Rendering Quality is too general. And general is simpler, and simple is user-friendly, but there are better ways of implementing it. Take Second Life, for example, with its (customizable) presets of graphic settings.

My hardware is old and my wallet is empty (thank you, ex-fiancée!), and I bet I’m not the only one with those two issues, so perhaps it would be a good idea for the Blue Mars devs to consider increasing the level of customization in this regard. Unless they want to keep dirt-poor people like me out of their community, which wouldn’t surprise me – not because they’re mean, but because it seems they’re taking a very … exclusivist approach with their high community standards. Have you tried signing up as a developer? It’s rather frightening, yet promising. But I digress…

C:\Documents and Settings\Pablo\My Documents\My Games\BlueMars\game.cfg

Open it with your favorite editor and go to line 32, where you’ll find something like this:

By default, it runs at 1280×720. You can pick the resolution you wish, but the aspect ratio MUST be 16:9, otherwise things gets distorted. Here’s what I ended up with:

I changed the resolution to 960×540. Anything smaller would make the text illegible for me. But that was the only way I found to increase my FPS to… like, 10. Furthermore, I lowered some of the other graphic settings by replacing the 3s with 1s, as you can tell on the picture above. Apparently, Blue Mars reverted a couple of them on the following execution, but most stuck.

For my particular configuration of hardware, this modification turned the unplayable Blue Mars odyssey into a semi-playable educational experience. It allowed me to walk, run, figure out the camera and navigational controls (which are rather bizarre) and chat with some other members.

In conclusion, you need to buy all of this many times so I can buy a new computer!

1. I’m a drug addict.
2. I’m too poor to afford a real Rolex.
3. My penis is small.
4. But that’s not enough, because I also suffer from severe erectile dysfunction.
5. I can speak Russian.
6. I’m obese.
7. I need to get laid. (so true)
8. My Visa card was used recently through an ATM in Armenia.
9. I’ll be rich after I help Ibrahim Mustafa transfer a very large amount of money.
10. I need a fake diploma “because I deserve it”.

:(

As you noticed, we’re building a new website. At the time of this writing, it’s about half done, even though it looks more complete than that.

This has been quite a turbulent oddysey because…

• HTML — I learned HTML 11 years ago and never really used it.
• CSS — No idea about that.
• PHP — I don’t know PHP. Though, admittedly, this task has been easier because of my experience with other programming languages.
• Graphic Design — Since our official graphic designer (Ed Bumstead) is too busy with -guess what- jFlash II (!!!), I’ve had to take the design of the website into my own hands. I picked this theme and have been modifying it until hints of blood appear in my eyes. Keep in mind I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. So I’ve had to learn to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Ed, if you don’t like this website you can <censored> my <censored>. Just kidding. I love you passionately.
• Deadline: Unlike most of our work, I actually have a deadline on this. The main reason for this site to be renewed and “glammed up” is the main assignment of a class I’m taking in college: E-Commerce.

Yeah, ok. But… what the hell is up with all these random banners?

I’ve always wanted to make funny, random and catchy ads. Since we’re keeping the site ad-free (because we hate ads as much as you do), I thought dynamic banners were the right way to channel this idea of mine. In the future, we might set up an ad system of our own but will be very selective and will only accept super awesome ads that at least get a chuckle out of you.

So these banners will appeal to many types of humor, philosophy and ideology (i.e. famous quotes), and good causes. Clever ideas are welcome! There’s only so much our slogan (”Do it right.”) can be adapted to.

Now, let’s click “Publish” and see how this unordered list looks on a post…

From now on, most of our products will support various languages.

Depending on the product and its target-market demographics, it will support some or all of the following languages:

• English (duh)
• Spanish (Te amo!)
• French (Je t’aime!)
• Italian (Ti amo!)
• German (Ich liebe dich!)
• Dutch (Ik hou van je!)
• Portuguese (Eu te amo!)

What about Asian languages?

We might support them in the future, but not now.

Will you update old products to include localization support?

