wenyeva
06-16-2006, 10:02 AM
Hello, all. :wave2: Sorry, this might be a long post.
I was on VMK and here as well last year (I have the Day 1 badge), from early June up to... August, maybe. Why did I stop? Because our DSL was sooooo messed up that I couldn't function on VMK anymore (I might as well have been using dialup, and we were having service outages of several hours a day too). After a while we switched to a cable modem, so the ISP problem was fixed, but I had gotten out of the habit of logging in to VMK so I didn't come back.
Now, I am planning a trip to DLR in a few weeks, and that reminded me about VMK again. So I logged in again... oh look, I remembered my password! There's my account! (I use the same name there I have here.) But... things are different now! There are two new lands open, and what are these quest things? :donald: And, wow, real ride rooms! There is a lot more to do than there used to be!
I tried the Hidden Mickey II quest, got to the last Mickey, and found out I'd have to do a bunch of quests to be able to access it. (Grrr.) So I do the quest tasks, no problem... then I get to the part where I have to win at Pirates. Um. I have never won at Pirates, because: 1. with 256k DSL the game was unresponsive, and 2. it used to crash every time I entered the Pirates game. Consistently. :pirate:
So I tried it now that I have a cable modem, thinking it would be fast, and... it's still slow and unresponsive, but mostly doesn't crash, at least. But it became pretty clear that I wasn't going to be able to win that game. And the quest kept bumping me back 3 steps. Argh.
So I did everything I could to optimize my Mac and speed things up. Yes, my Mac. Turns out that Shockwave is slower in Macs than in Windows systems. So there was that handicap. And, um, my Mac is 1G when the game technically requires 1.4G. :sad8: I was beginning to think that I would never finish a quest. But I want to finish as much as possible before the DL trip!
Then yesterday I had the opportunity to play with a dual processor Mac G5 and it became clear: my computer is the problem. Suddenly everything was easy. I finished the Ships and Shipwrecks quest, winning a Pirates game with no trouble at all, and all but the last step of the Autopia quest in just over half an hour. (Might have been faster but I lost the connection.) I might have finished the Fireworks step of the Autopia quest (at least the blue car level) if I'd had about another 5 minutes before VMK closed. :)
And now I'm home with my slower Mac and the Fireworks quest task is once again an impossibility. :rolleyes:
So this is what I have learned:
1. Macs work fine on VMK (both Safari and Firefox worked well)
2. But you need a fast Mac, both just because a fast one is good, and also to make up for Shockwave being less responsive on Macs.
3. When people complain that the Fireworks, or Pirates, or Jungle Cruise, or whatever are impossible, and other people say it's easy and they just need to practice, both are probably right. If your software/hardware are slow enough, it's going to be pretty near impossible to get good scores (Jungle Cruise is probably the most friendly to slower computers -- I managed to break 30,000 today on my slow Mac, but that was about double my previous high score -- but Fireworks and Pirates are almost unplayable), but if you have a fast, responsive system, then practice will help. So those of you who are good at the games, please be compassionate to those who are having trouble -- a lot of the time it is just that they have technical limitations that practice can't solve, and it's really frustrating to know that your computer is holding you back!
4. If you are having extreme trouble, try using another person's computer that is faster.
Other stuff I've noticed since returning: the "taken" stuff and the "bay be" stuff is still going on! (Some people think things were better in beta... no, all of that annoying stuff happened then, too.) The dictionary is actually less annoying, but some words are banned now that shouldn't be. (Being protective is one thing, but it's a bit overprotective IMHO. Even for kids.) People still walk right up to you and demand that you give them stuff/show them quest answers/be their friend. People still try to friend you without even talking to you first. And the Shockwave crashes still happen -- but maybe not as much.:pirate:
Anyway, I am glad to be back. Maybe I will see some of you around, and you are all welcome to visit my rooms. They are linked from the Fan Site transporter hubs and they have vintage furnishings! Vintage 2005. :D Sadly, I don't think I have anything outrageously rare. I had hoped some of my old stuff would be fabulously rare by now.
