Adventures in Customer Service

On Thursday, my husband and I celebrated five years of marriage. That day was also the release date for the PSPgo. We thought that would be a nice anniversary present for ourselves. A little pricey at $250, but I had traded in some games to reserve it at Gamestop and I had a few more games to trade in toward it when I picked it up. I had four games to trade in: a DS game, a PS3 game, and two copies of Pokemon Platinum.

When I went in to pick up my system, the sales associate informed me that she couldn't take two of the same game on the same transaction. I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" She said that it was company policy. Okay, okay, fine. So I asked her if I could trade it in on a different transaction. "No, I can't take in two of the same game on the same day." Excuse me? At this point, I'm starting to get actually irritated. I asked, "The same transaction or the same day?" She said, "The same day." So I said, "So, if someone else came in before me today and traded in Pokemon Platinum, I wouldn't be able to trade in my game?" She said no and said that she couldn't take in two games from the same person. I said, "So, three people in my house play Pokemon Platinum so that we can trade Pokemon with each other and if we were all done playing with them, we can't trade them in on the same day?" She told me that I could come back to tomorrow and trade in my game. In other words, let's pretend that I'm my mom and have three kids. And then let's pretend that my three kids all want to trade in their Pokemon Platinum for Pokemon Soul Silver or Heart Gold. The woman at Gamestop wouldn't let me. Imagine how upset my kids would be.

At this point, I was angry but I had decided that I would have my husband trade in the other Pokemon game since we were going to reserve NBA Live 2010 that day, anyway. So I asked her, "Can someone else trade in this game for me, then? It's a different person and a different transaction, right?" She said that technically I could, but she wouldn't let me because she's not allowed to take in more than one of the same game from the same person on the same day. Apparently my husband and I are one entity, not two. I was FURIOUS at this point. If my son was there, he would have been probably telling me to calm down. Amazingly, aside from my first "Are you fucking kidding me?" comment, though, I never once swore at her.

I asked her what else I had on reserve: Demon's Souls Collectors Edition, Dragon Age: Origins Collector's Edition, and Tekken 6 with Fight Stick. I told her to cancel all my pre-orders and apply them to my PSPgo. I paid for my system and stormed out.

So yesterday (Friday), when I went to trade in my old first-generation 360 for the Elite so that I could hook it up via HDMI, I went to a different store. The guy helping me there was very nice and very helpful. He was a total gamer nerd, too. :) I mentioned what happened at the other store on Thursday. He said, "Oh! I heard about that!" I told him that there was no reason why my husband shouldn't be allowed to trade in the other copy of Pokemon Platinum. And he agreed. I know the manager of this location, so I told the employee to let the manager know that I was the one to canceled all their reserves at the other store and that I would be shopping here from now on. :)

I have to say, I'm really amused that the guy at the second store heard about what I did at the first one, though...Haha.

My Xbox Live Gamertag

I wanted to upgrade the connection between my 360 and my TV to HDMI, so I traded in my old 360 and picked up a 360 Elite. More hard drive space is always a good thing, too. I don't really have any downloadable content to worry about, so I was content with just recovering my gamertag. Problem is that I have no freaking idea what e-mail I used to create my Xbox live account. So I called customer service. I know what my gamertag IS, so all they would need to do is verify my identity and they could give me the e-mail address.

Well, apparently, their system is down for an update. I asked when I should call back. The guy said, "Maybe 24 to 48 hours."

MAYBE?

/sigh

It's not Xbox Live maintenance or anything. I'm guessing it's an internal thing. I tried sending an e-mail through the form on their website. "There was an error in sending your request..." Okaaaaaaay...

I am SO writing down this information somewhere safe in case I have to deal with this kind of thing again. I'm totally kicking myself for not keeping track of this shit in the first place. ><;

$#@! (Profanity)

I read a really interesting post on Kotaku today. A word of warning, though... If you plan to read it, it's LONG:

Stop Telling Me What To Do!

I think it brings up interesting points and I have to agree that there are many times that I wish I could turn off tutorials in games... Particularly the ones that assume that I'm a complete IDIOT.

Anyway, this was the first time I'd read anything by this particular author and I enjoyed it quite a bit. He seems intelligent and clever, which can be hard to come by these days when sifting through all the garbage on the internet. But something bothered me as I read it: the profanity.

