shouldn't every joke have limits?

[DGMacphee]

It took you guys long enough!

Now, we just gotta wait till the Laura Bow thread is locked and peace will flower upon the world!

[Pumaman]

This is a valid point, so thanks for bringing it up.

I did actually take a moment to think about whether it should refuse to start, or just give you the message and then load anyway.

I was in a bit of a mischevious mood at the time, and I was also going to add a similar thing for after 9pm on New Years Eve, and also for the 1st April. But, I thought that adding all three of them would be taking it too far, so I settled on just the Christmas joke.

I was careful not to add anything like this to the game engine - after all, people should always be able to play your games, whenever they want.

However, I thought that it would be a bit of a laugh to prevent people working on their games on Christmas Day. After all, it's one day a year to sit back and relax, why not use it as such. And of course, if you really want to make your game anyway, you can adjust the system clock.

How would you feel if your operating system just chose some random day in the year on which it would not start?!

That's not a fair comparison at all, though. There are plenty of reasons why you'd quite reasonably want to use your computer on Christmas Day.

I equate the AGS 'feature' to if Microsoft put a similar thing into Visual Studio, where it wouldn't allow you to compile anything on 25th December. And I think that would be rather funny, and fair enough.

I'm advising pumaman to limit his jokes to silly unworking options or even although the regular boardies will stay, many others will leave.

Thankyou for your advice, however it seems from other peoples (sometimes rather emotional) responses that this isn't necessarily the case. And if somebody did stop using AGS because of this 'feature', then that's their choice and they're free to do so.

also i do hope I'm talking here with highschool/college people and not adults. (not that high/college people cant be adults but they're allowed to be non-adults too)

I'm sorry, what? Because I'm a guy who works for a living, you don't want me to reply in this thread?
I am terribly sorry, please ignore my post.

[Robert Eric]

My god, you are funny, Marcus.  No one has made me laugh like this in years.  Your ignorance alone kept me rolling on the floor laughing for a full hour.

[Captain Mostly]

I'm interested to know why:

"its wrong to deny people the right to use a product and label it as a joke"

I think that the fact there's an apostrophe missing in the quoted sentence is "wrong". In English we use apostrophes to point out where we've dropped letters (or to denote posession).
Notive how I've used an apostrophe to point out the absence of " ha" in the phrase "we have"... Indeed, I've used one to point out the hidden presence of " ha" in the phrase "I have" twice now!

This is my justification for suggesting (in a friendly way, naturally) that you work out your punctuation because it's wrong.

I'd apreciate if we were given a similarly backed up explanation of why it's "wrong" to deny people the right to use "a product" (is AGS a "product"?)

[Simple]

Can I just say that this is the greatest thread I've seen since I've come back to the boards?  As much as the Dec 25 joke is funny, the conflict in this post is just unbearably hilarious.

[Robert Eric]

That swaying text thing is cool, especially when you hover the mouse over it.

[Alynn]

(is AGS a "product"?)

In the expression 3 * 4 = 12...

12 is a product.

[TheYak]

Very amusing thread.  I think if there was any oversight or crossing of boundries, it has its root in the fact that not everybody celebrates Christmas.  A better method may've been to give the notice with a subclause stating that if you didn't celebrate Christmas or if you were anti-social, you could change your system clock or hit Alt-I-H-A-V-E-N-O-L-I-F-E to continue.  Either way, I think it's a damned good joke and am sorry that people anal-retentive enough not to find it amusing feel the need to gripe and moan about it.  

Marcus, you twit, haven't you learned that there are no magic words in a proper debate?  Resorting to informing people that they are brainwashed/immature/stupid/unwilling to listen to your point-of-view, doesn't mean that you've validated your opinion.  You've merely managed to deflect proper questions and answers.  If you'd posted to let the community (and CJ) know that you didn't appreciate the joke and wanted to know if anyone shared your opinion then it would've been accepted differently.  If you'd politely asked CJ not to include this bug/feature in future versions then at least you would be considered.  I certainly hope that this doesn't dissuade CJ from throwing other easter-eggs into future versions (easter-eggs being one of the best parts of adventure games).  

[Timosity]

This is the first time I've read this thread, It's pretty silly too, I can't believe it's gone this far, and I'm actually dissappointed AGS didn't wish me a happy new year, I loaded AGS just to see if it would before I read this thread and was let down.

Oh well.

