Downloading Battlezone II v1.3.6.2 Public Beta

[Col Klink]

How large is the new patch? I only recently installed 6.1 and on a dailup these new patches are massively large downloads. I think I'll wait a while or atleast until 6.1 games become scarce. BTW, thanks for the new patch as I know your time is quite valuable.

[GSH]

The size is quite clearly spelled out at http://matesfamily.org/bz2/ .

The patch download link above is a .zip'd patch installer, which will upgrade any previously installed version of Battlezone II to 1.3.6.2 public beta. Note that this is only a patch installer -- it requires that you have BZ2 previously installed from CD before it will install. Note - if the .zip file has errors opening, please ensure that your download is complete and/or try downloading again. If you use Windows Explorer to view the properties of it on disk, the .zip file should be 97,275,452 bytes, and the .zip should contain a 97,585,152 byte executable file. (Size on disk varies, and is not an accurate judge). You may want to try using a download manager if you have issues.

If you have any friends with broadband (or even an internet cafe nearby), you can download the patch and put it on a USB stick to take home. 2-4GB USB sticks are available for dirt cheap these days -- I've seen some advertised for well under $5.

-- GSH

[Zax]

The size is quite clearly spelled out at http://matesfamily.org/bz2/ .

The patch download link above is a .zip'd patch installer, which will upgrade any previously installed version of Battlezone II to 1.3.6.2 public beta. Note that this is only a patch installer -- it requires that you have BZ2 previously installed from CD before it will install. Note - if the .zip file has errors opening, please ensure that your download is complete and/or try downloading again. If you use Windows Explorer to view the properties of it on disk, the .zip file should be 97,275,452 bytes, and the .zip should contain a 97,585,152 byte executable file. (Size on disk varies, and is not an accurate judge). You may want to try using a download manager if you have issues.

If you have any friends with broadband (or even an internet cafe nearby), you can download the patch and put it on a USB stick to take home. 2-4GB USB sticks are available for dirt cheap these days -- I've seen some advertised for well under $5.

-- GSH

On that note, DSL and broadband* has become cheap enough that most people even on minimum wage can afford it monthly. Of my 400-500$ a month, 15-30$ for internet, something my life centers around, is paltry.

*underline tags used in the stead of strikethrough. Broadband in the united states is still unfairly priced when you look at the world as a whole.

[MrTwosheds]

I would assume Col klink uses dialup because broadband is not available where he is, playing bz2 online via dialup would be the most expensive option available (in the Uk at least) So I assume Col klink does not play online much, most of the fixes in 1.3.6.2 are for network issues, so he may as well stick with 6.1 for now.
Funny how the lowest quality connectivity is the most expensive.

[TheJamsh]

I think Col Klink just has an obsession with out-of-date things. Dial-ups more expensive than broadband ffs...

Anyway, great work on the patch GSH.

[Col Klink]

The patch looks reasonably sized compared to the 6.1 patch and I'm downloading it now. I also just paid off a car loan so I'm looking into wireless high speed internet access. I don't know about Britain but dialup is still the cheapest in the U.S. I live in an older neigborhood and AT&T seems reluctant to install fiber optic in these areas. I've been waiting for affordable DSL or some other form of high speed for quite some time.

Question: What wireless companies in the U.S. offer unlimited high speed wireless? I'm vaguely familar with Verizon and Sprint but what other carriers should I look at? Thanks for the patch to both Natan and Ken. Your both the sustaining force behind Battlezone.

[Zax]

Question: What wireless companies in the U.S. offer unlimited high speed wireless?

/me points and laughs

[GSH]

Question: What wireless companies in the U.S. offer unlimited high speed wireless?

Let me rephrase that question, and see if you realize how it sounds: "what restaurants have all you can eat plans and never kick me out?"

Seriously, what you are asking for is people to hand you the sun, moon and stars. For free. Or for companies to offer "unlimited power/water/utilities." While you may be able to get some things for free (e.g. BZ2 patches), telecom companies kinda hate losing money. It costs money to set up wireless base stations, to power them, and then maintain them. It costs money to buy big fat connections to the internet backbones. Most companies are putting in caps on broadband (e.g. ~250GB/month) to handle the outliers who treat unlimited as "saturate my connection 24/7." If you truly want unlimited and high speed, and wireless, you'll have to pony up $$$. If you want to compromise on some or all of those characteristics, you can get something cheaper.

