Of mice and men…

The best laid plans… OK, so I was wanting to level PVP and I had this five man and…

Last night I got a call.  “Please, please, get back on Zin [my healpriest]“  mutter, mutter - doncha know I was burning out?  Still I did so, and while it was “only” a heroic run, it was a blast.  Though I am woefully out of practice.  And since I’m on a new computer my macros were gone, and many buttons weren’t where they belonged, and I was FRANTIC in trying to keep the basics of “tank, then me, then thee” in process.

As I was finishing, I got another message - two of the five have decided to do “something different”.  And the third was only sorta going along, so he’s not there.  My daughter likes to play with/near me, though she’s got plenty of calls herself for both her main (healadin) and her primary alt (rogue).

And then it capped with the gm of the guild to which I’m sorta connected having a “play or leave” talk, and I realized I’d like to play.  so…

Back to the PVE server.  I’ll do at least one night of raid a week on my healpriest - who is at this instant WAY behind everyone else in the guild, but will probably catch up.  I’ll do some work with my 70 hunter.  And I’ve decided to take my 40 warrior and go ahead and push upward with the intent of seriously learning to tank.

And by trying to keep things that small, I’ll try to avoid burnout.

Did I LIKE my shaman? Oh, yes.  PVP?  Yep, this time, when I could give as well as take (shamans vs healpriests…).  Druid?  Yep, pretty nifty.  Will I do them again some time?  Probably.

But I work 40 hours a week.  And there’s a decent chance I’ll be moving to a job slot that’ll require 60 a week for a month or two - if not, I’ll have the pleasure of a 45 minute commute (sigh).  And I still do my martial arts two or three nights a week, and I love my wife and want to see her more than a bit (and she does not like WoW), and I’ve got to do house and yard maintenance, and… yeah, you get the deal.  WoW is just a bit down on the list.

So I’ll be doing priest, again.  With occasional interruptions for other stuff.   Sorry for those who were waiting with bated breath for me to cross the next shaman quest threshhold - I was kind of interested in doing it myself, still am, but not… soon.

I’m going to go have fun.  You all do the same.

A Pause

It is Memorial day here in the US.  As a military veteran, with friends and distant kin still serving, I think I’ll refrain from WoW for just a moment to do a brief reflection.

Those who serve are not noble.  They are not saints, but our fathers and daughters, sisters and sons, who have chosen for reasons good and ill to place their lives in our hands, and to do, if so called, violence in our names.  Some pay the ultimate price, some wait but are never called.  I said they are not noble, for such a label is too crass.  They have offered to lay down their lives for us - is our life truly worth such sacrifice?

On this day, we shall remember those who wear and have worn the uniform of our nation.  We will have a kind word, perhaps do a deed that acknowledges the fee they offered, paid or not.  Yet I ask more.  I ask that you make of your life a good worthy of such price.  It will not take much, probably.  Just, please, more than a pause to remember on this day.

We remember.  Let us not forget.

For those my brothers and sisters who preceded and followed me in my own service, I offer my thanks, and lead those able in toast to those we shall join soon enough.

Absent friends.

Slight change of plans

Well, here I thought I had my plan of development running.  Three PVP characters.  Shaman solo as a DPS spec, Druid paired with my daughter as a Tank spec, and because I found I couldn’t let go, a priest that would go solo - so shadow till I could group consistently and if necessary change to healpriest.  That was in order of amount of time I expected to apply.

Ha.

My daughter got with some friends and did a “wouldn’t it be cool to group all the way from bottom to top - never having to lfg for 5-mans or nasty quests?”  Yep.  Three DPSers, and my daughter decided she really, really wanted to pally tank.  As a reminder, she’s an outstanding healadin on her PVP 70 - always in demand not only in her own guild but by a few others with whom she’s worked.  “Wanna do SSC/Gruul/etc?”  yeah, that good.  (probably better than me).  ANYWAY… pally like I’m a priest - knowing it really well despite primarily doing one spec.

So they needed a healer.  And so she and I, we had this little talk.  I have three potential healspecs on line, and I could always go pally if she wanted.  Nope, in her experience (and both our opinions) the best all-purpose healer for getting up there is the priest.  (I know there are some outstanding tools in the druid tree, but… she’s my tank, I’m her healer, we will be mutually supportive - and both of us are just biased in favor of the priest healer.)

