Tuesday, December 3, 2013

'DAFT HACKER' crashing Halo PC servers...


When you see that in your feed, you have roughly five seconds to ban the guy. And that may not even stop the crash.
Look, I'm a fucker for pirating the game, and there's no valid excuse for it. I know that. (Well, I did buy it years ago, but I've lost it since... Does that abate the crime somewhat?)

But tell me something. Which is a better indicator of mental instability - pirating content because you don't want to pay for it again, or finding insatiable gratification in destroying others'?

This nancy - DAFT HACKER - literally sits at the computer for hours and watches Halo PC temp servers pop up on the Gamespy directory, then nukes each within seconds of joining them. My server's been an unwilling participant in this song and dance for a few months, and perhaps to a lesser extent prior - I just didn't know I was being 'boomed'. I blamed it on Windows, or an awry mod - at least, until I started noticing patterns. I live on the east coast of the US and he usually begins showing up around 7pm for a few hours. Those hours are a dark mire for Halo 1.0.4.607 temp servers.

I guess what really grinds my gears most is, when he's on, I can't get a server up for longer than three minutes before he's already torn it down. All this tells me is he really doesn't do much with his time but Broly every crashable that pings online. I'll wager this type of committed behavior borders on some form of neurosis - because as you'll see with a Google search, he's been doing this for awhile:





(Ctrl+f and type "daft hacker" on each page to find the references.)

As you can see in the first link, he's been at it for at least three years. Three fucking years. Who has three years to spend entertaining themselves by staring down a directory and crashing temp servers on a video game? That's just assuming he hasn't been doing it longer.

...and YOUR server, and YOUR server, and YOUR server...
I figure people who categorically fall into whatever basket he belongs are the same kind that would go home and microwave their hamster if someone didn't hold the automatic door for them at Wal-Mart. They can't take a fucking loss, or want more people to join their server... or could just be 12-year-olds who haven't figured out their penis has a second function - but I'm wagering most of my chips these are zit-ridden basement-dwelling autistic 40-somethings getting stroked by welfare. See, whatever their problem is, my verdict is all the same and unconditional: I'd open their computers, piss on the innards, stomp a brick of shit into the memory contacts, then let the dough rise for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Crash that, douchedick.

Typically, people like DAFT HACKER...
  1. belong to clans
  2. have 'hacker', 'crasher', 'fuckyourserver', etc. in their username,
  3. and have it tÝÞed صt ¡n Æ¢©ented §ymßΩls
If they meet at least two of those requisites, chances are pretty fair they have collaborative access to various third-party tools - namely, crashware. That's their e-peen. They wave it around and crash servers and chew bubblegum. They wear bandanas and shit in plastic Fisher-Price training potties. They live in unfurnished basements and have slept in the same semen-stained Thomas and Friends bedsheets since their last NSA-recorded date of employment. If they were female, they aren't anymore. "How can you kill that which has no life?"

With every patch to fix the exploit, players would find a way to circumvent it.
This DoS exploit was supposedly fixed in a series of patches which pirated copies (like mine) can't access. As it so-happens, that's the only copy anyone really uses anymore. A year ago there used to be over 2,500 people at its peak. Now? 400 at best. I realize this game's almost 11 years old, but this hacktivism fuckery probably has a lot more to do with it. And that's probably what it is, because if you've ever spotted some of the server titles on HPC or HCE, there are some patently disturbed people out there who pride themselves on a hobby of destroying all server support for video games. Halo PC isn't the only one.

Somehow, I feel like Halo PC should have the CD key checks stripped and the game put up for free download. Halo 3's free on the 360 now... Just saying.

Dedicated servers are crash-immune but don't work if they run off a pirated copy of the game. I learned this the hard way after spending an unrealized number of hours managing to set one up, just to find I couldn't join it because my CD key's invalid, as it were. As a result, I'm throwing my hands up - I can't find my old copy, the copy I have is getting crashed, all pirated editions of the game are the same non-updatable cracked 1.0.4.607 versions, and a new legit copy's only $10 online. I earned that much on Textbroker today - it's like, free.

I guess something good has come out of all this bullshit after all: morality, friendship, don't steal, ponies, and two middle fingers up DAFT's arse for dictating which evenings I can and can't unwind from a day of work.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Posting your computer's specs in your forum signature...



