Blizzard Doesn’t Get It, Blizzard Doesn’t Care, and Blizzard Has Become Too Focused On Money And Not On The Customers Who Give It To Them

That was a hell of a title wasn’t it.

I’m just getting so fed up.  I’ve had comments that I’m too whiny, and quite frankly I don’t really give a rip.  I am who I am and if you don’t want to read it, don’t.  If you want to write your own blog and deal with the public, go ahead.  Comments are held in moderation until I approve them so do yourself a favour.  Save your breath, save your energy.  Anything that rubs me the wrong way doesn’t get posted, and you can gripe and bitch about it all you want it’s not going to do you any good.

The bottom line is I don’t give two cents about your opinion and that’s fine because this blog doesn’t cost you anything.  Playing World of Warcraft does cost you something though.  In fact it costs a good sum of money.  So you’d expect a certain amount of empathy and customer service from them.  Hell, I work in a customer service job and I could speak volumes about all the things you’re “supposed” to do for your customers and the way you’re supposed to handle them.  In fact, I just finished a four-part course on the subject.

I don’t know how the rest of the servers are doing, but Bloodhoof is a mess.  To put it simply, you just can’t run instances during prime time.  ”Additional instances cannot be launched.  Please try again later”, or something like that is always the result.  About six times in the last week, I’ve spent more than half an hour doing what has lovingly been called “The Instance Hokey Pokey”.  You know what I’m talking about.  You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out… etc etc etc.  Running back and forth through the instance portal waiting for a “slot” to free up so the rest of your group can get in and run the instance.  This hasn’t been an isolated occurrence.  It happens virtually every evening — no pun intended.

I’ve submitted two tickets about this.  This is the response I get:

Greetings Gweedo,

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department.

Issue Reported: *WHEN* are you going to fix this “Additional instances cannot be launched” problem? It’s been TWO WEEKS since I’ve been able to run an instance on schedule! This is UNACCEPTABLE service to PAYING CUSTOMERS! I don’t want the “We’re working hard” and “your patience is appreciated” speech. I work for a cell phone provider as a national sales rep, and if our customers stopped having the ability to say… text message… for this period of time, we’d go bankrupt! WORK HARDER!

We are aware of the situation you reported, and we are currently working on a solution. Please check the World of Warcraft website (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com) for future updates and corrections. We appreciate your patience.

You can also check our forums (“http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/forums/”) where you can discuss game issues with other players.

Thank you again for contacting us. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!

*** Please do not respond to this email as all conversations on this matter would be best handled online. ***

Regards,
Alfoln
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

Nice.  He essentially gave me the answer I told him I had no interest in hearing.  Lippy little number, yes?

I don’t know what the root cause of the problem is, because our server isn’t in queue these days.  Or at least very infrequently.  We’re not heavily overpopulated.  So I would guess that the problem is likely commercial gold farmers who are tieing up instances and/or players who are “soloing” older instances to make money for themselves.

Is it time to put a three-member party minimum on instances?  Does Blizzard need to start being aggressive with gold farmers instead of just talking about it?  Would an increased in-game GM presence (i.e. any presence at all) act as any kind of deterrent to farmers and other misbehaviour?   I think the answers to all of these questions are yes.   I’ve said it for a long time.

Hopefully some day soon they’ll learn.

The Poll Is Closed. The Votes Are In.

I deliberately let the current poll run for a long time because I didn’t want people to scream that it was unfair because I closed the poll early.  I believe it’s been running at least two months.

This poll asked which class annoyed you the most (for any reason).  Conversely it can also be argued that the poll results also show which class annoys you the least.

I think it comes as no shock to anyone that Deathknights and Rogues were #1 and #2 respectively.  I mean seriously… what’s the first thought that goes through your mind when you go into a battleground and see an opposing team full of deathknights?  Exactly.  Rogues are not much better and only vanish’ed out of first place by a single vote.