Now, most people who read this know that I "swear like a fucking sailor" at times. I don't find swearing offensive, in general. I do believe that there are places where it is more or less appropriate. And in my opinion, when reading something "intellectual," swearing doesn't really have a place there. It makes the arguments less valid because swearing just doesn't sound intelligent. In the case of this particular article and topic, I'm guessing that the writing was geared to the audience. This saddens me greatly. As fans of video games, we are constantly complaining that no one takes us seriously and we get angry when people think we're a bunch of socially inept losers sitting in our parents' basement, playing games. Well, look at how we express ourselves to the outside world! It's no wonder people think we're like that. (And I'm not even talking about commenters... That's a whole different issue.)

The thing that boggles my mind the most is that gamers, especially the hardcore ones, really think they're smarter than everyone else. They're the ones that hack their portables, write mods for games, write programs, and all that stuff. So what gives? Maybe I'm expecting too much of people. I do that a lot and it often gets me in trouble...

I'm always very wary when linking articles from other blogs here. They've got people who trackback and all that. I want to point out that I'm not using the Kotaku article to point fingers or insult the author. On the contrary, like I said earlier, I really enjoyed the article and thought it was intelligent and witty. I'm only using it as an example BECAUSE it's so smart. When I was younger, my dad used to tell me that with an intelligence as high as mine, I should be able to find much more intelligent and creative ways to express what I'm trying to say than using four letter words. When I'm hanging out with my friends, I swear and say whatever. But when I'm trying to express an opinion and I want people to actually LISTEN, I'm very careful about the words I choose. It doesn't matter how smart you are. If you come across as an ass or use unintelligent words, no one will listen.

Gamestop Text Messaged Me! :)

If you know me, you know I hate Gamestop. But you also know that I still reserve my games there. Convenience and the ability to get what I want when I want it are powerful, powerful things. Anyway...

I hate when the Gamestop Reservation system calls me. It's got this overly cheerful sounding girl named Ashley telling me that my game is coming on a certain day and that I should bring in games to trade in. Her voice is ANNOYING.

There are three games coming out that I pre-ordered this week. Yesterday, two reservation lines called me within the span of 10 seconds. I was listening to the first one while the second one made a little beeping noise. The second one left a voice mail.

Today I got a text message that said:

GameStop:Your Prof. Layton Diabolical order avail Tue PM. Bring game trades to reduce price. Store phone is XXX-XXX-XXXX. To end txt msgs reply STOP

I was absolutely ECSTATIC. I hate talking on the phone and listening to voice mails. I love to do all my communicating (aside from in person) via text or e-mail. My family pays $20 a month for unlimited text messaging. We sent and received about 12,000 messages last month. (Keep in mind that we have a 15 year old boy in our family.)

I absolutely need to find out if it's possible to let GameStop know that they should ONLY and ALWAYS contact me via text messaging. If I find anything out, believe me, I will post it here. ^_^

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

So in case you're living in a cave in the middle of nowhere, Blizzard announced a new expansion for World of Warcraft. They're doing all kinds of stuff to the game. I'm not going to talk about whether I like these things they're doing or not. I figure there are enough people bitching about things they don't like or raving like rabid fanboys/fangirls about things they do...

Basically, the world of Azeroth is being torn asunder by Deathwing, a fierce badass dragon. Lava is erupting from the core of the planet and the entire world is getting all destroyed.

So I just have one question:

WHY THE HELL ARE THE ALLIANCE AND HORDE STILL FIGHTING EACH OTHER?

Seriously, (as much as I dislike the Alliance), I have always felt that the stories and lore involving both the Horde and the Alliance indicate that the two factions have at least some wits about them. Hello! News Flash! The entire planet is crumbling from the inside out because of an ancient evil! Band together and do something about it, for crying out loud. Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore can work together when necessary. They realize that Azeroth's hope lies in setting aside differences and working together to save things. But, NO... Everyone is too stupid.

Maybe I'm too Star Trek, but to me, this just makes every citizen of Azeroth look like a complete idiot. After learning about the new expansion, I'm really glad that I've found a new game to play. Quite frankly, I've always been proud to be part of the Horde, but this is just embarrassing. I'm not going to continue fighting a pointless war when my efforts should be focused elsewhere.

