July 2001

Sunday, July 22, 2001


Team Cow Clan established in AO !! & PvP

click here for clan & pvp story

Yesterday we managed to establish the Team Cow clan in AO, and i started over after the first written down pvp impressions we made. :)

Woodstock

Saturday, July 21, 2001


Team Cow IRC server now.

irc.stratics.com
#teamcow

please join all - uo and ao tc`s. :)

we use that until we have our own server with own bots.


-- dont forget to be at 19:00 gmt+1 in ao please so we get 10 in a zone --

Woodstock

Friday, July 20, 2001


AO: Saturday - 19:00 gmt+1 18:00 gmt 10:00 west coast USA

be online please, we try to get the 10 ppl in one zone necessary to make a clan !

Saturday !

thanks ;)

more to follow have many pvp pics but need the time to write to it *g

Woodstock

Friday, July 20, 2001


More Europa information



As you can see, this is the kinda action that we find on Europa. Guildwar here is mainly Order/Chaos, and we have noticed a few guilds such as -7- and -F- seem to be mostly mages, which is a nice change from the gangs of fencers with one mage we know from Drachs.

Remeber, message me on forum if you don't have my ICQ if you need help or want to be added to stone.

(Thanks to Orion for pic)

Stody

Thursday, July 19, 2001


A slight change ^^





After the loss of some members to the dreaded AO, the rest of us decided to make a slight change. The fact that the majority of PvPers on Drachs do not stay and fight with equal numbers, and prefer to use spears over magery, we decided to investigate Europa.

At the moment we are still exploring the various good PvP spots on the shard, and have noticed that there are a lot more mages here then on Drachs.

There does not appear to be a "best" PvP guild, but we have heard various names of good PvPers, yet cannot judge how good they really are yet. This post does NOT mean that we have left Drachs forever, it simply means that we want a change. We will NOT be selling our stuff and never returning to Drachs, as it is our home, and the place we are best known.

If any other TC's fancy joining us, I am currently stone holder of the guild. It has no war atm, because all of us are still working on our chars. Money should not be a problem if someone decides to join us, due to cross-shard trading.

Who can tell what will happen, but it's gonna be fun finding out :)
Stody

Sunday, July 15, 2001


AO - a hunt / clan


After having searched the clan item vendor 4 hours, i found him in late night by error. ;) I will need your fingerpringts today.

click here
for an AO - hunt a nose pvp of a hitchiker through rubi-ka



Woodstock

Saturday, July 14, 2001


AO - clan


do you know the Shadowrun sign? Than trenchcoat back closer !

Ok, today is the day where we should make the AO - clan. Why now?
Cause this chat thing makes me crazy. To /invite everytime someone comes back and leaves is very anoying. If we have a guild chat you can chose Guildchat directly. All other things are said to be not right usable yet, but the guildshat would be already great.


We need 4 pieces to make it. On the left side you see one of the pieces i will buy which is the registration gizmo.

This thing everyone of you has to buy. Its a member ship, and you need to right click on the chip to "imprint it". Than you need to meet me and give it to me.

Woodstock

Friday, July 13, 2001


AO - install FAQ


Mith, Sion and String wanting to go climbing a mountain.

Ok here a little FAQ for all things we noticed in the last days. Please read as i will point ingame to it.

Where can i buy AO?
AO should be available now in stores. If theres no store close you having AO you could order at www.okaysoft.de (for germany).
If you dont like okaysoft you can download it online and buy over credit card the game+1 month free. You find AO download/buy
option when you go on www.anarchy-online.com to "account-registration" and fill no key. It will assume that you dont have the
game yet and offer you the possibility to dl.

Do i have to enter CC also for the first month?
Yes. Like in EQ.

Are there Gametimes?
Not yet, and dont know if its Planned.

I have very bad transfer rate when downloading it
Try using a download too, like GODZILLA or Getright some of them try to find best route.
(said another tc, i never used that)

I buyed the game online and get no CD etc?
Yes, like every Online-software you buy and download, its a little cheaper but you have to burn it
yourself on a CD. You wont miss much, as the manual isnt that tragic. Look where your UO box & rest is
today to decide if thats worth the additional 10$ ;).

