My war with Uncharted4...

Seeing as I have no job right now and not much hope of finding one in the immediate future I have been hitting up the PS4 to pass the time. I bought my PS4 over a year ago when I lived in Norseman WA. I took a day and drove down to Esperance on the southern WA coast and dropped a bundle of cash for this next gen console. It would mean that on my days off from working at the gold mine in Norseman I would at least have **something** to do other than sleeping and watching regional TV.

Now I decided on the PS4 over the XBone due to one fact: The PlayStation has the Uncharted franchise. The XBone does not. To get an idea of why this matters watch this...

 and maybe this too...

So when it was announced that the PS4 would be getting "Uncharted 4" and XBone wouldn't (not that it ever would have) the choice was clear. So a month ago in May 2016 Uncharted4 was released to the world to much acclaim and HooHaaah. I wrestled with the idea of not getting it because (a) I am unemployed and have no income and (b) I am unemployed and have no income. Then I decided that the whole reason I got the PS4 was for this game and so I was going to get it, and screw the expense.

I went down to my local shopping centre on release day and picked it up from EBgames (price matched to Kmart, because you have to be insane to pay EB prices). I got home and excitedly whipped the disk into the PS4 .. It started loading and informed me that it needed a patch. "Ok", I thought, "cool, not unusual in this day and age". Games regularly come out and have issues that are patched out. This was a 5GB patch though on the first day of release...WOW. To put that in perspective the whole game weighs in at 50GB ... So 10% of it was needing repairs on day 1.

Now it takes my awesome "Australian Capital City" internet about 5hrs to download 5GB so I left it downloading and went and had a nap, went for a drive, drank a coffee, made dinner, ate dinner ... and went to bed because the day was over.

In the morning I was all ready to go play my newly patched and updated Uncharted4. This is where shit got cray-cray. I started the game, it loaded to the main menu. I pressed the X button, chose my difficulty, picked a...

...oh...OK. That had happened maybe once before in the 15 months I'd had the PS4.

I started the game again. Loaded to the main menu, I pressed the X button, chose my difficulty, picked a save slot. The screen went black and a "loading..." screen appeared counting up to 100%. After it reached 100% a quote appeared on the screen....

"I am a Man of Fortune, and I must seek my Fortune."
— Henry Avery, 1694 

Then,
 

and every time since then..

 

That quote is the only thing I have seen in this game so far. It simply does not work at all on my PS4.
I have about 10 other games and every one of them works without exception. Uncharted 4 just doesn't. I went on-line to the developers website and looked in the support forum. This is not a glitch, there where **HUNDREDS** of people with the same problem.

 The dreaded PS4 Error 34878-0 thread..

What the actual fuck??? How did this get released with such a massive problem in it??? I used the interwebs and searched....and searched....and searched for a solution. There isn't one. Not from Sony. Not from Naughty Dog (The developer). Sure there are thousands of people with no problems happily playing the game and commenting on how amazing it is (BASTARDS!!) but there are also hundreds of people who've essentially got a very expensive coaster. So I dug deeper, and while I didn't find a cure (because there isn't one) I did maybe find a cause ....

Here's what I wrote on the support forum at the Naughty Dog website. I will preface this by saying that this is just a hypothesis. It might be wrong, but it has some evidence that supports it. If it is somewhere in the vicinity of the truth then Sony need to have their heads examined because what they are doing to the PS4 is madness.

My post:

After spending a large amount of time researching this error the cause seems to be related to the differences in the consoles hardware. There have already been 2 revisions of the PS4 since the CUH-10XXA model launched in 2013. The first revision is the CUH-11XXA and these are manufactured between mid 2014 and June 2015. After June 2015 the second revision occurred producing the CUH-12XX model. This model has had its memory reworked from 16x512MB RAM chips down to 8x1GB RAM chips. There is also significant changes to the PS4 motherboard (see here: http://goo.gl/nR4XOC )

