EA & SimCity

Saw this comment by alwayswinning on recent Ars thread, direct link http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/ea-offers-free-catalog-game-to-apologize-for-simcity-server-woes/?comments=1&post=24040939#comment-24040939, cutting and pasting whole thing because it includes tweet posts about problems with the BETA Sim City

IMHO this single post, along with linked Tweets, shows EA had to know there were problems even with Beta.

Below is direct cut and paste of alwayswinning's comment, all bold & etc is from original:

Lucy Bradshaw says, "a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta."

This, of course, is total baloney. The servers didn't work during the Beta either! I couldn't connect to a server and neither could any of my friends. EA had to know that this was going to happen because they had major server issues for the entire Beta weekend.

For proof, here are some of our Tweets from the Beta weekend:
https://twitter.com/Telly2Putts/status/ ... 7765583872
https://twitter.com/AlwaysWinning1/stat ... 3136871424
https://twitter.com/AlwaysWinning1/stat ... 5324963841

If my friends and I realized that there would be major issues on March 2nd, EA certainly should have:
https://twitter.com/AlwaysWinning1/stat ... 4873097216
https://twitter.com/ManginiNaBottle/sta ... 3788877824 (obvious sarcasm)

I can't believe EA thinks that they can lie their way out of this. This is the definition of bad PR. They're destroying their long-term value by treating customers, and the media, like dullards. I'm not an EA or Maxis "hater" by any stretch, I'm just trying to set the record straight: they're totally full of it.

Last edited by alwayswinning on Sat Mar 09, 2013 12:47 am

Nerd News: BBM VOIP WiFi Only Beta

Press Release from RIM:  http://press.rim.com/newsroom/press/2012/bbm-now-lets-you-have-voice-chats-for-free-over-wi-fi.html

RIM has released a Beta of BBM (Blackberry Messenger) that supports VOIP between BBM users over WiFi.

The Beta is available here https://beta.webapps.blackberry.com/login/

From the press release "BBM version 7 with the new BBM Voice feature is currently available in Beta for BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry® 6 OS or higher."

I have a Blackberry Bold 9780, though I am planning on switching to a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 this Christmas, in large part because I don't have a lot of hope that Blackberry will survive their business mistakes.

I would be happy to be wrong about this, because I really like several features that Blackberry phones have, that no one else does.

Their security is a big one, though newer iPhones (iPhone 4S or newer) have good enough security to replace that functionality.

I also really like the optical track pad of newer Blackberry's, for me that works a lot better than touchscreens, this is a big part of the reason I am going to the Galaxy Note II, the Stylus will provide precision, that I can't get otherwise with touchscreens.

BBM is the third big thing I will miss about Blackberry, if your not familiar with it, it works like Skype Chat, though probably a bit more secure than Microsoft's Skype, considering the news about Skype's password reset hack.

I have been looking at PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) to replace that element.

Diablo 3 Beta VOD: Introduction, Walkthrough, & FAQ

The Holiday Season is a little slow for Starcraft 2, so I am using this time to showcase some other games.  Don't worry, there is a bunch of Starcraft 2 goodness planned for the New Year, I am also working on a few new projects, so stay tuned.

NanMan is a SC2 Caster, he has cast at least 2 TL Opens and big week long series of all Pro Showmatches, among many other events, and games.

This series of VOD's covers all of Act I, all that is included in the Diablo 3 Beta.  Note this was streamed live, and NanMan was answering questions from Chat & etc.

I really have to limit myself on how many games I buy, or I would NEVER get anything else done.  Diablo 2 & Starcraft Brood War are the games that consumed my life until Starcraft 2 came out, I think Diablo 3 is going to replace Diablo 2 for me, just like SC2 did to BW.