I got into WoW during the CB1 era, and was playing on opening day. Yes, they got caught with their pants down, badly.
It still surprises me that this game is retaining so many customers, though. Yes, it is very engrossing for 59 levels. You hit 60, though, and there is not much to do, besides PvP and run through the same dungeons over and over again.
Bugs that are a detriment to gameplay take months to get fixed, if at all. A bug that caused players to disconnect if they used a certain core class skill was left in game for over a month. But if a bug benefits someone, you get a hotfix.
Server stability is still an issue, 9 months into the game, and every patch, they act up. Right now, a few days after the latest server maintenence, several servers have population caps lower than normal, because Blizzard can't figure out the problems.
New content is few and far between. They have added 2 instances and 2 battlegrounds in the last 6 months, but not a single new "zone" for players to enjoy/explore. So, all new content is for groups.
It still takes, on average, about 15+ hours to get a response from a GM.
The general forums are a joke. bnet kiddies galore, posting more flames than you can find in alt.flame. Yet, the CMs are more interested in locking posts that has an all-caps title than they are in actually answering questions asked, or removing off-topic posts. Nothing would help more than a sledgehammer approach to moderating those forums.
They don't reply to the bugs forum very often. So, you submit a bug there, and never get any confirmation that it is real or not, unless you see it in the patch notes in a few months.
It took them 8 months to finally take a good look at the Warlock class, which was easily the least played class in the game.
I think Blizzard has gotten a free ride by most of its customers, because they all hold Blizzard on a pedestal, and would rather brush the dust off of it than complain. These same folks would take Blizzard saying [this is fictional!] "The duping issue has been confirmed, and we found out that 75% of the items/gold that was duped was by Blizzard employees, who have all been terminated", and post as a response "Thanks for clearing it up, and taking care of the problem, see, Blizzard always comes through!", instead of disbelief that Blizzard can't catch these things sooner.
My wife and I basically stopped playing when we hit 60. There isn't all that much to do left in the game, and the hassles to get those things done aren't worth the massive effort required. And this, from a person who played EQ1 for 5+ years, and slogged through endlessly repetitive dungeons in the minor hope that I might win a roll on a rare item.
MMOs are, at the endgame, about how much fun you can have with the folks you are with, as you deal with the tedium of the game. Maybe I wasn't surrounded by the right people, but I think my WoW days are pretty much done.
[Note: Apparently they say the duping issue is, and I quote Caydiem, "I have been informed that the investigations have more or less concluded (they'll still be watching, of course, but the labor-intensive scouring of data is complete). It has been determined that there is not a repeatable dupe exploit." I wonder if that means you can only do it once...]
I got to meet quite a few of the cast members from the original show, missing only Shatner and Nimoy. Of all of them, Doohan was the nicest guy of the bunch. Several others were really good guys/girls, as well, but Doohan was the best, face to face.
Rest in peace, big guy.
Can you just see it? First, Tipper Gore went bonkers on the music industry.
Now, a few newer idiots, getting a helping hand from Hillary "My husband can't keep it in his pants" Clinton, is going after video games.
There's no reason the GTA series shouldn't have gotten an AO in the first place. But, there are so many grey areas when it comes to this kind of thing. And, if it was a movie, it would get rated R, no matter how much the violence.
Personally, I think it is comical that you can show hundreds of folks getting gunned down in cold blood, often for no reason at all, and the movie is R. But, you show too much T&A, and it's NC-17.
Seen the "Kill Bill" movies? I remember in one scene, Uma Thurman's character cuts off a guy's arm, and the blood spurts like 20'. Funny thing is, on a clean amputation like that, the arteries tend to "snap back" into the body to an extent, and most amputations don't bleed anything close to that. So, the spurting blood was for shock effect, and not a sense of realism. But, darn, that's just good movietime! Rating, R.
But, if right after that, she had unzipped her top to bare her breasts, tweaked her nipples, and said "I hate when I get blood on my boogs. It makes them sticky" and then licked it off, NC-17.
Gotta wonder where it ends. There are no black and whites. It's all grey, baby!
And there's a problem with that???
There is nothing sadder than those poor, helpless souls that can only find their salvation sitting in front of the boob-tube listening to some televangelist rant about how God is going to save them.
Please. What's going to save them is laying off the bon-bons.