Most beloved of all classes are the warriors and shamans.  I’m not entirely sure about the second one.  A well geared elemental shammy can be a nightmare in some situations.  But I will agree that the warriors (the few warriors) are generally a good lot, and not annoying.  Much.

What should we poll next?

Ditching Your Assist Addon And Living To Tell About It

"Assisting The Tank(er)"

We all know that we should be focusing on the tank’s target and not breaking off and fighting the whole pull one-on-one right?  It’s really the difference between a good group and an awful group.  In an ideal group environment (in most situations) the tank should be absorbing all of the damage so the healer only has one person to heal.  When Mr. “I One-Shot Your Mom” Rogue decides that he “can handle one on my own”, suddenly the healer has his or her hands full, agro is spread around, and things generally don’t go well.

There are a bunch of ways that you can automate “assisting” a pre-defined player (usually the tank) in your group.  Veteran players will swear by CT Raid Assist.  I used Simple Assist for a long time and really liked it.  Or you can do it manually if you’re fast with your fingers, but doing it manually is a bit of a pain because you have to select the tank everytime you want a target and it’s time consuming.

All this week I’ve been getting “Interface action failed because of an addon” kind of errors and after some deduction, I figured out that my Simple Assist addon was what was causing the problem.  So I tossed it and figured out how to have almost the exact same effect with no addons at all.  Sorry I don’t have screenshots.  It’s Tuesday and WoW is down — like you didn’t notice.

My technique involves the “target focus” function they added to the game last year that hardly anybody (outside of hardcore raiders) knows about or uses.  To make this little hack, you will need to not be using focus for anything else and you will need two (2) action buttons.  That’s it.  I used the bottom two over on the right bars, but you can use any that you like.

This is where the compromising part comes in.  Focus may reset from time to time (especially if your pet is the focus and you fly or mount a lot).  So where a dedicated assist addon will “remember” your assist persistantly, this method may forget from time to time in certain situations.  Considering I’m on a slower machine, I will gladly take this minor disadvantage considering that I’m using less memory and I can easily reset my assist with a couple of keystrokes with no muss and no fuss (especially if you know how to target group members/pets from the keyboard.)

First.  Make a macro.  Type /m to bring up the macro screen. It’s probably a good idea to make both macros you will make today as “general” macros so you can use them on all of your characters.  Make a new general macro, and call it “Set Assist”.  Pick whatever icon you want.  I chose one with a bullseye on it.  In the macro window, simply type “/focus” (with no quotes).  That’s it.  Because you’re going to target the person you want to assist before you press this button so whoever you have targetted when you press this button will become your focus.  Don’t overthink things, grasshopper.  Trust me.  This will work.

Now make another general macro.  Call it “Assist Focus” and pick whatever icon you want.  I used one with a hand in it.  In this macro, put the single line “/assist focus” (with no quotation marks again).

Now drag these two macros to two unused buttons.  Like I said before, I used the two at the bottom of the right-hand bars, but you can use any two buttons you like.  (I already have all the “lower” buttons keymapped so I just wanted to put them somewhere that wouldn’t interfere with my current keybindings.)

Now the only thing you have left to do is to set key bindings.  I used Control-F and F because those were the two keys I used to use with Simple Assist.  (I have “manual” assist — which is normally “F” — set to “G”.)  So to mark an assist, I target someone and press Control-F.  To assist them, I just hit F.

So go to key bindings, and find the locations of the buttons you are using for your two assist macros and bind keys to them.  Remember that the right bar of the two vertical bars is “number one” and that the buttons are enumerated from top to bottom.  So pick your hotkeys (you don’t have to use mine) and you’re set!

You now have a quick and dirty (and easy!) assist setup with no addons whatsoever!  Just remember to keep your eye on that focus window.  If it disappears, you will have to use your “set” macro again!  (Tip:  If you don’t like where the focus window is, you can right-click on it, unlock it, and move it somewhere else.  When you’ve decided on its new location, right-click and lock it the same way so you don’t accidentally move it.)

