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Huawei's Mate 30 loses workaround for installing Google apps
A workaround that enabled Huawei's Mate 30 devices to install Google's Play Store and other apps has been shut down. LZ Play, an app that promised to allow users to run the apps they know and love, has been taken down after a researcher found it harnessed secret Huawei APIs. Subsequently, Google removed the phone from its SafetyNet system, essentially a list of trusted devices that could access Google services.
The Daily Grind: Do you expect a roleplaying server to be policed?
I roleplay a lot. This probably does not come as much of a surprise. As a result, I've spent time on a lot of different roleplaying servers and have long since given up any hope that I'll ever see any enforcement of rules by the community service staff. It would be really nice if GMs politely kicked people who didn't come to roleplay, but the fact of the matter is that it's just not going to happen. But even though I don't expect it, I might be in the minority. What about you? Do you expect that on a server officially designated for roleplaying, the customer service staff will be monitoring the game and taking steps to improve the environment? Do you just expect that the staff will take complaints about inappropriate names just a bit more seriously? Or are you happy enough that there is a clear, reserved place to start building a roleplaying community without worrying about the police element? 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!
Proof that GMs have a sense of humor discovered in WoW
We all know that in-game GMs work hard to process a heavy ticket load and often use standard scripts and cut-n-paste replies as a result. However, there are real people behind these names, and some of them even have a sense of humor. GameFront shared a story of a World of Warcraft player named Dougie who asked to be knighted with the "Fresh," title, a GM responded tongue-in-cheek by saying that another already held it: Sit well Dougie, and listen to this tale. This is a tale of events which hath inverted a young ones life, and led to his eventual appointment as heir to the throne of the Bel Air Township. Begat and reared in western Philadelphia spending many a day becoming frigid whilst filling baskets adjacent to the academy. Ruffians ran rampant through the village; a scuffle ensued prompting his fearful mother to change his domicile to that with over kin, in Bel Air. He summoned a cart, which appeared most gaudy, nonetheless he beseeched the driver to take him to Bel Air. Arriving barely after nightfall, he bid the knave goodbye, as he relished his arrival at his new place of residence, where he was awarded the title of 'The Fresh Prince.' So there you have it: Proof that GMs can and do have a sense of humor -- and also a comprehensive knowledge of 90s sitcoms.
New Blizzard support site lets you track, edit, and update your GM tickets
Submitting a GM ticket has always been sort of an arcane process -- you're not really sure where your ticket goes, or to who, or what steps have been taken to resolve your particular issue. It's a pain! Thankfully, it's always been a long-term goal of the support department to demystify and improve the support process for players, and Blizzard has unveiled a big new step in that direction: a new support website. What's so great about it? Well, it collects all lines of communication for support in one place and attempts to provide automated help for your request where applicable, while you wait for a representative. The biggest improvement, though, is that the site lets you track the progress of your support requests. This includes tech support emails, billing inquiries, and yes, GM tickets. You can edit your ticket while it's in the queue, track it, and even update your ticket and place it back in queue after it's been closed if you feel it wasn't addressed properly. The full text of Blizzard's announcement is after the cut.
The Daily Grind: What's the best service you've received from a GM?
There are players for whom the GMs of a given game are nothing but antagonists, killjoys who want to ban people for shouting just a few obscene slurs in a public chat channel. For many other players, they're a silent presence, something you're sure is there but never make any use of. And sometimes, they're the only people who can help you fix a serious problem with your character, a bug that crept in somewhere along the line. There are games where you virtually never see a GM in person, such as World of Warcraft, and then there are games such as Final Fantasy XI where the GMs have a very different image among players. But today, we're not going to talk about times when GMs randomly teleported you to jail and fed you to a dragon for amusement. We're talking about the best incidents you've had, the times where you've called for help and received it without a problem. So what's the best service you've received from a GM in the game? 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!