I really considered dropping my poor pre-10 priest.  I mean, I’m talking teenage boys, they may be bothered by me playing a female toon. (Three horde, one female, two male.  shrug).  I decided that if I wasn’t going to complain about the stupid undead (see other bias posts) warlock, they could live with my female priest.  Besides… the punnnnn.  So Ipallida will run higher in my playtime.  And I’ll do a little learning, because I’ve never focused on being a healpriest from the beginning.  hmmm, disc or holy…

This could be educational.  As well as fun.

Pursuing Blizzard corrected

A lot of the secondary stuff - the laughter and all that about other games - is still the same as the last post, so I’ll not repeat it. What’s changed is how to get to Blizzard because of who owns them and how they’re owned - well, sorta. So, another rambler that’s not about actual gaming. Sorry in advance.

Everything I said in the previous post is true AT THIS INSTANT. It is also going to have large chunks of change very, very soon now. That’s because Vivendi is sorta selling Vivendi games at the same time it’s sorta buying Activision. Oooookay, let’s examine that - but not in the nitty gritty.

Activision and VG are merging - announced last year for those who remember. Basically, there’s this sorta trade. Activision gets VG. At the same time it’s going to create a crapload of new shares, and in exchange for both VG and a crapload of money, Vivendi gets those shares. The actual amount of shares is still kind of floating because it’ll depend on the actual price at the time of the event, but V will end up with between 52 and 60 percent of the shares. Current activision shareholders (to include AV itself - companies can own stock, you know) will end up with the rest. The dollar value of a stock holding won’t dilute particularly, but how powerful a vote (or block of votes) is has reduced. Now that’s all background because unless you’re into real world finance stuff, you don’t care. You want to know how to get Blizzard to change how it does its process - to improve the customer service interface.

Answer - very soon, you don’t talk to Blizzard. Answer - very soon, everything we know will change. At this point we’re close enough we THINK we have some answers, but certainty? HA! So what’s about to follow is… call it informed guessing. We’ll all have a better idea in about three months.

First, I SUSPECT that Activision will take over most of the account management stuff. Ex-Blizzard, now the WoW department (guess) will handle tech support and server ops and, well, all that sort of thing. Second, I SUSPECT that Activision won’t change its customer service process at first, except for maybe adding WoW issues as a line in the robo-answer system. Third, I suspect Activision has no clue what’s about to hit it in this area. But they might - Guitar Hero and Call of Duty had large sales and several little bumps of one type or another.

OK, I said Activision will probably take over the “fix my account” hotline. But they haven’t yet, so that means I cannot give you a phone number. For all I know, they’ll keep the current Blizzard number - after all, it’s in all the manuals and that would cause the least disruption for them. So that’s going to be my guess.

That said, I didn’t recommend the phone, anyway. Oh, sure, if you’re trying to get YOUR situation fixed, you betcha. After email, though, not before. Yes, it feels better to talk to a person, but having worked a couple of help desks I’ll tell you that frequently phone is more frustrating from the ‘trying to help’ stage.

What I focused the big part of the pursuit was “fixing the system.” Folks, we have a golden opportunity, but need to avoid killing the goose.

Activision Incorporated (will become Activision Blizzard, Inc., but not yet)
3100 Ocean Park Boulevard
Suite 100
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Write them with a request - polite and professional - to improve the current mess that is the World of Warcraft customer support system. When you do this, be specific. As in, specify you mean the out-of-game support. As in, you mean the account support. As example:

“Since World of Warcraft has a global customer base, i would like to be able to contact account services when my account has difficulties regardless of when it happens. To do this, I would request staffing the department as close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week as possible.”

As example:
“One of the long-term frustrations I have experienced with World of Warcraft’s account management customer service has been the lack of immediate feedback. I understand it can take time to investigate and resolve problems, but I believe knowing a person has received my problem and is working on it would be a great improvement in public relations. And I need to add, a mere form letter saying ‘We have received your concern and are reviewing it,’ is probably not going to be enough.”

