Articles By Tristan

AJ Freda has announced that his site, SSNTails.Org, will cease to exist:

SSN is not returning in any shape or form. In addition to the $325 a month for 256k, my telephone company wanted $10 per additional IP address.

Another thing they failed to tell me was that the DSL is running off their central office, which is about 5 telephone-miles away instead of the nearby hut. DSL is supposed to max out around 3 miles, but they said they've had it work as far as 6 miles at 512kbps. Well, he came to install it today and ran into problems with it being recognized/finding a suitable frequency. I don't want to stick a server on a connection that's probably going to bomb out intermittently.

And besides, I couldn't even raise 1/3rd of the money to cover it from the people I was hosting. I'm tired of playing Santa Claus to people who want lots of bandwidth usage but don't want to pay for it, which results in me having to foot the bill.

If you wanted some content from any of my sites, please don't bother me. You had two years to grab what you wanted. Goodbye.

Right now, some fans fear that this could put SAGE in jeopardy, but we are told that Smidge does have a backup server ready. Still, new information should be known later on today.

Straight from Andy Wolan via E-Mail:

The SSRG is currently looking for people to help out with the site. In the past, positions were scarce and few, and unless you were a good hacker, getting on was difficult. This made it a challenge for good people who were highly interested in working for the SSRG to join.

Today, that is about to change. We have compiled a listing of over a dozen entry positions. These positions cover a wide range of skills and talents. That means you don't need to be a hacker to join.

For more information, please visit the SSRG at ssrg.emulationzone.org and check the 'Want Ads'.

SOA representative Heather Hawkins has commented on the situation--that being whether the Sonic Team's PSO will officially support the broadband adapter or not.

Sega would love to offer official BroadBand Support for Phantasy Star Online if they could without compromising the release of the game and/or the quality of the game via BroadBand.

Reasons why we were not able to:

1) In the US, with the numerous companies offering BroadBand, for them to work officially with Phantasy Star Online would cost Sega at least a few months of development time (conservative estimate). Sonic Team wanted this game as a worldwide release, so imagine how this would look if Japan released in December, and the US version released in May. Granted, it's now mid-January, but our intention is to have as close a worldwide release as possible so people from Japan, the US, and Europe can meet online.

2) In Japan, it was simpler to support BroadBand, mostly because there are not many companies there that offer BroadBand support, making it a whole lot easier to test and have the ability to support it 100%. In the US, there are numerous companies that offer BroadBand support, and the time to insure that all the BroadBand specifications worked with the US version would delay the release of Phantasy Star Online (see above). If you can't deliver something, you better not to promise it. With that in mind, Sega of America does not want to promise something it feels it could not deliver 100%.

3) Quake III was developed to work with BroadBand support at the beginning of its development, Phantasy Star Online was not. It's a simplification, but ask a programmer how easy it would be to add a true 3D model to a 2D game, if it wasn't planned upon at the beginning of the project. It would be doable, but it would take time. That's the situation Phantasy Star Online was in. So yes, if you look at it, time was a consideration. Because Phantasy Star Online was not built upon supporting BroadBand in the beginning of its development, it would take time to completely support BroadBand officially that would not allow us to release the game in a timely fashion in the US (Time to add extra code, time to test the code, time to debug the code, time to test the code...).

If there are people out there that don't feel inclined to buy Phantasy Star Online because it does not offer BroadBand Support, that's their decision. I just wanted to make it clear that Sega of America is not trying to give any one the "runaround" that people seem to be talking about here. Sega of America wants to offer what it can without compromising quality. Should you settle for less?

Happy Holidays, friends--whatever you may be celebrating this time of year. It's been a long time since I've actually written news for Sonic HQ, and I send out my apologies for that. But, enough of that, let's get to what you really want--news! I bring in my big red stocking today more sales information for PSO, Saddam Hussein Stockpiling PS2s, and Sonic Team Junior's Holiday gifts to their fans.

Hello, friends. Since I was the one that conducted the "Sweeps" data, I have more information inside. Plus, a new low in journalism for Daily Radar, and Sega of Europe confirms SA3 development.

Hello, and today we have new information about Sonic Adventure 2, and possibly beyond, from an interview with a Sonic Team representative.

Good afternoon, friends. At the end of this weekend, we have an explanation of Thursday/Friday's SHQ downtime, an explanation of the multiplatform rumors involving Sega, and an explanation of the PS2 launch compared to 9.9.99.

Hello everyone, did ya miss me? Hey, what do you mean, no? Anyways, here's what I have to report after a three-week sabbatical--Sega's Okawa has cancer, Suzuki in San Jose, and Joe Lieberman bites back. Hey, it's the day before the election, why not?

Good evening friends, today, I have a PS2 Retailer Squeeze Play, One Million DCs sold in one year in Europe, and Indianpolis gets to enforce its law.