-- GSH

[General BlackDragon]

I have ATT DSL, they don't put any caps on it...

[MrTwosheds]

Dial up in the UK only becomes the most expensive option, if you do daft things like playing online games with it, its probably quite reasonable if you limit yourself to email and the occasional bit of quick surfing. It is charged at the same price as a telephone call, so if I were to use it like I use broadband, it would not be too long before my house got repossessed by BT in order to pay their bill.

[Dataanti]

Canadian ISP are dicks, we just had a bell plan that was 5 down and 1 up, we got about half of what they said we are able to get in our area, the service costed 50$ or something like that and the cap was 25GB a month. So we canceled with them and looked at the other big company's and they were all about the same, so we went to the smaller 3rd party company's and we where shocked to see the same speeds, unlimited bandwidth and for 20$ less on average. I suggest looking at 3rd party company's in your area, you might be surprised. The big company's are incredibly greedy, at least they are in Canada. Also, tech support people are from Canada instead of somewhere in Asia or something making tech support much MUCH better.

[Zax]

Dial up in the UK only becomes the most expensive option, if you do daft things like playing online games with it, its probably quite reasonable if you limit yourself to email and the occasional bit of quick surfing. It is charged at the same price as a telephone call, so if I were to use it like I use broadband, it would not be too long before my house got repossessed by BT in order to pay their bill.

You're also able to purchase 100mbit down there in the UK too. We can only get 50mbit down in the states, for an exorbitant cost and in very select areas. Unlike the UK, we can also get 1gbit down in extremely select areas. In fact, a single select area out in the middle of nowhere. Google.

[Zero Angel]

Canadian ISP are dicks, we just had a bell plan that was 5 down and 1 up, we got about half of what they said we are able to get in our area, the service costed 50$ or something like that and the cap was 25GB a month. So we canceled with them and looked at the other big company's and they were all about the same, so we went to the smaller 3rd party company's and we where shocked to see the same speeds, unlimited bandwidth and for 20$ less on average. I suggest looking at 3rd party company's in your area, you might be surprised. The big company's are incredibly greedy, at least they are in Canada. Also, tech support people are from Canada instead of somewhere in Asia or something making tech support much MUCH better.

Oh wow. That's brutal. I live in Saskatchewan, Canada and the tech support is a little different here. I subscribed to Shaw and recieved great service with no bandwidth caps, but I did get a call from that ISP and they gave me heck because my roommate had bittorrent running 24/7 and the bandwidth usage caused by him was absolutely ridiculous (right before they implemented throttling for torrents) but no penalties on my bill from that incident. I would subscribe to them again if I had the choice. I live in a rural area now and my current ISP (Yourlink) has mediocre QoS (due to it being a WiMAX ISP and me having a far distance to the tower I would imagine) but great customer support at least from my experiences.

[Dataanti]

Canadian ISP are dicks, we just had a bell plan that was 5 down and 1 up, we got about half of what they said we are able to get in our area, the service costed 50$ or something like that and the cap was 25GB a month. So we canceled with them and looked at the other big company's and they were all about the same, so we went to the smaller 3rd party company's and we where shocked to see the same speeds, unlimited bandwidth and for 20$ less on average. I suggest looking at 3rd party company's in your area, you might be surprised. The big company's are incredibly greedy, at least they are in Canada. Also, tech support people are from Canada instead of somewhere in Asia or something making tech support much MUCH better.

Oh wow. That's brutal. I live in Saskatchewan, Canada and the tech support is a little different here. I subscribed to Shaw and recieved great service with no bandwidth caps, but I did get a call from that ISP and they gave me heck because my roommate had bittorrent running 24/7 and the bandwidth usage caused by him was absolutely ridiculous (right before they implemented throttling for torrents) but no penalties on my bill from that incident. I would subscribe to them again if I had the choice. I live in a rural area now and my current ISP (Yourlink) has mediocre QoS (due to it being a WiMAX ISP and me having a far distance to the tower I would imagine) but great customer support at least from my experiences.

Yeah, I lived in Alberta before here. The internet is great over there, we lived in Coldlake on the base and because we were on base we used the military lines and they used fiber optics. Our ISP was Telus then and I don't think we had any problems the required us to call tech support. But now that we are in Ontario we have tried all of the big company's like Bell and Rogers, they are all ****.

[Col Klink]

Sounds like broadband is still limited to larger cities. I wonder if dialup is still the only viable options for us po' folks. LOL.