I had a statutory holiday yesterday and my brain is a little gelatinous today.  So if I wasn’t clear, please feel free to ask questions in comments!

The Shaft Of The Nerf Bat: It Impaleth Me

So the joke going around the server these days is…

“Did you hear that UPS and Blizzard-Activision merged?”

After the obligatory pregnant pause, the punch line is…

“Yeah.  Their new slogan is:  What can Blizz screw for you?”

Ok, maybe I started the joke, but I feel victimized!

It may come as a shock (or unknown tidbit) to some of you, but I have a priest.  His name is Wetnap.  Since his very beginnings he has almost always been Discipline spec.  Why?  For one thing I always like the road less travelled.  For another thing, I just thought that Discipline was just way cool.  Keyword:  Was.

Yes, I’m going to go on a rant.  Fasten your seatbelts.

One of the biggest reasons I took Discipline from the start was because of wand specialization.  Point and laugh all you want, but a young priest’s #1 friend is a good wand.  Five points in wand specialization and a half decent wand and you’re well on your way to grinding through the boring lower levels in record time.  They took that talent away from us.  It no longer exists.

Then there was the “old” Power Word: Shield.  Any Discipline priest who has been in a battleground knows this was one of our most-requested buffs.   It was awesome for flag carriers in Warsong Gulch because not only would it protect them but it would also heal them as well.  They nerfed the begeezus out of that one.  The healing effect was removed.  Thanks.  No really.  Thanks.

I feel a few f-bombs coming, so maybe I’d better stick a break in here.

WTF? No Thanks!

First of all, I really want to say that moving here from Blogspot was the best thing I ever did.  I really appreciate the services that WordPress offers, and I wouldn’t change blogging platforms for anything.

I realize that as they provide free service (and I use the free service) that they have to make money somehow to pay the bills.  Today I saw the most amusing advertisement when I called up my blog stats today.  I had to take a screenshot and show it to you.

Ummm… WTF?

Nah, I think I’ll keep my current name.  Thanks anyway WordPress people!  (Repetition — even though I have no idea why it’s in the URL — isn’t even spelled right!)

And the scariest part is… gweedosplace.com is available!  (Don’t worry, I have no intentions of buying it, so don’t get any bright ideas!)

Completely Unrelated To WoW (And Possibly NSFW)

I’m allowed to do this once in a while, right?  Heck, I know some WoW bloggers who blog about their personal lives far more than I do.  Consider this the exception and not the rule.

I have — the last few days — been very sick.  Yesterday morning I woke up and could barely speak.  Thursday mornings I have to work in a very loud work environment and I knew it was going to be a very challenging day — and it was.

I stopped at the doctor on the way home and had him look down my throat.  I could tell by the flinch it wasn’t good.  ”You have a very bad case of viral laryngitis.  If you can take a day of bed rest, I would, and don’t talk any more than you have to”, he told me.  I was shocked.  I’d never heard of a bed rest prescription for laryngitis.  It seemed a little extreme, but I agreed I would “take it easy”.

I got home and discovered I was “flying solo” for dinner.  Rather than put effort into making dinner (since I felt like re-fried crap to begin with) I decided to just go to Subway and grab a sandwich and come home and play a little World of Warcraft.

I hopped in my car and drove to the Subway which is about three minutes from my house.  I walked in, and (fortunately) there were no other customers in the store.  The employees seemed to have picked up on this fact and had taken the opportunity to crank the music a little louder than the operations manual may have indicated.

I proceeded to the counter and recited my order across the glass barrier.  At this point, my voice had gone from “bad” to nearly non-existant.  The young college-aged girl behind the counter squinted and leaned over the counter a little bit and asked me to repeat myself.

So I did.

“What’s wrong with you?”, she asked.  ”I can see your mouth moving, but I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

I wanted to jump the counter and just turn down the music.  I was tired, sick, and beginning to get embarassed.  Subsequently, I was also starting to get pissed off.  Have you ever… in a moment of anger or an adrenaline rush gotten words mixed up?  I did.  And how.

