Anyone want in the DDO Stress Test?

[Merusk]

Go to Control Panel -> User Accounts. Click on "Change the way users log on and off". Make sure "Use the Welcome screen" is checked. That should get you straight to your desktop in a normal single user setup. If you do see the colorful XP-style Welcome screen rather than the Windows 2000-style login dialog box but you see a list of users that you have to click on, delete the user accounts you don't need or use the Tweak UI tool from Windows XP Power Toys to auto login your main account.

Yeah that was already set-up.  However, I discovered .net created it's own user that didn't show up on the menu, and I just deleted it.  Haven't bothered to reboot the machine yet to see if that works.

Usual spew of bullshit.

It's a home machine I'm the sole user of, it's stupid to have a login.  Piss off, you irritating shit.

[Pococurante]

My logon account is what protects me from my kids... ;)  that, and the raw copperwire tracing the keyboard & front panel and down into the powerstrip.

[Margalis]

I think the question here is why do you need .NET at all and why do you need to log in when no other game requires that?

Haven't they learned from the amazing failure of MS technology with their own AC2 chat server, not to mention the lobby for the game Impossible Creatures which never worked right and went a long way towards making the game tank. (Hint: A working lobby/matchmaking service is kind of important for an online RTS)

[Glazius]

I think the question here is why do you need .NET at all

Same reason you need to install the Java virtual machine to run anything in Java.

--GF

[OcellotJenkins]

I think the question here is why do you need .NET at all and why do you need to log in when no other game requires that?

Better get used to it.  Visual Studio.NET 2005 is a superior development tool and most of the apps you install in the coming months and years will require the .NET framework.  Of course, it will be standard on the next version of Windows.

Relax, it's harmless.

[Hellinar]

I think the question here is why do you need .NET at all

Same reason you need to install the Java virtual machine to run anything in Java.

--GF

Yes. But you can copy and paste the Java Runtime Engine into your game for distribution, so that it doesn't even change the Registry, and the user is completely unaffected. .NET "integrates" itself deeply with the OS, and thus has potential to screw things up. Given a choice, I'd rather wait till Vista and get a pre-integrated .NET.

Given there are so many games out there, adding something that forces a user to change how they use their computer is going to lose you a few sales. But that might be worth it if .NET makes development easier. It exactly the same with Java. The positives are all in the development side, none in the distribution.

[Nija]

Is this slashdot?

[AOFanboi]

The reason installing the .Net runtime might add new (local) users to a machine is that the ASP.Net component adds one; though as far as I can tell that's under the hood. My Windows install threw up the login screen/user selection after I installed SQL Server dev. edition, though it only listed the one user I had defined at install...

And this is not Slashdot - not too many games run on Linux you know.

[OcellotJenkins]

I think the question here is why do you need .NET at all

Same reason you need to install the Java virtual machine to run anything in Java.

--GF

Given there are so many games out there, adding something that forces a user to change how they use their computer is going to lose you a few sales. But that might be worth it if .NET makes development easier. It exactly the same with Java. The positives are all in the development side, none in the distribution.

There are plenty of positives for the user.  Eliminating "DLL Hell" being one of them, and another is being able to install an application by just copying files to a directory (just like good 'ol DOS).  How about having multiple versions of an app installed at the same time without them interfering with each other?  Reducing the need for the registry?  I see little reason to complain about .NET from either a developer or user standpoint.

[Merusk]

The reason installing the .Net runtime might add new (local) users to a machine is that the ASP.Net component adds one; though as far as I can tell that's under the hood. My Windows install threw up the login screen/user selection after I installed SQL Server dev. edition, though it only listed the one user I had defined at install...

The user I deleted was called ASP.Net, and only showed up on the user list that Trippy pointed me at, not on the login screen.  Deleteing it cleared up the login screen and I boot straight to desktop now.

[Samwise]

I see little reason to complain about .NET from either a developer or user standpoint.

Aren't you ignoring the fact that it was made by M$ and is therefore EVIL, regardless of what it actually does?

[Hellinar]

Given there are so many games out there, adding something that forces a user to change how they use their computer is going to lose you a few sales. But that might be worth it if .NET makes development easier. It exactly the same with Java. The positives are all in the development side, none in the distribution.

