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I have a friend that sold her 30,000USD engagement ring (after she dumped her fiance and he told her he didn't want the ring back) on eBay for 16,000USD to some guy in Spain.  The guy said he wouldn't just hand over that kind of money to her in "good faith" and that he'd put it in escrow and when he received the ring in the mail, the money would be hers.  You know how this story ended.

So ... did you change them back to your IDs and then change your FTP/remote access information so this "friend" has no further access to your code-base?  I'd also have him run a report on the channels he used for your site and get the stolen revenue returned to you.

Also you should report this abuse to Google.  No guarantee they'll ban his account (because it's just your word against his) but it couldn't hurt to try.  They have zero tolerance for abuse of the Adsense/Adwords networks.

I build security measures into my Ad sites to prevent this kind of thing.  I'm not going to tell how I do it, obviously, but it would be very difficult for somebody to "hack" them.

[give in to the dark-side]

Now ... and understand I am in no way advocating this ... what you could do if you wanted to be a vindictive prick and get this guy back.  You now have his Adsense ID/code ... take the snippet of code and drop it on a website with porno.  Once Google sees their ad network on a porn site they'll black-list him and ban him for life.

I am totally under-whelmed with the iPad (stupid name in the first place... but ... but it's like iPod with an A!!  Dumb).

I have an iPhone and I love it (AT&T aside).  It's a great gadget/toy that put some incredibly handy "tools" at my disposal. (Nacho, Lore, Sven and I made it from Zakopane Poland to Vienna using its GPS).  But this larger version just isn't worth it to me.  16gb is totally useless and forcing people to pay large sums of money to upgrade is a scam.  No memory slots for adding your own swappable memory, lame.  No camera, lame.  Less than HD resolution, lame.  I don't know ... it seems like a fail to me.

Don't get me wrong ... I love touchscreen technology.  I think it's just swell.  I do not, however, feel that it is the "way to go" in the future.  Putting everything on-screen has it's place but to those of us who develop on computers; can you imagine doing what you do without input devices like the mouse and keyboard? 

The iPad, to me, seems FAR more useful as a plug-in monitor for kiosks and the like.  Powered by a "base" computer someplace else but just a super-slim and sleekly designed touchscreen monitor.  Or "surface" technology like Micro$oft Surface (which, for WHATEVER reason, uses cameras rather than a capacitive touchscreen... why the holy hell they went that route I'll never know).  For now, I think this will fall on it's face.  But, if there's one thing Mac/Jobs is good at is marketing to the stupid people (IE hipsters) and making everybody think they need this thing. 

[giddy excitement]

Can you just imagine sitting in starbucks with your collar popped sippin' your mocha frappuchino with your legs crossed intentionally in the aisle so you can read your fancy iPad in plain sight of everybody that enters while you casually mention to anybody that's boring enough to listen that you went to Europe last year?

[/giddy excitement]

Italy is perfecto by me!

That place AGA linked to looks freakin' sweet too! 

Looks like it's not too far from Roma either (and I have to visit Rome).  I'm sure some of the Bastogne road-trippers wouldn't mind making a day(or two)-trip into Rome (or anybody that is interested of course)!

I am planning a trip to Holland/Germany in late September but before that my dates are completely open as well.  Barring some major shit going down in my world I wouldn't miss it for anything!

You mean the story for Avatar was similar to another existing story?

No way?

Conan who?

The Barbarian.

He destroys his enemies and listens to the lamentations of the women.

Xenogia - please do not dig up threads that haven't been posted in over 90 days.

AJA - thanks for the update.

I'm not sure if any of the hostility was directed at me (and if so then ) but I just felt the need to clarify that I am not opposed to showcasing AGS game characters (new, old, legendary, whatever).  I just don't feel they should be around the logo.

As for the new blue cup logo ... I really thought it was a nice thing!  It felt very fresh while still showing that it was a blue cup.  I felt that for new users it could be "this is modern software and is awesome and smooth" and for those of us that remember the past of the program would still make the connection.

** shrugs **

I certainly wasn't trying to cause problems!

I have no doubt that micro-organisms have/do exist on Mars and that intelligent life is possible elsewhere. But intelligent life landing on Mars and carving a big rock that looks like a face from one of Le Woltaire's games - hardly likely!

I'm not so sure about this ... I mean, scientists have said frequently that if mankind (or all life) were to vanish from the planet (or go extinct) that in millions of years quite possibly the ONLY thing left that showed we were ever here would be the pyramids.  So who knows?  Maybe Mars had some kind of life in the past that could have carved a face into a mountain (mt. rushmore).  Even billions of years on it could possibly still be there if it were not in a tectonically unstable area.  Mars' core is dead/solid so there are no active plate tectonics to make mountains rise and fall.

Now, having said that, do I think that's a face on Mars?  No.  I do not.  But I am open minded to the possibilities!!  

Snarky - excellent suggestion!  I love the Hobo font(s).

