WTV-ARCHIVES: GAMES (PLUS & DISHPLAYER ONLY)
updated 8-17-99
This page © 1999, ulTRAX@webtv.net
NOTE: In the Spring of '98 WTV began Alpha testing of DOOM and YOU DON'T KNOW JACK. Both were thought to be effective "proof of concept" features... even if no plans were actually made to release them. Sixteen months later these games have still not been officially released to Production Services... that is until they were released for the DishPlayer in June 99. It's my personal opinion that despite some people's intense desire for these games... the Plus is not an efficient game platform. It can easily take an hour just download a game.... only to find all one has is an abreviated version of the game. In the case of DOOM one only gets the first 8 levels. Then there are the problems of playing a complex game like DOOM using a keyboard instead of an ergonomicly designed game controler.
The first time the rest of us non-Previewers gained access to DOOM and JACK was during the TRICKS Breakin of August 98. While in Testdrive some had downloaded the games but did not know the codes used. The full set of download codes were not available until October 98 when ECWFRK, who then was a beta tester, was able to use the Javascript Code Reader to get these codes.
While DOOM and JACK may be fun... what ultimately may make these codes intresting may not be the games themselves but what the codes reveal about how files are downloaded and later accessed off the Plus HD. These codes do not belong to any one WebTV "service", but instead are combinations of several services and client commands. Studying this interplay may result in insights not possible from looking at the individual sevices alone.
Also of interest is how WTV can detect that a box is not "game-enabled" to prevent downloading from certain pages.... even while the box may have games on it which can be accessed. A second question is how WTV can sweep boxes and seemingly delete unauthorized copies of these game as well as other files.
PLUS GAME SECTION
The Game Setup page is
wtv-setup:/setupgames.
Unfortunately, this page was never active in Production Services and now only contains a note to that effect. It was necessary to get the codes from behind the downloads buttons on the Previewer's version of this page. That led to the following pages:
wtv-setup:/setupgames-choose (now getting technical errors)
or
wtv-setup:/setupgames-survey1
wtv-setup:/setupgames-survey2
wtv-setup:/setupgames-survey3
From this last page one can get to
wtv-setup:/setupgames-update
and while you will get a download screen... apparently a check is made of you HD d you will get a notice on this page:
wtv-setup:/setupgames-success
It says: "Games disabled Games have been disabled on your WebTV Plus receiver. If you ever want to reenable games, choose Games from your TV Home page."
There is another page
wtv-setup:/setupgames-failure
GAME DOWNLOAD CODES: Note: some of these codes may be dated, replaced by newer codes. Also remember that WTV has the abiltiy to sweep one's disk and remotely delete such "unauthorized files". Forms have been used to simplify the use of C&P. Also... late in 98 WTV attempted to prevent people from downloading DOOM. At that point a second version was created.... one that lacked the critical page with the "ON" Switch. For those of you who have DOOM with "docs2" in the URLs.... you will not have access to this page. Since this page exists only on one's HD... there is no way to access off the web. But there is a bright side.... the "ON" switch codes still work.
DOOM DOWNLOAD