Monday, April 27, 2009

Moving Sucks

Especially knowing I'm just moving into another spot in Japan that I'll only be at for a month or so, as the last step before jumping off to America. It also doesn't help that it's my wife's mom and dad's place; but on the whole, I'm okay with it, even if I know (especially since I know?) it will drive her crazy. Trade chat accusations of living at home with mom will be met with "I LIVE WITH MY JAPANESE WIFE'S MOM, SO THAT'S DIFFERENT, OK?"

I should probably just make a macro.

Anyway, I haven't heard back from Blizzard yet (/sadface), but have talked to a few friends in the business that have told me that when a company gets as big as they are, the wheels turn bleedingly slow. They've been in similar situations, and when they've since moved on after giving up hope, an email appears out of the blue asking to set up an interview. So I guess I won't give up hope just yet? The job listings haven't been taken down, either, so there's that at least.

I reckon my next little project will be to type up some questlines, since they're looking for that, too. I'll eventually just work my way down the list, from game design to quest department, from CM to GM, to toilet scrubbing coffee fetching bitch. While my ideal position would be designing teh dragunz & encounterzes, quests and world events could be swell, too. Noble Garden is a fucking snorefest; I've figured out the optimal strategy for looting eggs is to triangulate a position where I can just stand still and still be in reach of three or so egg spawn locations to click them the instant they pop. Everyone else seems to be doing the same, so we just stand dead still and whack le moles when they pop. Zzzz.

Everytime I go on a rant in trade chat about how NOBELGARDEN IS A FUCKING TIME FOR SHARING GUYS, SO LEAVE MY FUCKING EGGS ALONE, I get a paranoid suspicion that Blizzard is actively monitoring my character's chat to suss out if I'm a worthy addition to the team, and all they're finding is how fucking gay I think Noble Garden is from my toons.

:(

Maybe in the sprit of my Design a Raid Encounter thing, I can dream up a holiday or two that actually means something, or has more eventful activities than 'Right Click Eggs, then Right Click the Chocolates Found Inside'. I don't want to come off like a dick, but there's gotta be a point where the person coming up with these achievements is just like 'uhhh... yeah and then eat 25 chocolates, fuck it, it's 9pm on friday and I wanna go home'. I already have a few ideas about questlines and general raid sized quests with no prereqs that sound an awful lot like Warhammer's public quests but aren't... With the amount of time on my hands, I can crank out somehting interesting, I reckon.

Anyway. Looking forward to dragging refrigerators up and down flights of stairs AGAIN tomorrow. I'll keep you guys in the loop.

10 comments:

Kyir said...

Noblegarden hurts, I'm just not feeling it. Next Moonglade holiday though, that will be fun. Should be able to summon Eranikus by then.

Finding new ways to impede the mindless farming of others makes my day.

Anonymous said...

I would like Noblegarden much better if you got actual chocolates.

I'm pretty neutral to it otherwise. It's easy enough to ignore and I don't feel that I have to gather up a group and go endlessly farm some boring boss (which I never much liked in other holidays).

I wish I could nuke the starting areas from space though, and get all the egg collectors in a single nuke.

Hatch said...

I can't decide if I like or hate Noblegarden. On the one hand, mindlessly camping eggs for hours is the suck. On the other hand, at least the holiday isn't 100% reliant on RNG like all the previous holidays that had to be hotfixed.

Tragedyx said...

They need to make a ganking holiday that gives nifty rewards. Or make it like every other friday or something. "Go to redridge mountains and kill 25 lower level characters." or something.

Bring back true world PVP imo.

Gouka said...

GL on moving.

And Noble Gardens is quite 'ok' imho. At least I can get the achievement without putting in a gazillion hours of farming RNG crap.
This one you'll have after a few hours of farming, no RNG for a candybag with another RNG to get that candyheart you need for the meta. Luckily Blizzard realized this as well, and fixed it for most holiday achievements.

But it does cater a lot to the casual (me, in this case) ...

Pierre said...

if your inlaws are japanese it absolutely makes it okay. But only if you're white.

If you're not white you're as much a loser as a white person living in their white mom's basement.

BFG said...

Woohoo. Borderline racism as well - nice one.

Dink said...

Never did the nobelgarden event in WoW. Don't think I'm missing anything.

Nerf Paladins.

MLW said...

A friend of mine recently had a chance to talk to one of the major honchos of Blizzard at some sort of dinner function (I think it was with Mike Morhaime). One of the shocking comments he made was that, in these lower introductory positions, they intentionally hire people with a serious passion for the game partly because they are willing to work for a lower salary. This wasn't the part he emphasized, it was peppered with the usual flattery for gamers, but this is the part that resonated with my friend because of his experiences in the IT world.

What I wanted to say, though, is that this is usually a sign of a terrible industry to get into. I had my own personal experience in the video game world, and I was shocked at the abysmal salaries that were offered. As much as I love gaming, getting out was one of the better decisions in my life.

If you are truly passionate about this industry, I would either brace yourself for poor pay (which is hard for anyone with a wife and child), or remember that you will have fight much harder for a salary that's competitive.

Pierre said...

@Jormundgard

I live in the Irvine, CA area and i know a handful of individuals at various levels in Blizzard. And from my observations you're right to some extent, but I wonder if it's just us outsiders who assume that working at Blizzard is just going to be like blowjobs and cake everyday. When in reality it comes down to the fact that it's just another job.

The people i know (one) who work at a higher position is very happy with his job, however.