You get the idea. This is our chance - new ownership inevitably brings some changes, so we can try to get changes that work for us. That said, there’s another, somewhat unique opportunity that I will suggest.

Activision-Blizzard will be a publicly traded company with its stock registered on the NASDAQ index. ATVI (its code on that index) is currently selling for a bit less than US$33 per share. Want to make a big splash? Buy enough shares to matter. Well, we can’t really do that - most of us aren’t running around with several hundred thousand dollars free. But if you’re willing to take a chance, buy one to ten shares.

And then pay attention to the shareholder rights. And at appropriate times, take the opportunity to ask on various WoW forums and blogs that other game-holders (yes, I’m creating that term) proxy or move themselves to act in unison. To raise the question of customer service. Or far too obscure rules of banning. Or, “Darnit, Let my friend back IN.” Just remember when you do, that you’ll probably have no more than a handful of percent of the vote. Just enough to have a voice, not enough to decide. Thing is…

As I noted in the previous version of this, the people trying to get your money listen to the squeaky voice. Your trick is to multiply that volume. And the ability to speak directly to the deciders of paychecks… yeah, that’s pretty loud.

For now - for this banhammer - follow the existing sequence. Use the email appeal. If nothings happened by next week, add a phone call. And wait…

But for the merger - acting now will pay dividends down the road. Think carefully, then write. And… consider spending a little more money.

[disclosure. I own no shares of Vivendi or Activision or any of their related companies. Nor do I receive any income from any of them. I am considering purchasing some Activision, though.]

Pursuing Blizzard

[edit - SIGNIFICANT PARTS OF THIS ARE IN ERROR. CORRECTION POST IN PROGRESS. FAST SUMMARY - VIVENDI NO LONGER HAS SOLE OWNERSHIP OF BLIZZARD.]

One of the frustrations of dealing with Blizzard is realizing that they’re, well, probably too big. Big enough that it takes a big club to make them pay attention. A constant complaint - MY constant complaint - is how hard it is to get hold of someone who can and actually will do something. I thought I’d take the opportunity today to walk through what I know - not least, to help some folk realize some of their threats are rather misguided — a cause, if you will, for ridicule from the very folk they’re trying to threaten.

Blizzard Entertainment is based in Irvine, California. There is one normally given phone number - 1-800-592-5499 - which leads to the Billing and Account Management desk. Allow me to point out right here that if you’re banned, that’s account management. Yes, the reason may be technical, but this is the “office that decides”. If you try to get tech support involved, they’d have to go to this office anyway — you’ve actually shortened the chain. I also want to note that they’ve changed their hours (somewhat) since the last time I looked. Still not 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week, unfortunately. But 8 am to 8 pm California time. (That’s Pacific Standard or Pacific Daylight, as appropriate.) 11 to 11 on the East Coast of the US, and notionally, that’s GMT-8 (-7 for GMT). In Paris that’s 5 pm to 5 am. ummm, I didn’t pick Paris at random, but I’ll get there in a bit. Let’s stay in California for now.

Specifically, let’s give some other numbers, and then tell you why you’ll be wasting your time. 800-953-7669 Robo-answer for sales and support. 949-955-1382 is the same result. Theoretically if you stymie the system it’ll eventually dump you into the hands of a real person. The instant you say “account banned”, you’re going to be kicked over to account services, and probably into the auto-answer system again.

OK, so what if you REALLY want to go over someone’s head? In this case you can. Let me say up front this is a good part of the problem, not the solution, and it’s probably not going to do you a lot of good. Thing is, Blizzard isn’t a stand-alone company. It’s owned by Vivendi Games, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. While both VG and V have US offices, they’re French. Remember my cue about Paris? Vivendi Games is also Sierra and Sierra Online, and “Partners” with Konami. Oh, yes, and they merged with/absorbed Activision, among a bunch of others along the way. And Vivendi Games is only part of the Vivendi megacorp. In the US we’re only aware of UMG, but they own a big chunk of French and European television (Canal + group), they’ve a strong mobile phone presence (SFR), and some other telecom - related and otherwise - with Maroc Telecom. Oh, yeah, and partial ownership of NBC-Universal - which drills down to a big one for most US geeks: SciFi channel.