So now what we see is that there are 3 PS4 models out in the wild and 2 of them have serious issues with this game. The purpose of consoles was to simplify the process for programmers to produce games for a KNOWN and UNCHANGING platform. Sony have seen fit to change the internals of the PS4 and this is the result. Programmers are programming to work on the PS4 CUH-12XX model at unfortunately it seems that this does not guarantee compatibility with the older CUH-10XXA and CUH-11XXA models. My console is a CUH-11XXA and I have not been able to play 1 sec of Uncharted4 so far, It crashes every time in the prologue (or earlier).
I went back through the comments in this thread and the overwhelming majority of people who have the game crashing constantly have a CUH-10XXA or CUH-11XXA model PS4. I couldn't find one person with CUH-12XX console that can't start the game at all.
This puts Naughty Dog in a very unfortunate position. The majority of us here in this thread are screaming blue murder at them for releasing a game that doesn’t work. It *does* work if you have the latest console version but their code for Uncharted4 must have some serious issues when run on the older model PS4s. This could mean that significant amounts of the game code have to be rewritten for compatibility with older hardware which is going to be a MONUMENTAL task for them and is not going to be a quick fix.
If Uncharted4 is just not compatible with the older consoles and it seems this is the case, and If you have a CUH-11XXA PS4 that is still in warranty, Sony have been exchanging them for the newer model. You may get lucky if you contact Sony and explain the situation to them. Everyone else with a launch model CUH-10XXA or the CUH-11XXA are out of warranty and It looks like the only fix we are going to see for those of us with this constant ERROR CE-34878-0 is to buy a newer console made after June 2015.
Unless of course Naughty Dog can fix the issue with a patch. Given the scale and frequency of the crashes I don’t think that is likely :( 

 I await the resolution of this problem. In the meantime I have been playing Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. THAT GAME IS THE SHIT!!! :D

.....after a short break.

Hey WOW. I had a blog all those moons ago and it's still here??

I thought about starting another one mainly to just vent about stuff that shits me because that's basically all anyone wants to read here anyway.

Looking back at the last entry it was the start of 2010 and I was not having a very good time. Thanks the stars that all changed. Oh, wait. It hasn't. It's now May 2016 and the preceding 6 years have been a mixture of shit, sacrifice, more shit and constant living in a trough of disappointment. In 2010 I actually did get a job. I took it because I had been unemployed for 9 months and needed *something* ANYTHING to have some money coming in. It was a major step backwards career wise after all the good stuff I had done in Melbourne but desperation requires sacrifice. I took a 53% pay cut from my previous job and worked at this job for 3 years until they unceremoniously dumped me. That really hurt, the people who hired me just wouldn't let me progress out of the basement position I was given when I started and I think my constant asking to do something more suitable to my skills eventually got on their nerves. I then spent 18 months unemployed again. Just let that sink in. 18 months with no income.

It was now June 2014 and I was financially ruined and was mere days off losing the house that I bought in 2010. Through friends, I was offered a laboring position at a gold mine out in the middle of the desert in WA. I had to take it, I had no choice. I did this job for 3 months before I was asked to go and run an analytical lab at a different gold mine in a different part of the middle of nowhere, which I accepted. The deal I was offered turned out to be complete bullshit and lies. A trait I found to be typical of the mining industry. The workers are exploited constantly by the management in order to make the most money they can for the owners. They will promise you the Earth and deliver nothing. I really didn't mind the job though. It was not particularly challenging but the people I worked with in the Lab were awesome and will remain lifelong friends due simply to all the crap we had to survive through together. I worked at this job for 15 months. It made me somewhat rich again but at the expense of every other aspect of my life. In short I didn't have any personal life. None. I was stuck at this mine for months on end and got to come home about 4 times over that 15 month period. SO after a series of management mishaps and just plain bad management the mine ran out of money and promptly closed. 95% of the people working there lost their jobs with virtually no notice. I found out on one of my days off, a Friday, and I was packed and GONE by Sunday. That was November 20th 2015.

I have now been unemployed again for another 6 months. I have found that I am now approaching being totally "unemployable". I am not suitable or over qualified for every job I apply for and in the preceding 6 months I have again not had a single positive outcome from any application I have made for a job. This is the norm. This is what being highly skilled and/or educated means in this day and age when you lose your job. It is extremely difficult to get another one and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. It seems though that I have to constantly face this prospect of ridiculously long unemployment and financial hardship. It's just what my life has turned into.

2010

Let's just hope this year is a *LOT* better than 2009. Actually, let's not hope...as it couldn't possibly be any worse.

I got through the Christmas and new year events with a minimum of fuss. I haven't really been able to enjoy much of December but Christmas day was great with all the family there.

Onwards we go into this new year though.

Been a very long time..

Well it's a long time between drinks ... and sadly everything has taken a turn for the worst over the last few months. After my move back to Adelaide the job market here has pretty much dried up and I have found myself now unemployed for 6 months straight . The most frustrating thing is that this unfortunate event looks to continue into the first few months of next year too.

I've thought long and hard about alternatives to finding another chemistry related job and with all things considered I know it just isn't possible at the moment due to circumstances as they stand. Should I go back to uni and study something else? Theoretically I could, the main barrier to that is that to do this I have to forgo any type of life supporting income for the next 3 years. I just don't have the savings to do that now and would put myself under incredible financial (and therefore emotional) strain. So I am going to have to wait out this unemployment rut and hopefully emerge better for it next year. I am currently seeking any type of "part time" or such employment at anywhere I can find. My age, experience and qualifications are proving to be a major hindrance however. After 14 job interviews I keep hearing the same thing over and over "Why did you even apply for this job ?? you're WAY too qualified in Chemistry to be doing this". No one is even willing to take a chance on someone who is obviously desperate to do *anything* so as to be employed. Very Frustrating.

