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Facebook introduces political petitions to your News Feed
Facebook's efforts to improve civic engagement are expanding beyond easy access to politicians and voter registration campaigns. As of January 21st, it's launching a Community Actions feature in the US that brings political petitions to the News Feed. Creators just have to write a description, tag the relevant political figures and watch the support roll in. A discussion section lets people both comment on petitions and run their own support campaigns, such as events or call-your-representative drives. You can see the number of people who've backed a petition, but you'll only see names for friends or public figures.
White House temporarily shuts down 'We the People' petition site
The "We the People" site was launched back in 2011 as a way for the rank and file citizens to get a response from the Obama administration if they were able to get 100,000 signatures on any given petition. The site will now be unavailable until late January, and the Associated Press reports that all existing petitions and responses will be restored next year.
The Daily Grind: Are petitions to resurrect MMOs a waste of time?
We've received several tips over the last few weeks about a petition players are circulating in the hopes of resurrecting NCsoft's ill-fated MMO shooter Tabula Rasa. Even Richard Garriott himself tweeted about the campaign. But inside the Massively virtual offices, most of us just shrugged sadly. We've seen how these petitions go. Every once in a while, a sunsetted game returns from the dead, but MMO players are awash in petitions for games that never came back. Just ask the 21,845 gamers who signed the Save City of Heroes petition last autumn. So what do you think -- are petitions to resurrect or save MMOs a waste of time? Or do you sign them anyway, just in case there's a tiny chance they might work? 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!
Save CoH movement invites NCsoft execs to play, petition passes 20,000 signatures
The shutdown date for City of Heroes looms over the game's fans, but the movement to save the game has maintained its intensity. The online petition to save the game has continued to gain steam, with just above 20,000 signatures as of this writing, and players continue to plan events and rallies to protest the decision. One player has put forth a unique idea: Instead of asking NCsoft executives to reverse their decision, he's asking them to come play the game. Other fans have taken to mirroring the letter and sending it to the address set up for CoH-related messages. The hope is that playing and experiencing the game will convince the people in charge how much the game means to the players who have spent years in Paragon City. If you've already signed the petition and sent your letter, you might be looking for a bit of happy news. That would come in the form of photos of the player-bought lunch for Paragon Studios, a gift from the community to the team. It's a sign of the dedication behind the Save CoH movement and an inspiration to those still hoping that the game's sunset will be averted. [Thanks to Jeffrey for the tip!]
Mass Effect moaners kinda get their own way as people power strikes again
SPOILERS. Who can't name a beloved TV series that didn't end the way you wanted? BSG? Lost? Sapphire and Steel? Blake's Seven? Quantum Leap? The Sopranos? All of which ended either with tear-inducing bum-notes or confusing conclusions that caused furious head scratching. Despite that, the traditional reaction is to say "Well, I didn't enjoy that, but I respect the writer's artistic decision." Not so for gamers who felt short-changed by the intentionally devastating conclusion to Mass Effect 3. Fans of the game poured their outrage online, developer BioWare saying that the feedback it had received was "incredibly painful." A fan campaign that raised $80,000 in under a fortnight for Child's Play was enough to make the team behind the title concede defeat against the geo-political disruptor that is the internet with a cause. The company is now devoting all of its efforts to producing an "extended cut" DLC for the summer, but fans expecting a fourth ending where they can watch Commander Shepard on a sun-lounger, margarita in hand had better start complaining now -- the new content will only offer more depth and an extended epilogue to those tragic scenes you've already witnessed. SPOILERS END
EVE Evolved: Downtime deployment debate
Earlier this week, an explosive argument broke out in the EVE Online community. Following an extended server downtime, it became known that Reddit-based alliance Test Alliance Please Ignore had used the server downtime to protect the deployment of 14 territorial claim units. Ordinarily, these claim units are vulnerable to attack for eight hours while they start up. The owner may choose to either commit a fleet to defend them for eight hours or leave them unguarded and hope nobody decides to knock them down. This mechanic is designed to ensure that a force can't claim or attack a large number of systems simultaneously against opposition, as an alliance can't reliably defend several TCUs at once. By anchoring the structures just before the extended downtime occurred, Test Alliance made them invulnerable for their entire deployment time. A controversial debate then ensued, as GMs stepped in and Test pilots began making accusations of corruption, collusion and favouritism. In this opinion piece, I weigh in on the latest debate to shake New Eden. I look at whether downtime deployment really is an exploit and whether there's any substance to the accusations made against EVE's Game Masters.