Public Service Announcement: Don't file false GM reports
This may seem like common sense to a lot of people, but it came up as an issue recently on the official Customer Support forums. The message is simple: Don't file false GM tickets. Whether you're doing it to get back at someone you dislike, to play a prank on someone, or just because you're bored, don't do it. Support forum agent Nevalistis points out that false reports are is against the Game Master interaction policy. Each GM petition is taken seriously, and if the GMs see a pattern of frivolous or false reports, they can and will take action from warnings all the way up to suspension or permanent account closure. Those of us who have tried to petition a GM lately know how long the queue times are -- so from all of us with legitimate problems, please make sure your ticket is legit. It may save your account, it may save a GM's sanity, and it'll certainly help those with real problems get the help they need a little faster.
Blizzard and how they deal with ninjas
Wojtek sent us this thread in which he posted a long series of emails between him and Blizzard about the ninja of an Onyxia Drake. There's a lot of back and forth, but eventually, the bottom line is that Blizzard was not able to help him, whether that's because he didn't have the information right, they couldn't find what they needed in the chat logs, or they just didn't want to. Later on, the thread is locked, and Wojtek is given the usual feedback address for the GM actions. So what does all this mean? We've heard in the past that Blizzard will occasionally help with ninjas, and we've even heard unofficially that if you get the main looter in a PuG raid to state the looting conditions ahead of time, Blizzard can go back, look that up, and then reward loot based on who really deserves it. But of course, all of that is unofficial, and there are so many variations and issues in situations like these that there can't really be a hard and fast rule -- sometimes Blizzard can help, sometimes they can't.
DROID headed to Germany as Motorola MILESTONE (update: Italy too, no Google Maps Navigation)
O2 Germany has confirmed a GSM version of the DROID for Europe going by the name of the Motorola MILESTONE. The news comes courtesy of a sliver of O2's online store page that left itself exposed to the wiles of Google, complete with the above picture and the new moniker, and follows close on the heels of a leaked business guide which says the MILESTONE will retail for €404.20 to corporate customers, and will be available as of November 9th. Update: It's now official on the Motorola Germany (and english language Western Europe) website where it lists Vodafone and O2 as local carriers. Italy now too, on an unspecified carrier. Oh, and it also lists "pinch and zoom" as a feature not found on the Droid. See for yourself after the break. It's carrying a public price tag of €481. Update 2: As noted by a few readers, Milestone will ship with MOTONAV turn-by-turn directions, not Google's Maps Navigation. [Thanks Vincenzo, Peter B.]
Meet the Champions Online lead GM team
Very infrequently do we get to see the people who are diligently working behind the customer service counter in our online games. They listen to all our requests (frivolous or not,) they free us from the shackles of bad environmental clipping, and they make sure we're having a fun time in our game of choice. They are the game masters, and Champions Online is taking the time to give them a whole interview on their website.The interview focuses on the three lead GMs of Champions Online (and soon to be Star Trek Online): Jim "Jaydeegee" Garner, Markus "Villarigor" Kraus, and Noel "Destra" Holmes. The three of them tackle some of the questions of customer service, including their day-to-day jobs, dealing with customers, reporting bugs, and how they take their time to enjoy the game. If you want the full story on their answers, check out the interview on the Champions Online main site.
Blizzard at PAX 2009 wrapup
PAX wrapped up over the weekend in Seattle, and from what we've heard of our friends' experiences over at Joystiq, it was a wild, wild time. Blizzard was there as expected, and it sounds like the setup was pretty awesome. They had all three playable demos up from BlizzCon, including the Starcraft II singleplayer game, the Diablo III monk class, and of course the Cataclysm Worgen and Goblin race starting areas. We hear that Blizzard had their GMs in attendance as well, and reader Aveiceae (whose pictures you can see in the gallery below) reports that she saw both Drysc and Bornakk there. She also says that Blizzard gave away some of their famous hand sanitizer throughout the show -- very important, especially at a gaming convention during swine flu season.Tisoi also has a report over on WoW LJ, including a few pictures of the setup on the convention floor, as well as a few (sneaky) screenshots of the Worgen and Goblin areas. He also got to meet Jeff "Vork" Lewis and Sandeep "Zaboo" Parikh of The Guild. Felicia Day wasn't there (she spent the weekend at Dragon*Con, where there was other WoW-related shenanigans going on), but as Sandeep reported on his Twitter, she wasn't needed, thanks to cosplayers. Sounds like a great time was had by all. Next year, PAX is headed out east -- we'll have to keep an eye out and see if Blizzard is going there as well.%Gallery-72105%
Breakfast Topic: Have you ever actually met a GM in-game?
