Yes, if a thread is old, it might be ok, you have a point there. However, in any other case, I wouldn't even consider answering such a question privately since there is absolutely nothing about it which needs privacy.

You say it's their own business to 'take a more personal approach'. It's the receipients business how to interpret it, though, and when I'm the receipient (which happens all too often unfortunately), I interpret as an offense to expect me to be willing take care of other people's problems personally just because I posted something on the net. The person who sent such an e-mail has simply lost in my book, and I wouldn't even consider answering his request if he later posts it publically.

I'll give you an example: On another forum, I answered a technical question concerning an emulator, and suddenly (the same day, in fact), messages from this guy I tried to help started pouring in both via the forum messenger and via e-mail, following up the original question and my answer. It was all just technical questions, absolutely nothing confident at all. That was just wrong on two accounts: He had tried to take away my choice whether to keep answering from me (rude) and at the same time, he had diminished his audience of potential helpers to one single person, thus making it impossible for anyone else to pick up his problems. It was just a huge disadvantage for everybody.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 12:32 on January, 02nd 2005

I think that person did the right thing my sending me an email, considering the original thread is well over 2 years old.

No point in bringing old threads back from the death. The only reason why I posted here is because I did not want to reply to a gmail account and that he very intelligently and nicely pointed back to this thread so I had a chance to know what the heck was all about.

I don't see your point Mr Creosote. If someone want to take it to a more personnal approach, it's their own business. Not everyone like to post on public boards, for the exact same reason you mentioned: everyone can read them.

On another note, he should feels extremely lucky that I intercepted that email because I found it in my spam folder. And it was going to get auto deleted in a few days.

Not a lot better to me. What I mean is that unless something is really a private matter, you shouldn't contact a complete stranger just based on what he or she said in a public forum. How can you be sure this person is even willing to put any thought into what you want?

Secondary thoughts are for example that I consider it rude to use a forum's infrastructure and stored information, but then not to contribute to it by 'going around' the usual ways. There's no way anyone else can benefit from a private answer (if it is given), but if it were asked and answered publically, more people can read it again, making similar questions unnecessary.

I'd say that that's what the Messenger is for...

Completely off-topic, but is it just me or does anyone else find this behaviour of spawning off forum discussions to private e-mail without any cause for it offensive to the receipient of the e-mail?

I'm up for a game, but I'd prefer if we used the Stars! Autohost for sending in turns.

Someone sent me an email asking me where to get Stars!. Since it's a gmail account I won't reply to his email, but will reply here instead


Answer to your question is simply Andrew; Stars! been Abadonware for a while, then it been sold again so it wasn't Abadonware anymore. Right now it's not Abadonware, so you can't download it from an Abadonware site. I'm not supporting Warez, so the answer is: no where I know of.

Sorry.

Don't ask me, I got it from a Abw site... If it's not ABW right now, it already been at some time...

Actually, it's shareware, the original game was only part of the full game, you couldn't get all the technologies.

Stars is a nice "conquer the galaxy" game. It has next to no graphics but it's all the contrary in term of gameplay... It's the kind of game that you play one turn a day, so it doesn't take much time (up to 10 mins max in an heavy turn) and is fun when played vs other players. Of course, you can play as much turns as you want in single player...

NetDanzr gave it a 88% review, and if he says that the game crash from time to time, I never experimented other crashes than audio crashes because I was listening to tunes while I was playing. There is only sound in the battle window of this game anyways...

Unfortunatly I can't attach it because it's 1,22megs... ~,16 too much as it seems.

Perhaps NetDanzr could reactivate that particular link for all of you (*tries to act like a cute Mrem*) or you could always search the web for it. It's freeware if I remember well.

With all the pong clones that are floating around right now, you can be certain that at least some of them can be played online. On the other hand, those ones are clones not abandonware... : shrug :

What about Pong? one of the oldest games I know and it has multiplayer... granted, the first versions are all hotseatmultiplayer but still, multiplayer nonetheless and I assume that someone somewhere will have made a pong-variant that you can play over the net (pure assumption, no proof or knowledge behind it whatsoever but who needs facts anyway? )

I could?? Damn, I never though of that!

...Actually, I didn't think of it. When I saw multiplayer, I assumed it had to be something more recent, I didn't think anything old enough to be abandonware was new enough to have networking capability.


Hey EoF, why haven't you re-registered?

Wel seeing as this is an abandonware related forum you could always try searching tuol too...

..If you know where to look. For example, i tried a websearch for "Stars!" and "game" and while it did lead me to an addictive little flash game, there was nothing that came close to being correct.

Look at 21ct oldies under strategy... It's amazing what a simple query can do

Yeah whats stars, I'm always up for online gaming but stars??? Whats that?

..and what is "Stars!"?

Since the old thread is gone, this is simply a reminder that if you want to play Stars!, then I am open for multiplayer games. I always wanted to do it but nobody ever seemed to be interested...


Let's see if it's still the same now...
My Email is [as you know, guests are not allowed to leave their e-mail like this - a rule you strongly supported], as always.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 05:42 on September, 28th 2002