9 ms·
The Monster Truck Madness 2 website has been taken down
- mr_spothawk 13y agoMy adolescence has just been put in a shoebox and buried in the back yard.
- unwind 13y agoIf you don't get why this is an interesting (and fun!) fact, you probably missed this thread from yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6672029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6672029. The web page that is now gone had been up, more or less unchanged, from when the game was released back in 1998.
- shocks 13y agoWow. Thanks for spoiling the fun Microsoft.
- cyphax 13y agoAt least the Motocross Madness 2 site is still up (http://www.microsoft.com/games/motocross2/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/motocross2/). Same for the page on Outwars (http://www.microsoft.com/games/outwars/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/outwars/). Maybe it just broke for the first time in 15 years. ;)
- asadlionpk 13y agosshhh! you will jinx it !
- rads 13y agoWelcome to the Microsoft Outwars Website!
- sasas 13y agoMotocross madness 2 is the most fun dirt bike riding to date IMHO. They really did a fantastic job on this one.
- PostOnce 13y agoOutwars is mechanically interesting. Controls sort of like Starsiege: Tribes (there's a jetpack), and you can control the legs and torso separately ala MechWarrior.
- shocks 13y agoBack when big games studios, you know, tried to do things differently and be refreshing.
- uchi 13y agoyou fool! hush hush!
- uchi 13y agoyou fool! hush hush!
- kamjam 13y agoWay back when... tables ruled the design universe! And the sites still render correctly even on Chrome!!!
- elyrly 13y agoIn with the new out with the old!
- markwillis82 13y agoHopefully it will remain here - unchanged forever: https://web.archive.org/web/20131105002953/http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/default.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20131105002953/http://www.micros...
- toomuchtodo 13y agoI made sure to save it to Archive.org as soon as it hit Hacker News; figured someone was going to realize it was still up and take it down. EDIT: There were older versions of it, I just wanted to grab that snapshot in time. Here is the bookmarklet I use to do this: javascript:void(open('//web.archive.org/save/'+encodeURI(document.location)))
- INTPenis 13y agoSo HN reminded a Microsoft sysadmin to purge old directories.
- madethemcry 13y agoAnd even more interesting the response time for that change was very short. Honestly, I had supposed it will take days for a large company like Microsoft to do so.
- InTheSwiss 13y agoA change control request to setup a redirect on a site from 1998 that will have the absolute minimum possible impact to anything else isn't going to take more than a signature or two even in a company as large as Microsoft. It might even be outside of the scope of needing any kind of official change control due to its age. While working at Xerox I had authority to kill off long forgotten public facing sites that had slipped through the cracks over time.
- 300bps 13y agoAt my bank, any type of change requires a 48 hour cool down from request approval to change. Sure you can put it through as an emergency change but then a committee of SVPs and EVPs has to approve it and they pretty much never approve anything.
- InTheSwiss 13y agoEven for something so old and outdated? Because I have done consultancy work for some banks and have seen things (mostly incorrect data to be fair) changed in under half an hour once pointed out.
- 300bps 13y agoThere are three types of people at my bank: 1. Business users. So unbelievably locked down it's ridiculous. Anytime they ask for access rights it's "can't, because of audit". 2. Application IT users. As locked down as possible while still allowing them to somewhat do their job. 3. Infrastructure IT users. Domain admin rights with their standard user login. Ability to bypass any proxy server restriction by default. It's basically the worst of all worlds. The business users and application IT people can't do anything in the name of following "security best practices" while the infrastructure IT people (including the business analysts and non-technical people in that group) have carte blanche because "they couldn't do their job without it". They don't even follow basic security practices like using a non-privileged account for everyday use and having an elevated account for when they need to do something. It's a complete mess. So thinking about it more - the infrastructure IT people make instant changes all the time.
- binocarlos 13y agoMan thats a shame I had a wicked blast of nostalgia seeing geocities back online again : )
- gabriel34 13y agotry neocities.org
- rabbitonrails 13y agoIt's because of http://nypost.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-com-is-stuck-in-the-1990s/ http://nypost.com/2013/11/05/microsoft-com-is-stuck-in-the-1...
