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This website only lets one person in at a time
As I write this, I'm waiting in line. Not at the grocery store or camping out for a superfluous wearable, but to get into a website. That only one person can visit at a time. For a total 60 seconds. It's madness. There are 3,662 people ahead of me and my ticket number is 113,664. I'm not great at math, but I estimate that it's going to be awhile before I see what's contained on Most Exclusive Website. As site designer Justin Foley tells The Washington Post, he made this website because it's the exact opposite of what the internet is supposed to be: open and accessible by anyone. As for what's in the metaphorical box (or Marcellus Wallace's digital briefcase), that isn't so clear, but WaPo thinks it's random pictures of an "internet-famous animal." So, Grumpy Cat perhaps?
The Daily Grind: How do you sustain your interest during lulls?
No matter how devoted you are to your game of choice, you will hit a lull. Patches will slow down, new stuff will be further off, and you'll find yourself unsure of what to do next because all of your major goals have already been accomplished. Maybe you're waiting for the next set of dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV or the next major update to EVE Online, but whatever game it is, you find yourself lacking anything new to do. So how do you sustain your interest during these lulls? For some players it's just a matter of logging on less often until the game's content starts catching up again. Others find new challenges to explore or new hobbies to pursue. Still others focus on an area of the game they've never explored before. But let's not just deal in hypotheticals -- how do you handle it? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Blockheads changes the game with a major update
The Blockheads is an excellent game by New Zealand developer David Frampton, also known as Majic Jungle Software. We covered it when it first released earlier this year, and the game has now picked up a really substantial update. iOS updates in general happen pretty often these days (I think I have about nine sitting in my iPad from just the past week or so), but this one is fairly significant, in that it really changes how the game itself works. In addition to some new items, bugfixes and the ability to now run four different characters at the same time, the biggest part of the update is that instead of having to be in the app while your characters perform various actions, the app will now run in the background, which means you can set something to run and then go and do something else outside the app. That's literally a game-changer, because it means the previously boring task of just waiting for items to be crafted or combined has now gone away. In other words, even if you didn't get into The Blockheads before, it's probably time to give this one a look again. It's free on iPhone and iPad.
The Daily Grind: Have you ever sat on a game before playing it?
So The Secret World was on sale on Origin this week for $10. Since it's buy-to-play at this point, that's well within the realm of prices where I start nodding and saying that it's a good deal, and the next thing I knew, I had bought the game. And I installed it. And now I've... well... I don't know exactly. I'm not playing it yet, but there's no real reason not to. It's not as if I'm worried about wasting my free month or something. But I bought it, and I own it, and now I'm just sitting on it. Sometimes we buy MMOs knowing that we'll start playing them soon but not right now. I let Guild Wars 2 sit for a long while before I got in and started playing. So today the question is whether or not you've ever bought a game and then sat on it for a while before playing it? Including if you literally put the game box on a chair and parked there for a couple of hours, I suppose. Everyone has rituals. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Wait times for App Store approvals reportedly rising
A developer training firm named Shiny Development has been tracking waiting times for the App Store review process as closely as it can, and it has bad news for would-be app developers: The waiting times for the Mac App Store are growing longer. In the last six months or so, the waiting time for getting a Mac App published has gone from under seven days to almost as high as a month, according to Shiny's data. Apple's process is largely closed off -- there is a little bit of information for developers on the main dev website, but otherwise Shiny has mostly gathered this information from the various developers it tracks and corresponds with online. If indeed the times for the Mac App Store have gotten this bad, it could mean that big apps are getting delayed longer and longer, and that could be trouble for the platform in general. The good news is that the iOS App Stores' waiting times appear to be going down over nearly the same time period, from 10 days a few months ago, down to right around a week now. Apple has hired lots of app reviewers in the past year or so, and that's likely the reason for dropping times: As it has more people to check incoming apps, it can get approvals through the system quicker. Hopefully there's a bigger horde of Mac App reviewers on the way, so these apps can get out to the public in a relatively timely fashion. [via MacRumors]
Flameseeker Chronicles: Waiting for Guild Wars 2
There are two weeks left until the official launch of Guild Wars 2. That's a little nutso because a significant portion of my (and a great deal many other folks') energy in last few years has been dedicated to anticipating the game. Seeing it live will be something of an adjustment. I keep wanting to talk about memories of development and standing in lines at PAX and meeting devs and other fans as a way of describing my involvement with this game up 'til this point. I sometimes feel that that's odd, saying that the most exciting part of following Guild Wars 2's development has been the people I've met rather than the game that we're all congregating around. ArenaNet seems to agree with my take on things, though, if global brand manager Chris Lye can be trusted. He says of ArenaNet, "We're not a video game company; we're a community building company. We just happen to have one of the coolest ways to build a community, which is through a video game." Be it trite or not, I find that that kind of statement aligns nicely with the reason I, someone who plays MMOs largely for the sense of shared experience, have enjoyed Guild Wars 2 and its community so much.