I am sure a lot of musicians will consider free music when music studios start to consider free studio time.
Even if all the recording is done in a home studio, the musician had to buy all the equipment needed.
You want free music, listen to the radio, or go to the park and listen to somebody strum their guitar and sing.
But, when you have a musician/band, especially those without a recording contract, paying more than $10K to record an CD, you might understand that it really is a business.
How do I know some of this? Well, my brother http://www.randyellefson.com/ has an album out. And while he didn't use a studio this time, he did more than 15 years ago, and 4 songs cost his mediocre band over $5K. So, now he has most of the recording studio stuff at home.
Really, it depends on the company, and what they are trying to do, and where the new employee will fit.
Think about it. If you are a well established company, hiring someone for a non-super-specialized task, and have your pick of dozens of potential employees, are you going to go for the guy that obviously wants to make sure he sticks out? No, they want someone that conforms, because they need YOU to conform, and to do the job they set forth.
However, as you get out into the cutting edge, you get folks that are more interested in people that look at the world a little differently. They want someone to see a new way of doing things, that will hopefully be better. They need vision, not blinders.
Since not all IT jobs are alike, expecting the same dresscode concerns from two different mindsets doesn't work.
Had my left ear pierced since 1985, days before my 19th bday. Haven't taken it out for anything, other than when I was a volunteer FF, and OSHA heavily frowns on them, and doesn't allow hoop type at all. (It also frowns on rings of any type on the fingers, including wedding/engagement.) It wasn't worth the arguing, or even being prevented from getting on an aparatus, simply to make a statement.
Seriously, no matter what airport you go to, you wouldn't want to see 95% of the patron's in a bathing suit, much less x-ray nudes.
Besides which, if there are underage folks going through those machines, then it would be considered child pornography, in all likelyhood.
Right now, for World of Warcraft, Blizzard has been using a bittorrent to distribute updates/patches.
Several university students have had problems not being able to get patches. Right now, for many of those customers, they have to wait until someone posts the file on a website so they can download it from there, as to the best of my knowledge, Blizzard never ponied up with an alternate distribution method.
So, some people are using P2P legitimately.
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Personally, I don't see it lasting.
I got into WoW during the CB1 era, and was playing on opening day. Yes, they got caught with their pants down, badly.
It still surprises me that this game is retaining so many customers, though. Yes, it is very engrossing for 59 levels. You hit 60, though, and there is not much to do, besides PvP and run through the same dungeons over and over again.
Bugs that are a detriment to gameplay take months to get fixed, if at all. A bug that caused players to disconnect if they used a certain core class skill was left in game for over a month. But if a bug benefits someone, you get a hotfix.
Server stability is still an issue, 9 months into the game, and every patch, they act up. Right now, a few days after the latest server maintenence, several servers have population caps lower than normal, because Blizzard can't figure out the problems.
New content is few and far between. They have added 2 instances and 2 battlegrounds in the last 6 months, but not a single new "zone" for players to enjoy/explore. So, all new content is for groups.
It still takes, on average, about 15+ hours to get a response from a GM.
The general forums are a joke. bnet kiddies galore, posting more flames than you can find in alt.flame. Yet, the CMs are more interested in locking posts that has an all-caps title than they are in actually answering questions asked, or removing off-topic posts. Nothing would help more than a sledgehammer approach to moderating those forums.
They don't reply to the bugs forum very often. So, you submit a bug there, and never get any confirmation that it is real or not, unless you see it in the patch notes in a few months.
It took them 8 months to finally take a good look at the Warlock class, which was easily the least played class in the game.
I think Blizzard has gotten a free ride by most of its customers, because they all hold Blizzard on a pedestal, and would rather brush the dust off of it than complain. These same folks would take Blizzard saying [this is fictional!] "The duping issue has been confirmed, and we found out that 75% of the items/gold that was duped was by Blizzard employees, who have all been terminated", and post as a response "Thanks for clearing it up, and taking care of the problem, see, Blizzard always comes through!", instead of disbelief that Blizzard can't catch these things sooner.
My wife and I basically stopped playing when we hit 60. There isn't all that much to do left in the game, and the hassles to get those things done aren't worth the massive effort required. And this, from a person who played EQ1 for 5+ years, and slogged through endlessly repetitive dungeons in the minor hope that I might win a roll on a rare item.