I scowled slightly and took the deepest breath I could muster to “push” the volume as far as my larynx would allow it to go.  “I HAVE VAGINAL LARYNGITIS!”, I exclaimed.

I didn’t even realize what I’d said until the poor girl’s eyes swelled to a size larger than the tomatos she would later add to my cold cut combo.  I stared at her for a second trying to ascertain the cause of her fright when the “instant replay” dutifully played in my head and my eyes soon matched hers.

Without a word of a lie, the other young lady who was doing prep work in the kitchen stuck her head around the corner and commented “You know… I think I had that last summer!”, at which point the girl behind the counter exploded in laughter and I… well… tried to… as I tried to “de-redden” my face.

“Would would you like on your sandwich?”, she asked with a smirk.  (By now, the music was off.)

“Viral tomatos… viral onions… viral green peppers… both kinds of viral olives…”, I replied weakly.

I’ll be really happy when this laryngitis is completely gone.

Tales Of Success With The Mac Client; Common Mac Problems Solved

I’ve had a few problems with the Mac client this week.  One of them was nearly fatal.  I want to make this blog post in the hopes of helping other people who may be faced with the same situation(s) and not know how to handle it.

The Downloader

(This actually applies to Windows too, I think.)   Have you noticed all the talk about Patch 3.1?  Were you like me and wondering what all the commotion was about 3.1 pre-downloading and wondering when it was going to start for you?  I was sure confused.  None of that stuff ever pre-downloads for me, and yesterday I found out why.  There are two executables in your World of Warcraft folder.  One is called “World of Warcraft” and one is called “World Of Warcraft Launcher”.  While dragging “World Of Warcraft” to your dock will work (and bypass the stupid news screen) it won’t launch the Blizzard Downloader when you’re done so that it pre-downloads the bulk of the 3.1 patch.  You know… the news screen isn’t that annoying.  You might just want to switch the icon on your dock.

File Corruption

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the Mac client to be a lot more fragile than the Windows client.  It seems to be easier for files to get corrupted resulting in the game refusing to load.  I’ve now had this problem twice in two to three months.  Re-installing from scratch is no fun and there are a couple of things you can do to minimize the pain.

1. Make a backup, independant of Time Machine. It’s best to do this when you have just done a clean install, but you can do it anytime you have a “working” copy of WoW.  It’s so easy to do on a Mac. If you have an external hard drive, just drag your whole WoW folder to the external drive so you have a backup copy if anything goes south.  You should do this independantly of Time Machine so you have a second tier of protection.  Do not depend on Time Machine by itself. Hard drives and USB enclosures are cheap and one of the best investments you can make.  If you don’t have an external drive, please take the time to backup your WoW installation to series of DVD’s.  It is much faster to restore the files uncompressed from backup DVD’s than it is to install them from the installation DVD’s and then have to apply all the patches.
2. Use Time Machine as well. Time Machine saved my bacon this week.  When things went south on Sunday, I restored the WTF folder from Friday.  It took about fifteen minutes.  That’s a lot faster than doing a complete re-install.

PvP Trash Talking. Somebody Please Tell Me The Solution!

Lately I’ve gone on a bit of a PvP kick.  It’s really been an exciting experience for me because I don’t PvP a lot, and the character I’ve chosen to go on this adventure with is my discipline priest, which is the class I know how to play the least.

He’s not a twink by any stretch of the imagination, but I like to think I have a half-decent clue of what I’m doing.  I’ve also found that battlegrounds are always short healers, so I figure any help is good help.