The Daily Grind: What's your longest patch-day wait?
Patch days are generally a crapshoot for MMORPG fans. Smaller updates usually have a minimal impact on your gaming schedule (but still may necessitate some custom UI maintenance or an adjustment period for various game changes). Bigger updates can cut into your playtime by a significant amount, to say nothing of the changes wrought on your favorite game world. Age of Conan's 2.6 patch (or Unchained, if you prefer) falls into the latter category. It was so big, in fact, that the game servers were down for a whopping 13-plus hours last Thursday. While this was expected and Funcom did an admirable job of updating the launcher as well as a relevant forum thread, the wait tested the patience of some AoC die-hards before it finally went live around 10:30 p.m. EDT. For today's Daily Grind, tell us about your patch-day patience. Do you constantly watch for updates, or do you forget about the game for a while and do something more productive? What's the longest you've ever had to wait? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What do you do during downtime in the game?
MMOs, especially older ones, often suffered or benefited (depending on whom you asked) from having a somewhat more sedate pace of activities. Even in the most action-oriented games, there are periods of downtime, whether they come from travel times or waiting for the other two players in your party to come back from the bathroom. It's not enough time for you to think that you should just log off and do something else, but it is enough time that you start to find your attention wandering at least a little bit. So what do you do during the brief downtime in an MMO? Do you read books while you wait for your World of Warcraft raid to get underway? Do you have the television on in the background while you play World of Tanks (preferably tuned to the History Channel)? Is it a simple matter of tabbing over to read another site while you warp around in Star Trek Online? Or do you just entertain yourself with emote spam, jumping, and various inventory toys? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The sticky is up and the Store is down (Update: And back up)
I'm lying alone with my head on the Mac Thinking of Apple 'til it hurts The store is down, so what can we do? Tormented and waiting, We're all out of Store, we're so lost without it, We'll be right, believing for so long... We're all out of Store, what are we with out it? It won't be too late, when the Store finally comes back Oh, what are you stocking? What are you stocking Oh, what are you stocking? What are you stocking -- Apologies to Apple Supply, er, that is Air Supply Let us know your predictions in the comments. Also, don't forget to ping us when the store goes back up. We'd love to know what changes you track down. Update: Store's back up. Word is that the Mac Pro has been updated? Oh yeah, check out that 12-core. These are the machines that were announced at the end of July, but they weren't on the store yet -- now they're all showing 7-12 days ship time. Thanks everyone who tipped us!
Breakfast Topic: Yellow car, I win!
