I was reading through a post on WoW Insider about Cataclysm and the author was discussing the things he liked and will miss about Cataclysm. Someone said something in the comments that, I think, explains why most gamers are spoiled, whining brats. Nobody appreciates the work and effort that goes into designing and developing these games. There will never be another MMO that will reach the number of users that World of Warcraft had because Blizzard has set the bar so high no game will ever satisfy that many gamers again. Gamers are so spoiled that now they expect every feature of WoW to be available at launch of any new MMO.
The mere thought of that last statement is hilarious almost to the point of absurdity. All games are developed in a closed source environment. Obviously Blizzard isn’t going to share its dungeon finder algorithm, for example, with Bioware or Trion. It doesn’t matter anymore that a majority of the features currently in World of Warcraft weren’t available at its launch, but apparently now they are a necessity for all new games. If a new game doesn’t have these features then its deemed “unfinished”.
The MMO gaming industry is cutthroat and volatile. The longer a company waits to deliver a new product the farther behind they will be so it becomes crucial from a profit and marketing philosophy to deliver something sooner rather than later. Nobody will ever release a product that is bug free and with every feature at launch. I remember how much grief players would give Blizzard on days when there were huge content patches that made the game almost unplayable. It was expected that nobody would be raiding on Tuesday nights because the game was incredibly unstable and buggy.
Perhaps the MMO genre has lost its edge. I see comments on posts (mostly on gaming news and blog sites) that they don’t like the “kill X number of Y” type of quests, or any kind of quest. I never see anyone offer alternative methods of leveling. Clearly they have a better idea for leveling then completing quests if they are complaining about it … or maybe they are just complaining because it makes them feel important.
I also see people complaining that Game X lacks any end game content when it actually has the same end game content all the other games have (i.e. raid, pvp, instances, dailies). What else do you want?!? If these games lack so many features, and clearly you know what features they should have, then submit your resume! I assure you that you will find out immediately why games take so long to make and what it takes to develop one.
I think the appalling lack of appreciation is lost because of blind ignorance!
/endsoapbox
It has been a while since I have posted a new jQuery snippet, mostly because I only get to play with jQuery once in a while (though I wish I could use it more). Recently I had to create an administration page for deleting multiple rows of data. I presented the data in a gridview using checkboxes as the control for selecting which items will be deleted. I wanted to make it clear which items were going to be deleted so, using jQuery, I wrote the following snippet to accomplish what I wanted.
Despite the fact that I make my living providing Microsoft solutions using .NET, many know that I have never been a big fan of Microsoft. I stated that because I want to be upfront about my past feelings and that I am going to try not to let those feelings influence this topic. I am going to discuss this based on my interpretation of the evidence I see in the industry today. I think that Microsoft is no longer a leader but frantically playing catch-up instead.