Petition Microsoft
Most, if not all of us first discovered minesweeper when looking through the games included with Windows, and for years, the community only used games completed on the original game. This changed when the beginner 9x9 board was introduced. Then, only beginner games done on Windows 3.1 and 95 were accepted for official lists. Then, people began to abuse the board-generation cycles on intermediate, so many games were excluded from official listings. Thanks to Rodrigo's clone, people can sweep and know that their records won't be rejected, but that leaves me disappointed with Microsoft.
Microsoft has hundreds of expert programmers- some of the best in the world. They certainly have the ability to enhance minesweeper to, and beyond, the level of the Clone. We must petition Microsoft to renovate minesweeper to meet the community's needs. As Dmitriy and Rodrigo have shown us, it is not hard at all to eliminate the cycles that invalidate some games, and it is possible to make minesweeper unhackable. It is tragic that the minesweeper community can no longer trust the original game.
When Windows Vista is released, I would like to see the following features on minesweeper:
- Option of 8x8 or 9x9 beginner board
- All of the combined features of the Clone and Arbiter
- Multiplayer Games
- Maybe about a dozen skin options
More coming soon...
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