Looking at this, you can begin to see why Blizzard isn’t nimble in responding to customer issues. But you should NOT give up hope. Let’s add a touch of perspective.

Vivendi Games generated approximately 5% of last year’s total Vivendi revenue, and also approximately 5% of Vivendi’s total cash flow from operations. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is. (For reference, VG provided revenues of 1.018 Billion Euro. Vivendi total was 21.567. Makes your $15 per month seem like chicken feed, doesn’t it?) Now, things start looking up when we drill down. World of Warcraft - not all Blizzard, but WoW specifically - provided 77% of that. It’s a cash cow, and cash cows get heard.

But… you need to have your voice heard. Which means you need magnification to your voice. That means a lot of you saying the same thing - whether it’s independent or not. And… saying it a lot is almost as good as a lot of people saying it. That, by the way, is the essence of the squeaky wheel.

Before I go on, I need to simplify what I’ve said. 1) try to get satisfaction from Blizzard. 2) If you don’t get satisfaction from Blizzard, try to get it from Vivendi Games. (US 1-310-431-4000. France +33 1 46 01 48 00). But some things to remember if you go that way… “I’m gonna quit” is viewed as a temper tantrum. You’re conducting business, and you’re pointing out potential loss of long-term revenues. Persuade, don’t force. 3) Beyond VG you can try Vivendi, but at that point your message is approaching flea speck size.

Oh - “fix the system” tends to do better than “fix my problem” - the former is in their purview, the latter, well, that’s why they pay the Bizzard (and WoW in particular) employees, and that’s where you’ll wind up in the end.

Now I want to go on to why most of the threats given are, well, laughable. Actually, it’s a particular type of threat - I”m gonna leave and go to another game. The reason for the laughter falls into one of two general groups. Let’s take the more painful one first:

For large-scale MMORPGs, Blizzard’s customer service is actually pretty good. Yes, this is sort of like saying “I prefer the cold to a flu.” Neither is something you WANT to deal with. But, well, let’s look at three organizations. First, Everquest. At the top of the food chain, Everquest is Sony’s product. It generates less - actual and proportional - than WoW for Vivendi. EQ’s access is a tiny bit better - in addition to phone they have chat, but the hours are 10am to 7 pm PST M-F. And again, there’s a lot of automated stuff to get through. It’s also worth noting that they state in their agreement that they can take up to 90 days to resolve a problem - and comments in forums (theirs and others) indicate that fixing a wrongful ban takes closer to 90 than 1 day.

The other two games to which players say they’ll flee are Age of Conan (AoC) and Warhammer (WAR). Ummm, right. To the good, both EAOnline (WAR) and FunCom (AoC) are a LOT smaller than Vivendi or Sony. As a result when you get to their customer support it tends to be more responsive. That said, both companies have had intermittent quality of customer response ranging from slightly better than the Big Corps to abysmal. Odds are they’ll be quite good with initial rollouts of their respective game - the question will be what it’s like down the road. That in turn will probably depend on how much money the games provide, and that in turn brings us to the concern.

Both games miss a critical aspect that has made WoW so successful - and EQ missed it too. They’re aimed at gamers instead of everybody. While WAR hasn’t got an official system requirement out yet (that I can find), the general floor for both systems is a 2.5G or better (preferably closer to 4G) processor, along with 256 or better (again, closer to 2G preferred) memory. Oh, and it appears both are almost going to have to require fat pipes - dialup is pushing “too slow” for some of the stuff involved. Basically, they’re telling you that you need a system that’s better than basic TODAY - a little less than middle of the road. If you bought it more than a year ago, it’d better have been well over middle of the road. And if you bought it two years ago, do yourself a favor and upgrade.

In other words, MOST players who threaten to leave… have nowhere else to go if they want MMORPGs. See where the problem lies? I can guarantee you right now that NEITHER community will get as large as WoW. The fact that neither will run on Mac only adds insult to the injury.

It isn’t hopeless. But you have to realize where and how to get your case moved to have any effect. And the reality is that right now and for the foreseeable future, WoW is the elephant in the living room. Threatening it with a peashooter does no good, and trying to pretend the mouse ‘over there’ will make things different won’t do any good either.

