|
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Wednesday, 22 November 2006 13:38 |
I would like to take a few moment of this fine Wednesday morning to
speak about something that matters! It was brought to my attention that
UO developers have read my “Scam Alert! No free lunch...” blog from
earlier this week and were not pleased with my outspoken attitude.
And in response to my concern about their inability to restore ravaged
accounts of many devoted players, who have been hacked last week and
have lost all they had and worked hard for, the best helpful response
that I have received was this blurb posted on Uo.Com:
“Ultima Online Glass Mug now available!
EA Mythic's newest Ultima Online collectible is a heavy glass mug with
a pewter ankh symbol - perfect for raising in celebration of your
victories or as consolation for your losses.”
The mug is not free (c’mon people, no such thing as free lunch), but if
you drink enough and then meditate upon the ankh you may completely
forget about the cost of the mug, the shipping and the account losses
you may have suffered. Although not technologically sound, the solution
is convincing and I would like to congratulate EA and Mythic on their
joined efforts to solve this problem once and for all! ;) *cheers*
|
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Sunday, 19 November 2006 14:21 |
After waiting in the freezing cold for 7 hours last night I returned
home with 2 Nintendo Wii systems and that made me happy. How happy was
I? Weeelll... about this happy ;)
But let me rewind a bit. I arrived to Toys R Us in Times Square at half
past seven and was greeted by this backwards countdown clock that
hanged above the store.
Upon reaching the store entrance I was pretty sure I was going to be a
millionth person in line as some nerdy Nintendo bitches located in the
front of the line were waiting here since the night before…
Got to give credit to this Asian fan boy however, this is what waiting
in style is all about. He was the coolest dude in the Nintendo line,
and that is all relative of course!
Luckily I was one of last few people who received the wristband
required to purchase the system. My efforts and blind optimism have paid
off after all! Nintendo had setup multiple Segway scooters with Wii
systems and hi-res monitors mounted for people on the line to play
with, so waiting was not terribly boring. I played tennis, waving
controller like a racket, looking dumb and getting my ass handed to me
consistently by this guy…
Few hours later and still long time before system launch I took a
stroll inside the Toys R Us store hoping to see some goodies being
prepared for the midnight sale. And I liked what I saw. That was just
boxes of extra controllers, 10 per box, thousands of them being
unpacked. I guess there were enough systems for 3000 people waiting in
line!
I walked around the block, the line wrapped around two streets and two
avenues, making a complete circle back at the corner of the store.
Total length of the line, half a mile! Spiderman entertained the crowd
and promoted a new Marvel Ultimate Alliance game for the Wii…
At midnight they started letting people inside the store and the craze
begun. It took me 2 and a half more hours to actually make it inside
the store. Police was hired to control the crowd. Some people were
getting summons written out. I guess some late arrivers were not too
thrilled to go home empty handed ;(
At 2:30am I was a proud owner of Nintendo Wii. Wee! I played it for a
bit and the design is ingenious. System is tiny and applications are
fun. Five sports games are included with the system and are very much
fun to play. Controller is intuitive and I was surprised for well I can
pretend that I am holding a tennis racket, baseball bat or golf club as
I would in real life…
There is a shortage of systems now around the country and every one
wants one for Christmas. I would like to sell extra one for going eBay
rate of $500 + s/h. This would help offset some costs of web site
hosting for this year. If anyone is interested let me know! Now I am
off to play Zelda ;)
|
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Saturday, 18 November 2006 17:32 |
Friday night was a party night. A great funk party was happening and I
had to be there. So I ate a tasty magic brownie and set off on a
magical train journey to my destination…
Upon arrival I was greeted by a funkadelic yellow Rasta Man who
reassured me that I should not worry be happy! And that is what I did ;)
I danced all night, got home 5am and started eating. I was mad hungry
and for a good reason. Upon consuming 3 turkey and cheese sandwiches in
a course of 5 minutes I started getting paranoid and wondered if anyone
has ever died from eating too much turkey or cheese… I Googled the
topic and could not find any information related to cheese. And at that
very moment I knew I should have eaten just half a brownie…
Today my head is fuzzy but I feel uplifted and refreshed from dancing.
It is something I have done since I was small and it helped me through
times when I was down. At midnight (12:01) to be precise, Toys R Us
will be opening stored to sell new Nintendo Wii systems to first people
in line. It is 7pm and as slim as my chances may be I will go to Times
Square and try to get one for myself. I shall report on that later ;)
|
|
Scam Alert! No free lunch... |
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Friday, 17 November 2006 04:52 |
"We have received many complaints of accounts being hacked after the
account owner created a login at a particular website, which purports
to offer UO gold in exchange for filling out surveys. While we cannot
say for certain the problems are connected to this website, we can say
with certainty that there is no such thing as a free lunch."