MMOs are, at the endgame, about how much fun you can have with the folks you are with, as you deal with the tedium of the game. Maybe I wasn't surrounded by the right people, but I think my WoW days are pretty much done.
[Note: Apparently they say the duping issue is, and I quote Caydiem, "I have been informed that the investigations have more or less concluded (they'll still be watching, of course, but the labor-intensive scouring of data is complete). It has been determined that there is not a repeatable dupe exploit." I wonder if that means you can only do it once...]
I got to meet quite a few of the cast members from the original show, missing only Shatner and Nimoy. Of all of them, Doohan was the nicest guy of the bunch. Several others were really good guys/girls, as well, but Doohan was the best, face to face. Rest in peace, big guy.
Can you just see it? First, Tipper Gore went bonkers on the music industry. Now, a few newer idiots, getting a helping hand from Hillary "My husband can't keep it in his pants" Clinton, is going after video games. There's no reason the GTA series shouldn't have gotten an AO in the first place. But, there are so many grey areas when it comes to this kind of thing. And, if it was a movie, it would get rated R, no matter how much the violence. Personally, I think it is comical that you can show hundreds of folks getting gunned down in cold blood, often for no reason at all, and the movie is R. But, you show too much T&A, and it's NC-17. Seen the "Kill Bill" movies? I remember in one scene, Uma Thurman's character cuts off a guy's arm, and the blood spurts like 20'. Funny thing is, on a clean amputation like that, the arteries tend to "snap back" into the body to an extent, and most amputations don't bleed anything close to that. So, the spurting blood was for shock effect, and not a sense of realism. But, darn, that's just good movietime! Rating, R. But, if right after that, she had unzipped her top to bare her breasts, tweaked her nipples, and said "I hate when I get blood on my boogs. It makes them sticky" and then licked it off, NC-17. Gotta wonder where it ends. There are no black and whites. It's all grey, baby!
And there's a problem with that??? There is nothing sadder than those poor, helpless souls that can only find their salvation sitting in front of the boob-tube listening to some televangelist rant about how God is going to save them. Please. What's going to save them is laying off the bon-bons.
I am sure a lot of musicians will consider free music when music studios start to consider free studio time. Even if all the recording is done in a home studio, the musician had to buy all the equipment needed. You want free music, listen to the radio, or go to the park and listen to somebody strum their guitar and sing. But, when you have a musician/band, especially those without a recording contract, paying more than $10K to record an CD, you might understand that it really is a business. How do I know some of this? Well, my brother http://www.randyellefson.com/ has an album out. And while he didn't use a studio this time, he did more than 15 years ago, and 4 songs cost his mediocre band over $5K. So, now he has most of the recording studio stuff at home.
Really, it depends on the company, and what they are trying to do, and where the new employee will fit. Think about it. If you are a well established company, hiring someone for a non-super-specialized task, and have your pick of dozens of potential employees, are you going to go for the guy that obviously wants to make sure he sticks out? No, they want someone that conforms, because they need YOU to conform, and to do the job they set forth. However, as you get out into the cutting edge, you get folks that are more interested in people that look at the world a little differently. They want someone to see a new way of doing things, that will hopefully be better. They need vision, not blinders. Since not all IT jobs are alike, expecting the same dresscode concerns from two different mindsets doesn't work. Had my left ear pierced since 1985, days before my 19th bday. Haven't taken it out for anything, other than when I was a volunteer FF, and OSHA heavily frowns on them, and doesn't allow hoop type at all. (It also frowns on rings of any type on the fingers, including wedding/engagement.) It wasn't worth the arguing, or even being prevented from getting on an aparatus, simply to make a statement.
Seriously, no matter what airport you go to, you wouldn't want to see 95% of the patron's in a bathing suit, much less x-ray nudes. Besides which, if there are underage folks going through those machines, then it would be considered child pornography, in all likelyhood.
This isn't World of Warcraft...Nobody here really cares if you were "First" or not. I swear, the bnet kiddies show up everywhere!
Right now, for World of Warcraft, Blizzard has been using a bittorrent to distribute updates/patches. Several university students have had problems not being able to get patches. Right now, for many of those customers, they have to wait until someone posts the file on a website so they can download it from there, as to the best of my knowledge, Blizzard never ponied up with an alternate distribution method. So, some people are using P2P legitimately.