I'm sure people will live on for the other 364 days of the year, I'm glad Redrum pointed out the Easter Egg a few weeks before so I could test it out cause otherwise I wouldn't have known about it seeing as I didn't switch the computer on on Christmas, well untill 3 days later when the rest of the world caught up to christmas.

I can't recall in this thread anyone else being offended as much as Marcus, oh well, I guess there's always one, and always pleanty of people who like to keeps these things going, It's all just Entertainment.

Thank you Marcus for creating this thread (This is not sarcastic [I think])

[Paper Carnival]

How would you feel if your operating system just chose some random day in the year on which it would not start?!

Actually, that happened twice to me . It wasn't fun... Bill Gates went too far with that joke  

also i do hope I'm talking here with highschool/college people and not adults. (not that high/college people cant be adults but they're allowed to be non-adults too)

I'm 15, so what? Does that make me too young to post here? Or does it make me unable to change my computer's date? I knew how to do that back to the older days when I thought that renaming .bmp to .jpg would automatically turn the bmp into jpeg (that was a loooooooong time ago ).

I think that the fact it doesn't allow you to use the program is what makes the joke really funny. I believe that you are the one who goes too far... I agree with you that some people might get offended (as this joke actually calls AGSers "lifeless nerds"), but do you really have to take that seriously? I didn't.

And yes, maybe you really wanted to work on AGS at Christmas, but as it was said a lot of times before, ppl can just change the date. If they don't know how to do it, then they probably (but not necessarily) can't even use AGS. Oh, and I don't think that the joke was enough reason to make somebody quit AGS.

PS I think it would be really funny if you started AGS again and it said something like "Okay, if you insist.... NERD!" and then it worked...  8)

[InCreator]

after reading messages on page 2:

to MillsJRoss: "Amen!"
to DGMacphee: "Amen!"

after finishing rest of the thread:
Oh guys, what's the point discussing something so pointless here? Do something useful instead, like an adventure games or something...
Oops, I'm guilty too now...

[Jodo Kast]

Just think of all the Easter Eggs people never find!  

[Gilbert]

Hehe that's funny, at least this free programme told you why it won't work that day, which is different from some expensive commercial OSes which won't explain about their failure...

* Gilbot V7000a calls in Little Willy, ANDY P3N1S, Nigel Manning Smith to the party!

[InCreator]

sooo easily offended, aren't we?
I'd understand, if AGS displayed a message:
Surprise! A cleaning was performed in your messy computer! Merry christmas!
...and formatted whole hard disk...

Actually, I think that raping AGS, the joke, CJ and marcus is enough already.

[Bugalicious]

well lets c here. i have accually read the entire thred of this post but hey. AGS is a free programs that according to u's dont work on xmas day. that means 1 out of 365 days that it doesnt work. Other programs require you to pay for there full use. otherwise you'll get a 30 day trial (most of the times anyway). that means  335 days out of 365 u have to pay for it. and usually features are disabled during the 30 days that u get free. AGS has all feature enabled 364 days of the year. GET OVER IT. i could do more maths but i dont think so

[Nacho]

I think I can talk because I´ve met CJ personally in Mittens...

I firstly was a little suspicious about him, you know, that jokes that the people does about him (CJ=JC and all the stuff...), I was afraid about him being some kind of SuperEgoMan or something.

Actually he was silent, quiet, allways seemed to be thinking in something... But when he talked everybody listened, he has some special charisma and a very sharpened sense of humour, one of the funniests I can remember. I respect him, 1% as a AGS programmer and 99% as a friend and buddie...

Now... knowing his sense of humour... Can Markus and CJ to agree in making this thread together?

[Goldmund]

I think I can talk because I´ve met CJ personally in Mittens...
I firstly was a little suspicious about him, you know, that jokes that the people does about him (CJ=JC and all the stuff...), I was afraid about him being some kind of SuperEgoMan or something.
Actually he was silent, quiet, allways seemed to be thinking in something... But when he talked everybody listened

Eh, that was just because we were paranoid about getting trojans in AGS's runDLL at that point.

[Ali]

oh and just to clarify : this isnt a troll or a flame if you can't figure it out yourself  

If this isn't a troll OR a flame, how do I get the magic axe from the enchanted laundry?

And also AGS is free! The last thing I got for free was a cold, though I admit that was working on Christmas day. You know what they say: Don't look a gift horse in the easter egg.

[LordHart]

What the... this thread is still going?