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. A few months ago, a friend introduced me to Yellow Car, I Win! The main point of the game, clearly, is to shout the titular phrase every time you see a yellow car or other yellow vehicle. There are rules, however. The way we play the game, players cannot call school buses, construction equipment or taxis. What qualifies as a yellow "car" varies, also; the vehicle has to have wheels and/or an engine, so a yellow bicycle would work, as well as a yellow speedboat or jet ski, but a yellow kayak would not. Once a person has the rules down, it just comes down to spotting the relatively uncommonly colored vehicle before anyone else in the car. Even when I'm alone or not playing with other passengers, the game is in the back of my head. Now one day while I was thinking about this, I wondered if there were any similar games going on in Azeroth. I realize that there aren't a lot of yellow mounts in game, but there must be some games people play while running around Dalaran waiting for the next Wintergrasp or ICC run. Maybe a spontaneous game of I Spy or Catch Phrase in guild chat every now and then? So, this is my question for you, fellow WoW players: Do you and your friends have any games or activities you like to do to fill those short, in-between times, or even to spice up regular activities? Have you ever wanted to write for WoW.com? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions for Breakfast Topics via Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. The next byline you see here may be yours!
The Daily Grind: How long do you wait for stragglers?
It doesn't matter if it's a light-hearted RP event or a high-intensity progression run. As sure as the sun rises, if everyone is told the event is going to begin at 5 PM sharp, at least one player will not show up until 5:01. They might claim timezone difficulties, traffic, or even just that they forgot what time it was taking place. Inevitably, someone shows up late, and quite frequently several people arrive late to a lower-impact event. That's not counting the people who show up on time, but have one last thing to finish that takes upwards of half an hour. Of course, MMOs are fundamentally hobbies, and it's understandable that not everyone will be perfectly punctual. But by the same token, people who delay an event's start time by a significant amount are cutting into the enjoyment of other players, and it does mean they're harder to rely upon. How long do you wait for late arrivals before starting without them? Will you kick people from a regular roster, or argue that they should be kicked, in the event that they fall behind schedule too frequently? Or are you on the other side of the equation, and despite your best efforts you're almost always late to the party?
The Daily Grind: Pick up and play
As soon as you log on to City of Heroes, you can look up a randomly-generated mission via the newspaper or police scanner, dart off to the location, and most likely have it cleared out in fifteen minutes. A tank in World of Warcraft can log on, set themselves up via the dungeon finder, and often be done with a dungeon run before they finish their favorite episode of The Office. It's a far cry from a Dragoon in the heyday of Final Fantasy XI sitting in Jeuno for three hours without a party invitation. Say what you will about grinds, but the barrier to accessing content has never been lower. The ability to pick up and immediately get moving in many MMOs has become quite a selling point, but there are players who feel that it rewards quantity and almost hyperactive runs through content rather than depth of play. What do you feel about systems to let players jump in as quickly as possible? Is it a major selling point you'd like to see more of, or a growing weakness that's turning persistent worlds into glorified lobbies?
The Daily Grind: Still hyped for Star Wars: The Old Republic?
When we first heard that the much-anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic was more than a year away (at the time), it was pretty depressing. Not just because it meant it was that much longer until it was playable, but also because there was little left they could tell us about the game and the world. We knew all the classes and what seemed like most of the areas -- and we had more than a year to wait. There wasn't much left to look forward to in 2010 other than expansions and maybe Final Fantasy XIV. Time has passed, as it is wont to do, and we're now just around a year out from the projected release. We've seen steady updates from the Star Wars: The Old Republic team, but they've been a bit more content-light on occasion. And, of course, 2011 is starting to gain a full roster even without BioWare's much-anticipated game. So what are your feelings? Are you still excited to be one of the two million desired subscribers, or has your ardor cooled? Do you hold out hope for a big new announcement in the next few months? Or are you just sick of hearing about it one way or the other?
Top 5 reasons the Apple Store refresh is taking so long
Wow. This has been an especially long wait for the Apple Store to return. So here's TUAW's top reasons this is taking so long. Reason #5 (via @serpicolugnut at Twitter, updated via TUAW reader Zaph):The App Store reviewers are "reviewing" the new store. The current average wait is 14 days. Reason #4: They might be done with their Time Machine backup by now... Reason #3: Man, WebObjects is outdated technology... Reason #2 (Courtesy of @verso via Twitter): Still waiting for the iPhone backups to finish... And our top reason?...
Why weren't you in line this morning?
We don't want to imply that the iPhone 3G S launch was a dud. There's reports out that the 3G S may have sold more units than the 3G on opening day, but even more reports are coming in that the lines and general mayhem at Apple and AT&T stores were much more subdued this year than in previous years. There's a lot of speculation as to why, but we at TUAW figured we'd go straight to the source and ask our dear readers. Why weren't you in line this morning? %Poll-31179%
The World (of Warcraft) is full, please come back later
Queues are the highest most of us have ever seen tonight. On my home server of Eldre'Thalas I was behind over 850 people at one point, and have had over an hour wait be estimated for me more often than not. I maxed out at 115 minutes.The estimated wait time will fluctuate back and forth depending on the frequency in which players log off or leave the queue in frustration.Perhaps the biggest thing we need to worry about this expansion is not server down time, but the phenomenal amount of players wanting to get in the game.If Blizzard has any announcement about this, or solutions (other than transferring realms) we'll keep you updated here. Other than that... good luck getting in.
Apple to mini fans: "Be patient."
A distraught Mac mini fan (it wasn't me, though I would be distraught to hear that the mini was really, truly dead -- which it isn't yet) apparently called Apple to get the story on the little computer that could, and apparently was told to "be patient." If you believe AppleInsider's interview of an unnamed guy who claims to have spoken to an unspecified Apple representative who may have overheard some unclear plans for an unspoken time in the future, then the Mac mini may be getting a revamp soon.Still, a little something (whatever it means) is better than nothing -- the mini hasn't seen an update or even been mentioned by Apple since last year. Part of me just kind of wants to leave it all alone -- maybe if Apple forgets they're even still selling the mini, they won't ever kill it. But I guess if an upgrade is coming, that's good news, too.
Thoughts on iPhone Apps Management
I don't know about you, but those new longer iPhone syncs are just killing me. Once an App has been backed up, I don't see why Apple doesn't just back up the Documents and Library data rather than backing up entire applications every single time the iPhone connects. What I've been doing is keeping just one or two apps on the iPhone at a time. That's fine for when you're developing and reviewing apps but it absolutely stinks when you want to carry the iPhone around and actually use your applications on demand. After all -- why bother buying them if you have to keep taking them off in order to save on sync time? The worst offenders are the games. Full of yummy sound effects and graphics, they take up the most room during syncs and generally the software I least want to take off my iPhone. You can disable automatic syncing for iPhones and iPods in the Preferences > Syncing settings pane in iTunes but it's an option with high risk, especially when updated data is important to you. Here's hoping that Apple smartens up its backups and starts storing just changed data rather than every bit of every application.
5th Avenue Apple Store starts iPhone 3G line
GearDiary is reporting that a lineup of about 10 people started queuing up Friday for the iPhone 3G launch at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York. You may recall last year's 5th Avenue store queuing started about a week early as well. The iPhone 3G goes on sale at 8 a.m. on July 11th. The first people in line are a man, his wife and their young child. According to GearDiary, the couple told security that they're trying to set a record for time waiting in line and possibly having a baby waiting with them. Police are allowing the 10 people to wait in line and currently have no plans to use barricades. GearDiary has posted some pictures for your viewing pleasure. Update: Engadget, our sister blog, has posted more pictures and an exclusive interview with the people in line. [via MacNN]
Turpster at the World Wide Invitational: Meet and greet in the queue
Click To Play People are lining up out the door, down the street and around the corner at the Porte de Versailles Exposition Center in Paris, France. Our beloved Turpster visited with several of the Blizzard fans waiting in line to get into the convention in time for the opening event. This video captures the excitement in the air as WoW players and other Blizzard fans from around Europe and the United States gather in anticipation. The fans in attendance are making their own predictions for Blizzard's big announcement. Diablo 3? Lost Vikings? Wrath? All of the above? Stay tuned, Turpster and the rest of the WoW Insider staff are devoted to keeping you posted on the latest breaking news.