For those who’ve jumped to the bottom, let me re-summarize. For the short term - dealing with your current problem - you are stuck dealing with Blizzard’s account management. They say they prefer you email them. They also have a phone number (which goes to a robo-answer system) and a mailing address. I’d recommend that you use the email, but if you receive no response within a week that you follow up with the phone, and if (probably when) that goes nowhere, go to mail. ahem - REGISTERED mail.

For longer term, skip Blizzard. No, that’s not fair. COPY blizzard, but mail (not phone or email) Vivendi Games. 6060 Center Drive, 5th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90045. (Unless you’re in Europe. Then go with:

9-11 rue Jeanne Braconnier
Immeuble Le Newton
92366 Meudon-la-forêt
France

And in the meantime, try to have fun

Slightly different Call to Action

For a number of reasons - which I will discuss in this post, in a bit - I “twitched” at the current call for action on behalf of Aetherial Circle’s Lamaa. That said, buried within the call is one I’ve made before, which I’ve made directly to them more than once, which would help them, and which I still feel needs made.

Blizzard, please make your Account Administration office available 24/7. Of all the complaints and pleas, those to this department are about the MONEY. Tech support is more or less timely, and tends to be in game. But this is where we go when something is wrong with our WHOLE ABILITY TO PLAY. You serve a global customer base, please SERVE that customer base.

In this, I’m fully supportive of AC, both whole and sum.

So… why didn’t I just offer that support in the previous thread? Outside complications and experiences, of which I’m about to ramble.  Oh - and if you follow all the way, you’ll even see me tie this to WoW again.

I’d like to begin with my personal view of evil. None of this IS evil, but there are tendencies… The root of all evil, contrary to the Bible, is power. And power lies at least tangentially near every evil committed. It may be willful, or unthinking - or even the withholding thereof. But power misused results in evil. Please keep that in mind while I make another apparent digression/non-sequitor. I’ll try to tie it all together, so bear with me.

While I was in the army, I saw an officer rate (evaluate) several officers. And I noticed a disturbing tendency. He tended to rate the ones “like him” the best - regardless of (my opinion of) their performance. As I wasn’t one of the officers being rated, I had a bit of freedom from bias in this case, but it’s still my opinion. Anyway, there was an incident that allows a tale to depend, but details must be vague. Basically, there were two young officers who committed EXACTLY identical offenses - not criminal, but operable. One of these officers received a letter of reprimand which was referenced in the evaluation - yes, it sunk him. The other was given a “go and sin no more” verbal wristslap. I should note that when I say identical, I mean it - they were accomplices.

On the other hand.

The job I used to pay for college was moving furniture - packing, loading, unloading and unpacking. I got that job because my widowed aunt’s husband used to work for the company, and she went to the people in charge and said, basically, “My nephew needs a summer job. Give him one.” (Moving companies like summer workers. Most moves are in the summer, the labor is needed then, but they don’t have to pay wages and benefits over the slack period.) Because of her I got a job for which there were many applicants - and NOBODY knows who was better qualified.

On the other hand…

I have a relative who committed a felony. His father went to the judge and did the secret club handshake, and the relative got off with a stern warning. The judge sent several people to prison for the same (well, similar) offense who did NOT have fathers who knew the secret club handshake. (for the record, the sentence time would have everyone out as of a couple of decades or more ago. And this is hearsay from the relative and the father, not the judge. Still…)

The incident in the army - and others of similar sort - began to shift my views. Before, “it’s family, you always help family - and friends, of course.” There were intervening incidents as well. And then, I went to prison. No, not that way - I went to work in a prison.

Where some of these guys got wildly different sentences for the same crime and similar circumstances, and knew plenty of folk who’d walked. And I discovered, because of this, the reason for this word “equitability”.

On the direct, selfish side, we were required to be EQUITABLE in treatment because the law required it. If we bent a rule for someone, we had to bend the rule for everyone. If we did it and didn’t tell, it could and would be used against us. (The word is blackmail.) Even if it didn’t, it built resentment among those who got the short end of the stick. And in a prison, resentment is bad. It leads to ugliness - increased misbehavior, stabbings, and even rioting. I became almost religious about this principle of equitability.

