Okay, Blizzard. You know I love you. You know I’m thoroughly addicted to your silly World of Warcraft game. You know that pretty much no matter what you do to me, as long as I can keep logging in to my character and accumulating virtual loot, I’m going to keep coming back.
I want to give you my money. I’ve got my $100 here ($200, really, since the spouse wants to go too), all ready to happily send it to you so you’ll allow me to enter the hallowed halls of your 2008 Blizzcon event in October. You don’t even have to ask. I’m throwing it at you.
So, why, Blizzard, why did you have to hire syphilitic monkeys with the combined IQ of diseased peat moss to administer your website? You know, the one that thousands of people were going to be hammering at the stroke of midnight on the day you said tickets would go on sale? Why, with all the money you make, couldn’t you have spent some of it to either have your tickets sold by a real ticket outfit (yeah, I and just about everybody else would even happily pay the usurious Ticketmaster “service charges,” if that’s what it takes) or at least to upgrade your server capacity so you could handle the kind of traffic you knew you were going to get?
So far, the customer support thread on the WoW forums is up to 95 pages. It’s now after noon on a day when tickets were supposed to go on sale at 8 a.m. (we think–you never really told us definitively, so some people (not me) stayed up all night to make sure they got in). Blizzard, what gives? You’ve already mishandled the Blizzcon beta key program, and now this? As of this writing, you’ve finally put up a “we’re down for maintenance” page, which was better than the tantalizing “enter your account details” and “enter your credit card” pages you had up before, followed by a cheerful murloc taunting us with “an error has occurred” and running off with our information.
This is like some kind of dysfunctional relationship. I still love your game, and I’ll still keep playing. You’ve got me. It’s like crack, and I’m addicted. But damn it, do something about your IT department. If I miss out on my tickets because of your incompetence, heads are going to roll.
Erm…that would be a problem. My mage is a blood elf. Ogres are fun to kill too, though. Maybe I’ll murder a few of those.
As for what the tickets are for, it’s Blizzard’s sort-of-annual convention, Blizzcon. It’s held in Anaheim, CA whenever the mood strikes Blizzard (they’ve had 2 already, in '05 and '07. This one, if I manage to get tickets, will be my first.)
I set up a 2nd account (a 10-day trial) so that we could use the new refer-a-friend deal to get my son a Zhevra mount (sort of a zebra-unicorn critter) and level a couple of toons fast (17 levels in one day!).
Trial accounts can’t trade, use the mail, or use the auction house, so I have no way to get my new toon money, and he’s leveling so fast he doesn’t have enough cash to pay his trainer. So I decided to upgrade the account. I tried six times yesterday with three different credit cards, and just got a message saying I’d have to call. Calling the number they gave got me a message saying to call during normal business hours. Today the number won’t go through at all.
Actually, I have a BE mage too. I have a hard time feeling sympathy for them though, as my gnome remembers the days of four-per-cast DM-run-required mage water.
Would you at least take out the tankadins? Pwease? This druid kitty is getting very bored.
(And on a completely different note, which server?)
Nah, the 2 best kills in the game are the Gnomes in the electric tanks in Gnomeregan (WhooOOOOOOoooohhhhh!) and the Ents. The way they start sliding apart while looking one way, then the other with perfect WTF looks on their faces makes me giggle.
Blizzard is a company that gets loved to pieces sometimes… any launch of anything is nightmarish, but their games are just so damn good that it’s hard to wait it out.
My boss already asked me, “Are you going to take Diablo III launch day off, or can I?”
I feel like I should set aside some money right now, in a seperate account, while I have it, so that whatever happens - even if I somehow end up starving in the streets by the time it’s released - I will have the means to purchase it and die feeling fulfilled. :: crosses self ::
Ogres are fun to kill too, though. Maybe I’ll murder a few of those.