One of the things which captivated me when I first started playing WoW were the whispered myths surrounding GMs. Being that this was my first proper foray into the magical and mysterious world of online gaming I had no real idea of what exactly their strange beings where except that they were uber-powerful and acted as both peacekeepers on the forums and tech support in-game.Over the years, I've submitted my fair share of tickets. Indeed once during the Wrath beta I and a bunch of other hapless explorers got trapped under Dalaran bank and I had to ask a GM to teleport them out (being a druid I just teleported to Moonglade -- after twenty minutes of waiting for my hearthstone to cooldown and them remembering I had an escape route). However in all my dealings with them in-game I've never actually met a GM in-game (on the other hand I've met a bunch in real life). So I want to know, readers, have you ever seen a GM with your own (virtual) eyes? Did they appear to you in that robe get up seen in the manual or as something a little more scary? Come on and spill the beans, I want to hear about all your fascinating GM encounters!
The Daily Grind: Do you wish there was more player-GM interaction?
There's something about gamesmasters which seems to fascinate us players. They are near mythical creatures with awesome powers and this is probably because, whatever game you play or official forum you explore, they are fleeting creatures. Often heard but seldom seen, you might spend ten minutes chatting to one after submitting a ticket but they rarely materialize. Sometimes though, they let their hair down and have some fun - usually on PTRs or as part of anniversary celebrations. I'm curious, readers, do you wish GMs would step down from their lofty seats and interact with us more? I mean on a day-to-day basis rather than once in a blue moon and not just for special occasions. Would you like to talk to one in the flesh rather than conversing with a disembodied chat box? Do you think they need a bigger presence in forums?
You wouldn't like Aventurine when they're angry...
Aventurine smash! Well, they smash people who attempt to impersonate GMs and cheat in their game, at least.Over at Hardcore Casual, Syncaine has put up a post discussing Aventurine's hardline attitude to players in their game, Darkfall. The company has already said, straight out, that they will ban players for an offense like attempting to impersonate a GM or cheating in their game. No warnings, no temporary boots, we're talking a full ban on the first offense.What is unclear, from the perspective of a player, is how well Aventurine is implementing their own policies. From one player's perspective, it seems that the GMs are certainly on the ball and are dealing with people who attempt to use joke names. But as to how many people may have been banned by Aventurine's staff? Well, that's an unknown number that most likely will never be released outside of the company.Even so, a hardline stance like the one Aventurine is taking isn't seen very often in MMOs. Companies worry about alienating their player base with moves such as those.Interested in the full post? Check it out over at Hardcore Casual.
It's not that I wasn't satisified, but...
So it's been a while since I mentioned it, but I'm still pretty gung ho on helping to enforce WoW gameplay policies, especially RP server specific policies, and I will not hesitate to report anyone I see violating them by means of name or conduct. With the recent changes to the report system, I generally just stick their names and a few notes into the Report an Issue and move on, knowing that eventually, a GM will get the report and hopefully decided to be an enforcer that day. But even though I've elected not to speak with a GM, I still often get an email telling me the usual spiel: They looked into the issue, but are not able to tell me what happened due to privacy issues and whatnot. Then comes the customer service satisfaction survey that asks me if the issue was resolved to my satisfaction.
WoW Insider Show live tomorrow afternoon on WoW Radio
The WoW Insider Show returns to the virtual airwaves tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm EST as usual, and this show is going to be a good one: not only will Turpster and I be on, but Eliah Hecht (he of the great Death Knight review posted recently) will appear via voice, as will the one and only Matthew Rossi. And we'll be chatting about all the news in the last week of Warcraft, including but not limited to that silly rabbit who tried to trick the GMs, Naxx maybe going bye-bye, and Chilton's nonsense about nostalgia.And we'll be answering your questions and queries as well -- you can email the show at theshow@wow.com, or just join us live in IRC over at irc.mmoirc.com. Listen live tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 pm EST over on WoW Radio -- with Rossi and Hecht on, it's sure to be a barnburner.
