MailBag - October 7, 2001
October 6, 2001
by Stephen "Blue" Heaslip

Mail is checked for spelling but not for grammar. Send mail for the mailbag by addressing it to mailbag@bluesnews.com.

Rant of the Week Seems like every 'gone gold' report on Blue's recently has been followed up a week later with either a 2-45 meg patch or an outright apology from the game makers for a botched release. Just scanning the headlines, it's crazy. A Real War patch a only days after release. The botched PoR installer. The woes with the AO patches. The complete unplayability of Operation Flashpoint Multiplayer (which I've experienced firsthand). Corrupt installers for Shogun Mongol invasion patches. It all definitely makes you appreciate the QA of the companies that get it right, and more importantly the companies that release widespread public demos BEFORE shipping the game. While it's nice that these companies are patching their games as quickly as possible, it seems like all these woes could be solved by releasing a public demo or beta a week or 2 before going gold. Stupid errors like the PoR installer, which can slip by QA easily enough, can't stand up to the scrutiny of several thousand unique installs. Personally, in light of recent launch debacles, I doubt I'll be buying a recently released game any time soon. It seems silly to have to adopt the 'wait for Service Pack 2' mentality for games as well as Operating Systems, but recent events definitely show what a virtue patience can be. Ryan Schneider Indeed, patience is a virtue. Except of course when playing whack-a-mole. But there will always be early adopters...

...Case in point Hi.. I would like to know if on Nov 15 I would have any sort of chance to purchase an x-box at my local Wal-mart?... Do u think its possible or should I just wait for a while after launch date?....... Thank you for your time. -Adam You got me Adam. I never pre-order and have walked in on some supposedly scarce buys on launch day. Then again, I don't even know if these are even planned, err, supposed to be scarce or not.

Pertinent, poignant, or at least not so suckful. Thank god for Hudson the Wonder Dog, because now Blue no longer has to come up with a few pertinent, poignant, or at least interesting sentences for Out Of The Blue. --Syncope I think you are over-rating Out of the Blue prior to the wonder dog's joining the Blue clan.  :)

I don't know about you but I personally don't have the enthusiasm to be playing games since 9/11. Is it just us old farts or simply the people I know or is it everyone that feels this way? -jonathan (j.c.f.)

And another thing... And while we're at it, it's bye bye from AMD. ISTR Cyrix becoming a non-factor in the CPU game shortly after switching to PR "performance rated" bullshit for their CPUs. Not only that, they've clearly sold their soul to Microsoft, a god damned Athlon XP of all things. And it's PR rated. Guess the next CPU is gonna be an Intel one -- that's of course after the 1.4GHz Athlon TBird for $99 gets here that I just couldn't resist, the fastest last "real" CPU AMD ever made I suppose. -jonathan (j.c.f.) Maybe it's my memory that's failing here... first there's a guy who implies that at one point Out of the Blue's were "pertinent, poignant, or interesting," and now you're saying that at one point Cyrix was a factor in the CPU world?  :)

Searching for "search!" fix your search engine.. how could you have that disabled.. - Ryan It wasn't disabled by choice really, it was causing the server to choke and needed fixing. Now it's enabled again, fixing it seems to have killed part of its functionality (it seems to be about as reliable as handwriting recognition was on Apple's Newton).

The Player I am honw with playing game in the internet how doing send to me e-mail You're that dude named "Player" that keeps shooting teammates with the flamethrower in the Return to Castle Wolfenstein Multiplayer Test, right? Seems like you're doing great so far...

That would ROCK!!!!!!!! Hey nice work on all of the Bluesnews logos you've been slappin' up on his site. RIGHTON!! You should do a DooM one from the original DooM. That would ROCK!!!!!!!! Well keep up the good work. <@>ReDEyE<@> As always, the logos are the work of Walter "2" Costinak of 2 Design, and while we've had a DOOM II logo, a classic DOOM logo is certainly not out of the question. Not to mention, of course, that it would ROCK!!!!!!!!

It's not HPB, it's HPW! Wassup! Yo Blue I just gotta say one thing before I get started.. I've been a fan of your site.. well since it STARTED, damn that's been along time. Anyway I would say I'm gonna rant but I'm not.. Y'all notice how many servers are out there that don't allow 200+ pings (HPBs nowadays) to play on them? What's up with that?? I know some people like Blue are lucky enough to have a fast connection.. Most of us normal gamers.. web masters, etc don't have the money to burn on a cable, DSL, ADSL, T1 etc. I am trying to get a faster connection (56k now.) But until everyone gets a good fast connection LET THEM PLAY ANYWAY, ill take on anyone whether their ping is 1/10th of mine. Ok so I did rant a little.. couldn't help it.. Cya Later Guys BLUE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!! [WU]**Tresh** AKA SYPHER999 Werd.

And then there's that damn dog... Hi, my name is Monica Marrero. Blue's Clues is very popular for young children, like about five and older. People love the show and whatever you do they will still love your show. What I like to know is, why Blue's Clues was made? If you need any questions about me, give me a e-mail. E-mail me at my mom's address: ******@yahoo.com. Love your friend Monica Thanks Monica... keep on watching.  Love, your friend Blue :)