AU Discussion Thread (Australian Users)

@36Chambers93: You might think we arent doing enough, but we seriously are doing everything we can. Hence why Zo is placing all our efforts in this thread, if we generate enough here, it should be evidence enough that we want the darn AU Board again.

I really do hope it comes sooner rather than later.. I feel even our community will diminish soon, which would be a real darn shame... From all the decisions done so far, axing the AU board is the only one I have hated.

Its like living in a tent when our home was burnt down.

Yeah the decision to stagger rollout of forums that had decent traffic doesn't seem logical to me. Unless they thought we'd just merge with the general public and use the generic threads although, tbh, I just think they didn't consider it at all until after the fact. GameSpot web design has always seemed a bit "cowboy"ish which is weird when you consider the popularity of the site!

@36Chambers93 - You can always go give me crap here in the meantime http://chickan117.blogspot.com.au/. I just started tracking again yesterday.

Oh and thank you for the pinball feedback. I have a few pinball games whihc I love however nothing compares to the real thing. I still love the physical machines, esp T2 and Adams Family and Doctor Who. We're still trying to find land for our new house (hard to find a block that will accomodate a 56 square house and have a back yard!) but, when we do, space shouldn't be an issue for me... so it just boils down to "am I buying something I'll enjoy for a bit then just use to support other things like an inconveniently shaped table" :)

You are not doing enough, just get @jamesh-42 to do it all, he is the coding genius :P

And also **** this 2 post in a row limitation rule, I mean seriously I cant even quote back to my peeps and I find it too cumbersome at times to multi quote, despite me understanding enough HTML. I just want a quick button reply that takes out all the effort.

Why can't you post twice in a row?

I can

Edit : Oh I see what you mean

lol yeah you have to wait until someone else posts for it to unlock again I believe

perhaps keeping people from posting three times in a row is something mods and staff should set upon post pumpers and shameless bumpers not be something for everyone to trip over.

True. I guess that's what the edit button is for but, as Chambers mentions, it's not overly helpful if you want to quote someone.

Anyone here used Blockbuster for purchases before? They have really good prices on Super Mario 3D World, Zelda LKink Between Worlds and Last of Us.

http://www.blockbuster.com.au/games/super-mario-3d-world-nintendo-wii-u/dp/409589

and a bunch of other stuff as well I'm sure; they're just the only ones I looked up

So I take it that means an AU board is by no means a certainty, unless we give enough reason? Not sure if that will happen. I know many people aren't overly impressed with the recent change, myself included. Visiting this site has become somewhat of a chore. Much harder to find and interact with nearly everthing.

All I tend to do now is click on a few forums, search through all the posts because I can no longer go straight to posts unread, and usually leave thinking what a hassle.

I understand it's still all new and being worked on yada, yada, yada, but I can't even post an emoticon FFS. The site no longer has character.

@Serial_Killa: Im with you there Serial. But all we have is the word of what was given to Zo. According to that we should see it in the second stage... What this second stage is i have no idea.. I mean the sports discussion thread came after the site rollout... Was that stage 1.5 i don't know...

I can't say that I'm too thrilled with new format. Takes a bit of getting used to

See this is one of the things that bugs me. Yeah the site layout is new and being worked on but, in most upgrade projects you run thru the stages of development, testing, then staggered deployment. Their goal should have been to minimise the impact of the change and then just deal with the people moaning about stuff they don't like as opposed to core stuff that isn't functional.

I know it's a free site but, for a company so internet based, I expect a considerably more professional approach.

Agreed

No one answered my question regarding talking about piracy, where's mjc when u need him???

v2.0 should have been v1.0

Like I have said been through the corporate bullshit myself and in particular with my old job I went through a similar issue myself where I built our teams intranet site using the shitty mid 90's in house software and was told to roll out a bodgy version that I was ashamed to be a part of, so much so that I told them to get the shit kickers with no web knowledge to build it.

Corporate told me, v2 will utilise all my improvements and quality that I originally demonstrated and would consider as v1 standard, which was basically using up to date standards such as HTML5/CSS3.