Forum Post of the Day: Player tries to scam GM for epic flight training, gets shut down
I actually considered asking my boss if this post could be the first in a new series called "Stupid WoW Criminals," but honestly, I'd prefer to think that this guy is one of kind. So, here's the deal: A young Warlock named Kiranth of the Aman'thul server (Who has since deleted his post, but you find it quoted a couple posts down from the top in the thread) came to the customer service forums, and in this thread here, claimed that he somehow lost his epic flying skill after buying it on a Monday and playing until Tuesday morning maintenance. He claimed that he'd been trying to contact the GMs for months in order to get the skill back, and that he was incredibly frustrated and about to cancel his 3 accounts if he didn't get the skill. Luckily, the ever vigilant GMs are always willing to please, and Auryk soon chimed in with an answer to his problem. I'll summarize what he said after the break, but you really should read it for yourself. It's amazing.
Return of the Revenge of the Community Policing and Naming Policy Argument: The Addon
You might recall, if you've followed WoW Insider in the past few months, that I've been a relatively strong advocate of the making sure naming and RP server policies are enforced and have felt that if the community's going to be made to it, we should get better tools for the job. While I even got in a very productive conversation with Belfaire about it, I'm not holding my breath on a lot of my proposed tools and reforms seeing the light of day. After all, I work for WoW Insider, not Blizzard itself, and hey, not everyone agrees with me on how this stuff should work. Which is cool. Variety is the spice of life and all. That said, for policy reporting curmudgeons like myself, Wachunga of the Maelstrom server has created a pretty good tool: the NameViolation addon.
Belfaire on community policing and GM subjectivity
As you may recall, a few days ago, I wrote a little Dear Blizzard letter on the subject of enforcing the RP and Naming Policy. Of course, Once one writes a letter to someone, it is a good idea to deliver it, and thus I delivered it, or at least the issues therein, over on the Customer Service Forum. I was lucky enough to have Belfaire, who you may remember from his post explaining Blizzard's stance on multi-boxing, answer some of my questions and concerns. I also got some pretty well thought out feedback from a couple other people browsing the forums, including some roleplayers who disagreed with some of my points, so I think the threads worth a read in itself, and I'll comment a bit more on what Belfaire said after the break, now that I've had time to digest it a bit.
Dear Blizzard: Am I your police officer?
Dear Blizzard, First of all, I really do have to thank you for changing the name of that guy called Longjohnson. Yeah, He sent us this pretty long rant about how it was unfair his name was changed, but honestly, it was a pretty clear violation of the naming policy against inappropriate references to bodily parts or functions (Sorry Jason, I'm only siding with you to a point here. Your character's name needed to be changed). That said, I'll give him this: It is pretty annoying that he was able to then proceed to the Armory and find 19 characters named Longjohnson and 60 characters named Bigjohnson. If a name is impermissible because of being profane or inappropriate on one server, it should count on them all, right? Every server has the same set of naming rules, except for RP servers, which have the extra "appropriate for an RP server" qualifier, so this shouldn't be a problem. Mike has actually observed that enforcement tends to be a bit lax in the past regarding both the naming policy and RP server policy, but I figured it was worth bringing up again.
Chat highlights from the TTR stress test
As horrible as Barrens chat and the trade channel can be by times, one of my favorite parts of Sunday's tournament test realm stress test was reading through the chats. Although I'm sure the guys had some pretty great tells, considering their names were more obvious than mine (Insideradam, Insideralex, and Vehn), I did catch some gems of my own. One thing that was rampant on Sunday was names that were clearly against the terms of service, and of course nasty language. So if any of the photos have blurred-out names, you'll know why! Before you jump through, keep in mind there are a few photos, so the load might be slow. Don't forget to check out my full coverage of the stress test! %Gallery-18020%
