The Bridge - 2011-04-03

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1:10 AM

0

Q: Will Sims 3 Windows-only DVD serial work on Mac?

I have one of the early Sims 3 DVD versions that apparently did not come with a Mac installer. If I could get ahold of a Mac DVD for installation, would it be possible to use my Windows CD-key? Or do I need to buy an entirely new copy to play on my Mac?

mac sims-3 game-installation

1:20 AM

@Bob furniture-req...?

2 hours later…

3:33 AM

1

Q: Which Xbox 360 games have free avatar accessory awards?

ilomilo offers free T-Shirts for your avatar if you unlock certain achievements (in the full game). Are there any other games (arcade, indie or full), that offer bonus avatar accessories with no extra expenditure of MS points?

1

Q: Need for Speed Shift 1-2

Is there any way to install either Shift 1 or Shift 2 on Ubuntu? Thanks in advance

10.10 wine games

3:51 AM

0

Q: After defeating Logan can you be "all good" and win?

After you defeat Logan, the next few (eight or so) good choices leave you with no money in the treasury for the coming war. Can you still win? I'd hate to invest a lot of time and still lose.

4:16 AM

I think my laptop needs to be reinstalled.

This is very distressing. I can't afford to not have a computer for a few days.

2 hours later…

6:11 AM

0

Q: How can I not fail hard at QWOP?

I'm trying to beat the epic struggle that is QWOP, but I clearly haven't mastered it. I've been able to get to the first hurdle at 50m by essentially scraping my knee the entire time, but my strategy breaks down when trying to get past it: Is there an ideal key sequence to generate the intende...

7:05 AM

0

Q: Difficulties finding games

Is there a website that lists game names and where I can filter by category, features, etc? It would be nice if I could specify low level details like "PC cooperative first person rpgs" by using filters.

1 hour later…

8:11 AM

0

A: When can we declare an identify-this-question game abandoned, and what should be done about it?

Okay, current plan: Close NARQ and delete identify-this-game posts with no accepted answer (list) if they are older than a month.

I'm sorry @Oak @Powerlord @Mana and others who had more than a few upvotes cleared by this

8:24 AM

Finally!

A Nethack tas

> A female Tourist comes into the dungeon, finds a shiny artifact silver saber (Grayswandir) on the stairs she entered by [...], picks it up (the default options pick up all items you come across), takes damage from touching the artifact (a 1 in 4 chance for an unintelligent crossaligned artifact like the lawful Grayswandir for a neutral Tourist; there are no intelligent artifacts capable of spawning there), and dies from the damage (around a 52% chance for a starting Tourist [...])

                It is written in the Book of The Lady:

                     After the Creation, the cruel god Moloch rebelled
                     against the authority of Marduk the Creator.
                     Moloch stole from Marduk the most powerful of all
                     the artifacts of the gods, the Amulet of Yendor,
                     and he hid it in the dark cavities of Gehennom, the
                     Under World, where he now lurks, and bides his time.

                 Your goddess The Lady seeks to possess the Amulet, and with it

@failbadp actually I was talking about mathematical generating functions as in combinatorics, but appreciate it.

@Mechko oh, sorry. :(

8:50 AM

Posted a response to your ITG deletion plan, @failbadp

I agree abandoned ITG are problematic, just be sure to not close ones which are likely still monitored

In other news, the moderators-only deleted:1 search option only matches self-deletions :(

so I can't see a list of what I deleted by adding that to the search string

and comments on deleted answers don't show in my activity log

to the 10k tools :/

So let's start with the list of questions I closed and deleted:

http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/13996/cant-remember-the-name-of-a-commodore-64-game-about-avoiding-sharks-in-the-water (unregistered user)
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/10388/an-old-macintosh-platform-game-closed (registered user, but inactive)
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8344/identify-the-airport-simulation-game-for-the-iphone-closed (registered and active user)
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/4405/identify-old-browser-based-space-colonization-game-closed (registered and active user)

9:33 AM

@Oak If you have a better plan I'm open to suggestions btw; just because I closed and deleted a question doesn't mean I can't undo it

hell, we should have enough 10kers to overrule a deletion without mod intervention, so if you want to handpick questions to be rescued be my guest

Not really, I just don't want to see monitored questions closed and deleted

Further, maybe it's best to close them, let them rest a few days, and then delete if nobody complains

Still, if someone asks a question and is monitoring it, there's no real reason to close it

It's still an open question from that person

Yes, but. One of the (few) saving graces of ITGs is, they help search engines connect those games with more search terms

...without an actual answer they do the exact opposite!

