\GAMES\ZDOOM folder, which the root only contains the latest ZDoom release and all the IWADs I have. Every other source port has its own folder within the GAMES\ZDOOM folder with either the *.INI modified to look one folder up or I had to create a *.BAT in order to point the source port to the right IWAD (major failure from many developers here, see (1)). The same goes for third party wads, my own wads, editors and other utils such as nodebuilders and such. Each and everyone has its own folder so that I can easily find what I am looking for and keep my stuff organised. (1) This is what I believe is a major design flaw in many source ports, is that the port is by default not looking for the IWADs one folder up. If you have a DOOMDIR\GZDOOM folder structure and all the IWADs are stored in the DOOMDIR folder, GZDoom and any other port will only look within its own folder in which they won't find a single IWAD. For ZDoom and deratives, it can be 'fixed' by adding "Path=.." into your *.INI file ([IWADSearch.Directories]) but more stricter ports that don't use an *.INI file, will have to resort to "-iwad ..\<wadfile>.wad". Apperantly, I am the only one who has organised it in this fashion, since a suggestion made ZDoom forums was immediately shot down . . .

A good set of singleplayer/cooperative maps. As multiplayer maps not that quite but that is something all old Doom games suffer from, even up towards Plutonia and TNT . . .

I've seen some videos of the guy, he is skilled and made some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, the things he does aren't that practical for everyday use and therefor fall for the most part under the 'gimmick' range . . .

Happened here a week ago (Netherlands) and I only have ONE clock that I had to adjust, everything else did it on its own . . .

I nominate Aliens TC, Fava Beans and Knee-deep in ZDoom . . . :D

An interesting notion since I am stumbling towards the topic myself. I am currently developing a map for Doom (developed with ZDoom and now GZDoom) and I have noticed that not all source ports support certain design features I have implemented wall textures applied on ceiling/floors, ceiling/floor textures applied on walls. I think MAPINFO and/or DECORATE things). Some ports have some graphic issues while other don't run at all. A frequent error message I get with certain ports, is that Hexen maps are not supported (map has been created with WinZeth 4.17), so I am going to follow this topic to see which ports are widely used and therfor considered "standard" . . .

Valve Index anyone ??

Breen's character was poorly written, very shallow and superficial. He had more potential of being an interesting character then just "the bad guy" as Valve depicted him . . . Quoted for truth !! The only reason that there is a Half-Life 2 and subsequent episodes, is Steam. Nothing more and nothing less. They had an idea and needed a hit title to sell that idea with the result that the Half-Life universe is completely abandoned by Valve . . .

The GOG versions of older games are more tailored to the end user to so that it can work without hassle, the Steam versions sometimes aren't and of course: no DRM !!

Happens to me as well and what do I do ?? I just do other things !! Play a game, map something else, doing 1001 terrible things(1) to and with and done by junior, catch up on films and series that I still haven't seen, engage in a certain physical exercise with Ms. Apprentice, browse Doomworld.com . . . A hell of a lot of things you can do to take your mind of your project 8) (1) Not limited to farting the belly, nimble the toes, bite the butt and pressing the nose and 987 other terrible things, not in that particular order

That's not something to be ashamed of, I started out collecting new components two years ago but then covid happened and I'm not going to spend over 4500 dollars for a 3090 with EKWB block . . .

At its core, Windows 8 is a pretty stable OS but its major flaw was the desktop interface. It was too much aimed and targeted for tablets, for which it would've worked flawlessly. For a traditional desktop/laptop environment, it just didn't work. That's also one of Microsoft's mistake: they didn't venture into the tablet market with Windows 8 . . . As a totally unrelated side note, not entirely on the subject: For years, I though this was Weird Al Yankovic . . .

Intel Core i7 930 Asus P6T Deluxe V2 MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4GB (was ASUS ENGTX480/2DI/1536MD5) EVGA GeForce GT 630 2GB Samsung 840 Evo 120GB WDC WD1600AAJS-00L7A0 WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 Cooler Master MasterAir MA610P Thermaltake Toughpower XT 675W Iiyama ProLite E2200WS LG N1742LP-BF AG Neovo F-417 About 10 years old, really should be replaced. If covid didn't happen, I probably would have a new rig by now (and a fancy one too :D) . . .

1) Try refreshing the page by <SHIFT> + <F5> 2) See if you can select a different theme. Under in the page, there is a button where you can select a different theme (left of the Privacy Policy and above the Powered by Invision Community)

... or support for the eastern bunny . . . 8)

Look like what ?? :/

:O My most played multiplayer maps, together with my mother. Several good hours were wasted on both . . .

Wetter it was an upgrade or a fresh install, neither mattered for the stability of Windows ME especially compared with Windows 2000 which was released around the same time as Windows ME. I had upgraded some rigs in order to test it but went either straight back to Windows 98 SE or went to Windows 2000. In my opinion, Windows 2000 was the best OS that came out of Redmond. It performed better with 64MB RAM then what Windows XP could do with 256 MB RAM. Vista was something I never used, I went from XP (XP64) straight to Windows 7. Don't get me started on Windows 8, which I also skipped . . .

Windows Vista the wordt OS ever ?? Nahhh, not by a long shot !! Try Windows Millennium Edition and then come back here . . . 8)

http://www.apprentice.be <-- Shameless plug 8) Other most used sites: - Google - YouTube - The company's digital work order management system - The company's webmail service - Family & friends related sites - etc, etc Yeah, I use quite a lot of websites on a daily basis . . .

I still do, since I'm not using DB2 or any variant of it. DEU/Deth/Zeth all the way, baby . . . 8)