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Three hours to get an LCD TV up and running?
We sincerely hope that this tale is more the exception than the rule, but poor LeendaDLL managed to burn through three solid hours when firing up a new LCD TV. Granted, we understand that tweaking the picture, running wires and tweaking further takes a good chunk of time, but it just shouldn't take the average joe / jane this long to get a new TV up and running. After reading this horrific story, we began to wonder if this experience is, well, experienced by more people than we might have assumed. Heck, we already found that millions of individuals didn't fully understand how to acquire HD signals on their HDTV after snapping one up last Christmas, and we've even seen companies dedicate help lines just to ease the confusion surrounding HDTV. So, dear readers, how many of you have been called in to set up a new TV after hours upon hours of failed attempts by its new owner?[Image courtesy of APS]
Getting complaints in early
I love this post on the EU forums: Ahjua complains that as a casual player, it would take him months to grind the items, find the groups, and get the gear necessary to unlock the new Death Knight hero class. With a social life that only lets him play a few hours a night, he'll never get it all done!Whoops, except that the quest itself hasn't even been invented by Blizzard yet. They haven't said that it requires rep, or gear, or running instances, or really anything at all. We know absolutely nothing about it, and yet this guy feels the need to complain that it's already too hard.Hopefully, he's just joking (if not, maybe he's just misinformed). But just as I've asked for patience on the PTRs, it's important to realize that everything we heard about this weekend is a long, long way off. In fact, I almost wonder why Blizzard released it so early-- if they've got Zul'Aman, voice chat and guild banks, another raid instance (probably the Sunwell), and maybe even another 5 man coming out before the expansion, why are they trying to get us all excited about Wrath of the Lich King? It's OK to be excited about the new expansion (I am), but it's not OK to pass final judgement on something that hasn't even been created yet. Let Blizzard do their thing, and then when we know details about the quest and what it actually entails-- then it'll be completely fine to complain that it's too hard for casuals.
Aussies criticizing Seven Network for compressing HD feeds
Same story, different continent. The compression bug has seemingly struck again, and this time its aggravating those Down Under who'd like to enjoy Seven Network's 1080i programming in all of its high-definition glory. After just recently flipping the switch to broadcast content in HD, a sect of Australians have already begun to grumble over the "relatively low amount of bandwidth the network has allocated to the high-definition channel." Of course, it should be noted that "most" viewers have seen no reason to get bent out of shape, but for those relaxing in Oz, what say ye on the Seven situation?
CNET talks to Blizzard about banned players
I've tended to stay away from reporting about players angry at being banned, for reasons I'll get into in a second. But we periodically receive notices from players who think they've been unfairly banned, and there's lots of forum complaining on the same subject. The complaints have been loud enough, it seems, for CNET to take a look at the allegations, and get a nice quote from Blizzard about it.Most of the angry players (if you are one, feel free to leave a comment below with your own story) say they try to log into their account one day and are simply banned for no reason at all. Some of them say they've even had their accounts hacked, and are then finding them banned afterwards. Most of them, in my experience, sound just like Zak, a 14-year-old interviewed in the article. He says he was banned because "I was leveling excessively and very fast, which is what power levelers do." One day he had an email in his inbox that said he was kicked out of WoW.CNET then does what all of these players haven't seemingly been able to do, which is get a response from Blizzard about the whole thing. "We conduct a very thorough investigation before the actual ban takes place," says the Blizz spokesman. He says all bans are carried out only once Blizzard has decidedly determined that there has been action that goes against the Terms of Service and/or the End User License Agreement (that's the long text which pops up after you install every patch).And the reason I don't have a lot of pity for the people who say they're unfairly banned is that I, for one, tend to believe him.
When good toys go bad III: toy police belt drops the F-bomb
We have a certainly level of patience with run-of-the-mill toys that call you demeaning names and have speech impediments, but when an actual police toy, of all things, begins dropping the F-bomb at the press of a button, that's pushing it. Apparently using sound clips ripped directly from the unrated edition of Cops, Tek Nek's police belt -- which comes fully equipped with a speaker-loaded nightstick -- vocalizes certain words and phrases that stereotypically come out of a (filtered) cop's mouth. Of course, when contacting the manufacture, it insists that the word being pronounced is "stop," but according to Michelle Luciano, the vocabulary coming out of her son's new toy isn't so harmless. Interestingly, only "four customers" out of the 30,000 that purchased this gizmo have complained, leading Tek Nek to believe the mishap should be blamed on a malfunctioning speaker rather than ill intentions, but nevertheless, the company has vowed to replace the family's belt and restore order in the world by producing versions that lack the potentially misunderstood verb.[Via Fark]
Millions miffed at poor quality from holiday HDTV purchase
It seems that all of those witty predictions claiming that HDTVs would sell like hotcakes this holiday season have apparently been proven accurate, but the consumer backlash that we all assumed would follow is now in full swing. While it's no surprise that the mystery surround HDTV is further complicated by glossy marketing and a lack of technical support all around, a recent report claims that "about 19.5 million consumers" who purchased an HDTV over the holiday break are now complaining about the quality. Apparently, the "plug and play" approach that has become quite common on today's electronics didn't work out so well with HDTVs, leaving customers baffled that their TV wouldn't magically display the clean, crisp imagery they viewed on the in-store displays when making their purchase. Customers are still having a difficult time understanding that special programming packages, set-top boxes, and / or OTA antennas are required to receive HD content, taking the wind out of their presumably puffed sails. Consumer confusion over making HD "work" with HDTVs has gone on for quite some time, and even though some companies are making the leap and offering up that helping hand, it seems the majority of folks are still wandering around in the (heavily pixelated) dark.