You know what really grinds my nerd gears? Every motherfucker on a technology message board with their computer's mediocre specs billboarded in their signature like, "Proud white Catholic owner of genuine Windows 8 on a 1.5 giggity-hurts AMD Celery processor and 4 GBs of marijua- memory in my 6-year-old Dell foldable computer from Amazon! More like amaz-ing!" Yeah, and you must think the 'Celery' processor and 'GBs' make it eco-friendly, too.

I think... I hear a bandwagon coming. I'll just walk instead, thanks.

Speaking of walking, I'm considering a career as a mercenary paid to find people like you, just so I can smash your windows and kick your gates down. That's what I call footing the bill.

No seriously, stop that shit. Unless you've got a remarkable machine on your hands, we don't want to know. And even then, we probably wouldn't believe you.

I'd be more impressed if you posted your overly underwhelming specs and then followed up with a video or pics or something of some unexpected feat you pushed that silicon circuit board up to. Say, you got Call of Duty: World at War running smoothly on High settings with a Sandy Bridge Intel IGP via somehow overclocking it, or some other means. Maybe you defied the impossible and overclocked your HDD. Or perhaps you managed to switch the roles of the RAM and CPU. Anything's possible with arms wide open to bullshit ideas.

This spate of hate's retiring for now. Enjoy your celery.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Sims Social shutting down June 14th...



See the thread here where it was officially announced, and then read the reactions.

EA's supposedly shutting down Sims Social (along with Pet Society and SimCity Social) on June 14th to free up development and server resources for new games they're making. They claim it's also because these games have gone downhill in popularity. Historically, they've dazzled us with this sort of incredibly well-thought-out bullshittery, tearing down other games in the past for the same given reasons in order to develop these very games we're watching the unplugging of at this moment.

I used to play Sims Social, though I never spent money on it like many did - and in the link I posted, you'll find some of them invested hundreds into this game. It's not hard to see why; it was addictive, and, well... it was the only Facebook game I could really get into.

My question is... How many resources could monolithic EA possibly recover by shutting down a successful and (almost certainly) profitable game that's small enough to launch in a browser window? I think they'd lose resources, if anything. And why get rid of Sims Social of all games, just to free up the manpower for another game which their now-angered customers probably won't even play, let alone pay for? In my suit-and-tie zen, I just don't see the point of obliterating the masterpiece they already have just to rebuild another in its place - it's just not necessary or logical.

You probably don't care, but hell, this was what my house looked like.
I keep thinking of the customers who just bought Simcash prior to this announcement, only to find, oops, they should spend it while they have it (not that it'll mean anything after June 14th) and kiss their Sims' asses goodbye. Then they'll look back and say, "Damn, that cash I spent isn't doing anything for me now. That sofa I bought yesterday doesn't exist today." It'll feel like a waste to have bothered at all with the game in the first place. That's not a good feeling to leave your customers with, because they'll remember you for it. They'll know that getting stuck with that same feeling starts with getting immersed in another EA game.

The game doesn't have a solid objective - every day, the limits of endgame status are pushed a little further. Some could keep up, others couldn't, but it was constantly chasing that kinetic goal which kept people playing. I sort of feel like EA really goaded the fuck out of their fanbase to snowball some serious momentum in this game - just to decimate it all. It's as if they expect the players to simply accept it, let it go, and never question it.

You know, there's a reason EA was voted worst company in America. It's entirely possible they drained their funds into some shitty Save The Chimps charity via those empty water cooler tanks you can find at each checklane in your local 800-pound gorilla. As a result, EA can't fund some of their developer studios any longer, and so proceeded to dicks-out-of-the-pants wave them an impromptu farewell. In very lame-man's terms: EA's notorious for relieving developers they can no longer afford. This is what I think they don't want us to know. This is what really happened. They went and let off the whole TSS programming team already. Which still doesn't make much sense, because: why TSS? Why not, fucking... some other dev team? Some shittier, less prominent, curly ginger-headed and freckle-nosed game?

Their excuse was, the game's losing popularity. Popu-fucking-larity. So assume they're being truthful - there really was a valley somewhere in the vast plain of the game's unassailable success. You can't find a better way to circumvent a little whoopsy-fuck than to yank the servers? I'm ingenuously not following your ping-pong ball of logic. Here's a kitten.


I'll be sad to see it go. Sims Social was like a second life for me. I suppose that duty will be relegated back to Halo PC - not that I dislike Halo, I just need some variety.