Sacred 2

Image via WikipediaI've surprised myself with how much I've beeen enjoying Sacred 2. When I grabbed the demo for it last year, I was left a bit underwelmed - I'm not entirely sure why, because I can't really get enough of the game.

It was a bit of a chance, but I saw it on special on the Boxing Day sales scene, so grabbed it on a whim. Definitely worthwhile - despite the multiplayer bugs (which don't haunt me so much, having no friends and no life), the game is a heaping helping of fun.

The only downside I can really see with it is that the voice acting is terrible. Otherwise, the game's a rock solid product, it's sort of the next iteration of the Diablo genre, and improves upon Titan Quest's already impressive pedigre (not the same developer, it's just that TQ was Diablo but better - this is TQ but better).

What impresses me the most I think is their character classes, and how different and interesting they are. Because they have ancient relic technology, you've got your basic swords and spells, plus laser weapons and energy shields - it's just damn cool.

Treat yourself if you're wanting something light to play. There's also Sacred Gold on Steam for a fraction of the price, although that really is a fraction of the game too being 103 years old now.

The Life Leech

I think I'm going to cut down on my "active" use of Facebook.  I mean, Facebook's cool and all, but it's a sort of soul sucking miasma for time wastage.

It's all linked in with my blog (what I'm writing this on, in case you're reading it on Facebook and it appears to be a Note instead), Flickr, and so on - so it'll still aggregate my life nicely, all without my help.

The funny part about Facebook is sitting there waiting for friends to do stuff, so you can live life vicariously through them, seeking a morsel of human contact that way.  Fuck that, I'd rather get out of the house and walk the dog on Oriental Parade, thanks.  It just took me a while to realise it.

remember

I remember:
A past filled with a future, a beginning to the span of forever.
The certainty of feeling, your step as you walked to me.
All our dreams, made real and strong.

I grieve:
For all that has passed, and all that has yet to come.
For the things that were, and the things that will never be.
For the promises made, and forgotten.

Forgive me:
For all that I have done, and not done.
For all that I have said, and not said.
For all that I should have been, and couldn't be.

I miss you.

The Unbelievable Awesome: Outlook's Self-Generating Hidden Spam Engine

A little while ago, I thought I'd been 0wn3d.  I'd grabbed a new Dell XPS laptop, and it came with McAfee Somethingshit for AV - and all of a sudden my Gmail was filling up with all kinds of inane crap, with me sending spam.  Or so it seemed.

I spent fucking hours doing system process traces, and working out what services were eating which ports, and all kinds of inane shit.  I couldn't find a single thing on my system that wasn't explainable and legitimate.

Well, as fortune would have it, it's a bug.  In Outlook.  If I can get my head around the quantum mechanics involved, it looks like Outlook sends a special message - which it doesn't file in your Sent items, so you can't see it - telling people that you deleted a message without reading it.  This is a feature you can't turn off.  Essentially, Outlook ignores any right of yours to privacy if someone on the Internet - who we all know are trustworthy - sets a flag asking it to.

Let's say you're using an IMAP mail server.  Let's say it's Gmail.  Let's also say your IMAP has your Junk folders...  And let's say you delete message.  If the X-Confirm-Reading-To header is set, Outlook will helpfully generate (regardless of your read-receipt settings) a special message on your behalf.

Well done, Microsoft.  Well played.

I found this on some dude's blog - thanks Medieval Programming - and noted that this looks to have been with Microsoft since fucking 2007 with no fix. It's apparently a feature, not a bug.

Way to go, guys.  Furthering the cause of spammers globally, and your users can't stop it.  Good work.  I mean, truly outstanding.

I'm trying a small Gmail hack at the moment to get Gmail to bin messages from my with the "Not Read:" text in the subject line.  I'm not sure if it's going to work - we'll see, it all depends on how Gmail parses rules.

Zemanta

Image by via CrunchBaseA friend linkied me an interesting tool yesterday called Zemanta.

You really need to check it out. It's full of cool.

Is Someone Trying To Tell Me Something?

So there I was, just trying to enjoy a quiet evening of catching up on IRL pain, and -

Yes, that's right.  My PC died.  Useful that I have a laptop as a backup, but the laptop doesn't have, e.g., my 384 petabyte music collection.

I expect at least some of this weekend will be reserved for trying to work out which annoying part has popped a rivet.  It was quiet amusing, as it was working fine, not even really doing much other than surfing the web at the time, and then it just clicked off.  Trying to turn it back on elicits only fans, no beeps, nothing.

It's probably a good toaster right now.