There are plenty of positives for the user.  Eliminating "DLL Hell" being one of them, and another is being able to install an application by just copying files to a directory (just like good 'ol DOS).  How about having multiple versions of an app installed at the same time without them interfering with each other?  Reducing the need for the registry?  I see little reason to complain about .NET from either a developer or user standpoint.

Maybe. Once everyone has .NET installed. But the first game to take the hit, like DDO, and install .NET also takes the rap for any "weird" things it does. Maybe the "sophisticated" people here automatically  blame M$ for the bad things that happen on their computer. But most people will blame the last person in the chain, in this case the DDO developers. The fact that the DDO distribution can potentially change the boot up behaviour for the computer does seem to me to be  a "distribution issue". Not a fatal one, but an issue. It seems very similar to the Java distribution issues I'm struggling with a the moment, for similar reasons.

[Trippy]

I just downloaded and installed the .NET Framework 1.1 through Windows Update as part of setting up my new computer and it never tried to create a .NET Passport login for me.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the .NET Framework 1.1 through Windows Update and this time it did create an ASP.NET user account. I went back and checked my Windows Update history to verify I did in fact install it earlier and I did (by itself as well, not with any other updates). My other machine that has .NET 1.1 installed on it doesn't have the ASP.NET user account either and I don't remember ever deleting it. Very odd. Anyhow sorry about the confusion.

[Sky]

Eliminating "DLL Hell" being one of them, and another is being able to install an application by just copying files to a directory (just like good 'ol DOS).  How about having multiple versions of an app installed at the same time without them interfering with each other?  Reducing the need for the registry?  I see little reason to complain about .NET from either a developer or user standpoint.

I just started profiling XP for use in our computer lab (hey, we're a mac library), and I really get bothered by how MS handles it's applications. So messy, when OSX bundles all that shit into the .app "file". Drive imaging on macs is much nicer, as well as the aforementioned moving of applications, even across machines.

[AOFanboi]

To Turbine: You know your game is in trouble when even F13.net thinks discussing .Net is more interesting.

[Alkiera]

To Turbine: You know your game is in trouble when even F13.net thinks discussing .Net is more interesting.

Not really, it's because the game is under NDA, so no one really knows much, and those who do, can't say anything.

It's part of the problem of NDAs...  sure, no one can say anything bad, but no one can say anything GOOD either.

Alkiera

[AOFanboi]

Not really, it's because the game is under NDA, so no one really knows much, and those who do, can't say anything.

Yes, but then we end up going "Dungeons and Dragons Online! Er. Well, how about them White Sox, eh?" like we sort of do here now.

We need a gaming equivalent of Aint-it-cool news to spill the beans. Is there such a beast on any of the hundreds of other gaming sites I don't frequent?

[Pococurante]

Hate to get drawn into a budding OS holy war but I've been installing framework since 2000 and have never seen any weirdness even in the betas.  OTOH I've had no end of upgrade woes because some numbskull put a specific version check in their code that prevents later JVM.

Anyway the future of Windows is .NET and those of us who work with it everyday find it a tremendous improvement in productivity over what we had before.

[Roac]

Anyway the future of Windows is .NET and those of us who work with it everyday find it a tremendous improvement in productivity over what we had before.

.NET is 

Only downside is lack of widespread installs on the framework, but since most of what we do is web or internal, not an issue here.  It'll be delt with in next OS release, as mentioned, anyhow.  Massive set of standardized libraries (plus DirectX for the DDO guys), plus a managed environment, means (usually) less development time and good support for the libraries.  Should mean more time gets to be focused elsewhere for DDO. 

[Merusk]

Not really, it's because the game is under NDA, so no one really knows much, and those who do, can't say anything.

Yes, but then we end up going "Dungeons and Dragons Online! Er. Well, how about them White Sox, eh?" like we sort of do here now.

We need a gaming equivalent of Aint-it-cool news to spill the beans. Is there such a beast on any of the hundreds of other gaming sites I don't frequent?

None I know of.  I'd love to discuss what I saw in my one-day 4 1/2 hour experience, but it's  so.. yah.   

[Nija]

There's a text file on my desktop that might interest you.

[Alkiera]

To de-rail again, since we can't talk about  ... Those complaining about the login process, do you reboot/shutdown your machines that often?  I mean, how much of your time is wasted having to click your name on startup?