I was on VMK and here as well last year (I have the Day 1 badge), from early June up to... August, maybe. Why did I stop? Because our DSL was sooooo messed up that I couldn't function on VMK anymore (I might as well have been using dialup, and we were having service outages of several hours a day too). After a while we switched to a cable modem, so the ISP problem was fixed, but I had gotten out of the habit of logging in to VMK so I didn't come back.
Now, I am planning a trip to DLR in a few weeks, and that reminded me about VMK again. So I logged in again... oh look, I remembered my password! There's my account! (I use the same name there I have here.) But... things are different now! There are two new lands open, and what are these quest things? :donald: And, wow, real ride rooms! There is a lot more to do than there used to be!
I tried the Hidden Mickey II quest, got to the last Mickey, and found out I'd have to do a bunch of quests to be able to access it. (Grrr.) So I do the quest tasks, no problem... then I get to the part where I have to win at Pirates. Um. I have never won at Pirates, because: 1. with 256k DSL the game was unresponsive, and 2. it used to crash every time I entered the Pirates game. Consistently. :pirate:
So I tried it now that I have a cable modem, thinking it would be fast, and... it's still slow and unresponsive, but mostly doesn't crash, at least. But it became pretty clear that I wasn't going to be able to win that game. And the quest kept bumping me back 3 steps. Argh.
So I did everything I could to optimize my Mac and speed things up. Yes, my Mac. Turns out that Shockwave is slower in Macs than in Windows systems. So there was that handicap. And, um, my Mac is 1G when the game technically requires 1.4G. :sad8: I was beginning to think that I would never finish a quest. But I want to finish as much as possible before the DL trip!
Then yesterday I had the opportunity to play with a dual processor Mac G5 and it became clear: my computer is the problem. Suddenly everything was easy. I finished the Ships and Shipwrecks quest, winning a Pirates game with no trouble at all, and all but the last step of the Autopia quest in just over half an hour. (Might have been faster but I lost the connection.) I might have finished the Fireworks step of the Autopia quest (at least the blue car level) if I'd had about another 5 minutes before VMK closed. :)
And now I'm home with my slower Mac and the Fireworks quest task is once again an impossibility. :rolleyes:
So this is what I have learned:
1. Macs work fine on VMK (both Safari and Firefox worked well)
2. But you need a fast Mac, both just because a fast one is good, and also to make up for Shockwave being less responsive on Macs.
3. When people complain that the Fireworks, or Pirates, or Jungle Cruise, or whatever are impossible, and other people say it's easy and they just need to practice, both are probably right. If your software/hardware are slow enough, it's going to be pretty near impossible to get good scores (Jungle Cruise is probably the most friendly to slower computers -- I managed to break 30,000 today on my slow Mac, but that was about double my previous high score -- but Fireworks and Pirates are almost unplayable), but if you have a fast, responsive system, then practice will help. So those of you who are good at the games, please be compassionate to those who are having trouble -- a lot of the time it is just that they have technical limitations that practice can't solve, and it's really frustrating to know that your computer is holding you back!
4. If you are having extreme trouble, try using another person's computer that is faster.
Other stuff I've noticed since returning: the "taken" stuff and the "bay be" stuff is still going on! (Some people think things were better in beta... no, all of that annoying stuff happened then, too.) The dictionary is actually less annoying, but some words are banned now that shouldn't be. (Being protective is one thing, but it's a bit overprotective IMHO. Even for kids.) People still walk right up to you and demand that you give them stuff/show them quest answers/be their friend. People still try to friend you without even talking to you first. And the Shockwave crashes still happen -- but maybe not as much.:pirate:
Anyway, I am glad to be back. Maybe I will see some of you around, and you are all welcome to visit my rooms. They are linked from the Fan Site transporter hubs and they have vintage furnishings! Vintage 2005. :D Sadly, I don't think I have anything outrageously rare. I had hoped some of my old stuff would be fabulously rare by now.