Having said that, I would say that about 95% of the battlegrounds I’ve run in the last two weeks have concluded with Wetnap being #1 in the healing chart.  (Although I should admit that in many of those, he was also the only healer.)  I don’t go there to score huge amounts of honour, or produce massive DPS or a trillion honourable kills.  I go there to support my team.  I go to buff.  I go to help.  I go to keep the Alliance from dieing more than they need to.  Judging from the numbers, I would say that I succeed a good percentage of the time.  Nothing feels better than defending a flag when an assault group comes in and keeping your friends safe.

The thing that bothers me about PvP are the wannabee raid leaders.  They usually follow the same pattern every time.  First they enter the battleground and issue orders while they’re waiting for the gates to open.  Second, nobody follows the orders.  The rest of the battleground is subsequently spent QQ’ing on the team and telling them how much they “suck” in the most graphic language possible and encouraging people to either leave the battleground or “just die and let them win” — because they’re upset that the team wouldn’t play by their strategy.

I had a real winner yesterday.  And I suppose it should be expected because it’s March Break in most parts of North America.  I joined the battleground as a replacement for someone who left.  The Arathi Basin was already 1400/360 or thereabouts.  We were getting hammered big time, and this little dufus of a priest started the crocodile QQ tears.  I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to call me out by name!   He proceeded to tell me how my healing was inadequate, and how I was being beat by a HUNTER etc etc…

Ok… I’d been in the battleground for a sum total of 20 seconds.  They’d probably been fighting for maybe ten minutes, and this idiot was going off on my head because some huntard who had more mana than sense was spamming heal pet and blowing a ton of bandages.

You can’t very well leave the battleground chat.  Well, you could but then you might miss a legitimate instruction from a helpful player.

I wish there was a solution.  I guess /ignore works.  It’s just such a freakin’ shame.

Farewell To A Pioneer In WoW Blogging

I want to join everybody else in the WoW blogging community in saying farewell to one of the pioneers and true champions in the World of Warcraft blogosphere.

Phaelia from Resto4Life will be shutting the place down as of March 19th, 2009.  Phaelia and Mr. Phae are in the process of having a baby, and it’s simply a matter of priorities.

On a personal note, although I’ve never had more than one-sentence conversations with Phaelia (I can’t imagine the amount of mail she receives) she has always been helpful, enabling, and encouraging.  Aside from “the really major players” I think I’ve gotten more referral traffic from Resto4Life than any other WoW blog.  I am honoured that Phae chose to keep me “on her list” for so long.  From such a heroine of the art, I know of no greater compliment.

But she hasn’t pulled the plug YET!  Hurry on over!  In typical Phaelia style, she’s throwing a party and running a contest.  There is a Belkin Nostromo Speedpad N52TE up for grabs, and I would be quick to point out that the contest is open to Canadians as well! (Seems some things just work better when you don’t have an in-house legal department to deal with.  *cough*)  Hurry on over and get your entries in.  Let’s let Phae know that we love her, and that she is going to be deeply missed.

We wish Phae and her new sapling health, happiness, and a long life.

And Phae?  If the baby comes out with a beard, and a dagger in one hand (and a beer in the other) do me a favour and delete my e-mail address out of your Outlook ok hon?  Mwah.

/vanish

Thank You.

I was going to write that article about the EULA today but two things came up.

1. I actually read the EULA, and almost had to shoot caffeine into my veins to stay awake.  It’s nowhere near as informative as the Code of Conduct, and only about 0.04% as interesting.
2. My old friends at WoW Insider (Dan O’Halloran specifically) shot me a link for my series of articles about the Code of Conduct and I’ve just been sitting here all day hitting refresh watching my blog stats skyrocket like the odometer on the space shuttle.

As if the adrenaline rush from #2 was not enough… #2 was the cause of something else!  As a result of all the traffic generated from the WoW Insider link, this blog became the #3 English-speaking blog on all of WordPress.com in terms of rising popularity today.

I will never ever be on the “top blogs overall” list (Anderson Cooper hosts his blog here for crying out loud!) so being on #3 on the growing blogs list is a huge honour, and I want to thank all of you — and the folks at WoW Insider for making it happen.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing light in a dark time.