I got it and after installation it says corrupted file
Look in my first AO view where i explain the prob with the southbridge bug ( http://www.team-cow.de/art/ao.html )

I got it and after installation and starting it says cant find Dimensions file.
Happens very often after an install and is anoying. Get sure you opened your Firewall completely in that
phase (you can make rules for AO later). If you still get this message, download all exe-patches manually.
You see on the Login screen that he offers you to download the patches also manually.
Now you will have like 4 exe files. You have to use one after the other. Means the highest patch level (12.1)
doesnt patches your version, but you have to use all other patches before.
Apply the patches in correct order. If after applying a patch you get a Screen asking you to accept the
rules, DISAGREE. Now before doing everything else open your task manager (win2k) (or something like psview.exe
you get with every programming language if you use win98/me) and look if anarchyonline.exe or client.exe
or any other anarchy exe file is still running. If it is, wait. It may take long until it disappears, but you
have to wait before applying the next patch.
If it finally disappears, you can proceed with the next patch. Here you also disagree at end with the rules
and wait until the exes disappeared from your processes list.
If after patching up to 12.1 (atm, may be higher soon) you get the Dimensions error take the file
www.team-cow.de/Dimensions.txt and copy it to "Program Files\Funcom\Anarchy Online\cd_image\data\launcher\"
You will notice that this Dimensions.txt file says its Version 12.1 . If soon it will be higher version you patched
too correct it to your actual Version. - Now your login should work.
If you got it working to that stage i strongly recommend that you make an backup of the working Anarchy-Online
and of your registry settings concerning AO.

What resolution / buffer should i take?
You will notice soon that the game actually needs a lot of computer power. Take
yourgraphiccard Hardware Transfer and Lightning (if you have T&L; capable card) and look below for Z-buffer vs W-Buffer(*).
Also dont start with resolutions you know using from UT or Quake. Go at lest 1 resolution below the resolution you
use in other 3d games.
Download the latest Detonator from www.nvidia.com (but you cant tune that) or from www.gamers-ammo.com a leaked one
and use coolbit patch. For details read my comments in AO 2nd view. Dont forget(!) to install the right
AGPminiport (if you have AMD Chipset) or Via4in1 VGA-AGP in turbo mode if you have via northbridge and AMD processor.
For intel its also dependant which chipset you have but cant say more as for 1 year i didnt had anymore.

(*)Z-buffer vs W-buffer:


Will say: check if your graphic board supports w-buffering before using it. Geforce can use hardware W-buffer thus its an performance improvement. (Im sorry that i stated wrong ingame before but i read now throught he tech specs)

Even while starting the game uses as much memory as i have
You will be NOT lucky atm if you have 128mb memory. Up your Virtual Memory at least
If you use win2k right click my computer -> proprieties -> advanced -> performance options
if you have 2 hds and the other hd is fast make the swap file on the hard disk where your OS isnt installed.
take something like start: 768 end: 1563 mb as swap partition size.

I think i need more RAM. What ram should i buy, and is it expensive?
RAM is very very cheap now. Consult your Manual. 99% of you hve PC-100 or PC-133 SDRAM boards. Buy in this case
PC-133 cas2 (called often cl2) ram. You have normally at least 3 SDRAM slots, so if you have already 128 mb
you could up with another 128 + 256 stick to 512. If your old ram is slow than consider buying 2 sticks
256MB PC-133 Cas2. You will find the Memory releated Options in the bios of yuor board which you reach at startup
of your computer by pressing DEL (or german: ENTF) key. There the Memory timings are usually under Advanced Otions.
You can usually put to manually (it will be default "BY SPD" or so, which doesnt means the political party hohoho how funny
but a small info-storage in the memchip which tells the board what timings it has) and put the CAS related timings
after you bought new ram to 2. Also if you find the Memclock or something put it to 133. If your board is
at least 1 1/2 years old it will support asynchron takt of 133 mhz for ram while running the bus speed for processor at
100 (200ddr) on older boards, or 133 (266)(in this case its synchron) on newer.
If you changed memclock to faster settings go in windows and let 3dmark (www.madonion.com) loop some times
to see if its stable. Also load UO, best Uo3d and look if it crashes after some time to check if all is stable.

