No Zytrons In Range

Another one of those things that I have a love-hate relationship with is World of Warcraft. The good news is that Blizzard actually makes an effort at Vista compatibility. (Unlike, for example, Valve who doesn’t even try.) The bad news is that Blizzard has no fucking clue how to actually make their product compatible with Vista.

WOW was built with the assumption that it would be able to read and write files from the Program Files folder at will. This assumption was wrong when it was built, and it’s especially wrong now that Vista is out. Windows 2000, BTW, has the exact same limitations for regular users as Vista does for administrative users, so it’s not as if this is new or anything. WOW has simply always been broken on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista.

The solution before was always just “well, run as administrator.” To this I reply: screw you. I’m sick of video games, which pretty much by definition never do any administrative tasks, relying on administrator permissions. WOW does nothing but shove tons of data through the Internet, both directions. With administrator permissions, that means WOW can, at the instruction of some random Internet server, completely fuck with any file on my system. The same applies to any other Internet-aware video game, and I’m sick of it.

Security aside, using the wrong folders also breaks the multi-user model of Windows. It’s impossible for WOW to have different settings for different computer users, because they only have one copy of the settings file. It’s also impossible for different users to run different sets of Add-Ins, because there’s only one folder that Add-Ins can be put in.

Game developers: Windows 98 was a long, long time ago. Please spend a few seconds to learn how NT permissions work before releasing a game to the unsuspecting public! You’re doing nothing but adding security holes to people’s computers and breaking OS built-in multi-user features. Stop it.

So back to WOW. WOW decides to store its configuration data in a “WTF” folder (no kidding, Blizzard!) inside its Program Files folder. This is wrong; that data should be stored in “Users//AppData”. Additionally, Blizzard puts interface add-ins in the Program Files folder. This is wrong; that data should be somewhere like “Users//WOW Add-Ins”. (For those reading closely, in this paragraph I’ve just outlined exactly what changes Blizzard needs to make for full Vista compatibility.)

Obviously Blizzard knew this was wrong, because they tried to fix it. How? In the most half-assed way possible, of course.

Blizzard moved their entire install to “Users/Public” (or presumably “Users/All Users” in XP.)

That user account is supposed to be used for files you want to share among all users on a computer, for instance, custom desktop backgrounds or maybe a music library. (You’ll note that’s where Vista puts all its sample media, so all users can access it.) It’s not intended for programs. In fact, nothing in the “Users” folder is intended for programs! Wrong, wrong, wrong!

And even worse, apparently Blizzard didn’t even bother to test if this would fix their issues. It doesn’t, it makes them worse! The problem they were trying to fix their auto-updater getting blocked by UAC prompts, what they ended up with is a situation where WOW is silently prevented from saving its own configuration files, and so it appears to be working just fine, except every time you log out, WOW forgets everything it ever knew. This includes making you agree to the EULAs over and over and over again.

Are you trying to tell me that nobody at World of Warcraft knows how NT permissions work? A 15-year-old system? At least Valve can use the excuse that they don’t even bother to try.

Blizzard, you’ve really earned this:

P.S. And whenever you see issues like this and look into the forums, people are always blaming Vista. As if Microsoft did something wrong by making their OS more secure. It’s almost enough to get me to break out that crazy pills image again.

I’ve owned Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for awhile, buying it from a GoGamer.com 72 hour sale for dirt cheap. It’s definitely reinforced my recent decision to always prefer the Xbox 360 version over the PC version.

Why? Well, I started installing Dark Messiah about a half-hour ago, and while I’m typing this it’s still installing:

• Put in the DVD. If I had the Xbox 360 version of this game, I’d actually be done by now. But since this is a PC, there’s an installer involved.
• It asks me which various pieces of shit software I want to install along with it; I know the actual answer is “probably none,” but since I don’t know what exactly “PlayLinc” is, and whether it’s required by the game or not, I make the stupid decision to install it anyway.
• Now there’s about 15 solid minutes of just copying files from the DVD to my HD. It’s funny, because I happen to know the Xbox 360 port of this game is identical to the PC version. My PC, hardware-wise, is actually superior to the Xbox 360 in every possible way– it’s faster, both CPU and GPU, it has more disk space, it even has a faster DVD drive. Yet the Xbox 360 version spends approximately 15 seconds installing, maybe 30 if Live has to patch it.
• The main installer, even though it’s not all the way finished, starts up the PlayLinc installer. Neither of these installers actually tell me what he hell PlayLinc is, or why I would want it. But, oh well, I made my bed and I might as well lie in it. I hit go. Because I’m dumb.
• PlayLinc’s installer triggers a really, really nasty “this program is doing something very bad and you should not let it” dialog from Vista. Basically, it’s trying to install a low-level driver for some reason, with no security certificate. (That means that, for all Vista knows, this driver was developed specifically as a rootkit or a virus.) I deny permission. But wait, why did I see this dialog at all? (Well, to be fair, Dark Messiah’s software requirements say “XP only,” probably specifically because they knew they wouldn’t be able to sneak their crapware driver past Vista.) What does the driver do? I dunno; at no point did PlayLinc even tell me what it did, much less the driver it attemps to sneak past me.
• Now Steam becomes aware of the game, and asks me to enter a long and complicated serial key. It’s 25 characters long, and printed in a font that makes it impossible to tell whether characters are I or 1. (They’re I. I found this through trial and error, of course, meaning I had to type this code in twice.) Xbox games don’t have serial keys; you put the disk in, you play. You want multiplayer? It just works, no serial key at all. You want Xbox Live to give you patches? No serial key needed.
• We’re about a half-hour into the process now, and just before the point where I started typing this rant. Steam gave me this lovely dialog:
  

  It’s looked like that for the 5 minutes it took me to decide to type this post, the time it took me to type all the previous bulletpoints, the time it took me to take a screenshot of the dialog and uploaded it into WordPress. It still looks like that. The progress bar hasn’t moved one single percent! Of course, it is doing something– it’s totally pegged one of my CPU cores to 100% and it’s thrashing my drive like crazy. Since the first installer knew I had Steam already, why isn’t the game already installed “into” Steam? Whatever that even means.

So it’s now been 45 minutes and change, and I’m still not playing Dark Messiah. I’m not even looking at the first cinematic. If I had the Xbox 360 version instead of the PC version, I’d be on level 5 by now. If this were Portal instead of Dark Messiah, I’d be done playing by now!

PC games need to be installed, even though the Xbox 360’s inferior hardware can play the exact same games with no installation.

PC games need serial keys entered to play online and patch themselves, even though Xbox 360 games with online play require no serial keys.

PC games that rely on Steam suck ass, because Steam sucks ass. Xbox Live has no such ass-sucking problem.

PC games frequently install hacks and nasty crap onto my PC. Things like seedy and unnecessary device drivers, or low-level hacks like PunkBuster. Ask yourself why any video game requires Administrative permissions to run. Xbox 360 does not have these problems, I don’t worry at all that playing a particular Xbox game will make my 360 software unstable or slow it down.

When are PC gamers going to get sick of this bullshit and demand higher quality products? There’s no technical reason the PC can’t do every single thing the Xbox 360 is doing, PC game developers just don’t care. At all.

I’ve now had plenty of time to finish this post, add links, edit it, format it, preview it several times. And that Steam progress bar hasn’t advanced a single pixel.

Update: Since Steam is still installing (15 minutes after publishing this post originally) I actually looked up PlayLinc on Wikipedia:

Playlinc was a game browsing and messaging platform that enabled multi-player game play, voice chat and game management. Playlinc is no longer in existence.

Ah, so the random crap I just installed on my computer apparently is “no longer in existence.” Oh how I wish that were true.

Update 2: It’s now 4 hours later. Steam never finished after two hours, so I gave up on it and uninstalled the whole shebang with the intention of starting the entire install over again. In the process, though, I learned that once I plugged the serial key into Steam it is actually capable of downloading the game from its own servers, apparently. So I got the download started, and now it’s at 70%. Whee.

(Make sure you un-mute it to get the whole experience.)