The other sad occurrence is the loss of Rachel as my friend. If you've been following this blog over the time i've been writing it you would know I am very fond of Rachel. Over the last 2 years I had rediscovered the friendship from 17 years ago that we had in high school and we went on to become really good "adult" friends as well. She is/was my best friend for the last few years. Unfortunately, after all the good times and fun we've had together it's gotten to the point where I just couldn't pretend I was happy with what our "relationship" had become. I am currently hopelessly in love with Rachel and unfortunately for me those feelings aren't able to be reciprocated. I am absolutely gutted that my own stupidity has left me with no option but to walk away from the most amazing person I have ever met.

I am currently trying to deal with a bevy of mixed emotions. Sadness, heartbreak, relief and regret are all doing the rounds in my head. The hardest part is always the endless "mulling over" of the details after the fact. The one thing I have learnt however through my adult life is that it's better to "Know why" than to "Assume why" things happen. So thankfully I asked Rachel for her reasons why she doesn't see our relationship ever being more than "Friends" and to her credit she told me. It was really an interesting experience to actually see the other persons side of the story but at the same time devastating to know her reasons. I won't go into details here though, suffice to say that even when you think you know someone very well you can always be surprised. I was most surprised not by the "content" of her reasons but how 2 people can see the same thing totally differently or attribute a deep "cause and effect" analysis to problems whose causes are plain as day.

So now I am trying to cope with life "After Rachel" and I won't lie and say i'm making headway and feeling better. I'm not. I miss her like i'd miss an arm or leg. The biggest shock to me has been just how integrated she'd become into my daily routine (some might say this was entirely the problem) and how hard it is to fill those activities with *Anything* else now. I'm constantly battling the feeling that I have made a horrible, horrible mistake by excluding her from my life, when for so long my life was immeasurably more enjoyable and "full" due solely to her being in it. I'm clinging to the hope that one day, maybe months from now, maybe years from now, we will be able to be friends again. It's just not possible at the moment while I love her the way I do.
Still, I am impressed with my own resolve in that I had the strength to walk away from something that was slowly (but surely) making me miserable. It was harder than losing my Father to cancer, because with death the person is gone and you have no chance to ever have them in your life ever again. That kind of ending I can deal with. Rachel is not dead, she's not going to die any time soon, she's alive and well and living her life and i'm not lucky enough to be involved anymore. THAT type of ending is far worse and much harder to accept.

So Rachel if you're reading this all I want to say is "Thank You", you made my life a joy (most of the time) and I will miss you and your wonderful kids terribly.

Quick catch up...

Well, here we are nearly at the end of August. I'm about to move from Melbourne back to Adelaide. I've lived in Melbourne for the last 5 years and well...lets just say i'm glad to be going. I've had some good times in Melbourne and enjoyed myself on and off. However, ever since 2004 when I moved over here I sort of had the feeling it was a mistake but sadly at that point work dictated where I had to go and the only jobs I could accept were here. I've headed back to Adelaide pretty much every chance I got over the last 5 years as all my family and most of my long term friends are there. I'll miss all the friends I made in Melbourne for sure...but I know i'll be a lot happier in Adelaide.

In the last month I haven't really done a lot except conserve money and ride my bikes and look for a new job in Adelaide. The one exciting highlight of the last month was when I had Rachel and all 4 of her kids stay with me for a week and we *DID* Melbourne. Too much stuff to report on but we packed quite a bit into that week. We went all over Melbourne central, went to the Melbourne Meuseum, Southbank, St. Kilda, Olinda (for Pancakes), Sassafrass (and WORLDS BEST puppet store!!!) and to top it off we also went to Mt. Baw Baw and THE SNOW!!

This was the funniest thing ever too, Sophie F. and the snowball of superlative proportions.

Click picture to play

LOL :)

Let's just say that the whole week was brilliant, I really had a great time myself and I reckon (hope) Rachel and the kids did too.

Tonight I just played my last game of basketball for the team I've been playing with for the last 2 years. We won (some would say "of course" here :P) 28-16 and thus finish the season in 1st place. The guys are all a bit disappointed that I now won't play in the finals due to the move. We'll see how it goes...there may be a hasty return to Melbourne in a few weeks to play in the Grand Final..we'll cross that bridge when we get to it though.

Lot of bridges in view at the moment.

Right now I am in the middle of packing up my house up for the move this weekend and onto lifes next chapter.