StarTrek.com Shuts Down

I'm a Star Wars fan, but I've enjoyed my fair share of Trek over the years. Unfortunately the glory days of Trek are gone and CBS has deemed the StarTrek.com website unworthy.

Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team

Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately.

We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years.

If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com - we hope someone at CBS will read them.

Thank you for your loyal fandom over the years. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

Oh well, I never actually visited the site. However, in the day and age of EVERYTHING.COM, I find it weird to be talking about a major Sci-Fi .com shutting it's doors. Honestly, can it be that hard to make StarTrek.com into a profitable venture?

I Could, but I'm Tired

It simply isn't worth the effort. SOE caught red-handed.

Yes, I'm letting this one pass by.

Perfect Day

The Green Bay Packers won.
The Dallas Cowboys lost.

Oh, and I received my grades for the Fall semester. Another perfect 4.0. Once again, for the sports fans, that is a 4.0 cumulative GPA over four semesters.

The best part of this 4.0 is my Micro-Economics grade, which was hovering towards a high B, low A at the end of the semester. I needed a near-perfect score on my final exam to come away with an A overall. Fortunately, I owned the test like a fat chick on a twinkie.

Another Mythos Update

Mythos has just pushed another great update out the beta door.

FEATURES
* Guilds have been added! Speak to the Guildmaster in Tulin's Hope to start one at a cost of 5 Gold.

* Hardcore Mode has been added, for extra challenge! In Hardcore, when you die - your character is gone forever, so be careful!

* Elite Mode has been added. In Elite mode, monsters are faster, more aggressive, and tougher. Champions appear more often. You can only sell items for half of regular price.

- Note that Elite and Hardcore players cannot party or trade with players who do not match their setup, to preserve the economies of these different play styles.

* Re-specs are now allowed (although not in Hardcore or Elite mode) - speak to a Skillmaster in Stonehill or Tulin's hope. Re-specs are free from level 1 through 5, and above that, cost starts at 1 Gold and increases from there. There is a maximum of 3 re-specs beyond level 5

* Quests are now Trackable - check them in your log to view them onscreen at all times

* Maximum Questlog size increased to 8 quests.

* Hardware Mouse Cursors! This should make mouse response lightning fast. Hooray!

* Achievements system has been added - complete goals to earn equippable achievements that give you extra bonuses! Unlock a new achievement slot every 10 levels

* Emotes - there is an emote button above the chat pane that will show you the options

* Zivia's Puzzle Box!

* Party Finder – post your party and description and meet some new friends! You can also post yourself as looking for group to the list.

* Ignore List is now account-based and actually saves.

There is a bunch of other, smaller improvements as well.

Speaking of hardcore, Grimwell has started a Hardcore Challenge. Now, as mentioned in my comments on his site, I will probably be starting a hardcore adventure in World of Warcraft. However, with this update to Mythos, I am probably going to shift my plan of attack. I would much rather be part of a real hardcore mode than a self-policed hardcore mode. Plus, I want to get some more Mythos time under my belt!

CCP Tries To Explain Themselves: Fails

Dr. Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, EVE Online Software Group's director, has a lengthy post trying to explain the Best Bug Ever.

Shortly after releasing EVE Online: Trinity at 22:04 GMT on Wednesday, 5 December, we started receiving reports that the Classic to Premium graphics content upgrade was causing problems to players by deleting the file C:\boot.ini, which is a Windows system startup file. In some cases the computer was not able to recover on the next startup and would not start until the file had been fixed. In this dev blog I want to tell you how this happened.

He goes on to answer a few questions.

Why doesn't Windows protect its system startup files?
That's a good question, one that I have asked myself in these last few days and wish I knew the answer. But of course I'm not going to blame Microsoft for our mistake. Windows doesn't protect those files and therefore software developers must take care not to touch them. We should have been more careful.

I have to take offense to this answer. The question that needed to be asked: why was a file named the same as a critical Windows system file knowing full-well that EVE Online (like most games) will be played and PATCHED on an account with administrative privileges?

This could of been Linux and an fstab file with the same outcome; a PC that doesn't boot correctly. It baffles me that someone this high up in the company would even attempt to answer this question and state "I'm not going to blame Microsoft". I'm sorry, Dr. Erlendur S. Thorsteinsson, but it sure sounds like you are saying part of the blame goes to Microsoft.

Of course the answer to why the file was named boot.ini:

The answer is really "legacy"; it has been like that since 2001 when the file was introduced on the server and later migrated over to the client in 2002, so this file has been with us for over 6 years. We are reviewing all filenames and changing the name of any file that conflicts with Windows.

Or as I like to call it: lazy-assedness.

Reading through the comments, many EVE Online players are giving CCP props for full disclosure. Unfortunately, CCP really doesn't have a choice at this point in EVE Online's life with all the other drama that has swirled around the game.

The entire post details a breakdown of the most basic principals that guide any software project, from a Hello World! to Google. And I can't believe they DON'T have a single machine setup in their testing environment that mirrors what someone would be using at home (Windows XP installed on a single drive, game being played and patched on an administrator account).

All told, in the end, 215 users seem to have been affected. That is 215 too many.