Guess what happened to v2, nothing. It was shelved because of political reasons ie I was the only skilled person who could code and leadership being non technical people did not want me to be so skillful within the team holding the power.

Assassins Creed 4 is about piracy :P

Mate I agree, I recall I also got modded once for mentioning emulators to than have AU staff can go off and freely discuss the same topic as part of a podcast.

Dolphin yo

If its news related it has always been fine to discuss the issues around piracy.. Its never been ok to discuss methods of circumventing protection or ways to obtain pirated goods or service..

For example. Ben's post above thankfully is blanketed after dolphin. If he said what it was used for and how to obtain it, that becomes against the ToU. But if its general discussion that a console has been pirated due to emulation. That has been deemed acceptable as its a news topic you can discuss.

I've come off about 8 years of web development and have been doing something different this year, so it's not the kind of thing I'd volunteer for :)

Switching back to speculation mode, I doubt there is need for any more code problems to solve here: they successfully migrated the data for thousands of forums on the site, and there doesn't seem to be a reason why those same scripts couldn't migrate the AU board. All that's left is a policy decision (whether they actually want regional boards on the new site) and for ops to actually carry out the job.

As far as the policy decision goes, Zorine has said she's advocating on our behalf, so I'd give her a chance. If the other forums return later this week and the regional ones are still missing, then it is time to start complaining again.

They are essentially trying to turn Big Rigs into GTA 5. :P

I agree with all the complaints about the site, everyone can see the issues but the problem is only the staff on the technical part of the website can fix them. The other issue is in the end Gamespot is an American focused website with an Australian, UK and Asia arms so we are not top priority but we have already told them we want the AU board back, now all we can do is hope they listen.

Images and videos seem to be much easier to add and upload and the reply button seems to be a good addition. But by far the best new feature, although not sure how long it will be allowed, is the ability to be able to write a certain swear word.

Fucking Awesome. ;)

Nah the best new feature is multi user PM. although the ones you mention are great.

It's fuckin stupid. I agree with your above statements too regarding the fact they seem to tweak the ToU's where something would have been moddable is now all good.

I think if you can't discuss something then it should be a blanket of no discussion. What your saying is I could say "*insert torrent site* has just closed down" but I can't say "*insert torrent site* has the maddest quality blu-ray rips".

Pretty much.

If you decide to write a review post a link. :)

They have a Resident Evil 6 board FFS..surely if they can have that we can have an AU board...& Im pretty sure there was a GSUK board as well ..seen it when I got redirected..sometimes. :P

If we have to "prove" that an AU board is needed, maybe we should all start spamming posts. The powers that be will be all like "Holy shit, we need to give them their own board, post count is off the charts". o_0

Is it really that complicated? The difference is that the publishing the second statement could be considered contributory copyright infringement on the part of the site owners while the first one isn't.

For a free site, I don't really have any problem with them setting rules that minimise their risk of legal trouble. If they allow user content that isn't likely to cause legal trouble, I consider that a good thing rather than being a sign of inconsistency.

Hahahahaha. It might work :P although making more discussion rather than spam will work much more effectively. ^_^.

So im gonna start a controversy Chambers said he loved Bayloski! And that they wanna go moonlight dancing. Nintendo_man and mjc are working together to take my cool status away. Zorine is my heart throb! chamboosy took my dog and desexed it without my permission. Superbuuman used his nintendo wiiU console and amplified it with an intel core i7 4770k the console owners and pc users have been owned. Jamesh has retired from programming to start a floral shop

Thanks for the thoughtful insight there :P

To me it seems strange but obviously due to the various legality issues I can understand why.

But yeh our Aus community is dying in the arse at the moment.

@bayloski ... and where the **** have you been recently?

I will... I have to. It's all part of the deal. Get a free game and you get a week to play it, review it and post about it.

