Procrastination Reactivation

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H1~~
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Procrastination Reactivation

Post by H1~~ »

Hey, it's H1~~... I wanted to apologize for not posting in a while and for not keeping up with the 'archiving zzt worlds' thing I had purportedly been keeping up with--
I'll make this quick: I can't archive game files en masse anymore.


I had decided previously that I wanted my website name to match my GMail address (6 characters each, before ".net" or "@gmail"), but I can't decide on a GMail account name, and I don't have the hard drive space to locally store mass amounts of old DOS games/game mods for old DOS games.
I'm struggling a bit with the 'billing' and 'domain management' of my current provider (DreamHost), which, although I've had no problems with them thus far, for some reason my old/expired domain names still show up... and that doesn't help me decide on a name.


In a perfect world, there would be 3 things I would 'archive':
I. All the mods for Doom, Quake, Quake 2 etc. that used to be on those /pub/idgames2/ mirrors
II. Every ZZT world & every ZZT Utility, not just from this site (zzt.org) but from other sites as well, and sorted by their original category (rather than making my own categories, as I had previously-- losing the original file-sorting in the process).
III. All the mods for Jedi Outcast & Jedi Academy that used to be out there, including those from PCGameMods.com and JK3files.com...
On top of this, they must be in their original .zip files, and have readmes included.
As I recall the old /idgames2/ files directories had the readmes both inside the .zip files and side-by-side in the dir itself.


Without the aid of software designed specifically for scraping files off of others' file-hosting sites, none of this is possible.
There simply isn't enough time or energy in one single person to go one by one, click download links, and 'save as' into folders... then upload onto some commercial web-hosting provider's server via an FTP client... which is kinda what I did before with my last attempt at the ZZT worlds thing, though, even then there were errors-- such as, If I remember correctly, not keeping the worlds in their original .zip files.


Even if it were possible, time-wise, and effort-wise, the amount of local storage required to do intermediate transfers in a shorter period of time would have to be massive-- terabytes' worth of data, just to HOLD the files, until they could be done transferring onto the storage of the web hosting provider's own bandwidth.
It seems there's just no possible way, unless...


I'm planning on moving out of my parent's house by the end of this semester at the local university here (Cleveland State) and if I can manage to pull that off without breaking the bank, I want to upgrade my desktop PC.
I have, a bank balance that fluctuates between $1000 and $1400 on a regular basis, meaning I have at least $1000 'saved up', and one of my grandparents has a fund stored, separate from my college fund, that can pay for the down payment on an apartment.


Ergo, if I can move out in less than 3 months, upgrade my desktop PC to where it can play all these fancy shmancy 'modern' games at at least 60 FPS at max graphics (my laptop can barely achieve 20-30 FPS stably with 'newer' games at max graphics) as well as an additional 2 Terabytes of hard drive space and preferably a Solid State Drive system drive... all of which I've thus far been able to budget into under $1000--
GeForce GTX 970 - $339
Intel Core i7 4.0 Ghz - $319
ASUS ATX form factor motherboard - $139
Sentey 750-Watt power supply - $79
SeaGate 1 TB Sata III HDD - $59
SSD - probably between $49 and $149???
120Hz refresh rate LCD monitor (optional, for now) - $199
Thermal Paste - $9


There's a mirror of virtually all the files that used to be on jk3files.com (formerly aliased to jediknight3.filefront.com) at jehy.ca (personal website of a, uh, somewhat friend of mine)
If I had access to whatever tools this "Mr. Wonko" had that they apparently used to create the Torrent that JeH downloaded, it might just be possible...


I'm just worried that in only the next 3 months, more mirrors will go down, or that procrastination will get the better of me, or that as they say "the best laid plans"...
As for now, I rescind any 'archival' responsibilities regarding ZZT games & utilities to the rest of the ZZT staff & their frequenters-- I'm just not cut out for it.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by Appetite4 »

I can trust you, H1~~.

My own college career ended a long time ago (I'm a ZZT OG--I discovered it when it came out originally in 1991). But that doesn't mean I can't remember the pinch of graduation and starting a New Game + of life with debt. Life gets in the way, but it doesn't have to crush you. There are definitely people who can take up the mantle.

Everyone appreciates what you have done. If the only thing stopping an intermediate archival operation (just a basic transfer of data before eventual sorting) is $$$, private-message me and we can work something out. It's no object for me right now.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by H1~~ »

Holy crap I should have checked on this earlier.
Right now I need to focus on my classes, because if I don't get a C grade or higher in both of them I'll be denied financial aid for the next semester, and honestly, I was planning on transferring out of here to a University near Seattle... but I missed the deadline, and now I'm worried I may not have the GPA from this and past attempts at 'college classes' to be accepted.


