Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Black Friday Mayhem

By

On November 26, 2012

In General Cogitation

I heard some crazy stories on the radio this morning about some disgusting display of human indecency during the Black Friday shopping mayhem. Some of these people need to be lashed for their poor judgement and stupidity. They turned Black Friday into Dick-Move Friday.

One of the stories I heard was that some lady used her cart to shove a guy in a wheelchair away from a product she wanted because he was ahead of her in line. Seriously?!?! The guy responded by spinning his chair back into her cart knocking it over. Nice move! I really doubt that whatever item she wanted was worth shoving aside someone in a wheelchair! If I had been there, I would have started kicking and throwing her stuff all over the place. What a bitch!

I heard stories of people taking items right out of the carts of other people and pulling guns on others, even the use of a stink bomb to force people out of the store. We tried to take advantage of some of the Wal-Mart deals they were having Thursday night. We started second guessing our decision when the entire Wal-Mart parking lot was full and half of the Lowe’s parking lot next door. We completely changed our mind when we saw four cops standing in the midst of all the people in electronics for crowd control. That’s when we decided to leave before the mayhem started and decided we would just get our deals online.

Do you have any crazy Black Friday stories?

The MMO Times: More Then Meets The Eye

By

On November 24, 2012

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Issue 54: Hello Gamers! I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate that). As we all were indulging in turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie Blizzard had just celebrated 8 years. It’s pretty amazing that even after 8 years Blizzard still has over 10 million subscribers.

Also, as you can see, there was no shortage of news as we were all treated to some Thanksgiving gifts in the form of Transformers beta invites, TSW news, more Age of Wushu content news, etc. So while we polish off the leftover turkey and before the tryptophan kicks in, check out the following headlines. Read on and game on friends!

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Annual Turkey Mastication Event

By

On November 21, 2012

In Uncategorized

The two best things about Thanksgiving is Turkey and Football. After overindulging in a glorious Thanksgiving feast of turkey, pumpkin pie and other delicious trimmings, the next best thing is to sit down and watch some football while the tryptophan kicks in.

It has been a long standing tradition that the Dallas Cowboys treat us all to a post-Thanksgiving meal on the gridiron. Unfortunately for them I rarely root for their success (unless they are playing the Patriots).

At any rate, the actual intention of this post is to wish everyone (and your families) a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

/Cheers

SWTOR: The Free-2-Play Option

By

On November 19, 2012

In SWTOR

It has been a while since I have posted about SWTOR. The primary reason, and this may come as a shock, is that I haven’t had an active account. I still love the game but it was fiscal reasons that I had to shut down the account and nothing to do with the immense scrutiny the game has been under since its launch. When the game became free-2-play, of course I was going to log in and see what is different.

I was elated to see that I can still play both of my level 50 characters. While Free-2-Play restricts players to only 2 character slots, if you have more characters created, and of races that are not part of the F2P, you can still play those toons, you just can’t create any more. For example I have two level 50 characters, a level 39 and a level 14. All four toons are available for me to play and all four are races that are not unlocked for Free-2-Play. Additional character slots and races cannot be unlocked using Cartel Coins.

The one thing I think the developers succeeded in doing was enticing the player to want to purchase either a subscription or the Cartel Coins because they have locked down quite a bit of features. If you are someone coming to the Free-2-Play option from having played as a subscriber you are going to really feel the restrictions. In fact I think I am leaning toward renewing for a month to unlock all the Cartel Coins I have earned so I can unlock more features.

What will probably bother me the most about the Free-2-Play is the caps on credits and Flashpoint commendations. I think this was something that Bioware said under their breath. Folks were probably more focused on when the game will be free-2-play and crying about locked action bars (which really isn’t that big of a deal because they can be unlocked very easily, a mere $5). Your credits are capped at 350,000 which is enough to get you level 50 speeders but you will not be able to buy any of the larger mounts (such as the land speeder that ranges somewhere around 2 million to 2.5 million credits). Also, all your Flashpoint commendations (ex: Tionese, Columni, etc) are capped at 40 and your Tionese Crystals are capped at 100. Neither of these caps can be unlocked with Cartel Coins (for now).

I am honestly worried about the future of this game, now. I really enjoy it but I think people are going to be just too put off by what things Bioware has locked down. Knowing Bioware’s slow response time to some of these concerns I don’t think they will make the appropriate adjustments in time to save face. As a programmer I understand that a company needs to make money on their titles, after all a programmer’s gotta eat. I am worried though that some of the items that you cannot unlock may drive players away.

I hope I am proven wrong.

The MMO Times: Sans Kitchen Sink

By

On November 15, 2012

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Issue 53: Greetings Gamers! As you will see after the break, this has been a pretty busy week because it feels like everything (except the kitchen sink) is getting an update and, finally, the launch of the SWTOR Free-2-Play option and Update 1.5. I am surprised that the 5.1 update for Mists of Pandaria has not been released yet. It seems like it has been on the PTR forever!

If you are wondering, like me, when to expect the 5.1 patch for Mists of Pandaria, they are starting to publish Release Candidate builds to the PTR. This means that the builds they are compiling are nearly ready for live servers (my prediction is next week – Happy Thanksgiving!). In the meantime, check out the latest news regarding RIFT, EverQuest II, SWTOR, Aion and other exciting titles. Read on and game on, friends!

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The Blizzard Authentication Frivolity

By

On November 13, 2012

In Gaming, Soapbox, World of Warcraft

The fact that a group of players and greedy lawyers think they can scam Blizzard with this frivolous lawsuit about account security is hilarious almost to the point of absurdity. It’s like suing the police department because someone broke into your house. It is the responsibility of the PC owner to secure their computer and account. Blizzard cannot, and does not, force people to purchase an authenticator (which they sell at a loss, by the way), they simply encourage their use to help further protect your account.

The ignorance of people these days is infuriating and I love Blizzard’s response to the allegations:

“This suit is without merit and filled with patently false information, and we will vigorously defend ourselves through the appropriate legal channels.”

I think that’s legalese for “you’re stupid for even suggesting that this is our fault!” – I heartily agree. I haven’t seen where any of the names of the accusing parties have been given, obviously because they will be ridiculed to the end of their days by anyone with an IQ larger then their shoe size.

Come on people, there are better ways to make money. Try getting an actual job, that seems to be working out well for me.

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