- steeve 13y agoThis is really ridiculous. We are all worried about durability on the web (after all, that's Archive.org mission), and when somebody does it, there's always someone to spit on them for "being stuck in the 90's". WTF. I mean, hell, the game even runs on Win 8.1! [1] Shame on the journalist. [1] https://twitter.com/DeonHeyns/statuses/397560196605562880 https://twitter.com/DeonHeyns/statuses/397560196605562880
- gadders 13y agoHa. I meant to ask if the game ran on latest windows.
- speeder 13y agoWhy journalists are so good in putting a negative spin on EVERYTHING they touch? For example: I made once a Arcade game (cabinet, code, everything). And took it to Campus Party Brazil. One of the journalists took a photo and put a label on that photo on their site while I was not near the machine. The label was: "Some dude brought this illegal counter-strike server disguised as arcade game." (counter-strike was illegal in Brazil for a time, sadly, despite our constitution also having free speech... but the arcade machine I've made had no networking equipment, I still wonder where the journalist got that idea) And the most flattering report on the cabinet had as headline: "Game addict bring his own arcade game." Fuck journalists, they cannot be trusted. (also NONE of the ones that interviewed me avoided twisting my words).
- telephonetemp 13y ago>I made once a Arcade game (cabinet, code, everything). And took it to Campus Party Brazil. Sounds like an interesting project, and unusual for a DIY arcade cabinet for having custom code. Do you have a write-up about it or a public repository? I'd like to read more about it. As for >"Some dude brought this illegal counter-strike server disguised as arcade game." that's a pretty absurd claim. Did your machine run any arcade games that vaguely similar to Counter-Strike (like VirtuaCop 2)? That's the only way I can think of a person who knows nothing about video games could come up with that idea without simply lying. Edit: Are anti-gamer hit pieces common in Brazilian media?
- tobiasu 13y agoNothing but contempt for this barbaric destruction of its own history. A new low point.
- acjohnson55 13y agoUmm, there's still the Wayback Machine, which is where this belongs. It's kind of ridiculous to expect Microsoft to host completely out-dated content forever.
- tobiasu 13y agoThis isn't bit rot. It's ridiculous to remove a product because it got minor media attention. They are ashamed of their own history and have no sense for public relations. Many successful companies build museums and archives, support outdated products, sponsor enthusiasts of old crap, etc. In return these companies have dedicated fan bases, enthusiast clubs and whatnot. But MS doesn't get it, because they are too concerned with their quarterly earnings and the only marketing they understand is paying an agency big bucks for pretty lies.
- w0rd-driven 13y agoA thousand times this. My fanboyism dies a little each time shit like this happens.
- acomjean 13y agoCanon built a tribute site to all its outdated camera equipment. http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/ http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/ its an incredibly odd site, but they seem proud of what they've built. list of classic cameras from days of yore. http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/film/chrono_1933-1955.html http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/film/chrono_1933-1...
- jlebrech 13y agoThey'll opensource it next.
- igl 13y agoI am sure that this nypost flame-post, combined with the increased traffic from HN made a 35+ year old department mananger spill his coffee in the morning. MS has no balls.
- pyalot2 13y agoWrong, they now have coffee flavored balls.
- jerlundy 13y agoWhat does it mean? #WarrantCanary
- kruk 13y agoIt's a real shame. You don't just go and delete your history!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lilpirate 13y agoAbout time people start using "HN Effect:" prefix for title of posts like this.
- gliaskos 13y agoSomehow this reminds me the story of shell.windows.com: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/14/9317706.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/14/93177...
- look_lookatme 13y agoI'm glad I saved all those sample WAVs.
- Nicholas_C 13y agoPlease put them on YouTube or somewhere else. I wish I downloaded the trial version while I could. What a disappointment.
- martin-adams 13y agoI suspect they saw a surge in traffic and realised that they aren't redirecting it to a page selling their current products and services.
- misframer 13y agoOr a MS employee reads HN.
