robi2106's Journal: CD Case Left on Car Roof: All My Games Are Gone

I wish I were kidding about the title of this journal, but it is true. I went over to a friends house and took my mobile desktop replacement boat anchor of a laptop and a CD case freshly re-organized from the remains of other cases. Said CD case contained EVERY SINGLE GAME CD I own. Yes that means legit games. And thanks to copy protection on some, I will not be able to play the images I do have (I only have 1 or two images /copies any way).

When leaving said friends house the CD case and jacket were placed on the roof as I fiddled with keys while holding a laptop, some cookware, and some other misc stuff. The jacket made it back into the car, but alas.... the cd case was black and the car parked in a near black hole of illumination. So upon returning home I noticed its lack of being on the back seat of the car and promptly knew what had happened, as well as the outcome.

I suppose I would rather have lost the CD case than dropped the laptop. But what a costly mistake. I called said friend, who went on a walk through the streets all the way to a main road and did not see anything. I suspect that the case remained on the roof until after that point as there are no big dips / bumps and we were driving slow (having just carved a pumpkin and wanting to preserve the delicate sculpture). I even drove back across town and ran the street up and down a few times with a flashlight (now it is 3am) looking for the little black case. Since that part of town has pedestrian traffic, the case was probably scooped up by someone walking (or driving) and mistaken for a gold mine in audio CDs. I mean, only nerds have huge collections of PC games that needs 72 cd cases to transport. :-)

So every single game... ever. Wow. All the way back to the Silent Hunter and the Star Craft battle chest. Gone are Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, Balder's Gate, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, MS Combat Flight Sim, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Thief, Prince of Persia, Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Invisible War, MDK (man was that fun if not an insanely hard game), the 90's Axis & Allies, Rainbow Six, and many more.

The survivors include my console games for the Cube & SNES because they aren't as portable and weren't planed to be involved in the evening's festivities (thankfully because they represent the bulk of my recent gaming where as the PC has been almost entirely work related for the past year or so).

I even lost the burned CD with all my Tribes 1 files (loads of mods, script settings, EVERYTHING relating to that game and if you knew me you would know that was about 3 years of my gaming life and more of the rest of my life than is healthy). That CD case also held a few dozen discs for some Linux dists that I wanted to try on my wife's computer (Suse and Ubuntu being top competitors).

The survivors include the Red Alert collector set (won't work on any PC after WinME) and Sim City 3000 (was in the laptop case and not in the cd case).

So how much did I lose? What is my monetary loss. Hard to say. The retail replacement cost (if purchased when they came out) is above $800 easily.... but the current replacement cost might only be a few hundred. I think the real cost is in memories. Shut up I know that is cheesy. But I have few photo albums from college, partly due to a HD crash 2 years ago that deleted 3yrs of my lifes records. So I remember what happened by the game discs in my folders.

I remember playing Tribes with 4 friends using a converted / usurped computer lab's network (it is good to have friends that work for ITS). I remember playing Starcraft with a roommate and his brother on the other side of the state.

But then again..... I am married and forming a new life and honestly.... games sucked much of my productivity for several years which is why I lack a degree and have carpel tunnel symptoms.

So is it a bad thing? I don't know. I will miss the Empire Earth II CDs given to me by my brother in law. I didn't get past the Korean civilization and really wanted to progress further.

So what would you lose if all your games disappeared including computer, console, board games, table tops, RPG books, CCGs etc. Everything. Gone.

yikes...

[(H)elix1]

Been there. Left a collection of games on an airplane. Not fun. If you have the box you might be able to find iso images around.

Since you are now in the market for a game, take a look at company of heroes. Good game, but also does not do a net or cd based copy protection. I was shocked to see it spool up without the dvd in the drive.

Urgh

[nizo]

The pc games wouldn't be that horrible (I hardly ever play them anymore), but my playstation games, ack. I was just cleaning out my memory cards the other day and realizing how many games I have't finished yet :-) Though I should go back and dig up all those old PC games I haven't finished....

It would be awesome if the xbox was capable of playing older PC games somehow, that would make it much more appealing to me.

Re:

[nizo]

I also meant to ask, are you planning on putting up LOST/REWARD signs in the general vicinity? It might be worth a try anyway.

Re:

[robi2106]

Good point. Part of the problem is that the potential area covers all of downtown Boise on one of THE main streets as well as the streets leading up to it.

And then I also have to wonder if I _should_ try to find it. Did I loose the ability to have fun? Nope, there are other ways to have fun. I still have several games for the cube and some for the super NES, so I'm not hurting too bad.

Jason

Re:

[nizo]

Hmm. Well I bet the case was found by a bunch of orphans who sold them to buy food. Luckily they were purchased at a bargain price by a guy with 10 kids who couldn't afford to get his kids any presents for Christmas. Yeah thats me, Mr. Optimistic.

Re:

[robi2106]

I'm sure of it! It couldn't possibly be the down town drunks that were out and about (after 1am) when I was returning home. Nope. :-)

jason

Pat III

[Degrees]

I would hate losing my Patrician III [ascaron.com] CD. It does have some sort of copy protection on it, and I've been too lazy to try to break it. I do have a collection of other game CDs, but Pat III is the one I play.

I've been playing a lot the last week. My wife is beginning to get annoyed.

MDK

[TechnoLust]

I got that one with the MS Force Feedback Joystick (which I bought at wholesale price, thanks to working for a reseller) and it WAS fun. I have a few of these games somewhere. I'm sure between all of the circle, we could probably replace all the ones you lost.

Re:

[robi2106]

MDK was a sleeper.... I never heard of it, but playing it was just fun, the enemies funny and HARD and hte graphics were butter smooth. I loved it. It might have been 2003 since I played it last but it was still fun!

As far as the replacements go, I of course appreaciate those gestures.

I need to figure out which ones I had any real interest in. For example, I know I lost a Tomb Raider game but I don't remember which one. It came with my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS I think, but it was horrible and didn't wor

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Grasshopper, you are wise to know that you have many demands on your time, however you must remember that you still must have time for yourself also. Without balance, there is resentment.

Re:

[robi2106]

And resentment leads to fear, fear to hate and hate to lack of Tribes which leads to suffering!

jason