it my hopes that with all the back lash they are getting that they will "give the fuck up". hey i don't mind G+ just don't force me to use it or my real my name. hopefully it'll all go back to the way it was and it will get easier for you and every one else and then maybe you might be able to get a little $ on side from your YT channel.

cdoublejj wrote:

hopefully it'll all go back to the way it was and it will get easier for you and every one else and then maybe you might be able to get a little $ on side from your YT channel.

Technically, I already do. The thing is though that while Blip will pay you when you have as little as $25 accumulated, YouTube waits until you hit $100. :P

The Google+ thing has come to a head for me. They now force (previously it was just strong encouragement) you to link your YouTube account to a Google+ account in order to comment. Even though you can create a dummy/secondary Google+ account to do this, it is still unacceptable to me because it seems to cause problems with XBMC's YouTube plugin.

Google+ is buggy. In IE10, it constantly stalls out my video watching experience and forces videos to leave full-screen playback. In fact, even on pages that don't have videos on them, if you stay on them long enough, there'll be a sudden freeze-up for 10 to 20 seconds after a few minutes of being on the page. Also, it can take 10 to 20 seconds just to load notifications and comments and such.

The most recent version of Firefox, the other browser I use, won't show my Google+ notifications because it doesn't think I'm logged into Google+ when I'm logged into YouTube... even though it's the exact same login and everything. On the plus side, video playback is working in it without stalling, so that's something at least.

Oh, and here's the icing on the cake: If you send private messages and such through YouTube, they still go to the old YouTube inbox and bypass your eMail settings for Google+ notifications, which was normal before the whole Google+ thing, but with Google+ going, you can't easily access your YouTube inbox. Essentially, you now have to track two separate places, possibly using two separate eMail addresses, just to stay up to date on what's going on with your YouTube status as a whole. >_>;

Something I've noticed over the years is that big name companies, in the name of innovation and "forward thinking", keep trying to redesign the wheel, rather than stick with what works, and end up making things harder to use 90% of the time. I don't think I'll ever understand the corporate need to spend money on useless tweaks that no one asked for, and then spend more money following trying to teach people how to use a system they already knew how to use until the company screwed it up by making it "better". :P

Then again, speaking as a programmer, you'd all be surprised how extremely few people making software solutions know anything about UI design... x_x;

The problem is that Google is run by engineers, and they all have pet projects that they want to hack on. As a result, they are always changing things in ways that are going to annoy significant numbers of users, while they completely fail at fixing obvious issues.

Gemini000 wrote:

Google+ is buggy. In IE10, it constantly stalls out my video watching experience and forces videos to leave full-screen playback. In fact, even on pages that don't have videos on them, if you stay on them long enough, there'll be a sudden freeze-up for 10 to 20 seconds after a few minutes of being on the page. Also, it can take 10 to 20 seconds just to load notifications and comments and such.

The most recent version of Firefox, the other browser I use, won't show my Google+ notifications because it doesn't think I'm logged into Google+ when I'm logged into YouTube... even though it's the exact same login and everything. On the plus side, video playback is working in it without stalling, so that's something at least.

Oh, and here's the icing on the cake: If you send private messages and such through YouTube, they still go to the old YouTube inbox and bypass your eMail settings for Google+ notifications, which was normal before the whole Google+ thing, but with Google+ going, you can't easily access your YouTube inbox. Essentially, you now have to track two separate places, possibly using two separate eMail addresses, just to stay up to date on what's going on with your YouTube status as a whole. >_>;

You and your devices seem to be encased in an invisible fortress of screwy-ness. There's always some odd unexplainable issue preventing you from using some specific application or performing some specific application, with nothing but some tenuous correlation to go on.

I've seen it before. You'll probably need to hire an exorcist, I'm afraid.

Gemini000 wrote:

you'd all be surprised how extremely few people making software solutions know anything about UI design... x_x;

That became rather clear when they switched to the "Load more" button for search results in place of fixed length pages.

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

you'd all be surprised how extremely few people making software solutions know anything about UI design... x_x;

That became rather clear when they switched to the "Load more" button for search results in place of fixed length pages.

Which BTW, makes it nearly impossible to press any of the buttons at the bottom of the page when scrolling down a video list, such as the feedback button for if there's a problem with the video list. :P

Another design annoyance are those auto-pull down menus on some sites. They fill a bar running along the page so it's difficult to avoid touching them with your mouse, and once you do it obscures the part of the page you wanted to click on with no obvious way of dismissing it.

Those are real annoying if you happen to hover over a margin where it'll shuffle the page back and forth....

Ancient DOS Games Filler #33 - DeluxePaint II Enhanced is online!