2 New MMO's

I'm sick of WoW. Like really sick of WoW. Not to mention, I feel like Blizzard doesn't care about its game anymore. Riding at 20? Flying at 60? For a lot less gold than what I paid for it? Why don't they just level your character FOR you? Or better yet, just create your character and start at level 80... /sigh Anyway, I pre-ordered Aion and was able to play the last 4 beta events. And open beta for Champions Online started, so I tried that out, too.

AION

This game is beautiful. I can create pretty male characters. This is important to me. I hate having to play female characters just because the male character models are so ugly. Aion is originally a Korean MMO. Asian character models are very effeminate. Just look at Final Fantasy heroes. It IS possible in Aion to make male characters that are masculine, though, and if you're willing to take the time, the character creation can be extremely detailed so that your hero can look however you want him to. Still, if you're turned off by Asian character design, this game may not be for you.

As far as game-play, it's pretty standard MMORPG fare. I do like that there are certain abilities that can only be used in chains. For instance, you may only be able to use a shield-bashing move if you've blocked the last attack. Or you can only cast a certain spell if you've preceded it with a certain other spell. It makes the game a bit more reliant on reaction, but it's not so fast paced that you might miss it if you're not paying attention. There is also aerial combat. Once you reach level 10, you "ascend" and get your wings. You can only fly for a set period of time before having to recharge, but as you level, this duration increases. Fighting monsters or other players in the air definitely adds a new dimension to combat. This is especially true when you consider that if you're up there too long, you'll fall, possibly to your death.

One of the things that Aion does really well is make the player really feel like part of what's going on. During the game are cut-scenes that involve your character. The only other game that does this well in my opinion is Final Fantasy XI. It seems like Aion takes it a step further by having your character involved in action sequences and not just standing in the same room with the NPC's who are talking. I like feeling immersed and Aion does a great job of that.

Finally, I messed around with the crafting system for a bit. You can take every profession but only master one. I didn't get even close to mastering ANY of them since I was mostly just trying it out, but I liked how the crafting system works. You can actually level up by doing work orders, so you don't have to spend time collecting materials. You can receive a work order and buy any other materials like thread from a nearby NPC. No gathering required. At least not for leveling up your crafting. Keep in mind, though, that if you're using this method to level up, you'll be spending money on stuff like coal or thread and you'll have nothing to sell back to the vendor to make up for your money. You CAN just level on making stuff out of materials that you gather. It just might take longer. It's certainly cheaper. You'll still need to buy your thread, but at least you can sell what you make back to the vendor and get some money back. I have a feeling that when the game goes live, I'll be doing a combination of both.

I'm looking forward to playing this when it goes live. It's a lot of fun and it's something different. I really need different.

Champions Online

I want to like this game. Mostly because it's by the same people doing Star Trek Online and I really don't want STO to suck. The problem is that Champions just isn't doing it for me. It's fun, but I can't see myself actually paying monthly for it.

Character creation is AWESOME. I could spend HOURS just creating characters. There are so many options to mix and match. I saw a lot of people create characters that looked just like their favorite super heroes, but with all the choices, I would think that it's way more fun to make your own.

Game-play is much more like an action game. Although there was auto-attack, I felt like I was playing one of my son's games. I had to block, charge up attacks, and run around. I prefer my games to involve more thinking and less reacting. I also found the power-up system horribly confusing. Although the game tells you what stats to focus on when you're choosing your initial power-set during character creation, I couldn't find any information IN GAME on what different stats do and which ones I should be focusing on for what kinds of abilities. Buying powers in the Powerhouse felt very much like rolling dice and hoping that I was picking something useful. I think part of my problem is that I'm used to games that you pick a class and they can do certain things. In Champions Online, you can custom create your hero and what he or she can do. Want to combine psychic powers with brute force? Go for it. I guess I need more structure...

I am also turned off by the players. Granted, this is open beta which means that any moron with a computer and an internet connection can play. Still, I got sick of clearing out an area so that I could get to a Villain or Super Villain without a million henchmen adds, only to have some asshole kill the Villain or Super Villain. So I'd have to wait until everything respawned and I'd have to try again, only for some OTHER dipshit to do it. This happened a LOT. Even WoW wasn't that bad. Seriously.

As for the crafting system, I found that it wasn't explained very well. I even clicked on all the Information bubbles that the NPC's had, which supposedly explained it. I still didn't really get it, so I just gave up. I love crafting. It's an important part of MMO's for me.

