My Chars

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

DC Issues - stop saying it's our fault!

Posted on http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=23022342&sid=1


Dear Blizzard,
Hundreds of players have posted on your forums, regarding the issue of frequent disconnects ("DC") during raiding (or Battlegrounds), especially in BWL, that have started since the hardware upgrades. Probably thousands have experienced the problems but have not bothered to complain on the forums.

Your only replies, when you have bothered to reply, is to say that the DC are our fault - our network cards, our Internet connections, our drivers. Please stop it. Seriously, what is more likely - that thousands of separate people have suddenly and without reason all started to develop problems, or that the problem is with you?

How does a BWL raid look for my guild these days? And from what I hear, both on the game and in these forums, for other guilds? As people join the raid and enter the BWL staging area, they will start getting DC. The DC hits random people, happens a lot (on average once per 5 min) and at any given time, out of about 40 people, there will be about 5-10 people DC at any given time. Obviously, this makes the raid impossible. People have complained and posted screenshots on other threads, so don't claim this is not a wide-spread problem!

Unlike lag or some other problems, none of the reasons given by you on this thread:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=16591863&sid=1
Have any bearing on such a severe problem. No, 40 people have not all suddenly started sharing their accounts, loading their networks with file-sharing programs, working wireless or using Sky DSL. Nor is this a problem with the character itself, as other raid instances seem to be okay (we tried AQ40) with exactly the same character. So Blizzard, please stop insulting us, your customers. Please stop saying it's our fault and make us jump through hoops to provide you with useless technical information that has no bearing on the subject.

Here is a quote from a NY-Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/technology/05wow.html):
“Ultimately, what I’d like is for the user to feel like they are having a very polished entertainment experience,” said Mike Morhaime, 38, Blizzard’s president (and a gamer since he first encountered Pong in 1976). “We’d like players to associate our name with quality, so if they see a box on the shelf and it says Blizzard Entertainment, they don’t need to know anything more than that.”

Is this a "polished entertainment experience" Is this quality? No, it is not! Nor is this any way to treat your customers. Just because your main markets are Asia and the US does not mean we, your European customers, should get second-hand treatment! We are paying customers! Acknowledge you have a problem, deal with is, and keep us updated on the progress. But stop blaming us, our computers, our connections, for this problem!

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Review of online word processors

Linux.com has a very nice hands-on review of online word processors, including Writely. Finally, a review that doesn't gush mindlessly over how great these apps are just because they're "web2.0". The review is honest, in-depth and pretty much shreds all of the reviewed apps into little pieces :)

My favourite sentence:

these products sometimes seem like an online regression to typewriters, a technology that few of us who suffered through it would care to see revived.
Priceless :)

Sunday, September 03, 2006

EQdkp and WoWRoster added to guild website

Yesterday our guild leader added EQdkp and WoWRoster to our guild website. All I can say is way cool :)

Really, now that I've seen them, I think these are must have tools for any guild. If you're playing WoW in a guild and your site doesn't yet use these, bug your GM till he agrees to install them - he'll thank you in the end ;)