Considering I still use this program extensively, I felt it would be a good idea to cover it, but I didn't want to do just a dry feature-list sort of video, since that would be kinda pointless. Thus instead, I decided to do something practical with it! Well... OK, I'm never going to make the game I was coming up with on the spot, but I think it goes without saying that if I could do all that in under an hour with a mouse and without being a very strong graphics artist, then the software itself must have a ton of power behind it! ;)

Truth be told though, for modern stuff, old DOS drawing software can only get you so far. If I want to do things like alpha-channel work or high-resolution textures, then while I can prototype the things in DP2E, I still need to use more modern software to go further. :P

Great video. I didn't even notice that it was unscripted until you mentioned it at the end 😜 You should feel more confident about your live personality; I enjoyed this and the Worms video you did with phreakindee/LGR.

I have an older version of DeluxePaint II that came on 2 5.25" floppies. I remember it being a little more powerful than MS Paint, but not very useful to me because couldn't save in a useful format (just that .lbm format I think, and I don't even know what else might be able to read that).

Nowadays you can probably do a pretty good job with free stuff like Paint.NET or even GIMP, although they may not have the neat tile-friendly features.

You did a really great job of coming up with fonts in your Vectorzone mockups that look like those used in the old vector-based arcade games (Asteroids etc.).

Thanks! :D

I've long since lost my copy of DP2, as well as my original disks for DP2E, though because I used DP2E so exclusively it managed to survive as raw data across the numerous systems I've used over the years. There was a period of time between when we stopped using the Tandy system, followed by several moves for both of my parents, where I believe most of my losing disks occurred. Anything prior to that time (including my copy of the very first DeluxePaint) and anything after that time when I was smart enough to keep better track of my stuff, are the things that survived my childhood up to now. :P

DP2E supports saving to PCX files, which is what made it really good for game design stuff, in the DOS days themselves, however, I THINK (not 100% certain since again, no access to the program) that DP2 also has PCX support. DP1 definitely does not.

Also, believe it or not, the three fonts I made for Vectorzone are some of the simplest ones I've ever done. (I know the regular font and small font show up in the video, though there's also a narrow font that's half the width of the regular font.)

...also, the ship that showed up as the "Aeroblade" in the conceptual stuff is not actually the Aeroblade ship. XD

I really liked your DeluxePaint II Enhanced video. I had heard good things about the program before, but I had no idea it was so powerful! 😳

Heh, enjoyed this one a lot. I was more of an Autodesk Animator guy, which wasn't that far behind DP2E in terms of tools (especially the Pro version)... regardless, you've done a good job demonstrating a bunch of dedicated pixel-pushing features that today's "mainstream" graphics editing packages either lack, or don't implement even nearly as well.

Always cool to get a glimpse of someone else's work process too. (Shameless plug alert - I recently did something like that myself.)

HunterZ wrote:

Nowadays you can probably do a pretty good job with free stuff like Paint.NET or even GIMP, although they may not have the neat tile-friendly features.

Yeah, much like Photoshop they're pretty ill-equipped for that kind of stuff. Maybe give this a try?

Never really thought of .LBM as an obscure format. The viewers/converters I was using in DOS handled it fine (VPIC/QPEG?), and modern ones like XNView still support it... good luck getting palette cycling to show, though. :(

That space shooting montage so reminds me of working with Construct 2. The main difference is that you actually build the entire game in Construct 2 right there and then, hit the play button and your game comes to motion.

Shame such tools will never make be a good pixel artist 🤣

Ancient DOS Games Filler #34 - Super Amazing Wagon Adventure is online! :D

This game is... insane. When I first started playing it there were times when I lost because I was literally laughing too much at how ridiculous the various events in it were and not paying attention to the bullets flying into my party members. XD

I really don't think there's much I can say that can prepare you guys for this one if you don't already know what it's about. I'm sure the name immediately sparks thoughts of The Oregon Trail, but trust me, the only thing that game has in common with this one is wagons. (Plus I'm pretty sure The Oregon Trail is not predominantly a 2D shooter with blood effects.)

Also in HD because this game looks better that way and because I can do that now. :B

wait... shouldn't it be a MURDER of crows?

I guess the screen that just had the word Buffalo several times is a reference to the old English language trick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo … Buffalo_buffalo

I've seen SAWA before. Been meaning to pick it up if it ever goes on sale for a dollar or two (yes, I'm that cheap). Edit: Looks like I missed a $2 sale a week ago.

The best Oregon Trail-alike that I've seen so far is "Organ Trail", which is basically Oregon Trail re-imagined as contemporary zombie apocalypse survival horror.