I’ve been away from that job for almost a decade, and I STILL see the advantage. I lost out on some plum opportunities because I got the short end of the stick. The person in charge of deciding who got some of them was a long-time friend of the person who DID get them. It… stung. A lot.

Am I rigid about it? No, and that may be hypocritical, or it may be human, or maybe a bit of both with other things rolled in as well. I’ll note that I still use a specific test when I do bend a rule. If I had to sit in court or a lawsuit, could I justify this a more than, “I like this person, and I don’t like or know that person?” Specifically, is it a reason I could apply in the future which had a fair chance of being valid for other people yet unknown? If yes, I could bend. If not… no.

One of power’s evil aspects is idle whimsy that puts some above others for no more reason that convenience to the power. Part of the seductive evil of such abuse is the unawareness with which we perform it. Burke missed, slightly. It’s not, “The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.” Instead, it’s that good men to pay no mind - to fail to watch.

I do go overboard on this compared to many. Consider it, if you will, a character flaw.  On the other hand, how many guilds have you seen ruined because loot distribution favored friends - or was, at least, perceived as such?  It’s just another aspect of the same thing.

Thanks for reading.  Now go have some fun.

Ban-hammers and other facts of life

There’s a call for action going on - see TJ’s site for the details.  And many respected and well-known bloggers are jumping on the bandwagon.  I joined - heck, helped start - one some time ago.  This one… I cannot, in good conscience, join the call to action.  In fact, I think it’s cause regrettable, but have to speak against the call.

We the community constantly complain of bots and hacks.  Yes, we do, I hear it frequently.  We don’t like cheaters who snag all the nodes before we can get there.  We despise the hacks who get a little faster or hit a little harder or go places we’re unable to go.  We hate the flood of a server with false gold or counterfeit blues in mass that shatter our economy.  All this makes the game less fun.  And a less fun game is one we don’t play as much - maybe even quitting.  And that means Blizzard doesn’t make money.  So when we complain of something on a consistent basis, Blizzard listens.

But catching these folk is not easy.  Nobody - well, most folk - don’t openly announce, “I’m turning on my farmbot now.”  Nobody openly admits to setting their log-and-move bot to farm AV rep.  Instead, it takes monitoring and detective work.

And any such work, regardless of how well done, gets false positives.  And those inevitable events are where all the friction develops.  In the case of WoW and things like it, the friction is worse because it’s not law but policy.  And I need to digress…

In law (at least in the US for US citizens - a separate rant that does not belong here), a false positive leads to an arrest, and (hopefully) a dismissal or verdict of innocent.  Or successful appeal.  Notice that there are multiple chances to identify and reverse a false positive in this situation.  The reason is that the penalty is loss of freedom, with several other restrictions commensurate.  But a WoW account ban isn’t an arrest.

It’s a denial of service.  It’s the company saying, “you can’t play here any more.”  It’s hurtful and potentially shameful, but it’s not restrictive in any legal sense.

And Blizzard, listening to our complaints, wants to ban the abusers.  But they’ll inevitably pick up a few strays - some false positives.  It’s time for the pondering question:

Which is better.  Should Blizzard warn the accounts identified, then wait to see who says, “not me”, then evaluate those, and remove those not found “innocent”?  Or should they block everyone, listen to the appeals, and then allow back those who are found innocent?  Consider this in light of both the penalty to the innocent AND the effect the guilty pending justice can have upon the game.

Returning to outside the game, this is the reason people arrested go to jail.  Some can be released for a while, but basically they’re all constrained till the evaluation can be completed.

If you are going to protest - to join the call for action - I highly recommend you move further than, “this is wrong.”  I recommend you suggest fixes - things that allow the main issue to continue being resolved, while reducing the pain for false positives.  Remember that Blizzard does not want to lose most of its customers - and it’ll sacrifice a dozen to keep a million.  (There is an old but relevant cliche in the philosophy of law.  How many guilty will you allow to go free to avoid convicting one innocent?  What ratio of guilty to innocent banned from the game is acceptable?)

