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Apple Card holders can skip March payment due to impact of coronavirus
Following Apple's decision to close all of its retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27th, the company is taking further action in the face of the spreading coronavirus -- it's allowing Apple Card customers to skip March payments without interest.
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 Daily Grind: What does it take to keep your interest?
Every MMO wants you to play forever. The longer you play, the longer you give the company money, which is sort of how companies operate. The troublesome element is that developing features that will keep one person playing for a long period of time might very well mean ignoring other groups of players. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many developers working on new features, after all. So today we're coming at this from the obvious angle -- what does it take to keep your interest? Is it a question of update speed, whether you prefer rapid updates like Guild Wars 2 or big expansions a la World of Warcraft? Is it a question of fundamental mechanics, such that you prefer a wide-open sandbox like EVE Online or a directed experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Is it a matter of feel and lore that keeps you invested in Star Trek Online or Final Fantasy XIV? What does it take to keep your interest? 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!
Time Warner Cable abandons wireless business plans, sells 7.2 percent Clearwire stake
Time Warner Cable has decided against entering the wireless business, and as such, it's selling the 7.2 percent stake in Clearwire it picked up in 2008. Thanks to the dwindling value of the network provider, it's $550 million investment is now only worth around $73 million. Current investors have first refusal on the shares, but it's unlikely to find takers quickly, given that both Intel and Google dumped their interests at a steep loss and even Sprint has ceased to be its majority owner -- although the company itself did tell The Wall Street Journal that it's doing perfectly fine, but thanked it for asking, before quickly dashing off to "a thing."
Storyboard: Three guys walk into a bar
My days of playing Magic: the Gathering are... well, they're not over, exactly, but I'm certainly not in my heyday any longer. Despite this, I've made no secret of the fact that I still avidly read Mark Rosewater's Making Magic column because the stuff he says in the column is applicable to game design in general. There are a lot of ideas that I've drawn out of there over the years, and one of the ones that's stuck with me is the Timmy-Johnny-Spike split that Rosewater's quite fond of explaining at length. For those of you not interested in reading a decade's worth of columns just to understand what I'm talking about, the three names in questions are the so-called "psychographics" for Magic's audience, three psychological snapshots of why people play and enjoy the game. They're useful tools for understanding the reason certain cards resonate well with some players and not with others. And they're applicable to almost everything -- even roleplaying.
The Daily Grind: Games with potential
One of the things people chalk growth in an MMO up to is the strength of the IP - especially when you're talking about an established IP in popular culture like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, etc. Of course, some others will point out that there's something to be said for a completely new experience with an interesting story or idea behind it. City of Heroes, while based on comic books, wasn't based on any one comic in particular. EverQuest was general fantasy. World of Warcraft, while based on the Warcraft RTS wasn't nearly as much of a pop-culture buzzword then as it is now. Assuming all games have good mechanics - do you think that having a well-known IP can offer more potential in terms of creating an MMO these days, or do you feel that a well-timed new concept with a fresh new IP would do better? What particular games do you think have the most potential - and are they new franchises, or old, established stories already well-known to popular geekdom? Will it take a new spin on an old IP to really make things interesting in terms of upcoming games?
Christmas iPod touch and iPhone gifts boost App Store volume
Hello and welcome once again to The Obvious News. Our top story today: the sky remains blue, and we'll have a full report by our man on the scene Chip Thompson about that later. But first, this: apparently App Store downloads are up thanks to large holiday sales of the iPhone and iPod touch. This comes as a shock to absolutely no one, but reports are coming in from developers, publishers, and browser reports and search terms alike that App Store downloads and interest have jumped up three and four times over, thanks, it seems, to more people receiving iPhones and iPod touches for Christmas and the other winter holidays.John Sargent of The Obvious Institute tells us why: "Well, iPod touches are pretty boring without apps, you know? And I guess people probably want to try out apps on their new iPod touches." Thank you, John -- painfully obvious. Our technology analyst Ms. Common Sense also tells us that any time Apple sees a bump in sales of their devices, the App Store will have its own sales bump soon after.In other Obvious News, having too many meetings can apparently make you grumpy. We'll be back after these messages. Obviously.
