Slashdot Mirror
Earth Fires Destabilize Virtual Governments
Thanks to Terra Nova for their article pointing out that Sony Online's virtual worlds are missing their customer service, "...due to the wild fires raging throughout San Diego and the proximity of those fires to the SOE offices. Normal operations will resume once this local emergency is over." Edward Castronova comments: "In other words, a firestorm has knocked out the government that rules over 750,000 accounts", and suggests: "We tend to think of synthetic worlds as decentralized because the users are spread over the globe. They are still highly centralized on the production side, however, a state of affairs with clear implications for the relationship of synthetic worlds not only to Earth's weather, but to its politics as well."
Because the people running the game couldn't be bothered to distribute the load. Could have been done. Don't blame nature. Blame human lack of forethought.
They should distribute the load of the physical office space? Hmmm, there is plenty of good reason to have one central customer support office. This isn't servers, these are people. The fire is threatening the physical building where people sit and work.
I suppose I should have thought ahead and distributed my house and family too. Nevermind that its prohibitively expensive to apply redundency to large physical objects and impossible with current scientific methods to duplicate people. But hey, a bitter slashdotter can't be wrong, right?
I can single handedly mutilate a level 92 dragon, and SOW across the world in 3 seconds but my account had no chance against that wild fire.
Well, what we have here is a country that has suddenly lost it's government and police force, but the majority of the population still exists.
This should be interesting...
Place your bets on the ETA for the next "EQ servers hacked!" slashdot headline!
The forces of nature have always been humanities greatest foe...
aren't there bigger issues concerning this terrible disaster? People are dying and nearly 1000 homes are burning. I realize that this is an article making a point but let's not lose focus on what's really important about this fire.
WOOT!
Let's Pillage!
...they would just give the support staff +100 sv fire Red Glowing Robes:
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: CHEST
AC: 60
STR: +20 STA: +5 WIS: +5 INT: +30 HP: +100 MANA: +100
SV FIRE: +100 SV DISEASE: +100 SV COLD: +100 SV MAGIC: +100 SV POISON: +100
Effect: Flowing Thought X (Worn)
WT: 2.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: HUM ERU HIE DEF GNM IKS
Mod parent up!
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
They obviously should have had plans for this.
;)
Not neccessarily a bush fire, but incase this one office goes down.
How can a company this large not have redundancy for something making so much money?
Management should be fired. Or chucked in the fire
Have fun!
holepit
I don't see how this would affect players other then the lack of message deletion in the forums. SOE_tech_support = joke_in_the_best_of_times;
Are 3D online games now going to be called "synthetic worlds" in the same way comics are called "graphic novels" in a futile attempt
to convince other people that they're not really for kids? When are people going to stop kidding themselves that these games are some sort of
next step in creating alternate realities. They're not. They're a game running on someone elses computer. Period. Take away the graphics and you have a MUD.
What customer service? After purchasing Evercrack for $50 and paying $45 for 3 months of service The program would never run on my machine. Almost all my friends were playing it together. I spent many hours tryng to fix the problem. Had 2 computer experts look at it. Responses from Sonys "customer service" consisted of form replys in the vein of "Oh, go look at the FAQ, heres a helpful link". Never mind I had TOLD them that I already read the FAQ. I e-mailed them more than a dozen times in a month and I got a real clear picture of the way they do business. Sony then refused to refund me claiming it was their policy to never give refunds for any reason. So, it is my policy to never play any game from sony ever again.
I do look forward to Blizzard giving them a run for their money. Look for me on the first day of the new Worlds of Warcraft.
The Anonymous Bastard
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!