But that can be said about any question without any answers, can't it?

Those get deleted automatically as well, yes.

My 2c: I don't understand the advantage in deleting these questions. If they are allowed, they should stick about, right?

A month seems very short... this website is still growing, and people might come who can answer these questions.

9:38 AM

@GlenWheeler Questions get most activity in the first hours since they were bumped on the homepage

a month is actually quite a long time in a way, although I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less

@Glen I think the problem is when people do try to answer, but the OP is nowhere to be found so she won't be able to respond / accept answers and to clarify details according to them

at any rate the newest question matching the requirement right now is timestamped Jan 5

probably a testament to the quality of this community and the quality (or lack thereof) of those questions :/

OK. Well, just coming from the math.stackexchange site (which I conceded may be quite a different beast), it is fairly common to have new good answers to very old questions.

If they were deleted then this would reduce the usefulness of the site in my opinion.

@GlenWheeler See, the problem is that those questions aren't very useful on their own to begin with

Please notice I'm only speaking of identify this game questions here; I have no plans to extend this to other tags

@Oak That is a problem, but this also applies to all questions posed by inactive users, right?

9:42 AM

The problem here is that an unclear enough ITG is basically a game recommendation question

and an abandoned ITG is a game recommendation question

@failbadp with that I disagree

@Oak Well, it falls under the game catalogue kind of game rec. "I'm looking for a game with X, Y and Z, and I think it exists and I played one or saw it played"

I mean, a game-rec can be disguised as such by a malicious user; but there's a big difference when searching for an existing game

Consider catalogue game recs are "I'm looking for a game with X, Y and Z"

And you can also see that those questions are phrased differently

9:44 AM

Yeah, but the answers?

People remember more superficial things ("I remember the blobs were yellow") and less gameplay things

:/ sounds tough. I don't know if they should or should not be allowed (ITG questions) but if they are allowed, I would hold off on deleting them. But I'm not too emotionally involved with either side :). Just my opinion. (Checking out the chat page mostly.)

@GlenWheeler I also am usually against deleting content... but the question is, is there any actual content?

Sure, by closing and deleting I deny the possibility of those questions getting content in the future

(just like the automated pruning process does, although I think it gives a 6 months window to those)

@fail Well, it's a question and so it is just a receptacle for possible future content :).

@GlenWheeler What would make an answerer stumble on an ITG question?

Besides having it shoved in his face at the top of the homepage

Again, however. I am fine with more refined criteria, although they kinda make my life slightly more complicated.

9:48 AM

@failbadp Dunno. Maybe a google search with similar words "yellow raincoat men with meat hooks trying to cook me dinner" to the vague description of the question?

Do we want to exclude questions with 1 or less answers? Weigh in upvotes? Last visit? Registered'ness? Skip deletion?

@GlenWheeler Then you're an asker, not an answerer. Finding the question won't give you the answer. Effectively, the question is noise on the search results.

@failbadp Oh, sorry I misread your question.

Yes, I agree with you; for an answerer it seems that only if they went through "unanswered questions" or it came up on the homepage would they ever find such a thing.

Let me see how many people have ITG as interesting

69 followers, that's more than I thought

Since it has its own tag group, people who play/played a lot of obscure games can flick through them pretty efficiently....

Hey cool, I'm the best all-time answerer on ITG :) boast boast

9:51 AM

@Oak Well I did delete some high scored answers of @Powerlord's :/

@Oak congrats ;)

btw, you know, if an ITG does have a high-score answer

That creates a web-page that can have a very high value

Googling for game-related keywords will bring to a page with a (very) possible matching game

No accepted answer, OK, but accepted is useful for asker only anyway

It's a little annoying when there is obviously a good answer and the asker is gone or inactive and so has no hope of ever being accepted.