Alkiera

[Hellinar]

To de-rail again, since we can't talk about  ... Those complaining about the login process, do you reboot/shutdown your machines that often?  I mean, how much of your time is wasted having to click your name on startup?

Alkiera

I do shut down my machine quite a lot. Normally,  I power up, go get a coffee or something, and when I return the machine is ready to use. With the login screen, it sticks part way through the process. Then I have to click OK, and wait for the rest of the boot up to happen. Mildly annoying, because it doesn't have to be that way. I'm am the only "real" user, I don't want .NET creating fake users.

My point was more that the install was causing an unexpected change in my regular computer behaviour, and generated a spurious error message a couple of times. Not a big problem for a techie user like me, but something you would like to avoid if you are going for mass market. That will include some  people who panic if something strange happens on their computer.  I can see it being a problem for a while with .NET, until you can rely on the framework being present on your target machines. Its a familiar problem in the Java world, where the Java Runtime Environment may or may not be present on your target machine.

[HaemishM]

Not really, it's because the game is under NDA, so no one really knows much, and those who do, can't say anything.

Yes, but then we end up going "Dungeons and Dragons Online! Er. Well, how about them White Sox, eh?" like we sort of do here now.

We need a gaming equivalent of Aint-it-cool news to spill the beans. Is there such a beast on any of the hundreds of other gaming sites I don't frequent?

Fatbabies used to be, but I haven't looked at that site in years.

And really, spilling the NDA is just retarded. All it gets you is the "you are the cool geek on teh interweb" award for a few minutes, then everyone goes back to their regular posting places.

EDIT: Of course, I'm also of the belief that Turbine should go the way of Wish in the DDO beta. Kill the NDA, or at least structure it so that the only thing you can't talk about is the specific bugs. Because really, betas are nothing more than free demos and stress tests for netcode, exploit hunts for griefers and the like, so you might as well just use them as the PR tools they are to the fullest.

WoW's subscription numbers weren't hurt by the non-NDA beta. If your game sucks, people will find out about it anyway.

[shiznitz]

If your game sucks, people will find out about it anyway.

See AutoAssault. NDA didn't stop everyone from learning it was boring. At least the devs had the guts to admit it, take it offline and try to fix it.

[Hoax]

See AutoAssault. NDA didn't stop everyone from learning it was boring. At least the devs had the guts to admit it, take it offline and try to fix it.

I REALLY want to know how that is going, I'm going to be re-subbed to WoW by this weekend if I can't find a reason not to.

[CaptainNapkin]

See AutoAssault. NDA didn't stop everyone from learning it was boring. At least the devs had the guts to admit it, take it offline and try to fix it.

I REALLY want to know how that is going, I'm going to be re-subbed to WoW by this weekend if I can't find a reason not to.

nah, you don't want to know... have fun in WoW 

[Der Helm]

nah, you don't want to know... have fun in WoW 

That bad ?

[schild]

Don't break any NDAs on my watch, numbskulls.

[AOFanboi]

Those of us not within a Imperial mile of the beta can post lots of totally wild speculation about the game, and you beta players with your ball-and-chain NDAs cannot stop/correct us! Bwahaha! And a one, a two...

1) It's a MMO, so it must suck.
2) D&D works for pen and paper play, and the occasional computer game. A persistent world without a continuing endless quest production? Forget it.
3) Why D&D? There are so many other good roleplaying games that deserve an MMO treatment. But nah, more pantsasy for the masses.
4) The runaway success of AC2 sure is an indication of Turbine's success in their endeavors.
5) Related to 1 and 3: The world does not need another chat client with 3D fantasy art attached to it. Unless it's the World of Gor with Boris Vallejo as art director. 

[Merusk]

 In case you missed it, Signe posted in the other DDO thread that one of this month's gaming magazines is giving away a bunch of DDO beta slots.  Those of you who want in or liked what you saw in the stress test might want to go hunting for it.

I bought lunch at McDonald's with the cash instead.   I hate their food.

[Xilren's Twin]

nah, you don't want to know... have fun in WoW 

That bad ?

Apples and oranges.  My 9 year old plays WoW; I gave that up months ago.

Xilren

[jpark]

Any idea when the beta might be "complete"?