Tried a few differing styles here:

1. flat
2. slight bevel
3. same as 2, but softened
4. subtle drop-shadow
5. more dynamically colored

I, lately, am lovin' the simple/flat look (like #1 or #4) but this is just my personal preferences.  I like the look of the last one, but it causes a clash with the simple shape of the cup I think.

I think if they can provide concrete proof of life on mars (even if only billions of years in the past) that it'll be one of the most significant discoveries in the history of man-kind.

Proof of extra-terrestrial life?  Can you just imagine?

Even if it's not the intelligent ones that fly over m0ds' house at night, it will be a game changer!  Hopefully then it'll get the lazy dolts in congress off their fat arses and spur them into action on the space program.

PS
Mark you know I love ya man!

I like the bottom one the best.  What do you think about painting over it with some highlights and lowlights to give it some more depth and pizzazz?

It has a slight bevel/emboss on it ... perhaps make it a tad stronger and more noticable?

Why not use it in some places, and then have a little "What's up with the goofy-head guy all over the site?" question in some FAQ or About or maybe even the main page?

I've said it before, I'm not opposed to putting something in the header area that contains AGS history/relevance.  I just don't like it being in/around the logo!  There's space up there for many things.  I just don't feel a "banner" as the site/forums have now will work in the new design but there are many other alternative solutions we could try!

I like the progress that is being made, but is this really the best way to design a website? If it's all going to so micro-analysed over and over, it won't ever get done! If we just choose one person who volunteers to do it, shows a decent mockup and is willing to do the whole thing?

Yeah ... it's odd because, on a business level, I'd refuse to work like this (with so much input that the process takes months).  But I am enjoying this ...  I think we're really hammering down what it needs to make it primo for AGS.  However I do agree that, at some point, we just need to say enough is enough and go with something or we'll just keep battin' around new and improved ideas!  If there's one thing I've learnt it's that after you've looked at something for a few months it starts to feel old to you and you get the urge to improve even if it doesn't need it!

Well you could always try something like Gourmet Game Studio or Gourmet Entertainment or Gourmet Game Entertainment.  Something like that.

I don't mind the reference to the Matrix, personally.  I loved the first (and only the first) of the trilogy.  Maybe, instead of "There is no Spoon" it could be something else like No Spoon Games, No Spoon Studio, Spoonless Games, No Spoon Needed or No Spoon Entertainment.

As odd as it may sound I'm a fan of picking a company/corporate name that has a fun-to-say acronym.  There Is No Spoon = TINS, Gourmet Game Studio = GGS, etc.  Because, inevitably (as with AGS) you end up referring to it by the acronym!

Where can I get some of whatever it was you smoked ingested?

I, too, prefer the cup on the right side ... for some reason it just fits for me. 

Here is some more ideas with the old/new font:

Here were some ideas I was tossin' about in my head:



The last one would require a slight update to the top of the new design (which I think wouldn't look good) but I just wanted to throw it in there.  Also, this is using a [recreated version of] Loom's cup silhouette concept which I just freakin' love but I'm also down with a pixellated cup similar the one progZ made.  I just favor this style so that's why I used it.

I've only briefly skimmed over this thread ... but I wanted to drop in and offer my $.02

First, if you make the game so there are only doors on one side of the corridor I doubt you'd have players questioning it.  While in the real world it doesn't make sense, in a game environment most players would never even consider it odd.  However, I'm with you.  I try to keep things very "real" like that too.

My suggestion would be to make it so that there are no "objects" floating inside the doors you open.  It's okay to have the doors on both sides of the corridors (and I really dig your game's style by the way) but having doors open only to reveal an object seems odd to me.  Make it so they must enter the room.  If you do it in this way you could use the transparent door idea (which I'm a fan of).

Something like this (forgive the change of style and resizing of the character):



The door itself could be an easily reusable object that animates open and then you can enter the room.  This might create many more rooms (if you have planned many of these doors with objects inside them) but you could always create one generic room and just change the little details of it as needed to make many rooms from one template.

This was just my thought and please forgive me if I completely misunderstood your intentions

While the perspective on this is close enough to not jump out as "wrong" ... there are still some major issues that can be easily cleaned up.  The thing that made me notice it most was the top most corner of the bed.  It was either sticking way out from the wall, or was in the back corner, but the other lines of the bed don't support either possibility.

It appears as if you're using a single-point perspective, so with that in mind:



The perspective is all over the place ... it's close, but could easily be snugged-up a bit.



I established one single vanishing point and connected all objects (that I recreated) to that VP.  This also puts more of the door on the screen which, if it's your only in/egress for the room it should be more visible (I think).  This only took me about 10-15 minutes and I wasn't worrying too much about size/scale.  I just wanted to illustrate my idea.

Anyway ... you are making improvements, thought I'd just try to help out a bit more!

Excellent tutorial (and the English was just fine).

We actually have a very similar style of BG production.

Anyway, good work.