Kill Ten Rats

I just spent 56 minutes and 32 seconds on the phone to Comcast customer service. About 56 minutes of that was spent on hold. At about the half-way point, someone answered, asked how he could help me, then said he was transferring me to the right department. He sent me back to the original voice prompt that you get when you call. Around the 56:20 point, someone answered, asked for the number where I have service, then disconnected me with a BEEP.

So tomorrow, I am calling back to cancel service, assuming anyone will answer the phone. My next call will be for DSL.

Thank you. That was vaguely cathartic.

: Zubon

So as many you should already know, Interplay has “risen from the ashes” and announced that they will spend $75M to create the highly anticipated Fallout MMORPG. Don’t hold your breath.

First of all, Interplay doesn’t actually HAVE $75M. That means that they are going to have to convince someone to give it to them. Normally, I would say this would be highly unlikely and you would be stupid to give Interplay and its current “management” that kind of money. I mean, like so stupid, you don’t deserve to have that kind of money to start with. You should be fired from your job, your dog should bite you, and oompa loompas should beat you with nerf bats for days if you do this deal. “Wow” you say, “did Nicodemus actually just say that?”. Damn skippy I did. Why? Read on…

Continue reading Interplay’s Fallout MMORPG: Don’t hold your breath!

When not simply whining, many forum posters are engaged in a subtle but effective political tactic: hurting themselves in a way that hurts others more. If I can make it 5% harder for me to win and 10% harder for you to win, I make it easier on myself while making it sound like I am arguing against my own interest. I get to take the moral high ground, screw you over, and win: a trifecta!

You frequently see this in real life business and politics. Understanding how the game is like the economy can shed light on both.

Continue reading Hurt Yourself to Hurt Others

Because n3rfed teaches us things I have not seen elsewhere, I pass along
THE LINK
without comment.

: Zubon

From Protagoras:

Now I observe that when we are met together in the assembly, and the matter in hand relates to building, the builders are summoned as advisers… And if some person offers to give them advice who is not supposed by them to have any skill in the art, even though he be good-looking, and rich, and noble, they will not listen to him, but laugh and hoot at him, until either he is clamoured down and retires of himself; or if he persist, he is dragged away… But when the question is an affair of state, then everybody is free to have a say-carpenter, tinker, cobbler, sailor, passenger; rich and poor, high and low-any one who likes gets up, and no one reproaches him, as in the former case, with not having learned, and having no teacher, and yet giving advice

: Zubon

These are interesting to consider. Rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock, but two rocks beat two papers beat two scissors beat two rocks. That can take a moment to get your head around.

Is this a common or desirable PvP structure? PvP is frequently balanced as some form of rock-paper-scissors, and we often discuss whether it is balanced for group or solo play, but I have never heard discussion of interaction between the two. I have certainly seen it in PvE. A City of Heroes Scrapper solos much better than a Defender, but two Defenders can take out Archvillains handily.

Let’s phrase that differently: two support characters support each other but are very weak alone, while two strong solo builds do not gain much from playing alongside one another. Okay, we knew that one already. And then there’s my friend Adam, who makes dominating solo characters that excel in groups. Bastard.

: Zubon

I guess you could say it was a balance issue, but it depends on your viewpoint. To me, it was basic math gone wrong.

As announced on the WoW forums here, players are getting their honor downgraded by 30%. Apparently the massive surge of people with HWL/GM PvP gear got a bit of attention. I know there’s a good amount players in my guild with 4 or so pieces already, and one completely done, I believe.

I may be jaded, but I can’t help but think of the many times this has happened with insert_random_mmorpg_here. A bit more testing, or a bit quicker action would have prevented the fun the forums will have with this.

On the good side, maybe this means the queue to get in will be reduced? Muhahaha.

Way back when I was but a lad, there was this movie with fairly tacky special effects (for the time even) but a decent story called The Neverending Story. I reallywasn’t a fan of the movie, but what I remember most about the movie was the amulet the main character had, an ouroboros. For those not up on ancient greek, it’s a snake eating it’s own tail. I always thought it was a cool image. It’s also a fairly popular image/metaphor in your average ancient fable. Not sure why…perhaps the local Fable Outlet didn’t stock many plot elements.

Where was I? Oh ya, WoW eating it’s own tail… Full circle. Good grief have you tried to log on recently?

Continue reading Ouroboros, WoW style

Raids are dropping in World of Warcraft, right? I started to post about the economics of the expansion pack, but then I realized that I don’t actually know anything about it. The bits I do know are level 70, Blood Elves and Dranei, and Horde Paladins/Alliance Shamans. From this, I divine that raids should have become far less common over the past month and will continue to fall over the next month.

Am I completely wrong about that? I could easily be, since if I reversed one assumption, I would expect the number of raids to be skyrocketing.

Continue reading Supply, Demand, Expectations, and Raiding