In which we go "all in" on Fireflys

One of my World of Warcraft goals is to garner enough money for a $20,000 Gold mount that travels with its own set of vendors and repair people. It is just the sort of ridiculous luxury purchase with no real value that I enjoy so much. Of course, $20,000 Gold is a lot of wow money. To give the non-wow players an idea of the scope of this thing, each quest completed in the game will net you from 3-20 gold. Thus...this is a lot of money.

Of course, there are other, more efficient, ways to rack up the gold. The most popular is the "auction house", where one can craft or find rare goods and then charge other players whatever the heck they want for them.

One such item is the ultra-rare "captured firefly." It is a stupid pet (seen above) that follows your character around and looks neat. It is about a 1/1500 drop chance off of a specific set of bad guys in a very specific place. We'll ignore how statistics actually work for a second and just say that you have to kill a TON of these things to get a firefly. Like you'd have to spend days and weeks killing the same thing over and over just to see one. As such, they tend to sell on the auction house for around $5,000 gold.

So...as I was searching the AH I noticed a character named "szbb" selling TWO of them for $1,500 gold. TWO. I bought them both. I then managed to sell one of them for $4000 gold...quite a tidy profit.

Then, today, our dear friend "szbb" had SIX more of these guys up. SIX. So...based on the name, this guy is clearly some sort of a farmer. Either he has a bot setup to find these things or he has some sort of a duplicate item hack. Thus...I now have a conundrum. Keep buying the things and go "all in" or quietly walk away.

I went "all in." That means I now own a total of seven fireflys, and I have very little cash reserves left. Honestly, to unload these bad boys I may have to transfer servers...each server only has so many fools like me willing to sell out big gold for stupid items.

On the other hand, I also reported this guy so that Blizzard can investigate. The fact is, if I can't get "rid of him", he'll win in the end by deflating the price on these things so much that I can't get my money out.

The post wherin we discuss the thought processes behind email delivery...

This snippet of email consumed me on my drive to work this morning:

“My kids school is closed today, (Snow Day)...
I will be in as soon as we can coordinate some place for them to hang out today.”

You see, every email that comes in my inbox is instantly evaluated against the following major criteria.

1. Is this issue an emergency that needs to be dealt with immediately?
2. Does this need follow up?
3. Is there an opportunity for a hilarious response?

It would seem, at the outset, that this email falls under “Criteria 3.” There are some problems with this, though:

1. This involves a co-workers child. A response would need to be tempered with an even greater deal of respect than usual while still providing that all-important “chuckle factor.”
2. The person who sent this email is, at least currently, outside the traditional “ring”” of witty email spam responses that tend to go around.

So, where do we take this? The obvious, if not lame answer, would be the following:

“Bring ‘em into work and let’s get them setup with a computer!”

Haha! Jovial back-slapping goodness. This joke would have been hilarious if I worked at IBM circa 1957. I do not.

The next route I explored was “social commentary”, something to the effect of the following:

“Plop them in front of the television, the parents of the 21st century”

This doesn’t really satisfy the criteria of “funny”, though. We are trying to use email for its true purpose, hilarity, not to make a statement.

There’s the tried-and-true “abandonment angle” response, which would look something like this:

http://www.f-r-c.org/index.php

There are just far too many potential pitfalls with this approach. Did this person have a painful adoption that would send them into a quiet catatonic state? Not a risk that I’m willing to take right now.

So, upon arriving at work, I settled on the following response:

“Thanks for the heads up.”

Brilliant!

The post in which we introduct our first guest columnists...

Given the unusually high increase in the number of suicide notes I've received this week, I have to assume that my audience, or at least what is now left of them, is having a tough time dealing with the lack of Jabronireport updates. As such, I'd like to return to form by presenting what I hope will become a regular column on this site...guest contributions from our interns. That is correct, ladies and gentlemen, you will now have an opportunity to live the intern dream vicariously through our friends, "T-Bone", "Skittles", "Rasputin" and "Shakenbacher."

We're going to start them out slow...so the topic I sent them this week was "Give the number one thing we could do to improve your experience as an intern." Next week I'll ramp them up slowly...most likely by having them write a Jabronireport dissertation comparing and contrasting Tolstoy's War and Peace with the seminal Goldthwait classic, "Shakes the Clown." (Ed: Is there really anything to contrast?)

That said, I am proud to present...the interns!

T-Bone's Post on improving the intern experience:

I think the thing that is truly missing in intern life is a sense of hierarchy. I believe interns should have levels, and thus, privileges. For instance, I started working here in May of ’09, and Skittles started shortly after that. Months later, we have Shakenbacher and Rasputin show up on the scene, being melded with us into “The four Kore-Tech interns.”