For the un-Flashed, this is a video game currently featured on the John McCain homepage called Pork Invaders.

It’s a pretty faithful clone of Space Invaders, with the following exceptions:

• The iconic invader spaceships are replaced by little pigs. Which is actually more like pre-pork than pork. Or maybe it’s pork chops shaped to look like little pigs, that would add a much-appreciated nuance to the game world. Oh, by the way, there are three levels of pigs, just like the three levels of invaders in the original, and they’re worth different point amounts like in the original, but in this game they all look identical.
• The red UFO has changed into a barrel. Of pork. A “pork barrel,” as it were.
• Shooting pigs and pig-derived meats will earn (or save, presumably) tax dollars. The pork barrels are still worth ??? points. Unlike the original, your points are measured in millions now. (It says so right on the game screen.)
• The bullet fired by your tank is turned into the word “veto.” You can still only fire one bullet/veto, at a time, though.
• Your tank isn’t actually a tank, but instead is a generic-looking McCain logo. When it explodes, it looks identical to the explosion in the original Space Invaders game which is really jarring and weird.
• At the end of each round, you’re presented with a cool factoid about how much John McCain hates pork.

I don’t even know what to think about this. It’s so retro, it could possibly be cool. But is it retro because McCain’s website is run by some hipster 20-year-old with an ironic t-shirt, or is it retro because McCain called somebody into his office and said something like, “those kids like playing the Space Invaders, don’t they? Why don’t we make a Space Invaders game for them?” Sadly, I think the latter is more likely.

The concept of the game aside, though, the execution is pretty lazy. Why are do all three invaders look identical? Is the McCain logo really the best thing they could find to represent a tank? And how come they didn’t bother to change the explosion when it got hit into something more appropriate? If you made this game, or know the person who made this game, put me in contact with them, because I have a lot of issues.

Oh well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the McCain campaign turns Frogger into.

Two of the people I know actually read this blog on a regular basis are aware that I play World of Warcraft. And one of them requested I write about getting Epic Flight form, so here we go.

My main character is a druid, which is great because they’re about the craziest and most flexible character classes in the game. They can be DPS casters with a (Moonkin), they can be healing casters (Tree), they can be DPS melee (Cat), or they can be DSP tanking (Bear/Dire Bear.) In Moonkin and Tree forms (and non-shifted, of course) they have mana and spells. In Cat form, they have Energy like a rogue. In Bear form, they have Rage like a warrior. So druids are really like Mages, Priests, Rogues and Warriors in one class. And the really amazing part is that they’re good at it! Druids specced and equipped for healing can give Paladins or Priests a run for their money. Druids specced and equipped for tanking are practically as good as Protection-specced warriors. Druids specced and equipped for cat-form or DPS casting… well, they’re just ok.

In addition to the above listed shapeshifts, Druids have a bunch of others that are handy in other situations. There’s one that allows you to run at almost-mount speeds (Travel), one that lets you breathe underwater and swim 50% faster (Aquatic), and of course in the Outlands there’s a form to fly (Flight.) This comes to why I’m writing this extremely geeky blog post.

Normal non-Druid characters have to ride a flying mount, but Druids actually transform into a flying mount. This has several advantages:

• There’s no “cast time,” so you can switch to Flight form any time you’re not in combat. This is extremely handy when you accidentally step off a cliff that’s just a little bit too tall: Druids can switch form in mid-air and “catch” themselves.
• Since Druids become the bird, instead of riding the bird, they can still perform all the regular Druid things. For instance, Sacora can skin animals as a little bird. (I guess the bird holds the knife in its beak?) Also, she can harvest herbs. (Maybe the bird does it with its little claws? I dunno.) While doing these, the Druid doesn’t need to shift out of bird form, so when you’re done harvesting or skinning you can just fly away.
• When upgraded, Flight form is the fastest thing in the game. (More on this below.)

Sacora, my Druid, has Herbalism as a profession, which means I spend a decent amount of time driving her to herbs in the game to harvest them and sell for gold. The faster you can move in the game, the more herbs you can collect and the more gold you can earn. Now, druids already have an advantage in that they can harvest herbs without shifting out of Flight, but to really get the herbing going, you need to buy the fast flying mount skill.