Personally, I think Blizzard could do some PR work - not changing the system, but changing the wording of the ban - to improve the situation.  They could call it a freeze, saying that if there is no appeal in 30 days the account will be banned, and then acting based upon the appeal.  They’d get more appeals than they do under the current system, which in turn would probably need more staff to process, but they’d irritate and frustrate a much smaller number of innocents.

That said, I need to move a bit further, because what I’ve written above would imply I could support the call for action.  And I said instead I lean to opposing it.  See, there are some details that we cannot know.

For example, one of the big groups of this ban was purchasers of Glider.  Blizzard apparently got (through court order) the list of people who’ve purchased it over a period of time — to include their credit card numbers.  I know people who purchase things like this, look it over, and delete it — never use it in the game itself, just curious as to what all the fuss is about.  They want to speak knowledgeably of the issue when they speak against it, or maybe it’s just simple curiousity.  Whatever the cause, they’ve left a credit card number.   And Blizzard has it.  And Blizzard now has a reason to ban.

We have, in my library, a number of petty rules.  Rules such as “you can only have these videos for a week.”  Almost all our rules are here because while MOST people would return things in a timely fashion so others can use it, some won’t.  Some won’t because they’re forgetful.  Some won’t because they’d really like that item in their own personal library.  Regardless of the reason, we have some rules that exist because there are a FEW who HAVE TO BE TOLD.  And we enforce the rule - if the video is late, you get charged a fine.  Late enough, and you’re banned.  You cannot check out anything else until the situation is cleared.

We inevitably get people who tell us they turned the item in already.  Sometimes they’re right.  We inevitably get people who tell us something happened - they were robbed, or they had a fire, or they had to be out of town for a month or two, or…  Sometimes they’re right.  And sometimes…

We have - had - a patron who kept telling us her car was broken into.  As in, once a month (give or take).  We started requiring she bring a police report for us to accept such a claim.  Her car quit being the target of burglars.

I used to work in a prison.  I am really, really aware that there are a number of people who can convincingly state that they did not do… whatever.  Despite the witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, and videotape, it WAS NOT THEM.  And if it weren’t for the rest, it’d be convincing.  It has made me somewhat cynical.

The banhammer is doing what we the community want it to do.  And there will be collected, along with the guilty and those who are truly innocent, those who are unknowingly guilty and those who are smooth talkers.  There is no perfect system.  And I accept this problem.

Oh, one more point.  There will also be those who simply didn’t pay attention.  Say, for example, you downloaded and started using the absolutely gorgeous druid forms Andrige created, you’re violating the user agreement.  Heck, he even warns you about it in the opening discussion.  Yet I’ve seen the forms posted on several of the blogs now involved in the call to action with a ‘wink wink’ comment about using maybe subjecting you to a ban, (but nobody ever gets banned, really, over this.)  (Yes, I saw that on one blog.  I’ll refrain from posting which not least because it’s a paraphrase.  Those that did, who read this, will recognize the remark.)

If you violate the contract, the other party to the contract is allowed to end its contribution.  In other words, banhammer.  And the real, honest answer is that we don’t know if the people we’re defending are truly innocent, innocent of intent, or just sweet talkers.  And I’m afraid I have to oppose a call to action that may be wrong itself.  An appeals process exists, which doesn’t HAVE to exist.  So, sorry, but no.  Good luck, and if you’re innocent I hope you prevail.

Letter response - ret paladins in raids

I got an email the other day, and I”m going to post a small part and then my response because, well, I found it interesting.

The relevant portion goes:

I was wondering, with your raid experience, how do you feel about retribution paladins in a group? Are they not worth the space they take up

As I wrote in response, I do not play a paladin, so take all advice from me with appropriate blocks of salt.  That said,

My base rule is that if it’s fun for you, do it.  But when your fun intersects with other folks’ fun… balances happen.

My personal opinion of ret paladins in a raid group (at high level) is that as long as they’re doing what the raid needs, they’re fine.  Let me expand that a bit.

As a paladin, regardless of spec, there are a few things you can bring to the party.  Those are your auras and blessings.  Those are desired enough that “any paladin will do”.  But beyond that there are limited slots, and those slots fall into the three basic roles:  tank, heal, and dps.  As a ret paladin, you’re competing for the dps slot.

