First Look At Star Trek Online

Paul

star_trek_online_1st.jpg

The official Star Trek Online forums were host to a visual treat for fans yesterday, as Perpetual Entertainment’s Mike Stemmle presented the first real screenshot of the MMO. The story lead explained, in detail, STO‘s Interaction System which “controls every non-combat, player-to-NPC interaction in the game.” Whether you’re negotiating with alien species, beaming from ship to shore or responding to distress calls, the Interaction System is where you’ll be pointing and clicking your mouse. That rather mundane stuff is hard to read when one’s picking about the minutiae of a screencap featuring an alien ambassador of (personally) unknown origin. Sure, it may look more Voyager than TOS, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have fun going where no MMO player has gone before.

An even bigger, better pic awaits you at the official forums.

STO DevLog 5.0 – “Interactions in Action” [Star Trek Online via Shacknews]

[Via Kataku]

Man I think I’ll have to try that game out when it comes on either a demo or I might just buy it.

How hard is Cnet being hit by Gerstmann firing!!

Paul

As You can see Cnet is also getting hit hard by the Gerstmann firing. You can tell how much they have dropped after the firing. What do you think they will do? One angry BOL listener said this?

Hey buzzers,

OK, so I was mighty tempted to pull the plug on all my CNET subscriptions in the wake of the Gerstmann-gate hoopla, but have accepted your position that CNET.com and Gamespot.com are two seperate entities, and agree with Molly that not everyone should be tarred with the same big brush. However, I think there are still some issues here that have not been satisfactorily addressed. On Friday’s podcast, you promised to deal with the Gamespot issue on Monday’s show–you did but, I have to be honest, it didn’t feel particularly whole-hearted. As the self-described reporters on Buzz, it seems to me that you missed all sorts of buzz–the intertubes are packed with stories on this, all of which makes for very interesting reading, even if the medium is, in fact, the real message.

But, here’s my real issue with this. I’ll take, at face value, your assertion that the folks at CNET.com aren’t pressured by editors or advertisers with regard to content. But I can’t shake the deep suspicion that the opposite is true at Gamespot.com. I’ll also accept the assertion that those two sites are independent (more or less). The only conclusion to be drawn is that CNET.com and Gamespot.com are being held to different editorial standards. This certainly goes toward the (very skeptical) buzz about ‘gaming journalism’ that has been zooming around the tubes. At the end of the day, this is a huge sticking point for me, and I still think that ‘CNET Networks’ has some ‘splaining to do.

So does this mean they are having people being mad at them or is it that they are just getting the overflow of people from Gamestop? They I know are not the same entity but are both in the same Company? Mind telling me why they haven’t gone into more discussion of this? It’s like Cnet has been told to be quite also? IS that true or are they just holding there breathe to find out the outcome? I suspect it is Management that is doing the keep quite command. What do you think?


GameSpot Q&A, A Response to “Gerstmanngate”

Paul

GameSpot has finally responded in force to the Jeff Gerstmann situation, addressing the topic once and for all…though still not revealing why he was fired for unspecified legal reasons. With no more ado, let’s just cut right to the chase.

Q: Was Eidos Interactive upset by the game’s review?

Well, were they??

A: It has been confirmed that Eidos representatives expressed their displeasure to their appropriate contacts at GameSpot, but not to editorial directly. It was not the first time a publisher has voiced disappointment with a game review, and it won’t be the last. However, it is strict GameSpot policy never to let any such feelings result in a review score to be altered or a video review to be pulled.

Q: Did Eidos’ disappointment cause Jeff to be terminated?

A: Absolutely not.

Q: Did Eidos’ disappointment cause the alteration of the review text?

A: Absolutely not.

Q: Did Eidos’ disappointment lead to the video review being pulled down?

A: Absolutely not.

As we heard before, GameSpot officially cited poor production for the pulling of the video review. They also clarify that all Kane & Lynch written review alterations were made to better match the 6.0 score. Wow, so copy should be edited to represent an arbitrary f’ing number? That clarification of practice really brings the credibility back to the site? Fundamentally, I can’t agree to the logic, but it’s important that GameSpot disclosed their process nonetheless.

[Via kotaku]

Well This is what I am concerned about they do all this and yet they still leave me with more questions then answers. I think they took to long to answer and they also might be hiding something. What do you think? I don’t believe they are going to keep hiding much longer something is bound to come out and bite them!!

Add System Monitoring to Your Desktop with CoolMon

Paul

coolmon.pngWindows only: Freeware application CoolMon monitors your systems vitals with attractive desktop-embedded widgets. In very basic operation, CoolMon displays information like RAM usage, hard drive space, and CPU load, but with the right plugins you can embed just about anything on your desktop—like new email alerts, weather, the song you’re currently listening to, and so on. If all you’re looking for is more of a plain-text to-do list on your desktop, check out previously mentioned Samurize. Mac users should take a look at GeekTool. Setup for CoolMon is a little quirky, so check out Simplehelp’s post guide if you’re having trouble. CoolMon is freeware, Windows only.

CoolMon [via Simplehelp]

[Via Lifehacker]

I thought this was cool tool for a geek to use!! Go check it out!!

New WGA In Vista SP1

Paul

A new version of Windows Genuine Advantage will be included in the first service pack for Windows Vista according to several reports from different tech websites.

The new changes includes reminding the user to buy a legitimate version for every hour which comes from a bubble in the desktop and the wallpaper of the desktop will also turn to black.

Microsoft mentioned that they fixed two holes which allowed pirates to create fake copies.

The first service pack for Vista will be released in the first few months of 2008.

[Via Technibble]

You know pirates are always going to find a hole around some of these DRM protection and program protection. I know they have the right to but isn’t to much protection a bad thing. Let’s consider the Bad things, shall we?

  • Slows System down
  • BSOD
  • Programs don’t work properly
  • WGA might make legit copies bad?
  • Windows will become even more unstable!

So what part of Microsoft thinks this is a good thing. I do not!! I know it will make Vista even more unusable with all this protection!!

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