Yes, I will definitely send you a PM.
I still haven't bought that new PC hardware but these 'file archiving endeavors' are but one more reason to go ahead with it.


And, congratulations on being a ZZT faithful since 1991...
I hadn't played much until my early teens, and my mid-teens is around the time I made my first attempts at ZZT games.


I had, originally, some dumb adventure world called... shoot I don't even want to name it, I'm not proud of it & it never got finished anyway.
It was full of square borders, usesless/challenge-less 'filler boards', dialogue that was neither humorous nor atmoshperic and worst of all an incongruous story.


I did start a reattempt but then I ran out of steam before I could finish the, uh, introduction segments.
It's was envisioned to be a small-scale epic, with an RPG-style party, starting with surviving a plane crash on a mysterious island and ending in an unveiled (and thwarted) conspiracy... but it was just a mishmash until I hit the 101 board limit, messed something up with the saving process & had to export the boards in KevEdit one by one and piece it back together.


I'm more proud of the span of ZZT games I ran across... everything from the original Sivion and the Vintage Crypt, Fantasy, Enzanya, Darby's crazy town & so on... classics like NIGHTMARE, shorter worlds like Erectile Dysfunction, some christmas world comprised of cameos & an intriguing comedic storyline, a vulgar parody burger joint, Lebensraum, Subterranean Adventure, some I got confused between like Yapok Sundria versus... shoot what was the name of the other one... and even a few I could finish like APUD (that one where the whole world is a looping horizontal chain, and you can 'exit' when you feel 'done' at any point).
Perhaps my most memorable experience with ZZT was playing POP in its entirety at my Grandparent's house while a screensaver on another computer was playing this haunting, but beautiful, short background loop throughout the entire time and it actually fit the mood of the game really, really well.


By far my most FUN experience playing was "BOOF - REMIX" which immersed me to the point that I forgot I was playing with ASCII graphics & PC speaker.
And I can draw parallels between worlds, like CASTLE OF ZAZOOMDA shares a gray, similar dark theme with 'Dungeon', not to be confused with the original Dungeons of ZZT... or how Silence is similarly a wordless, puzzle-only word (albeit a LOT shorter) to Winter.


This one time I was in a ZZT I had 10 health and there was an arcade challenge minigame where you had to dodge 'spinning stars' (nasty things, I'm surprised more worlds don't use them less sparingly and then be chastised for it) for like 5 minutes, and I managed to dart around the center of a roundish room somewhere between 5 by 5 and 10 by 10 blocks in diameter and pass the challenge.
I could write probably 5 pages of this stuff... and then there would still be the time I spent with MegaZeux.


But I don't think I'll never be an 'Original Ganster' (if I have the term correctly) in ZZT, experience does not substitute for date of entry.
So, yeah, I uh... appreciate your concern, and thanks for listening.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by Commodore »

Date of entry is over-rated. What matters is who's here now.

Your game memories are very vivid. It's interesting. I have played and enjoyed a lot of games, but most of my vivid memories of using zzt is from programming. Often times deep binges of zzting represented me trying to distract myself from the outside world. It's not a coincidence that my most prolific period (Living Dead, Sid's Disaster, Wasteland (and a WoZZT in there)) was when I really should have been focusing on making the most out of my first year of college.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by H1~~ »

What I'm more concerned about (on the topic of college) is the fact that I wanted to take 4-year college at university near the city of Seattle, WA... but am currently embroiled in a degree-seeking-ish term at Cleveland State here near, uh, Cleveland.
So my problem is that I don't know how many years to take here before trying to transfer way out west-- because if I wait too long, I may have a 'done all that work for nothing' sitch if many of the classes don't transfer, whereas on the other hand, if I go too soon, I may lose the bluff I've been playing with Cleveland State that I wanted to be there for a full 2-year or 4-year term that let me get into classes there in the first place.


My plan goes something like this: Do homework on time each day before class (Tue/Thu), pick an apartment & make arrangements, start going to the stupid food pantry volunteer opportunity thing (Mondays only), finish current semester with passing/decent grades, move out & find a fast food job, get that legal name change I've wanted for the past 6+ years (don't ask), begin attending one more semester at Cleveland State w/ transporation from apartment, make transfer arrangements to Washington State University (or Bellvue, honestly I really don't care as long as it's far away from here), finish the fall 2016 semester with passing/decent grades **huge breath** transfer to new university, retake any (up to two, my limit for 'classes at once' is two) classes that didn't transfer in the next semester (Spring 2017), study programming at University in degree classes starting Fall 2017 semester... earn degree in programming with a minor in game design (or whatever the hell else goes well with Programming), and theeen...
..then maybe I can settle down in one of those fancy eco-friendly houses they make for high-income hippies on the Island of Vancouver (northwest of the contiguous United States, nearest to Seattle, WA area)...