If you’re the only paladin available, you’re given some slack because of the unique extras you can bring.  This is why the shadow priest with a nominal DPS rate of ~400 is acceptable — they’re the mana battery.  If others can bring your extras - if there are healadins and tankadins available - then you will be weighed almost wholly on what you can do for DPS.

In this case, if you cannot average at least 500 DPS, you’re not going to be accepted (most of the time) for Kara raids.  And to go further, your DPS needs comparable increases.

On the other hand if you CAN average that DPS, then there is (in my opinion) absolutely NO reason to be excluded beyond “basic prejudice” - ignorance codified, really.

So, at least 400 DPS (maybe down to 350) if you’re the only one bringing paladin auras and blessings, and 500 as a floor if you’re one of several paladins available.  It’s not the class, it’s what the player brings to the party that matter.

Go have fun.

Raiding and fun

I’ve been watching the ongoing squabble about the importance of 25 man raiding, and how the increased 10 man raiding is going to destroy WoW, and think I want to stick my two cents into the thing.

While it’s not quite this simple, there’s an important thing to recognize.  There are several million players out there who will never, ever see a 25-man raid, but who’ve managed to get to the 10-man raids.  If you’re blizzard, do you continue to interest the 5% of the paying players who can manage the 25s, or the 60% who can manage the 10s?

I think it’s important to recognize some of Blizzard’s incredible strengths - reasons why Wow has done so well for so long.  One that gets noted and then forgotten - probably the BIGGEST - is that they aim for center mass, not the bleeding edge.  WoW, even with TBC, will run on a Dell Latitude 110L (1.3G Celeron) with a mere 1GB of memory.  The pipe to the servers need not be huge - 56k dialup works.   Instead of playing to the bleeding edge only and leaving the masses drooling, it allows the masses to play.  Other companies envy the player population, then screw it up by only targetting the handful with power machines.

This is not a new Blizzard phenomenon.  It’s instead the norm - aim for the middle.  Have some candy for those who CAN run the edge, but make sure everyone can get meat.

25-man raids is candy for the edgers.  10s are meat for everyone.  The balance is ensuring the masses don’t think they’re missing meat - rarified meat, but meat nonetheless.  And the reality is… they were.  Kara, ZA, and then… go start another character.  That narrow edge of players, on the other hand, got hours - days - more play out of the game, seeing sights that most will never achieve.  And that, friends, is contrary to the model that has made WoW stay so successful.

It’s a game, and several million people are paying a token fee every month to have fun.  And if 10% leave for the new bleeding edge, but 90% stay not only because they don’t have machines that’ll handle that edge but because there is new stuff that they can do…  it’s worth the loss.

Should the 25s be a ‘bit more’?  Yes.  Should there be a goal only a few can reach?  I think so - I think the knowledge there’s a bit more is part of the appeal - it prevents the “well, finished it all.  next game?” problem.  But the trick is to make sure that unattainable candy isn’t a mountain, but rather a teaser.

And Blizzard may have figured out a better balance.  We won’t know, of course, for another year.  But my gut feel is that they’ve succeeded in this regard.

I’m not so sanguine about the level 70s and Death Knights, but that’s a different issue.

I’m still a priest

I don’t have one rolled on this pvp server, and haven’t played my 70 in… weeks, at least.  But I discovered last night I’m still a priest - a healpriest - in instinct.

An ad-hoc group formed for a rough quest, and we hammered through things.  Things suddenly got nasty, and I…

I, the enhancement spec shaman, working HARD on melee, popped without hesitation into heal-mode.  Of course, the shaman heals are notoriously inefficient, so it drained my mana without much success, but level 22 and I instinctively started thinking of mana management and the 5 second waltz and…

Level 22 Tauren shaman, and I’ll continue leveling Primulaveris thank you very much.

Level 8 Tauren druid, planned as tank, working with my daughter’s troll priest (going healy).

And as of a little bit ago, a Blood Elf priest. Ipallida (Impatiens Pallida - Pale Jewelweed).  Female - the only female I have on this server, but I just can’t handle the look of the male blood elves (and besides, everything for the priest is a dress anyway…).  We’ll see if I actually do anything with her, but I recognize instinct…