Does something like Memturbo can help?
No memory defrag programm can really help you.

Ok, im in game and Character generation, is something to note?
Chose clan at end of chargeneration, and the name is unique, means if name isnt accepted someone took it already.


-- more to follow concerning frequently ingame questions :) --


Woodstock

Tuesday, July 10, 2001


(updated) AO - 2nd view

Click
to get the 2nd overview from TC`s in AO.

We look forward to creat Team Cow AO-clan :)

addon: One thing i missed in the 2nd overview is a very important little detail. as i also worked 2 years as programmer i told always how i cant really imagine how especially with a complex mmopg like uo they can make the hire and fire jokes.
You remember how often the Team was replaced, heck even producers came and left, lead programmers etc.
So here you can have a look at AO team and see if you notice the same interesting thing as i did.
I dont think the current way of dealing with programmers in the US market is the right thing. Not for lethal things like data input things on electricity networks, and not for mmopgs on the long run.
I hope they stay "independant" how they state in their corporate description and dont take the millions sooner or later from ms, ea, sony, bertelsmann or the save-the-duck party of nicaragua. ;P

one thing to the hardware:
I didnt done tests yet in deep but if you have to upgrade there are 2 main things:
- Graphic power and FSB/Memoryspeed.
The game itself uses atm huge amounths of memory and the data doesnt seems to get used in the best way. Also the Polygons of a scene seem to get rendered always not depending of what you actually see. Thats why you lag that muchin a City.
I didnt determined how much the Z Occlusion Culling feature of the Geforce3 helps atm (ATI has this technic too called Hierarchial-Z and Kyro names same thing with other name) but the technology behind this process is most likely a hiererchial Z-Cache that covers a certain part of the screen so you get only rendered what you actually see saving processing power and even more important memory bandwich on your graphic card.
Notice that modern graphic cards are far technically in lead today infront of cpu technics. A Geforce3 comes already in a 0.15u fabrication progress has 57M Transistors thats double that much than Geforce 2 had and 20% more than the Pentium 4 which comes actually in 0.18u fabrication copper progress.
While a modest cpu of about 750 mhz in athlon case or 2.9 Ghz in p4 ;) case may be appropriate the read mc coy comes to this game from your memory transfer rate, the fsb and the gpu-board.
Without forgetting who reads this i will shorten it down to:
If you are going to buy new hardware buy a DDR board. Dont expect muhc by taking a new CPU.Expect more by taking ddr cas2 memory (or cas 2.5 memory you can run as cas2 like crucial/micron) and play with the FSB. As more FSB (Front side bus) you can reach as better.
The FSB speed also relates in which way a processor can use the actual DDR memory bandwich. If you have a DDR ram board try upping the
FSB speed and see if your memory sticks work as CAS2 too. Even if labeled as Cas3 they may work without problem as CAS2.
If you need a new cpu, wait for the Palmino Thunderbird core as it will have SSE added to 3dnow as well as some technics to use the DDR bandwich better, but thats not that important.

As Graphic part if you go for the best deal for the bucks take a
Geforce2 Pro now, or if you get it cheap a Geforce2 and overclock the Memory of the card. For a decent amounth you can get now as Geforce3 was released already the geforce 2 ultra cards. I guess for around 250 $ or so you should find them. These cards have a gpu glock of 250 but more important use 3.8 ns EliteMT DDR chips that can reach while factory clocked to 460 mhz ddr (230) if you do the maths exactly 526 mhz ddr without that you overclock them.
Even with 512 mb ddr installed make sure you made enough virtual memory ready as the game leaks. If you crash often when zoning, you have surely not enough vitual memory. You reach it in
computer -> porprieties -> advanced -> performance options under win2k.

Woodstock

Monday, July 9, 2001


A time to live, and a time to die

No, I didn't hack this site, I just want to give some imput in :)

First of all, as all TC know, I have not been active since September. I would like to once again say sorry to all TCs for not being there on the battlefield with you like in old days.

After reading TC Chat and various ICQs, we have decided that TC will become more then just a Drachs guild, but rather a small online community. We have done everything we could on Drachs to prove that we can pvp ok, and we are not stating we are (or were) the best, but in our hearts we feel that we have succeeded.