A bigger controversy would be me and you going on a date together for some Korean

Pfft who would believe that, Everyone knows i dont like korean

I think you should bring your macbook with you as well, we can sit together watching youtube k pop videos on safari browser ;)

That sounds a little too romantic for my liking man

This forum was downright unreadable on anything above a 22' screen until I pressed the 'fixed forum layout' button on the top right.

Better make sure you've converted them to quicktime first or it prolly won't work ;)

Just watchd the anime film Sky crawlers.. Its a great film, very touching end to it. Its the story about kids designed to be fighter jet pilots. Definitely worth a watch if you dont mind sitting through slower parts of a film. 8/10

Re: Blockbuster games. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just like Video Ezy games. I bought a few games from there with no problems, but they do come from Asia so take a bit of time to get here. There's no explaining that on the Video Ezy website though. They are AUS store compatible though.

Mystic - I'd think sterilising your dog for free would be good! It's not cheap to sterilise animals these days (that said, Bayloski, I can hook you up with a good knackering if you like... for your dog, not you).

This board does give me the shits though. I mean, the old forum used to be my homepage. Now we've lost people like tagsix and ausblackmateria and the discussions about politics and Aussie footy are gone. I want to complain about Tiny Rabbit for fucks sake.

I sure do hope we get our own board soon though.

**** it, here's some pictures of an echidna.

The "fixed forum layout" option also seems to improve the rendering speed for the forums enormously too (especially on mobile devices).

I can't wait until this hayfever season is over. It's been going on for too bloody long. I've had six antihistamine tablets today and still itchy as ****.

Dang I thought I had it bad...shouldn't it like last for 8 hours? ..my max is like 2 per day when its really bad..

I saw a kangaroo today!

I've been flat out at work, so have had little chance to bludge on the net.

Have you cut the holiday weight gain yet? I'm down to 92 now, 7 to go!!!

Deus Ex HR Director's Cut seems as fun as I remember. So easy to lose a bunch of time doing what is essentially a short mission. Mucho time spent hiding and waiting :) Graphics look worse than I remember so I'm reinstalling the PC version to do a comparison. The dual screen system is bloody fantastic however! Here are some pretty pics if interested. I had a good one of searching bodies but it wouldn't upload. Stoopid Miiverse errors. I like that, by having the menus on the bottom screen, you can continue toi play on the top screen. Works well.

Well done man! I'm well off that as I spent the week after holidays bludging and eating crappy. Actually the whole family got gastro for most of my week off and, as I only got it for 24 hoursish, I ended up looking after them. Too hard to eat and excercise properly in those situations so fast and easy food like pizza were my pleasure to consume :)

Oh well there's still time before you get the summer bikini on.

Funnily enough I was just looking at the CRUST Pizza menu. Thinking I'll treat myself to one tomorrow night.

Do not give up on the workouts dudes.

I'm sorry you got sick Chickan but you need to get back at it again and make excersie a lifestyle where it becomes natural. Bayloski, dont do it. CRUST isnt that great and think of those calories, if you have to consume a pizza make one yourself, healthier/tastier and cheaper.

I do my local run for 4km under 20 minutes and do it while I have my food heating up in the oven or steam cooker. I burn 350 calories in that time.

Last 2 weeks I have gotten 4 of my friends to join me for an hour session 3 times a week where I train them on what I learnt from my bootcamp classes, I've actually become their personal trainer lol.

Its so much more fun if you do a workout with mates.

I no longer have 4% of my day to spare. Doesn't count the 30 minute round trip to the gym either.

^ on the matter of exercise..my sis who was 94.5kg ...has been exercising..& eating healthy & cutting down on bad snacks...she's been doing this secretly for a few months..she's now 70kg...about 168cm She's been overweight throughout her life. Very proud of her. :D

But you have time to play video games and post here lol

30 minutes to the gym, thought you were in Melbourne suburbs. I couldnt imagine the distance being an issue so its likely to be traffic, you could always ride a bike or go to the gym at a quiet time of day. In my area I have 6 gyms I could walk to in 10 minutes.

I bet you that her self confidence is up as well.