- josefresco 13y agoMore like a PR employee for MS reads HN. Seems like a move by a concerned PR person and not an engineer who most likely would have recognized the significance of the positive feedback on sites like HN. Let's hope someone with some history at MS rectifies the situation and rel-launches the site with the accompanying HN post announcing it.
- graeme 13y agoSupposing we wanted to organize a letter (well, email) writing campaign to try to convince microsoft to change their decision and leave it up as a heritage site....which department/manager would we email? In particular, I wouldn't want them to go on a purge of old game pages now they're aware they still have some, all because of Hacker News + a NY Post article.
- Sloveni4n 13y agoToo bad. It was 'refreshing' to step back in time to an old pc game!
- mambodog 13y agoSomewhere a forgotten IIS 3.0 server has caught fire, burned to a crisp, and is now in Windows NT heaven. These two are still available in all their glory, at least: http://www.microsoft.com/games/motocross2/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/motocross2/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/midtown/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/midtown/
- pit 13y agoIf anyone needs me, I'll be over here catching serious phat air.
- jbogp 13y agoAlso one of the most underrated game of those glorious times, Urban Assault : http://www.microsoft.com/games/urbanassault/ http://www.microsoft.com/games/urbanassault/
- sommerr 13y agoAmen to that.. :-)
- Aldo_MX 13y agoI came across with a forum where a fan-made remake is being orchestrated: http://forums.metropolisdawn.com/viewforum.php?f=29 http://forums.metropolisdawn.com/viewforum.php?f=29
- jason_wang 13y agoI love how websites in the 90s were designed like magazine ad layouts with clickable maps. Feeling nostalgic.
- CmonDev 13y agoWow, XBox has been unveiled!
- NicoJuicy 13y agoMidtown Madness, thanks for reminding me. Loved that game! (more then Driver :))
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y agoAww man...I liked that site.
- NamTaf 13y agoWay to go HN this is why we can't have fun things. (C'mon MS don't be jerks, be proud of your history and leave that up!) Edit: in fact, want to sell Windows' awesome backwards-compatibility? Make 1 edit to that site, detailing how to make the trial of the game run in Windows 8.1. Then leave it as a testament to the OS's huge legacy. Be proud of it. Wear it as a badge of honour.
- janesvilleseo 13y agoAs a marketer myself, this makes the most business sense. Leverage your legacy. People (lots of people) find it cool for various reasons. Leave it up, and call attention to how it can still be played even on new systems. This was a PR win before they took it down. They have the ability to turn it around and continue to make it a positive, but they have to do it fast.
- dzhiurgis 13y agoI still get seizures from MS websites.
- davydka 13y agoWhy is ?hn added to the linked url?
- m_myers 13y agoBecause it doesn't actually affect the site and it gets around HN's duplicate detector.
- sarreph 13y agoThis goes to show that Microsoft employees, too, procrastinate on HN.
- dasil003 13y agoBut not enough.
- ck2 13y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/19981206154756/http://microsoft.com/games/monster/ http://web.archive.org/web/19981206154756/http://microsoft.c... Likely the only Microsoft page with the words "YEEE HAAAAA!" on it.
- pearjuice 13y agoWhy is there a ?hn referral in this submission its URL?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- davydka 13y agoI was wondering the same thing. Makes me think there's some corporate involvement in the link.
- bitwize 13y agoIn the early 1990s there was a Nintendo game released called Wally Bear and the No! Gang. It was an insipid platformer with graphics from a MECC Apple II game and a thudding "stay off drugs" message. It got some attention in the mid-2000s when the Angry Videogame Nerd reviewed it. And then in 2006, on some message board, a gamer discovered that the 1-800 number advertised in the game was still running, and you could still call in and hear the voices of Wally Bear, Toby Turtle, and all their friends. As soon as word spread about it, though, the 1-800 number was disconnected. By the time I had discovered it, Wally had already been silenced... forever.
- toast0 13y agoRunning an toll free number isn't cheap, especially when you set it up in the 90s and a bunch of random internet people are calling it. Given that the companies behind the game seem to have petered out, I imagine they had given some amount of sales to the people running the 1-800 number in the 90s and the money finally ran out.
- naterator 13y agoLet's murder this one too: http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm