Zombie Pandemic Problems

Ever get fucked by a zombie?  If Zombie Pandemic is really down for good, a lot of us will be able to say we have.  Seems like the past two days of it being down weren't a glitch, evidently ZP and Yahoo are having issues and the notice on their site isn't encouraging.

This is the notice on the site today-
*For reasons beyond our control, the current version of Zombie Pandemic is set to be discontinued shortly, and this will likely impact the user accounts of Yahoo! players. We are experiencing technical difficulties with the game vendor. We will provide more precise information as soon as possible, and are working to resolve the issue. In the meantime, we advise users not to make further micropayments for their accounts. Stay tuned for additional information.

I don't know about you, but my first question was What's a "micropayment"?  Although it's free to play (in a limited fashion) I paid 26 squids for a year of premium and the site goes poof 2 months later.  This made me want to see some more of their creative writing, so I went and looked at their "terms and conditions".  This is where potential future players might want to take special notice.  I have to say that if I had read this when I first saw the game, I never would have started playing until it was out of the "Open Beta" stage, if at all.  Here are a couple of excerpts...

* As a result frequent server updates with adjusted, extended and modified game content can be expected resulting in instability of the game and thus inconvenience to the user. Created user accounts may also be subject to deletion at which point a beta tester must create a new account. User accounts will be reset several times during the beta test in order to balance out the gameplay.  (I read that as "You're likely to lose all your progress and have to start over again, possibly many times".)

* The carrier reserves the right to cease operating the game Zombie Pandemic without justification. The user may demand reimbursement for fees already paid out for features. This option shall only apply to fees unused up to this point in time. Any other claims by the user shall be prohibited.
(The way I read this is that if you bought credits for virtual items, you can be reimbursed for what you haven't used yet up to the time of the game ending.  Time paid for can't be reimbursed forward from the time of the game ending, so if you bought Premium, you're screwed.)

The entire page of terms and conditions is here... Terms and Conditions

So I guess now we wait and see how the development team handles this problem.  It's a decent brainless game to diddle with while watching tv, movies, or hanging out, but it certainly won't be missed that much if it goes for good.  Just remember, don't give them any money and as I said in an earlier post- stay away from the forum.

I'll close this post with a shot of my players, quite possibly dead and rotting right now.   HAH!

L-R Schlongulus, Jaques Sparreaux, Dinah Moe Hum, Chlamydia Von Clapp  RIP

Why CompUSA and Tiger Direct lost my business

Ok, sorry to use Angelina and Harry that way, but it's no more deceptive than CompUSA's practice of rolling extended warranties into the price of some of their items.  In case you're not inclined to read the whole post, just be aware that CompUSA sold me a computer, and I was completely unaware that $75 of what I paid was a warranty that I wouldn't have chosen to buy had I known about it. 

Remember the good old days, when the salesman would ask you if you wanted to pay an additional large amount for a warranty, and you almost always said "NO" because the cost of the warranty was more than half the cost of whatever you were buying?  Sometimes I'd say "Hell no, I could buy two for just a little more than that and throw one away if it breaks."  Yeah, something tells me the salesmen at CompUSA have heard that one a time or two as well.  I guess they decided to skip the whole "asking the customer if they want it" thing and just include it in the price.  Hey, more commissions that way.  Also, more clients for whoever handles the warranties... in this case, Tiger Direct.  I didn't know this at the time, but it surprised the hell out of me, CompUSA and Tiger Direct are basically the same thing! 

I'll try to make this short, here's what happened.  I needed a backup computer so I bought a used one for around $200 from the CompUSA right down the street.  That was the price I had budgeted for a computer.  At the time there was no need to look at my receipt, where, to be fair, it broke down the prices.  Who the hell actually looks at their receipt?  I knew I paid the right amount, into my records the receipt went.  A month later the computer died.  Go figure, right?  Not that a $200 computer couldn't have died also, but maybe it would have taken a lot longer to do it.  Bottom line is that I wouldn't have bought it if the price tag said $119.  So I took it in and spoke to an employee who was very friendly and said since it was only a month, they'd repair it no problem.  He didn't even ask to see my receipt.  After eight days and no phone call, I stopped in to check on it.  A different employee was there and finally found my computer in the "done" section, but without any info.  He assured me that it had been taken care of.  I drove home, plugged it in, and guess what?  It still didn't work.  So I drove it back.  I told the dweeb behind the counter that it hadn't been fixed, and asked what they had been doing for eight days.  After about fifteen minutes of nervous glances, scuttling about, whispering, they told me that I would need to pay for a diagnostic to see what was wrong, as well as any parts and labor for the repair.  At this point I pulled out the receipt and asked for a refund.  They informed me that I was past the return/exchange date (which was 15 days).  By now I'm seeing red, and their suggestion that I deal with their warranty people wasn't satisfactory.  I mean, here's this big, sophisticated computer repair shop, and since I have a warranty issue, they won't repair the computer I had just bought from them.  So I look at my warranty pamphlet, and see that the warranty people are Tiger Direct.  I found out a couple days later that CompUSA and Tiger Direct are basically the same entity.  You can interchange the names however you want, but the way I see it, I bought a computer from Tiger Direct, paid Tiger Direct for a warranty, was standing in a Tiger Direct repair shop, and they wouldn't honor my warranty right there.  I can't imagine how little it would have cost them to repair my $119 computer, considering I paid an extra $75 for the warranty, but evidently they'd rather have an extremely dissatisfied customer.  They had my money, and now I was being Gotten Rid Of. 