A Comparison Of Support

When I started playing Warhammer Online, I opened a bunch of support tickets with EA/Mythic.  There were various reasons for this, such as:

1. The Collector's Edition heads not being removable, despite the literature not indicating that they shouldn't be.
2. My toon name being locked out on character delete, and unusable forever (and thus, having to announce to all my friends a new toon name).
3. The major one: billing problems, and the inability for their system to correctly show that you're using a game card instead of credit card (thus, it eats your game card code and laughs at you, and still tells you it'll charge your credit card on the current cycle's due).

Those are the main ones, there were others - I think I logged 8 tickets in total in the four weeks I was going hard on the game.

In all but one of the 8 instances, EA/Mythic responded to my support queries indicating that they were happy my problem was solved, and closing the ticket - that is, they fobbed me off, didn't respond to the issue, and just closed my ticket without providing support.  In the one instance they did provide support, initially they told me to log an in-game ticket, then the game GM said to log a web ticket; only after explaining to him the fiasco did he agree to help only to tell me later that he couldn't help.  In all but that one instance, it was clear that they either hadn't read the text of my ticket, or simply didn't care.

Their ticket system is also annoying, being a split molass between a web system and an in-game system; which one you're supposed to use is a bit of a lottery.

All in all, I think we can say that EA/Mythic's Warhammer Online support is a giant frustrating clusterfuck.

Fast forward onto World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King launch.  I've had just two occasions to log a ticket:

1. Alliance griefing me by killing quest NPCs during an escort.
2. Getting a resurrect in Nexus, to appear healthy and happy near... the Crossroads in Barrens.

In both of these instances, Blizzard responded professionally and timely, despite being under tremendous load from their recent launch.  In the first instance, they started investigating the griefer (as expected), and in the second they've added it to their bug database for resolution.

Both of these responses came back in less than 12 hours, were professionally worded, and clearly showed that they'd read the text of my issue.

On this basis alone, I'm strongly tempted to give EA/Mythic the finger and move on.  The only thing keeping me in their game right now is the truly superb PvP experience it offers; but man just one more of these and I'm done.

Customer support is a thing that keeps me coming back.  If you take my money and run laughing to the hills, I'm less likely to give you more money next time.

The Narrowing of the Divide

One of the things that's been a popular topic for discussion in the World of Warcraft community is the difference between Warlocks and Mages - or the relative lack of difference, except that Warlocks just seem to have better math behind their damage.

My original toon was a Mage, but I re-rolled a Warlock in Burning Crusade, because the imbalance appeared quite strong - and lo and behold, it was true, the Warlock was significantly more powerful in most situations.

However, some of that isn't just because they have math on their side - it's because of the way they play.  World of Warcraft is a game where chaincast spells - where you need to stand still for a period of time - are actually quite a weakness (you've no mobility, and you can get pushback whilst casting, and there's a wider window for interruptions like silencing effects).  Since "DPS classes" need to be able to DPS, there was quite a void between classes like Warlocks (with a good mix of instant and chain cast spells, allowing for high nukes and mobility) and classes like Mages (which rely on stationary casting for their most damaging spells).  This was sort of apparent in PvE, but in PvP it was remarkable - "pillar humping motherfuckers" was a common curse in Arena battles, as Mages couldn't tag their opponents with their chain casts.

"Oh, l2p," the Internet cried.  "Blizzard thinks you're fine, so suck it up and adapt."  Turns out, though, that Blizzard didn't think they were so fine - so the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion has shaken up how the classes and talents work.

No longer do Mages look like weaker Destruction Warlocks without a pet.  Warlocks aren't just Mages that can't make water.  The two classes seem to work better now, and there's less cause to look for differences and more cause to have fun with what they are.

Mages seem to get three trees now - mobility + burst (Arcane), high DPS and efficiency (Fire), and Control (Frost).  You get your pew pew for the pillar humping motherfuckers in Arcane, you get your sustained and efficient raid damage with Fire, and you get a balance with Frost. 

Warlocks get an efficiency tree (Affliction), a pet and utility tree (Demonology), and a mobility + burst tree (Destruction).

For giggles, I've spec'd my Mage into Arcane, and my Warlock into Destruction.  They're both mad fun, but the really interesting bit is that the Mage no longer feels like a second class Warlock - the Mage is now a man hammer of extreme proportions.

To be honest I'm pretty happy with it - both of the classes feel strong, somehow right, and not the same - without one feeling gimped.  Obviously, it's early days yet, because we're not at level 80 - but I can tell you at 60 when Burning Crusade shipped, Mages still felt like a bucket of cold sick compared to Warlocks.

The future has a hint of possibility, and I think I like it.