Earth to EA... So you ban all unrespectable and respectable brokers
alike who just happen to own too much in-game stuff (even though some
of us have worked really hard for it, while others didn't, but its so
much easier to burn the orchard than to sort good and bad apples isn't
it?). But now comes this retaliation from some degenerate who justly lost his duped ornament piles...
Perhaps have you truly focused the efforts on the real enemy, the above
mentioned immoral rejects who abuse the game and also happen to think
that hacking your customer accounts is the best way to get even with
you, then maybe this wouldn't have happened in the first place. You cut
around corners you get scratched up and that is called Karma.
No such thing as free lunch, huh? How about one free lunch for your
shallow grey mass you call brains... A Red Herring is a fallacy in
which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention
from the actual issue. Your customers did not get hacked because they
believed in free lunch...
... they got hacked because you are so stone age backwards, that to
this present day anyone who has access to your customer email address
automatically has access to both their UO login and password. There is
no other serious service provider devoted to its customers that does
not offer some sort of semi-effective modern age protection against
phishing of this critical data. You on the other hand are so busy with
these glorious witch hunts to implement a good identity verification
solution for customer login and password recovery. Not only you
completely trust your customer data to the email service provider and
their ability to protect your customer (responsibility that should be
your own), but you also send the login and pass unencrypted over the
wire....
But yea, lets tell our stupid players theres no free lunch! That will
work just fine! I say, get yer heads out of yer asses and stop
pretending you actually are fixing the issues. Fix them instead and
stop treating your customers as degenerate idiots who are to blame for
your screw ups. Remember Karma? It seems to be plentiful...
"We strongly suggest that you do not reuse your UO account name and/or
password anywhere - particularly not at a UO-related site. If you have
recently typed in that information during a visit to a website offering
free Ultima Online gold or items, we beg you to change your password
immediately."
Good one, but not good enough if you ask me. Instead of "begging" (you
and I know that skill is so useless), perhaps you could *gasp* actually
act on the problem and restore virtual possessions of all players who
lost them due to your negligence as presented above? But no, wait, I
forgot... There is an easier way. Lets just blame the players and not
actually bother doing that extra work, like locating the hacker,
bringing them to justice, restoring players accounts and delivering
customer satisfaction and belief that you actually do care and this is
not just a huge masquerade (I will speak more about this later)...
"If you need to change your game password, log in to "Account
Management" from the main UO site. Be very, very wary if someone offers
you something for nothing."
Thanks for advice! "But Mr. GM, I paid my $13 x 100 months. I am not
asking for free lunch or anything here, just could I please have my
account fixed? It really means a lot to me and now all my characters
been stripped and deleted, and I feel so sad inside, it is like my
whole life been torn from under my feet. UO was my friend, my
characters were like a part of me..."
"Err, sorry we cannot do that. Remeber, there is no such thing as free
lunch and I just paid $5 for this greasy pizza, and it is getting cold
while I am talking to you (*damn loser*). So yea, Im sorry but here is
a link of stuff that won't help you that you can read if you want. I
would beg that this shitty attitude and service of mine won't affect
your long standing membership with Electronic Arts, but there is no
need because you are already too addicted to quit now. Have a nice day!"
|
|
UO 9th Anniversary Early Buyer Bonus Extended! |
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Tuesday, 14 November 2006 11:52 |
As I have predicted, early buyer gift period has been extended till
January 12th 2007. This is good news especially for European players
who still cannot find this product on their store shelves. Thanks go to
the EA's wonderful international distribution system! And for the rest
of you with no extra money to spend now it is also good news because
you can hold off on buying this till you can afford it. Or better yet,
demand it for Christmas gift from yer loved ones >:) Good luck!
|
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Monday, 13 November 2006 16:06 |
This weekend I decided to visit China Town. After all they do have a
lot to offer for every one. And a brother like me was looking for some
fat gold chains and some shiny “Bling Bling” to wear around my neck if
you know what I’m saying…
All I have found was some “Blink Blink” instead, and for that reason I
couldn’t keep it real. But they still had my favorite deal in town, 6
shirts for 10 dollars. So if we are ever going to be in a war and there
will be like shortage of soap and laundry detergent or something, I
will just buy a few hundred of these and I could just recycle them,
like paper towels…
As I was cruising along the street all these sexy ladies posed for my
camera. They got really excited about me being interested in them.