But that seems to be banking on a lot of things as it is, one of them being whether my lazy ass will even get around to 'apartment shopping' and making the necessary transactions in time; another being the fact that my parents are... controlling... and may not let me move out of the house.
I'm up a stump.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by Commodore »

Here's the trick i've learned bouncing between 4 separate higher education institutions. Your transcript is your legal property, you don't have to be honest about your intentions to finish at all. You can obtain your transcript at any time (for any reason, it is not your obligation to specify, but the best lie for stubborn desk clerks is for an internship) Sometimes the best channel to get a transcript sent to another school is to have the school you are transferring from send it, but if you are attempting to conceal some transfer motivation, you can send it yourself. But basically they can't deny you've attended and been awarded credits unless you have been dismissed, so theoretically you could just bounce and find another school whenever, but like a job, the best way to leave is amicably. You will run into requirement issues, like 10 credits of Spanish isn't worth the same amount towards certain requirements at a different school. Once I was able to skip a requirement I felt I already fulfilled because I had the department head write an e-mail to another department head . When trying to game the system start at the bottom with actual professors (who sympathise most of the time) rather than administrators.

The trouble comes with each school's policy on leaving. Some require at least a semester's notice, so the best option is to apply to the target school aiming to actually attend within the year of your predicted acceptance, giving yourself time to move as well. It's actually advantageous in some instances to arrive in the middle of a school year (101 etc classes are less crowded)

Remember, the school you are transferring to wants your money, it's in their best interest to make the transfer appealing, so they should be honest or open to bartering when it comes to what your previous school's credits are worth. Don't rely on internet/snail mail correspondance with admins/departments, a really persistent person, who know more than he should (or pretends well enough that he does), can make things happen on a phone.

PS. Not a Lawyer or Student Advisor.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by H1~~ »

Ummm... thanks!
Now if I could get some advice on how to stop procrastinating I'd be in business.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by Commodore »

Yeah, I am not too good at that either.
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Re: Procrastination Reactivation

Post by H1~~ »

I want to make an update to the 'shopping list' I had earlier.
On amazon.com and about to poosh button (originally the items were spread across Amazon, and MicroCenter, which some of the same items for less, but since I decided to go with a 6700K instead of a 4790K, things... changed... )


Image
Total cost: $999.90, before shipping & handling and taxes...


I only have about $1560 in the bank at the moment.
This decision might be easier to make if I had a steady paying job and lived in an apartment already.


P.S.: Commodore I put your Apr. 16 post's advice down in notepad and saved a shortcut to it on my Desktop.
I'm thinking about taking summer classes at the same University I'm already at, and then transferring out for the Fall semester (even though it's gonna be too late to transfer, or even apply as a Freshman, at 99.99 percent of Universities for Fall 2016 at this point, I don't want which university I go to to be weighted based on those few that I can still get into)... so that'd be a good time to go order a transcript (for the current one) while I'm at it.


I mean, the last two times I ordered transcripts, I didn't keep the physical copy-- I just had it sent in.
And it's not like it didn't strike my mind, at the time, that maybe I should keep a physical copy instead and mail a photocopy of that in rather than just have it sent...


What I really need to know is whether I need to get a transcript of only the current university, versus the ones I've been to in the past...
If it's important, even this current university I'm at (Cleveland State, as i mentioned earlier) is... itself a Transfer from other ones in the area (Community Colleges, mostly).


Or should I skip the summer classes, get the transcripts, and get a summer job?
Maybe I should revise my plan to "get transcripts, get summer job, apply for 4-year university as Transfer student for Spring 2017 semester, move out into an apartment for fall 2016, *deep breath* finish 4-year pre-requisites/gen-ed requirements in Spring 2017, then get my Master's in Computer Programming (with a minor in game design, or perhaps Foreign Language) over the next four semesters/two school years, while seeking an apartment/cheap eco-friendly custom home on Vancouver Island... "


Image
Crap, that thing's in Canada.


Maybe I should go with something sea-side on the West side of Seattle, WA area instead...
Nothing against Canada, it's just, I had planned to live in the U.S....
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