Seniority has had a few perks. When I don’t want to get the water, I have another intern do it. It’s a proven method that just works. But as far as respecting the older interns goes, this is simply not enough. I want piggy-back rides to the water cooler. I want to be able to clap twice for Rasputin, three times for Shakenbacher. I want interns that do not respond to their claps to be punished (Forced to piggy-back ride each other). When called upon for intern mating purposes (quite another thing that could be done without), I expect to be able to defer the task to them.

At least I got the best nickname,

T-Bone

Rasputin's Post on improving the intern experience:

The coffee machine water refill system could probably use an upgrade.

The current system:

Adam calls Sakkos to request that an intern assigns someone to refill his coffee machine with water. Sakkos calls T-Bone to the task. T-Bone calls Skittles, who works in the same office as T-Bone, to assign someone to assign someone to refill the coffee machines water reservoir. Skittles assigns the task to Shake'n'Bake via the phone. Shake'n'Bake then calls Rasputin to pass the task along. Rasputin can't figure out how the phone system works, so he searches for a missing water jug, gives up, grabs the water reservoir, and fills it with water. With 4 interns and 2 managers, involved, this must be a pretty good system. Still, it seems like there could be a faster way.

It’s not that we haven’t tried. The team has looked to legendary process designer Rube Goldberg for inspiration. I have seen whiteboard schematics to add a fan, a mule, a cat, crack cocaine, buckets, and pulleys to the mix. Nothing seems to help. I am pretty sure the solution involves more interns, I think we need to get the new art intern into the process.

Editor's Comment on this post: I promise, in every way, that the system to get water for the coffee pot currently works as outlined.

Skittles' comment on improving the intern way of life:

[Ed: Comments removed]After a few weeks I started to warm up to my nickname, KOKO, but my coworkers decided to have some fun and change my nickname each week. Luckily they became sick of this system and to this day my nickname is Skittles. I do not have any scientific proof, but the nickname has been going on so long now that I think I respond better to Skittles then my actual name.

Editor's comment on this post: This exercise was supposed to be "funny." The original intent was to have the interns write something, and then I would jokingly comment on their comments. Skittles, however, decided to use this as an opportunity to point out an actual injustice in the system, and thus, similar to to Sinclair's "The Jungle", Skittles' social commentary deeply affected me. As such, from this moment forth, Skittles is no longer "Skittles", and is now "Anthony!" Welcome to the majors!

NPD Fanboy Awards - November.

NPD sales are out for November. For those who want a sane analysis, I'll share the summary.

PS3 sold really well. This is really good for our industry.
360 sold even "really weller." This is really good for our industry.
Wii sold well. End sentence.

NPD time is like fanboy catnip, though, so it is time for me to troll the internet looking for how the die-hard, single console "lifers" interpret the information. Here we go!

All posts from N4G.com...the single greatest depository of inane fanboyism on the internet. Be warned, logic is not a pre-requisite to get an account:

Orakga wins the "Conspiracy Theory" Award:

"1.19 - Come on guys... 600,000-ish 360 banned during the week of MW2's launch.

Let's say half of them bought new 360s (and chances are more than half bought a new machine); that's 300,000 360s they re-sold to existing 360 users. Subtract that 300k from the 360 number and you have 500k for 360 vs 700k for PS3.

I suspect Microsoft was saving this trick up its sleeve this whole year, knowing that it'd give a massive sales boost to its hardware..."

Sparta76 gets the runner up prize for "Conspiracy":

"1.37 - Hey guys u forgetting

60g 360 for 199
600,000+ banned from live( that alone shot the arcade to #1 on amazon)
and bestbuy was selling refurb arcade for 99
sooooo don't expect the same out come next month....
Not that any of these things are bad, m-soft knew they where in trouble and did what they had to do. "

Sikbeta wins my spelling award with:

.47 - ...

You guys are SO funny, you see only what you want to see

·You see a M$ victory here, but you can't see the wii still selling better than the others, so where is the victory?

·You see that xbox sold better and it never come to your mind that "maybe" is because is more CHEAP than the PS3, people that want gaming but don't have enough money, still have more choices, yes guys, in the REAL WORLD people aren't damned fanboys that only want ONE console, they can choose

·You don't see MW2 (aka the best seller game of the year) bundle not helped in teh sales, look what is your best seller game and you'll see the answer by yourselves

·You don't see that +600000 xbox owners were banned and they could buy another one, they don't going to quit for a banned console

You just don't see... "

Armogangsta wins my "denial" award:

9 - so this doesnt count amazon at walmart.....

judging the success ps3 had on amazon and when i went to walmart during black friday and ps3's were flying out the shelves.... i feel like these numbers would be a tad bit different.....

How about Osirrus and his "gloom for MS" award:

"25 - MS better sale more if its gonna win this christmas. 100k in the US Won't cut it World Wide! Price cut maybe?"

"On that" note, the "bu.bu.bu.wait until next month" award goes to Jigga69 (classy):

"7 - Funny how 360 fanboys

never knows how it works. If you think that PS3 won't outshine 360 this december, a bad surprise is coming.
Modern Warfare effect NOV. "

I don't talk Europe and Japan of course we know 360 lose

Finally, my award for "best spin" goes to:

5.1 - I believe microsoft said that the effect of the PS3 price drop wouldn't last

They completely blew that call since the PS3 is still selling way above last year and haven't slowed down at all, not including the first week price drop blow out sales, no way to keep that kind of sales pace :) On the other hand the XBox price cut only managed to give them numbers around the same as last year.

Thanks everyone...until next month!

Random images from ATG...

So many stories to tell about the good'ol "Advanced Technology Group." And tonight I will share none of them. Instead, here's a few (horrible quality) shots of some random times from a company that no longer exists.

Ever wonder what happens when there is one, and only one impossible system-level audio bug that is keeping a multi-million dollar game from submitting? The answer is in this picture, where the one programmer with the expertise works tirelessly at his computer, while half a dozen high-powered engineers and production staff literally sit behind him to make him feel uncomfortable.

Not another one, you say! Actually, this is sort of the "good" antithesis of the previous image, where one senior engineer is giving a lesson to some new guys on the intricacies of profiling on 360 versus PS3.

A shot of the "dock", our open-air programmer workplace "funtacular." For those wondering, those pictures of teen sensation "Cody" and the gang are mine...I inherited them from our previous tech director. I, of course, actually pasted those on his wall back when that was his desk...which I later inherited. Karma.


Tip to future interns: Don't go on vacation for a week, or else this will be what your desk will look like when you return.

Finally, a random picture from a work lunch, where the gang discovered the World's largest piece of Indian food.

The December Ritual...

December marks the time for my yearly ritual known as "re-install Windows." Why, you ask, do I have to reinstall my operating system every year? The answer, if you will calm down for a moment and let me finish, is simple. Remember that new fancy computer your built? Remember how blazing fast it was for the first hour? OK, now think of all the programs you've installed and uninstalled, all the registry changes, the millions of temporary files that have come and gone, the hundreds of pieces of spyware you downloaded and purged, the gigabytes of files you've moved around, fragmenting your hard drive to bits, and the various installations that have failed, leaving a trace memory of themselves in the form of "random crashes". These things destroy that poor computer.

Sure, like the rest of you, I do my best (in the beginning) to maintain my computer. A regiment of defragging, anti-virus, file organization, anti-spyware, firewalls and the like stave off problems for a few days. A week in, however, you notice that your WOW fps has dropped from 60 to 58...then to 52...then 47....then 26...then 11. The reason for this is simple:

• The Windows internal defrag tool works by moving your files around in an orderly pattern. It then randomly deletes 15 entries from your file partition and replaces them with viruses..."just for funs."
• Press ctrl+alt+del and you will notice that "system idle" is eating up a ton of your processer time. While some might lead you to believe this is because the computer is doing nothing and thus there is "idle" time, in truth I believe this is an app that is constantly running a countdown which informs Windows to permanently suck up 1% of your processor time every 3 days. This means that on day 1 your 2Gigaherz processor is running at 2Gigaherz, and by day 300 it is running at 0 Gigaherz. This cannot be recovered until Windows is re-installed.
• Upon every bootup, windows inserts 4 programs, randomly selected from it's internal "most inefficient code ever written" database, and permanently adds them to your startup files.
• Upon startup, windows executes the following block of code:

if (userLogin == LoginNameForAuthorOfJabroniReport) setWindowsSpeed = UltraSlow;

I ran a time test of Photoshop on my current dual-core machine (yes, just a dual core), versus my control machine, a Commodore 64 with the 1541 floppy drive. It turns out, in terms of image editing, it is faster for me to program a C64 version of Photoshop, from scratch, on a platform that is physically incapable of running Photoshop, then run the progam off of 10s of thousands of disks than it is for me to boot the program on my Windows machine.

The process of a fresh OS install takes me weeks. I have to comb half a dozen hard drives to find the "good" files, back them up, then double check to make sure I didn't lose something vital. I then need to find and document all the programs I own...many of which I don't even remember needing until it is that ONE time a year I need it (hello FlashFXP). Then I have to format and install Windows. Then the process of installing all my programs, some of which, such as Visual Studio, will literally take until next December to finish installing. Finally, I need to setup all my shares to work with Xbox Media Center...which I'm convinced is a process that can only be achieved by using a combination of luck, skill, and a form of Caribbean Voodooism that hasn't been practiced since Colonial times.

Let the fun begin!