Patch 3.2: Misloot tickets to be a thing of the past
Amidst the datamined changes to the game coming in Patch 3.2, a small detail caught my eye -- an item trait similar to the one that lets you trade back an item to a vendor if you bought it with an alternate currency (like Badges). This one, though, stated the following: BIND_TRADE_TIME_REMAINING = "You may trade this item with players that were also eligible to loot this item for the next %s."; Does this mean what I think it means? Yes. It does. If your raid leader or master looter accidentally gives an item to the wrong person, that person can trade it to someone else within a short window of time. This should effectively eliminate the category of "oh crap" misloot petitions, which remain a huge headache, both in terms of amount of petitions and workload involved, for Blizzard Support -- and this is coming from someone who worked on them a lot back in the day. Now, of course, there could still be issues, so I imagine that Blizzard will keep the lines of communication open, much like they did with alternate currency refunds, though to a smaller degree. Giving players the ability to fix their (or someone else's) mistakes is always risky, but this has the best of intentions behind it -- less hassle for players, less hassle for GMs -- so I fully support it and hope that we continue to see changes like this.Blizzard hasn't officially announced the change, though I get the feeling that they will shortly. Still, don't be too surprised if the feature gets delayed for tweaks. Better that it works later than breaks sooner. Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
An exploit in EVE Online has come to light that may have some major repercussions for the game. Massively does not have solid confirmation on the details (and allegations as the case may be), as this has just come to light. The exploit was publicized on a third party EVE forum called Scrapheap Challenge, on Wednesday, December 10th. If this isn't a hoax or an exaggerated account of events, how serious an exploit might this be? Very serious, if the details listed prove to be accurate... The exploit was really a bug related to a network of player owned stations (POS) paired with a moon mining operation, which yielded far too much valuable material far too quickly. Four years and an estimated 2.5 to 3 trillion ISK later, the exploit was found and patched, and the offender(s) banned. Given the claimed amount of ISK involved, it's serious enough to potentially have an impact on the game's economy. The individual who posted the details of this exploit remains anonymous, and has only identified him or herself as "anotherone", but tells a story of how the exploit came to be: "I would like to tell you a short EVE story. Today all of my EVE Online accounts were banned. I was sure this day would come. What surprises me is that it took CCP this long to catch up with me. Even though they knew about it." It's that last sentence that is sparking so much response from the playerbase -- anotherone asserts that this issue was actually petitioned to CCP Games back in 2004, and subsequently ignored.Read on for more details on this economic drama.
EVE dev blog charts much improved customer support experiences
Long petition queues, particularly related to expansions, has long been a problem in EVE Online. These long waits may very well be a thing of the past, according to GM Nova, Senior Game Master for EVE Online. GM Nova's latest dev blog, "Such stuff as dreams are made on," deals with the deployment of the Empyrean Age 1.1 patch in early September, as seen from a Customer Support perspective. "We at Customer Support, being at the front lines so to speak, are in a unique position to judge or evaluate whether a patch was successfully deployed and if ther is any fallout or unexpected problems involved, as the potential torrent of problems are directed at us to pass on," he said.GM Nova points out how that 'torrent of problems' has slowed down to a trickle, using graph data of the Trinity expansion deployment (predictably an insane amount of petitions), the subsequent Empyrean Age 1.0 patch (so smooth they thought their petition system had crashed), and finally Empyrean Age 1.1. The trend evidenced by the graphs is that their patch deployments are becoming less fraught with complications, meaning happier players in the long run. GM Nova goes on to discuss some of the structural changes made to CCP's Customer Support department that improve petition response time, saying,"We are happy to announce that our average petition age is currently two days with most normal requests handled in hours. We hope our efforts shine through in the level of support we are able to offer." Would you agree with GM Nova's assessment, and have your own petitions of late in EVE Online been resolved in a reasonable amount of time?
DS Daily: Let's chat
No, really, let's talk about whatever you want. It's Sunday, and for those of us in the U.S., it's a holiday weekend, so it's a good time to relax and discuss ... whatever. Like online petitions, for instance -- we get a lot of those. Do you guys believe they can ever do any good? We don't have to be serious, either. Doing much gaming this weekend, or spending the time outside? Anyone else getting tired of the heat and feel the urge to just stay in side and raise that brain age? Or, if you're in the mood to make requests, let us know what we're not talking about enough.
Capcom interested in Resident Evil PSPetition
Usually, we regard petitions with the sort of suspicion we normally reserve for the children of celebrities or EA's Wikipedia entry. But a petition to get a Resident Evil on the PSP has just caught the attention of the only entity that could actually do anything about it ... Capcom.A Capcom rep reportedly emailed the creator of the petition, saying, "As we plan for future games the team will definitely consider the fans and specifically your petition." However, the creator was told that, for the petition to have a real effect, 10,000 signatures would have to be garnered. If you want to sign up, you'd better hurry: They're more than halfway there and you don't want to miss your chance to be part of gaming history's least unsuccessful petitions.[Via PSPF]
UK residents petition BBC to make new on-demand TV service cross-platform
This one goes out to all the UK TUAW readers in the audience: apparently, the BBC is planning to launch a smashing new on-demand, online TV service. Everything sounds super-duper until the minor detail of being Windows-only. This of course ruffles more than a few feathers, especially since the BBC purports to provide "services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias," so residents have created a petition to help the BBC see the error of their ways. The petition is open to UK residents only, and August 20th, 2007 is the deadline for joining the fight.While I don't have many details on why exactly the BBC has gone Windows-only with this online venture (for now), my first guess is that they're using Microsoft's DRM. Hopefully, with the DRM discussion finally rising up the ranks to those who need to can actually do something about it, petitions like this and the bad decisions that inspire them will cease to exist.Thanks Graham
