Category: Gaming

21 Years of Steam

If that’s not a cringey Steam profile, I don’t know what is. I’d like to say I registered for Steam on dial-up, but looking back on posts from 2003 just before I signed up*, it was either my first FTTH line (NTT 100Mbps service on a Japanese island 20 years ago!), or Dual ISDN (128 kbit/s and more expensive than the FTTH, if I remember correctly).

I was one of the only Dual ISDN subscribers on Awaji Island according to the techs who installed it. After I upgraded to FTTH and they came by for maintenance, they said I had the fastest hikari (fiber) connection they had seen, as well. I can’t remember all the tweaks we were using, but there were software configs as well as hardware hacks and accessories. Ironically, in those infant days of broadband speed tests, some cable internet company in Yokohama often had the highest scores on the leaderboards!

It was interesting over time to see where broadband expansion flourished. Korea was the leader for a long time. Back home in the states, it was sad to see how slow both the rollout and speed of FTTH was, and how corporate monopolies and weak legislation resulted in terrible service for almost everyone. Over here in Thailand, things took off five or so years after I got here. My very first FTTH provider here was a neighborhood kid who hacked together his own DSLAM in his house (his main cost was keeping the equipment from overheating, he would leave the aircon on all day) and strung lines for subscribers all over the gated community. Back then, almost nobody had a computer (net cafes were in their heyday), but damn, that kid had a sharp business mind (and a miserably hot St. Bernard named Tang Mo). I still see that kid around sometimes; I’m pretty sure he’s running several businesses around town.

*Steam apparently launched on September 12, 2003. I registered within the first month, and a few million users had registered by the end of the first year, according to Reddit. The reason I got on Steam in the first place? To make playing Counter-Strike easier! I never would have thought it would still be so popular (and basically unchanged).

Cheat Overwatch

Yesterday I sat down and played Ghost Recon Breakpoint, a game from around 5 years ago that I picked up on the cheap at the recent Steam Summer Sale. I was getting into the campaign and decided to try a multiplayer match before I went to sleep.

The format was a 4 on 4 team elimination game and I got beamed at the end of the first round trying to revive a teammate. Before the next match, another teammate indicated in the chat that I should just camp until I figured out how to play. So I crouched behind cover near an objective that popped up mid-match and waited until I heard footsteps. An enemy player stated activating the surveillance thingy at the objective. I waited until he was halfway done, and then peeped around cover and unloaded a burst into his head… And then he turned around and saw me. I still had the drop on him, so I emptied the entire clip at him. I could see most of the shots hit, but he still didn’t go down – what the hell!?! So I retreated back behind a container and started reloading. Meanwhile, a new message from my last remaining teammate (and tactics sensei) popped up in chat: OH! CHEATER!

I went the other way around the container, finished reloading, and peeked again. The enemy I had shot had pulled a pistol and was walking to where I had been before. I lit him up again, again to no effect. At that point, I gave up and was downed by the rest of the enemy team, who had converged on the area. My view changed to my remaining teammate’s POV. He stood completely still for a few seconds as if AFK, and then charged into the fray. From that point, it turned into something completely different, and it became clear that my teammate had activated cheats of his own when he was standing still, because he managed to eliminate all but the cheater on the enemy team, but had absorbed hundreds of rounds while doing so. It turned into a stalemate between two cheaters in god mode who could not be killed by other players or the shrinking boundaries of the map, and the round eventually timed out.

While we were watching this increasingly tedious match between cheaters, I chatted with the other players and asked if cheating was common in this game. They told me it was generally just a few well-known players who cheated, and that most people immediately dropped from games if they saw their names. I said it was too bad because the game seemed fun, and everyone agreed. After the round timed out, everyone except for me dropped, and my team won the next round and the entire match, by default… Victory!

So that game (specifically the multiplayer aspect), which otherwise seems really polished, has been completely ruined by cheaters… and yes, the cheaters were typical enough to spam CHINA NUMBER 1 in the chat several times, so either they were paying for time in a gaming cafe to ruin other people’s online fun, or it was a false flag operation against the estate of the author of the Hunt for Red October. Either way, fuck those cheaters.

Solution: The FINALS Error Code TFAV1012

It seems that EAC doesn’t like any hardware changes, because after I turned XMP on in BIOS, I started getting this error and others that caused crashes on startup and even during matches.

“An internal anti-cheat integrity check failed.”

I don’t cheat, and neither do many of the others seeing this message. However, it does seem to be triggered by hardware profile changes, and this solution (among many, including verifying file integrity in Steam, reinstalling the game and Easy Anti Cheat software, and granting EAC programs Full Control) was the only one that worked for me:

  1. Quit the game
  2. Rename this folder in Windows: Users/your user name/AppData/Local/Embark
  3. Rename this folder in Windows: Users/your user name/AppData/Local/Discovery
  4. Restart your computer

You can easily open the AppData folder by typing %AppData% in your Windows search bar, or typing the same into the Run dialog box after pressing Windows key and R at the same time. If that doesn’t work, you may need to enable the Hidden files option from the View tab under Show/Hide section of an open window.

Happy fragging!

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Pokeween

It hath begun here in Thailand, where friendly spirits are mostly known for revealing winning lottery numbers and having extremely long arms.

UPDATE: Buddy candies are being quadrupled by decreasing walking distances 75%. Incense now attracts mostly Haunter and Gastly. Indeed, Pidgey and Rattata and other common mons seem to have been replaced by these types.

Top Trio

Hatched two Snorlax last week from 10km eggs, and caught the third on the way home from school today. Nam and Mina got one a piece, as well. Mina actually started crying when Max and I got ours (the kids play on our phones) because her phone was at home, so we went and got it, then rushed back to the spawn point. It all worked out in the end.

Pokemon Go in Thailand – Day 7

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ”  – Alvin Toffler

If Pokemon Go is ultimately not about leveling up or hoarding imaginary kawaii creatures, perhaps it’s about searching for something. And as in life, the most demanding searches are sometimes rewarded with the best results. Playing a game in a deserted virtual world in anticipation of others coming to join me, then, should result in me winning the Thai lottery. Amen.

Pokemon Go in Thailand – Day 6

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Nintendo and Niantic have apparently abandoned plans for release in Asia anytime soon, as rumored this week. Sales of lao khao and other paint-stripping beverages skyrocketed when the news broke on IGN:

“The team is currently heads down working on the game. We do not have any announced plans for countries beyond New Zealand, Australia, US and Germany at the moment.” -Chris Kramer, Vice President”

(for my Thai readers: “heads down” is Farangspeak for “sleeping”)