(As an aside.)

Yes, though that applies to other questions as well

There have been a few suggestions over at meta.stackoverflow.com about allowing users / mod to mark an answer as accepted, when it is obviously the correct one

All declined, though

@Oak That's still a game-rec

@GlenWheeler When the asker did chime in saying "yes, that's it" without actually putting a checkmark, I left a comment asking for an accept and left the question untouched

10:01 AM

@failbadp I still disagree :) plus, keep in mind that Google people will likely get to that page by searching an existing game (though, agreed, not necessarily the same one) and not for searching games by certain genres of features. I mean, looking at existing ITG, they don't remind me of game-recs. The titles sometimes do, the content doesn't.

10:12 AM

@Oak Okay. Alternative proposal?

I dunno

@failbadp Could you make Community check to see if a comment is left saying it's right?

10:50 AM

@RonanForman Sorry?

@failbadp you said people often just comment saying its correct but not actually accept it, could you do something to auto-accept answers with this comments or at least remind the user to accept it

@RonanForman Yeah, no, not even mods can do that

oh ok

@RonanForman a) I can't write code for the site b) There's no natural language parser that lets one do that reliably c) I can't change or set checkmarks

Its been brought up many times on Meta, the usual answer is that the green checkmark loses its value if its not the owner doing to accepting

11:20 AM

→ 2 messages moved to Gaming Blog Editor room

11:34 AM

0

Q: Can burning mobs set trees on fire?

I've built a tree house, it's going well, but I'm worried that mobs burning at dawn could bring the whole thing down in minutes. Is this possible?

1 hour later…

12:34 PM

0

Q: Alternative PS3 Controller for bigger Hands

My hands hurt when I am using the ps3 controller for longer than one hour. It is too small for my hands. Are there good alternative controllers I can use that are a little bit bigger? The xbox controller fits perfectly and I never have any problems when playing on a xbox.

1 hour later…

1:56 PM

0

Q: How gaining experience works in War 3

I see many players remove one hero from the creeping site in order to make another one get more XP. So I assume if the hero isn't within a certain distance from the kills, he isn't getting XP. But then sometimes players creep with regular units only, Hero being on the other side of the map harass...

warcraft-3-frozen-throne

1 hour later…

3:05 PM

0

Q: How do I downgrade Minecraft to play on a server running an older version?

How do I downgrade Minecraft to play on a server running an older version?

minecraft version-differences

3:19 PM

Video Game Cocktails

@GnomeSlice Heh, 11.

0

Q: Where does Civilization V prefer to place each civ at the start?

If I recall correctly, there are some preferences the game will take into account when attempting to place you on a random map, e.g. Aztecs will start near jungles, Egyptians will be in deserts, but I can't find those rules--what are they?

2 hours later…

5:03 PM

Protip: in sudden death, you can still capture points

which you should do if all the enemy has got is an engineer parked on the wrong side of the map with a sentry 3

oh lord, the STNO server has voice macros. I'm not sure I like that

> Downloading sound/stno/friday.mp3.bzp

^ "Zebesian" - Quaid2K

@NickT "Cheap Beer" :P

0

Q: Completing quests slowly in Sims Medieval to get better score?

In Sims Medieval, quest performance is measured by character's focus, and it accumulates over time (both positive and negative focus). When a quest is over (all of the quest steps completed), the accumulated performance score determines the quest result. This seems to imply that completing quest...

6:09 PM

gah. I dislike this math stuff

1 hour later…

7:22 PM

Surprisingly good game background

8:10 PM

0

Q: What do you like to program?

I find myself and other programmer friends getting caught up in the idea of "finding what they enjoy programming" and "what their passionate about." Some people have suggested math, games and mobile apps. But how did you find out? Maybe you don't have a favorite certain type of programming, and...

programming self-improvement math games passion

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Posted by Jeff Atwood on April 3rd, 2011

The latest version of the Stack Exchange Creative Commons Data Dump is now available. This reflects all public data in …

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LessPop_MoreFizz

8:58 PM

@oak, @failbadp Rather than Older than a Month for closure/deletion, maybe change to 1 Month since last activity (Be it an answer, edit, or comment?)