It costs 5000 gold.

After several months of saving (then giving up on saving and spending, then saving again) and one large loan, I finally had enough gold to purchase the fast flying mount skill and a gryphon mount to go with it. Now we’re in business: with this skill and a fast flying mount, you actually move the same speed or faster than the game’s taxis. (Whether it’s faster or not depends on the specific route, but it’s always at least the same speed.)
This isn’t the ultimate, though. Druids have a Flight form, but they also have an Epic Flight form. With this you get all the speed of the fast flying mounts, plus a 10% speed bonus, plus all of the abilities that come with the normal Flight form. Including the herb harvesting ability. Cool.

The quest chain for this requires that you’ve first purchased the fast flying mount skill. It begins with a Druid trainer in Moonglade, as so many Druid-related quests do. (Just in case Druids weren’t cool enough before, they also have their own area on the map which is nothing but Druid-related quests and services.) So I head there and start questing on the Epic Flight form chain. With my friend’s help, we slam through about half the quests one evening, and I start on the rest in the morning. I do two or three myself, and then recruit some guildies to help with the last few more difficult bosses. Everything’s going good, and I’m actually having a lot of fun playing WOW for the first time in a long while.

Then I come to the last quest. This quest involves going into a dungeon set to Heroic difficulty, summoning a boss, and then killing him. You get Epic Flight form, and the rest of the party gets the miniscule chance (less than 2%) of finding, then bickering over, one of the rarest and coolest-looking mounts in the game. The problem is that to enter the Heroic dungeon, you first have to have the key for it. And to get the key, you first need to build up rep with the faction that holds it. And thusly the questing comes to a dead stop.

That last quest entry might as well have read, “spend five or six hours killing Arakkoa for feathers, turning them in groups of 30 for rep. Try not to die from boredom.” Sure, there are other ways to get rep, but I’d already done all of the quests for this faction so that wasn’t an option, and doing dungeon runs with a group of random people in the game is never any fun and probably would have taken longer to boot.

Listen to me, Blizzard: Video games are supposed to be fun. Grinding for rep is not fun.

So that put a damper on the incredibly fast pace we had been completing this long quest chain up to the point. And of course, I learned my lesson that if I’m having a lot of fun playing WOW, it’s probably only because I haven’t gotten to the part in whatever it is I’m doing where it becomes an utter snore-fest. But the good news is that we managed to get in the dungeon with a mostly-guild group, we managed to down the boss and get me my Epic Flying form (and the super-rare mount didn’t drop), and I added a couple new people to my friends list, including another Druid who actually knows a hell of a lot more about playing the class than I do. So it all turned out alright.

And now Sacora’s got purple feathers, some earrings or something, and I’m faster than anything else in the game. Rock.

P.S. I apologize for writing 1100+ words about WOW. I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again. Also, yes, I apparently do requests.

Recently in World of Warcraft, I managed to complete the quest and get my level 70 druid Sacora to the Ogri’la faction area. (I know; I’m slow. Leave me alone.) One of the daily quests in this area is named “The Relic’s Emanation.” To complete it, you must kill a guard or two, then feed a crystal into a machine and play a mini-game. Once you’ve reached level 7 of the mini-game, you gain the Apexis Emanation and the quest is complete.

The mini-game is Simon.

That’s right; you have four colored tiles that are triggered in sequence and you must repeat back the sequence. They are Red, Blue, Yellow and Green and each one plays a unique musical tone. Simon. The loveable game everyone had in the 80s:

So I put down WOW and pick up a new game I just bought: Bioshock. Working through the tutorial level, I get to the part about hacking turrets, security robots, and cameras. To successfully hack a machine, you must complete a mini-game. Guess which one?

Pipe dream.

That’s right. The quintessential pipe-clearing game I played in 1990 on my green-screened Gameboy, that’s the mini-game you have to complete. Pipe Dream:

What’s the deal? Has the world run out of games? Or is Blizzard and 2K not very creative? And did they really think that people wouldn’t remember Simon or Pipe Dream?