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Why I Play: RIFT
For those of you who desperately need to know why I play RIFT in one line, I'll make it easy for you: I play RIFT because I really used to like World of Warcraft. When World of Warcraft first launched, it was difficult to explain just how astonishing the game really felt. The innovations that it brought to the table have become so commonplace over the years that we forget how stunning they really were. And when I first logged in, I had visions of what the world could support, the things that could be done, and the ways that players would get to explore hidden vistas and small corners of the world. As it happened, World of Warcraft went along quite well for several years, but somewhere along the line the magic faded for me. I can point to exactly when, but that's not the goal because RIFT seems to catch a lot of those dropped promises and put them into the game. And it's a game of extremes, with summits and valleys aplenty, but there's enough to like that I don't mind the bad so much.
Oh, Canada: App Store north of the border goes all Skype-y
Over the past day or so we've gotten a smattering of strange reports, starting with Derek on Twitter, of a bizarre 'takeover' on the App Store for users who are browsing for apps from their iPhones and iPod touch handhelds. These poor souls are faced with the scary image seen here: an App Store devoid of categories and filled with repeating copies of the Skype icon. The horror! A bit of detective work by the affected users sharing their stories on the Apple Discussion boards soon revealed what they all had in common: Canadian residency. According to the thread, conversations with Apple support folk have pointed to a database problem in the Canadian app store that should be sorted out in the near future. One workaround suggested by a poster in the thread: try switching the App Store location preference (in Settings -> App Store on the phone) to USA from Canada, then switching back. If this works for you, chime in below or on the Apple support boards. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Xserve disappears from Apple's Education stores
Tuesday's launch of Xsan 2 coincided with the discontinuation of Apple's Xserve RAID Enterprise storage system. For shopper's at the Apple Store for Education, it appears that the Xserve in general has been completely removed as well. Although refurbished Xserve servers still come up under a search (as do Xserve parts and accessories), the product page for Xserve is conspicuously missing.Take a look at these screen shots, one is from the regular Apple Store, the other is from Apple Store for Education: Where art thou, Xserve? We're not sure if this was just a simple oversight or a sign of trends to come. It's possible Apple wasn't seeing the sales for the Xserve product at the Education store to warrant whatever hardware discount they might have offered. I also think it's possible that schools interested in getting an Xserve setup from Apple could probably do better the direct sales route, as opposed to using the web-based one-stop shop. Whatever the reason, it is a bizarre exclusion -- and the first time I can recall an entire product being removed from one of Apple's pre-labeled storefronts.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Breakfast Topic: Just a little fun
I love this weird experience Lucy Dark had in game-- she came across two naked gnomes, named Frodobaginss and Samwisse, who claimed they were trying to get to Mordor. She helped them for a while-- until they started calling her Gollum.It must have just been two guys having a little fun for the night. Have you ever done or seen anything weird and fun like this in the game? Once, my gnome warrior was fishing off the wharf in Menethil, and I was bored, so I started /yelling a sea shanty, in verse, that I made up on the spot. It got complicated-- my woman left me, and my boat sank, etc. etc., and while quite a few people ignored me, a couple of people sent laughs, and hopefully they had a good time. Ever done anything weird like that, just to give people a strange experience?