Since any activity would presumably bump it, we can accept that as an indication that it's not abandoned.

Nevermind comments do not bump a question's last activity date

LessPop_MoreFizz

@failbadp okay, my bad on 1/3. Point stands.

Questions that wouldn't have been close-deleted today:

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/13593/…

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/12507/…

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/17230/…

gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/15712/…

the next least active was bumped by Community Feb 28th.

plus, the sample question that I undeleted anyway for meta purposes

so, all in all, there's not much practical difference, it's just easier to keep those alive like zombies.

and there's a little less pressure perhaps.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Okay, done.

LessPop_MoreFizz

9:13 PM

Hooray.

Compromise!

@LessPop_MoreFizz Compromise between mine and what?

9:32 PM

0

Q: Are there users who do know have enough knowledge to identify the correct answers?

What kind of advice can the SO community offer to other stack exchanges regarding the following question: Level of questions? In summary, they are concerned that the users asking questions aren't knowledgeable enough to select the correct answer, so their body of answers becomes untrustworthy. ...

discussion stackexchange asking-questions

LessPop_MoreFizz

@failbadp @oak posted a comment basically asking for mercy for active but old ITG questions.

@LessPop_MoreFizz Yeah, that's the current solution

Although

what's the difference?

Until an answer is accepted, and for half of those this will never happen, these questions are always under threat of deletion

an edit can save them for a month (make that two checks if we check once a month and you're lucky)

10:31 PM

0

A: I'm stuck really far down on Minecraft, how do I get back to the surface?

If you're not abhorrent to a little cheating, if only to get yourself back to the surface, you should try TooManyItems (by "Marglyph"). After you get it set it, if you press 'O' on your inventory screen, you'll toggle a graphical list of every material in Minecraft. Clicking on one will give a ...

Is this answer admissible on Gaming?

3 messages deleted

Is it? I basically gave a link to a game mod.

I thought you asked because you explained how to cheat

Still

since it answers the question

since it's a single player only cheat (you're only cheating yourself)

in my book

it's fine

@failbadp It works in multiplayer too.

0

Q: Permanent upgrades in Desktop Dungeons?

I'm a little bit confused about desktop dungeons. Are there any permanent upgrades, or do I have to somehow get through all the game types using the base characters? Especially the snake pit seems completely impossible with weakened effect. Maybe I'm totally missing something trivial but it took...

desktop-dungeons unit-upgrades

0

Q: How are points calculated?

In Defense Grid : The Awakening how are points calculated? I defended all nucleus in many missions but never reached the needed score for best medal. How can I do more points?

scoring defense-grid-awakening

10:38 PM

But then again, only if you're a server op.

And they can use the /give command anyway.

eh. Good point.

you have my worthless green light

2

any other mod or any other six users can disagree and dock you 100 reputation

life on the edge, ain't it exciting?

@failbadp I'm exhilarated. I can never go back.

I've been having some trouble playing on my friend's sever yesterday and today.

Yesterday I thought it was just my laptop which was behaving so badly, I that I was going to have to reinstall Windows.

I appear to have managed to save the laptop, but the server is still unplayable, so I guess that wasn't it.

Any ideas, anyone?

I can log in, but if I try to send a message, I get about a 4 minute lag before it displays, and subsequent messages never display. Same deal if I try to place a non-generic block. The strange part is that if I disconnect, and then reconnect, everything that I had tried to do is instantly completed.

Other people have said they've seen the chat messages that I never see, so It seems to me like I'm the only one who the server isn't updating for.

11:00 PM

No idea honestly - did you disable updates yourself?

11:23 PM

Still don't get how the wrangler's shielding works

11:33 PM

@failbadp I tried updating it, updating Java, updating Windows, and nothing. I'm about to post a question about it with more detail, would you be terribly off-put if I asked you to read it?

@failbadp What about it? It reduces the damage the sentry takes to a third

It balances out the ability for an engineer to constantly bang on the sentry to keep it up in the face of fire, otherwise it would be a huge disadvantage against anyone trying to kill it

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Apr '113

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