All Points Bulletin beta interest page goes live
Following yesterday's announcement from Realtime Worlds concerning their upcoming beta for All Points Bulletin, we now have confirmation that the "Register your interest" page has gone live. This is all thanks to the overwhelming response from APB fans who became members of their Facebook fan group yesterday. Their initial goal of 500 was achieved within 3 hours of posting the news!So now, much earlier than expected, Realtime Worlds has launched the interest page for anyone looking for a chance to get into the APB beta. This is simply the first step in the process, but rest assured that more news will be coming soon. Plus, if you haven't had a chance to sign up to their Facebook group yet, you can join and help them grow even further.
Getting back into the game
Knightless is having the same problem I'd guess quite a few players have -- her interest in her character is flagging a bit, and she's trying to figure out a way to get more involved in what she's doing in Azeroth. This is an interesting situation, because at this point, with almost any other game, the player would just leave and go find something else to play (and actually, I can say from experience that sometimes taking a short break from the game completely can rebuild your interest in it), but things don't really work that way in World of Warcraft -- responsibilities to your guild and the people you've met in game will keep you around even when your interest is low.So what tips can we offer Knightless and others who are looking for ways to refresh their interest in the game? Rerolling is a big one -- I've always found that picking up a new class you've never played before can get you to look at a game in a different way. Running an instance that you haven't run in a while is always fun, too -- it only takes a little while to level up a character to Deadmines or Wailing Caverns levels, and both of those instances always renew my interest in playing through Warcraft. Running guild activities or contests are always fun, too -- especially since Knightless is a guild officer, she could organize some lower level runs or some "grind days," where guildies all get together in groups to level each other up.Any other ideas for reviving a flagging interest in playing a character that you feel a need to play due to responsibilities or other connections in the game?
On difficulty level and involvement
Tobold asks the old question of whether or not WoW is "too easy" over on his blog. But he's asking the wrong one-- there's no question at all that WoW is an easy game. Like Bioshock (which I just finished, and in which you lose nothing at all by dying except a short journey from the respawn point), World of Warcraft is really a question of time, not skill. If your character dies, all you need to do is head back out there, find some easier monsters to fight, and sooner or later you'll be much more powerful. You can't lose WoW-- even if your guild gets wiped by Gruul, all you need to do is farm through Karazhan a few times, and then go back, and you'll topple him.So the question isn't whether WoW is too easy, it's whether that's a bad thing or not. Does it matter that anyone with enough time on their hands can become a raider? Does it matter that anyone, from child to grandparent, can pick up the game and find something to do?It matters to Blizzard, of course-- WoW's low threshold for involvement is one of the reasons it's done so well. You don't need the reflexes of an FPS gamer or the cunning of a master strategist to get to level 70. But to players, the difficulty of the game overall shouldn't matter. WoW is easy, but Blizzard has gone out of their way to create parts of it that are not-- winning in the Arenas is definitely not easy. And though better gear makes many endgame fights easier, I'd guess that no one would argue against the assertion that endgame fights are getting harder in terms of strategy all the time (sure, like any good puzzle, once you figure it out, it's easy, but figuring it out as a guild is not necessarily an easy task).There are parts of WoW that don't challenge people who've been gaming for a long time, yes, but there are many other parts that do. The question isn't as simple as whether WoW is too easy or not-- it's more a question of, easy or hard, whether the game is compelling enough to keep you interested.
PlayStation 3 interest rising
Be quiet. Quieter. Do you hear that? That voice? Is that the inkling notion creeping up to drop $600 for a PS3? According to website PriceGrabber, as reported by MCV, interest in the console is up 127 percent. This is welcome news to the PS3 who may be bigger, badder and sexier than his older brother -- but PS2 is still captain of the football team, student counsel president and gets a helluva lot more play. The only problem is that the PS2 has a genetic defect and eventually succumbs to "disc read error." Bye baby, daddy misses you.Although the rise in interest for the PS3 is fantastic for the system, it's not like there really was another direction for it to go. Sadly, the 127 percent increase in interest for the PS3 is dwarfed by the Xbox 360's 250 percent increase and the Wii's 579 percent increase. Sure 127 percent doesn't seem so great compared to those other numbers, but dagnabbit we're gonna be all giggles and sunshine saying this is a positive piece of news for Sony. You hear that? Positive PS3 news!