Little did they know that they were going to end up on here!
I was passing a Chinese restaurant and saw this cute Kirin statuette.
Had to stop and take a picture for obvious reasons ;)
Then his distant relative tried to attack me and even stole my ice
cream. They had to lock him up but unfortunately I never gotten my ice
cream back. So I had to look for something else fun to do…
And then I realized that life is all about simple things. Maybe I did
not realize it, maybe I have actually just heard it somewhere else
before but that is all too complex and hence it does not matter.
Because my answer to life was right in front of me...
As long as I have a cardboard box I can mold it into cool things using
the power of my imagination. And then I will have a huge party hosted
by the Pink Hippo company. And it will be awesome!
It was getting late and muffin was scared. He knew I was losing it…
So I had some pizza and beer and went to sleep. Today is Monday and I
believe I have a lot to catch up on. I am finishing up Skill Guides on
site and moving on to the thing most of you asked for, which is Quest
Guides. As far as UO Item Shop goes, I am still in process of updating
all the prices. Due to gold fluctuations it is hard to continue sales
at this moment, so I am looking to give it another week or so until I
am confident I can price items to stay competitive and still offer same
great service as before! Adios amigos i amigas ;)
|
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Thursday, 09 November 2006 17:33 |
I have decided to take a break from the game and go do some fishing. So
shop is closed until I return :) But seriously, I have taken the store
down for some massive repricing of items. With recent EA news on
deletion of so many items in game today, i expect the future prices of
all goods to be affected. I will reopen with new pricing structure as
soon as dust settles! Thanks for understanding, see you all soon ;)
|
|
UO 9th Anniversary Box Review |
|
Written by Vita Drakonia
|
|
Thursday, 02 November 2006 22:07 |
Yesterday I walked into my local EB Games and was totally in luck,
because 3 UO 9th Anniversary boxes were sitting on the shelf! And as I
left the store I could not help but notice a look of morbid sorrow on
employee’s faces. It was possibly because I was making them reorder a
title, or more likely because they felt sorry for my pathetic need to
buy multiple copies of the same damn game that nobody ever heard of:
Was it worth it? Well I am here to give you a first hand review of what
this latest expansion all about! Compared to a real expansion priced at
$30, do you get 2/3’s of the content for price of $20 that you pay? The
answer is sadly no. All you get with this expansion is two new housing
themes, which are crystal and shadow. You also get a free 14-day trial
for Dark Age of Camelot, but I do not recommend it for a very simple
reason. You will find yourself crawling back to Ultima in disgusting
realization that you do not have ambition or the will to play any other
MMO game in this lifetime. And no one likes to feel like an addict!
So what exactly is moving this UO box off the store shelves? Simply the
bonus items that are included are what majority of currently paying
customers are interested in. 9 Choices of 9th Anniversary Heritage
Rewards from 43 completely new items (or you can choose some older
anniversary ones), also 1 Personal Attendant Token, 1 Set Crystal (8
Items) and 1 Set Shadow (10 Items) item collection. That is 28 Items in
total for a price of $20. Now that is some attractive deal!
You must claim code via Help menu on paper doll before December 1st
(probably to be extended after initial sales figured are met) in order
to receive the 9 Heritage tokens and other goods. Only upgrade code
included will work, and the new player code comes with all expansions
up to UOML and 30 days free game time but none of the rewards. Also,
inside the case you get a rushed game instruction manual which will not
help any new players or current ones, some promo cheesy flyers and 3
CD’s, two for UO install and one for the Camelot trial mentioned
earlier. Makes great frisbee and dogs really love it…
So in brief summary, with this expansion you are buying some new
decorations for your house. I will soon list all then new items for you
along with their pictures in Items Shop, so you could review them in
detail if you are interested. There is likely a wonderful investment
opportunity in these items if you will save them for the long haul.
The new housing themes are not anything special, but if you are really
into house customization you may find it useful for a few neat touchups
here and there. And unless you want you house to look just like
everyone else’s in the next few weeks, I do not recommend creating all
crystal or all shadow home designs. I hope this helps you make a
decision if this is a good way to spend your $20. Also as poll has
requested I intend to provide some detailed UO game coverage from now
on all the things that matter. So if you need to know the good juicy
stuff you will find it daily here. Asta la vista baby!
|
<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 >>
|
|
|
Support This Site |
|
If you find this website useful, why not leave me a little something with PayPal?
Any and all donations are greatly appreciated, and help with the costs of running site!
|
|
|