Other Thoughts

There is one thing about both games that I absolutely LOVED. When you have a quest, you can use some kind of feature to know where to go. Aion has a tracker that can locate NPC's on your map. Champions Online had circles indicating where to go for certain quests. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I like to know where I'm going.

So I'm going to be playing Aion and not playing Champions Online. Both games are fun, but Aion is more for me. I'm hoping that it will keep me occupied until Star Trek Online, Final Fantasy XIV, or Star Wars: The Old Republic comes out. I have school starting next week, so it's not like I have a lot of time to play games, anyway... ^_~

*Insert Name Here* Dislikes This

Sometime yesterday I opened up iGoogle and visited Google Reader. I noticed that you can now "Like" articles. As a regular user of Facebook, I like this. :) (Groan.) It's fun to see how many people are interested in the same things that you are. And when you can "follow" these people and see what else they're reading, you can get turned on to some new and interesting things. Granted, it's also possible to end up clicking on a whole lot of crap, but it's easy enough to filter stuff out.

Well, I want to DISLIKE things. And it's not because I'm a contrary bitch. Well, that's part of it, but I think it could be a good thing...

In the context of Facebook: When a friend has a bad day or if something really crappy happens to them, you can either "Like" their status or comment on it. I don't like it when my friends get hurt, but I may not want to make a comment, either. Being able to "Dislike" their status would be a nice way to acknowledge their post in a more subtle way. Sort of like a digital hug or smile sent their way. Certainly it can be argued that this would allow people to be absolute jerks on your wall. If your friends are really your friends, I doubt this would happen. And if it did, well, you'd know who your real friends were, wouldn't you? Friends can already say whatever they want on your wall (assuming you have it set that way), so letting them "Dislike" things wouldn't change things much. And you can delete stuff you don't like, anyway.

In the context of Google Reader RSS feeds: A lot of news is BAD. I don't want to "Like" something because I find it interesting or important if it's about some disaster or a murder or something. However, readers may want to acknowledge something important like a shooting and its effects on a community or an industry without saying they "Like" it. Again, this would give people the ability to show any biases or bigotry, but the ability to comment on most news sites these days allows that to an even greater extent, so what's the difference? I also think it would be useful to be able to "Dislike" something if you think it's something that isn't worth the broadband being used to host it. It would give people more insight about what their website's readers like to read about and what they don't. They can utilize this information as much or as little as they want. And for users, it would allow them again to be able to follow someone with similar dislikes, thus possibly being turned on to something new and interesting.

It's okay to dislike things. It's part of human nature. They say it takes all kinds, right? ;-)

International Shipping

So there's this new, free online service that helps you stay on top of buying your household goods like toilet paper and razors. They apparently search the internet for the best price for your preferred brand and you can order it through them and they'll send it to you. It's called Alice.com and it looks pretty cool. It's still in beta stage and only offers their service to US customers within the continental United States. Since I live in Hawaii, I can't use their service. I'm not surprised or annoyed by this, really. I'm used to it. They had a contact form, though, so I sent them an e-mail asking if they were planning on extending their service to Hawaii. Just curious, you know? I received the following reply:

Hello,

We currently do not ship internationally. We only ship to the Continental U.S. Our team is working hard to provide the service internationally and will keep the public posted when changes occur via our blogs & the alice.com homepage.

Thank You.

Internationally? Are you kidding me? You work on the internet, which has flattened the world, and you think shipping to Hawaii is international shipping? I could have accepted a response like that if I had called a 1-800 number 10 years ago or something. This was the first time in a LONG time that I actually encountered one of those misconceptions about Hawaii. It used to be pretty common. You know, stuff like people being surprised that I speak English or wear clothes. But it has been YEARS since I encountered anything like that. So, being the snippy bitch that I am, I e-mailed a reply:

Hawaii is NOT international shipping. =/ Just because we're not part of the continental US does not mean that we're "international."

Anyway, thank you for your reply.

Mean? Yeah, probably a little. Still, I couldn't help myself. I wouldn't want their customer service department to remain under a bizarre delusion that Hawaii is a foreign country.

On a side note, however, Hawaii really can FEEL like you're outside of the United States. Sadly, and much to the chagrin of many Hawaii residents, we are becoming more "mainland" every day. I hope we can keep our other-worldliness.