| Postcards from the past
So much has happened in the last decade, and so much has changed along the way from The Village to The Zone to MSN Games. Even just visually, I can’t believe how different the site is now from the first time I saw it. Of course, change can be a really good thing, and that applies doubly to anything involving technology.
According to JMaiTai@Zone, when The Zone was very young, it ran on a single Mac. No kidding. Remember that this was long, long before we had 150,000 people logging in at the same time! So everything fit nicely onto a single personal computer, which was located under the main Zone programmer’s desk. The problem, of course, was that every time he stretched, he ran the risk of bumping the power strip and bringing down the whole site. (These days, MSN Games runs on multiple high-end servers, located in a secure room with backup power… it’s amazing how far we’ve come!)
It’s also fun to look back on some of the events and games of years past: there have been so many! Spicygumbo@Zone fondly remembers the days of Fighter Ace, a premium air combat game we used to host. When the game first launched, Fox@Zone would hold “Find Fox!” nights. If you could find him and shoot him down, you won a free month of Fighter Ace. Poor Fox was probably the most-sought-after air target since WWII.
Spicy also recalls the early days of Age of Empires, when so many of our coworkers were addicted to the game that they got overconfident and challenged everyone on the site to take them on. When the designated date and time arrived, so many players showed up that we had to open extra lobbies! And of course we got whomped something fierce… but that was just another excuse to keep practicing.
I should point out that chess legend Garry Kasparov also once challenged everybody on the Zone to play a game of chess with him. The difference, of course, is that he did not get whomped. (Note to self: before issuing a challenge to some of the world’s most die-hard players, make sure you’re really, really good at the game first!)
For Shine@Zone, the most fun has been watching what our players do over the years. A lot of dedicated “Zoners” have created their own websites, arranged real-world tournaments and gatherings, and even started online radio stations to appeal to their friends in the game lobbies. ZO radio, zradio, wildsideradio and others have served up many choice tunes to game by.
Of course, being a material girl, my own fondest memories of Zone days past involve some of our tournaments and giveaways. My favorite was the MechWarrior Meltdown, held at Gameworks here in Seattle. The competition was fierce, the games were displayed on a giant rack of overhead screens, and the grand prize was the most gorgeous Harley Davidson bike I’ve ever seen… it really made me wish I was A) eligible to enter, and B) even remotely good at the MechWarrior games, heh. Another really humbling moment was watching the final round at the Age of Empires Rumble for Rome. This was another tournament we held in Seattle, at the now-defunct Gamecenter (man, that place was fabulous). The big prize was a trip to Rome, Italy, and those last two players were absolutely determined to score it. I always thought I wasn’t half bad at AoE, but wow, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes against either of those guys!
(Spicygumbo reminds me that we also once gave away a year’s worth of free Omaha Steaks. Mmmmm… steak…)
Looking back, part of me can’t believe that it’s been ten whole years, but another part can’t believe so many fun things have happened. (I’m thinking that the two parts need to get together, share a latte, and work out some sort of consensus.) Of course, since we’re always planning new events and always looking for ways to improve the site, and since our players are apparently some of the most imaginative people in the world, I’m sure that in another ten years, we’ll have a lot more great stories to tell.
But I doubt that any of them will involve accidental system shutdowns because one guy forgot not to stretch. Thankfully, those days are long behind us. | |
| Tech Time
Today’s issue was sent in by an MSN Games player named John, who has a very good question indeed.
“Dear Moxie: After playing your web games for years on this PC, I can no longer get them to start when I click "play now". I have tried all of the recommended fixes and still nothing happens. I have changed no settings on my PC prior to having this trouble that started 5/30/06.”
Seems really weird, doesn’t it? Like, aliens-and-bigfoot-type weird. But no worries; it’s an easy fix. Many browsers these days include a popup blocker which is active by default, and popup blockers can prevent our games from loading. Here’s how to disable that function when you want to play!
- Open Internet Explorer (you are using Internet Explorer, right? Of course you are…)
- On the Tools menu, point to Pop-up Blocker. Click “Turn off Pop-up Blocker” if this option is available.
- Next, if you have Norton Internet Security™ software installed, you may have also installed the browser toolbar. By the Norton Internet Security™ toolbar, click the drop down menu arrow. If “Block pop-ups on this site” is checked, click to uncheck it.
- If you have the Yahoo!® Toolbar installed, click the Pop-up Blocker icon and click to uncheck “Enable Pop-up Blocker.”
- If you have the Google™ Toolbar installed, click the Pop-up Blocker icon to enable pop-ups. (Pop-ups will be disabled if the red circle with a line through it appears on the icon.)
- If you are using any other Internet security software that may prevent pop-ups from loading, view that software’s help file to learn how to enable pop-ups.
And that’s it. Commence to playing.
See you next week! | |