As many of us have started making chars on other servers (for example Europa or Chessa) I believe it would be a nice idea to make a stone on each server, not to pvp, but just to represent us there.

So as you can see, TC is far from breaking up, we are just evolving forwards, but we will not be forgetting where we came from, aka UO RL meet in Sweden.

I am not sure how far Dorijans character pages are going, but imho it would be cool to make a subpage (depending on bandwidth) for each member, and if that is not possible, at least refresh the member section.

Ok, I have ranted enough, you know where you stand, go forward into the world and spread that cow feeling to all you meet!

BTW: If anyone is coming to Brighton this summer, for whatever reason, please contact me on board :)


Stody

Monday, July 9, 2001


about.. us ;)

If some ppl is completely UO oriented and/or rock-the-shard oriented please consider to leave the guild - now.
While we still play uo it will over the time get less and less importnace having us maybe moving to other games - together, making netmeets etc as community.

While doing this UO may, will, or already come(s) too short. If you are only for the UO aspect of TC here - consider leaving - now - if you think thats the only bounding to the rest.
We havent anything left to win or to prove in uo. Most of us reached individually and/or as guild anything they ever wanted.
If proving/buildin/reaching goals/names is what you want to do mainly in uo chose another guild - now please.

Woodstock

Sunday, July 8, 2001


AO - a first look

Check here
for a first impression through AO. In this part mostly begin/install based.

Woodstock

Friday, July 6, 2001


Testing AO today



Dont worry tho, if we change to another game we change mostly togehter. ;)

Woodstock

Thursday, July 5, 2001


some fights :)

today we had funny fights. starting at brit moongate where we
encountered a large group of oranges



a battle that lasted around 10 minutes and was very interesting,

to



multiple fights in magincia where com showed their new regained force.

all in all some very cool fights.

Woodstock

Thursday, July 5, 2001


Just a quick note

Hi there guys, I don’t often submit news due to time restrictions and uochat (now called mmog news) but today I thought I would do a small guest appearance and say hello to my guild.

I have noticed a few bickering internally the past days and people have expressed their concerns over the way the guilds is progressing, I will just quickly explain a few things to you that some may or may now know, I say this as a friend and a guild mate and as one of the oldest TCs currently in the guild, not as someone here patronising any one.

TC is about friendship and teamwork, one of the first rules in TC is “if one TC fight all TC fight” Wile that’s not always possible its still a good ground rule to base your choices around, if someone asks for help in chat and you don’t have a good reason not to help then you have let him and the guild down. Boosting a char or being on your thief is not a good reason, you need to take steps to ensure you can be ready, always have a full equipped out of loss char ready to log in at any moment.

Chat and uo auto map are a tool we use to aid us in combat, these are not tools to aid us in stealing or to aid us in gaining skills, if you are not ready to fight or fighting then please don’t use these tools. There are exceptions, TC who have current connection problems and so on are ok to sit in chat, we know it’s a social thing and all of this is just basic rules we should all know.

There is one more thing that we do take really seriously, teamwork, shit talking you guild mates is not on. I cant think of anything worse than being stabbed in the back by a friend, don’t do it, hold your tongue and wait until you are calm, then address you problems, but do it in private.

That aside the rate of enemy’s on the shard have increased to a level where a small TC team simply cant handle them, we try and we die, Woodstock is currently doing exams but the holiday period is upon us, we will soon be very active again. Take this chance to do what ever it is you want, but remember if someone calls for some help and you are in chat, you are expected to join in.

Sion

Tuesday, July 3, 2001


Heavy fights with SL and COM

which became very strong in the last time. COM cause it got 50% of SL again and SL doe to organisation. (imho) ;)

2 days before sl took already 2 or 3 towns and was holding the rest. happyly after we could organize all we managed to succeed after 2 trys



the luck wasnt for long as COM strenghten by the fresh forces decide to hold the sigils as well as introducing new defense tactics of com hq. We didnt managed yesterday to get around it.

Woodstock

Sunday, July 1, 2001


"im back in 1 hour"

were actually some of the last words towards orion.

Actually the whole story of my last 3 rl-nightmare days
i placed here

participants are 2 boards, 2 cpu`s, a lot ram, and even more
lost time. :)

Woodstock