Lycos Europe is finally shutting down its Tripod.co.uk servers on February 15. If you’re still using the old address (members.lycos.co.uk/localditch/) to get to this website, then please update your bookmarks and links to https://www.localditch.com.
I’ve been working on a Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries Walkthrough/Strategy section, so expect that to pop up in a few weeks. There’s really a lot more to the game than I remember, but it’s a fun trek down memory lane.
Lastly, as usual, there are some small updates scattered around the site, mostly behind the scenes.
As usual, I’m back to updating things bit by bit. So we’ll start with the biggest news first: the Mechwarrior pages have been redesigned. As with the rest of the site, it’s gotten a fresh coat of paint that is strictly html 4.0 compliant and tweaked up a little bit. The navigation scheme should make it easier to find whatever your looking for as well. The content is mostly the same at this point, but you can bet that in the near future, there will be more up there.
Also, I’ve added preview movies of Interstate ’76, Nitro Pack, and Heavy Gear in their respective sections. All were pulled from other Activision game disks.
Updates:
Heavy Gear Downloads – New preview movie
Interstate ’76 Downloads – New preview movie
Nitro Pack Downloads – New preview movie
Mechwarrior – Entire site redesign
For the most part, there are just a few tweaks to the site here and there, but there are a couple of big updates.
Updates:
Interstate ’76 Tips – Lots of good info on car design has been added
Nitro Pack Downloads – The XP fix for the Nitro Pack can be downloaded here.
It’s unbelievable, but it’s finally happened: The Local Ditch Gaming Emporium has moved to its own .com. If you haven’t noticed, the site is now at https://www.localditch.com.
Along the way, some of the older pages have been given a nice facelift, as well as having some structural work done in the background. Just about everything is compliant with xhtml 1.0 strict, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Even better news, though, is that almost all of the broken internal links have been fixed. So now, the only broken links you’ll run into are to pages that aren’t on The Local Ditch. And let’s be honest, who really cares about those pages anyway? (I kid.)
The news can be found here now, at the main page. This is something that I wanted to do so that hopefully people would actually see when the site has been updated (give yourself a pat on the back) and they wouldn’t have to get through several pages to do so.
To the right are links to the games, in order of popularity. It looks like Interstate ’76 is the current prom queen, so go check out the new site and let me know what you think.
As it turns out, the guestbook was broken, not that anyone would sign it anyway.
And best of all – no more popups. That’s right, say goodbye to Tripod’s slow-ass load times and all of those ads. I’ll miss you least of all, Foxy Bingo.
Great news:
“Dear LYCOS Tripod customer,
As you might have heard in the media, the management and the board of directors of LYCOS Europe N.V. have decided to liquidate valuable businesses and cease unprofitable activities. Unfortunately the web hosting business which includes Tripod is one of these.
This means that we will continue providing our Tripod services for only a limited period.
We will inform you about any upcoming changes in sufficient time. Though details are not yet clarified, we expect the Tripod platform to be operating during the first quarter of 2009.
As soon as we have further details about the planned measure, you will immediately be informed. We expect this to happen in a few days.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. We strive to enable a smooth transfer of your presence. We ask for your understanding that we cannot provide you with further information at this point of time. We also ask for your understanding that you might experience delays in response times from our support team in the next days as we expect an increasing volume of requests.
Please refrain from contacting our support team via telephone in this matter as no additional information can be provided by this channel.
Thank you for your patience and your understanding.”
I need to find a new host. Any suggestions? I’m seriously thinking about a .com, .net, .whatever.
I guess this explains why the advertisements have been so heavy.
Tripod.co.uk is getting on my nerves. Despite tweaking my code to get it looking just right, their shitty advertisements are screwing up my text and layout. If anyone wants to point me to a better server, please let me know.
The Club Sega section is updated all over the place. New reviews, more text, more general tweaking. There’s a lot of little things, so check out the dates on the bottom of the pages. They list the last time that page has had an update.
Updates:
Club Sega
Recently, it seems that I’ve been enjoying arcade-style games more so than console-only ones. In an arcade, the goal is to have a few minutes of fun and move one. Because a person won’t play a game again if it doesn’t have some redeeming quality, developers are forced to work out the mechanics and sort out what makes the game, “fun.” If they don’t, no one will play it, no arcade will want it, and they won’t make any money.
Maybe it’s my impatience, but I just want to get into a game and play. Cut-scenes can be interesting, but if I wanted to watch a movie, I’d put in a DVD. Ultimately, games are played to have fun. If it gets in the way or limits the ability to have fun, it shouldn’t be in there. I think arcade games are more focused and to-the-point for this reason. Too much fluff and a person just moves on.
I’ve been wondering about the existence of QTEs in games and whether it’s a good thing or not. Ultimately, a game is just a person pushing the right button at the right time. But is pushing “X” as soon as the screen flashes “X” really fun? People loved Simon, but it was more about remembering the order rather than just hitting things. Ultimately, I think QTEs are ways of getting the player to interact with the movie.
Console games tend to encompass the holistic gaming experience – movies, interaction, feeling a part of the whole game, rather than stripping it down to the bare essentials for five minutes of fun