All I can say is that if you choose to shop at CompUSA, be very careful and always ask if there's an extended warranty hidden in the price of whatever you're buying.  Personally, I won't have that problem because I'll never shop there again.

It's zombie season!

It's only about a month and a half until The Walking Dead season 3 arrives... and it's nice to have zombies to kill in the mean time, isn't it?  One thing that's not bad is Zombie Pandemic, a free game where you create a character and search a post apocalyptic city for supplies, weapons, and other survivors who send you on profitable missions.  Along the way you get to waste hordes of the undead, and your "achievements" section keeps track of how many walkers you've killed, for example, with an axe, a handgun, a sub machine gun, or simply beaten to death with a golf club.  You can build safe houses as you explore, and form a "clan" that other friends can join.  There's no animation at the moment, but I see that the development team is always working on it.  The other day I saw animated smoke coming from an Army vehicle.  The game play typically involves an overhead view of a grid section of a city block, but when one enters a mission area or encounters zombies, the view changes to a first person view with text and/or attack buttons.  At the moment there are about 9,000 grid sections to explore.  It's fairly addictive at the beginning, but be prepared for the action to slow down around level 15 or so.  As you explore and fight, your stamina points diminish, and eventually you have to stop.  The levels rise quickly in the beginning, and with a SP (stamina points) boost at each level, you can keep going.  As you get higher in level, they come less frequently and you won't be able to play as much, which is fine if you haven't gotten sucked in and addicted.  Ok, I admit it, I had to get their "premium" and get more SP, faster SP replenishment, and an extra 3 characters.  What the heck, only a few bucks, right?  If any of my friends out there want to find me, join up and write to Schlongulus.  :D

What I wouldn't recommend is their "forum".  If you absolutely have to, if you're having a problem and just can't find the answer yourself, as a last resort go ask on the forum.  My limited experience there showed me that it's populated mostly by anal, uppity dweebs who probably have power or control over nothing in their real lives and who live on those boards to exercise their superiority over others.  Their peevish and disparaging attitudes would make an 18th century etiquette lesson look like the food fight in Animal House.

An example of this would be the weapon I've been thinking of since I started watching The Walking Dead several months ago.  It's an 8 fot long 2 x 2... with a hole drilled in each end and a 3/8" or 1/2" steel rod held in with nice strong two part epoxy.  About a foot of steel would be left sticking out on each end.  Then the tips would be ground down to a sharp point.  The center of the 2 x 2 is wrapped with hockey stick grip tape.  Simple and efficient, a bunch can be made quickly and easily.  I can only imagine how quickly a whole herd of walkers can be dropped by ten people with these brain pokers.  When I posted this in the forum, figuring to have a friendly chat with others abut killing zombies, I found that my first mistake was to write one post, then several minutes later, I had a few new thoughts, so I added them in a reply to my original.  Big mistake evidently.  It seems like my two posts confused people and threw a couple of them into such a tailspin that they felt the need to deride me for it.  My second mistake was expecting an enjoyable conversation.  I was treated to criticisms that epoxy wasn't needed, duct tape would do, and that the weapon needed blades at the front and other changes that I had already considered and rejected.  First, duct tape??  Go ahead, make yours with duct tape and when your point comes off in the head of your zombie, don't come crying to me.  Second, this isn't a battle axe, it's not a sword.  It's a skull poker.  I call it "The Cortex Tickler".  It's eight feet long, for cryin' out loud!  Swinging that with a blade at the end would be unwieldy.  The whole "point" of the weapon is to be able to jab at walkers from a distance of about 4 or 5 feet, and poke their brains at a rate of about one every 3 to 5 seconds, maybe faster, but that would mean that they're getting pretty thick and you need to take out your Uzi.  Think about it, 20 walkers per person per minute.  A herd of 200 is down in two minutes by five people. 

Enough for now.  Enjoy the game but stay away from the forum.  See y'all again soon... I have a beef with a fairly major retail store that I'm going to address next. 

The Big BANG

I just found this, thought I'd share it.  :D

"N"

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while.  This seems to be a good item to come back with though, it's a graphic version of Stephen King's short story "N".  It's my favorite selection from his book of short stories "Just After Sunset".  I've added the widget to the side of my blog here, and it can also be seen here Watch here also, an official page for "N".  Thanks Stephen, for a very cool version of a very cool story!