While our proprietary API (that sounds so cool) is fairly easy to implement to existing products, it’s a long process that involves many people: designers, programmers and translators. As of this writing, we’re focused on new projects. So it might be a while before we consider “localizing” the rest.

Click picture for product page.

It all started on the 17th of July, 2008. A warm night it was. As the wind blew the leaves over the steaming pavement… I found myself blowing cigarette smoke over an ancient computer tower. I heard a screetching noise, somehow similar to that of a …

Who cares? jStats is OUT! Buy it right now or else… I will decline the offer to bear your children.

In other news, jadSOFT recently (and finally) updated its vendor network to the latest version of HippoVEND. Sometimes, people find exploits for this “in-world vending” software, some of which allow attackers to gain access to certain products without a prior purchase. Stop stealing our products, assholes.

BIG, LEGIBLE VERSION: Right-click and "Save Link As…" or "Save Target As…" or whatever your browser uses to save the destination of a link to your harddrive!

Please, excuse me while I laugh my <censored> off! That’s hilarious! Prad Prathivi did a clever and amusing job with that.

Notice the keys 6 and 7 on the left. Well, notice the buttons where the numbers 6 and 7 would be if it were a normal keyboard. “TRAP AVATAR IN SPAM TIN” and “TRAP AVATAR IN KFC BUCKET”!!!! Exousia prevails!

Speaking of which, as some of you have heard, Exousia 2.0 is about 65% complete.

Finally, after being slowed down by the funny turns of life, I had some time to work on this thing.

So what’s new? Higher commission, as most of you already know, free entrance (no need to fill tedious applications anymore!) and a set of prims and textures that will help you enhance the look of the area where you place jadSOFT vendors. Make sure you grab your copy here!

P.S.: Laugh at http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

Almost 90% of the developers I surveyed provide their merchants or affiliates with a 20% commission on their catalog[ue] vendors. So, you might be wondering, “why the hell does jadSOFT give me only 15% ?! Assholes!”

Wonder no more! The commission has been pushed to 20% for all products and all vendors!

Also, there are rumors people are having a hard time interacting with the Merchant Package Updater; which, I must admit, is not surprising, considering there is no way to interact with it. Just leave it in your server rack, box rack, girlfriend’s rack, or anywhere else, and it will automatically hand you any necessary updates. This means you don’t need to stay in the jadSOFT Merchants group in order to receive new updates. HOWEVER, for now, you do have to replace the updater after every update. We’ll work on a more automated process… maybe.

As you might’ve noticed, I haven’t been very active for the past two months. I’ve been through several real-life difficulties (none of them involving sex with animals, or alien abductions,) which have slowed me down a lot. Unfortunately, I won’t really have much time until I a) win the lottery or b) marry an old, rich lady or c) get my head together and recover my previous productivity levels. Or d) receive a miraculous donation from a stranger (hint.)

Having said that, I believe it’s time to “open” the Merchant Program. No more stupid applications, no more groups to join, no more WASTING TIME! From now on, When I get off my arse, I’ll set up a free Merchant Package dispenser at the stores, and turn on the Open Enrollment feature on the group.

You might be asking yourself: Why do I care? I’m already a merchant!

Well, smartass, if for some reason you leave the group and lose the updater, you will have an easy way to recover your dignity. Er. I mean, to recover your vendors.

Anyhow! It’s time to get back to my 1337 scripting time! Buh-bye!

-jad

Despite all my knowledge and experience on webservers (choosing the right software, compiling it, configuring it successfully, installing modules, etc.), I’ve never actually ran a website. Not to mention, I lack an artistic bone in my body, so making my own design is out of the equation.

Finally, after much thought and research, I’ve decided to go for Wordpress as a CMS (Content Management System). Essentially, this means the website will be kept simple, and you won’t see any fancy flash stuff or forums or crap like that. It’ll be a… hmm… blog and product showcase.

At the time of this post, I haven’t even finished editing some of the defaults of this setup, so don’t bother trying to find anything else here yet.

And, I’m writing a lot only to see how the theme fits a long post, yanno? I might as well just flood it with a useless pattern:

jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT jadSOFT

Thank you for your attention. Har har.