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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!
3G S sales expectations shift higher, Apple offers $30 credit for activation issues
It's Father's Day here in the USA, UK and Canada (best wishes to all the Mac daddies out there!), and if the tea-leaf-reading over the iPhone 3G S launch is accurate, it looks like quite a few of those dads may have gotten a shiny new phone as a gift from the spouse and kids. Which would have been really thoughtful and unexpected. If I had gotten one. Anyway. The pre-launch expectation from analyst Gene Munster was for a comparatively modest 500K units sold over the weekend vs. the 3G million-phone launch, but now his firm has suggested that may have been a conservative number, as noted by AppleInsider. Between AT&T's citing of 'hundreds of thousands' of pre-orders for the phone, and O2 announcing that first-day sales for the 3G S blew past the totals for the 3G last year, it's possible that the 3G S could creep up towards that million-phone number and blockbuster territory. Despite (or perhaps due to) the brisk sales pace, AT&T's activation infrastructure did not seem to be ready for the influx of account changes; this is a familiar situation, as last year's 3G launch triggered similar delays. Many new buyers (including our own Steve Sande) were faced with activation delays between two hours and two days. In recognition of the aggravation and inconvenience, Apple has begun emailing affected users with the offer of a $30 iTunes credit to be delivered Monday morning, according to Everything iCafe. If you got a credit email, please let us know.
Aeria Games: "If you don't have fun playing, we'll give you a refund"
There aren't many MMO publishers out there who would actually offer refunds for gamers who don't have fun in their titles, but this is exactly what Aeria Games is doing. We did a double take when hearing about this but it's legit. Superman0X is a USA Gamemaster for Aeria Games, and has declared "April is Fun Month at Aeria... GUARANTEED". That's a bold statement. But what does it mean for players of the various Aeria Games MMOs? Superman0X writes, "We are so sure you will have fun we are going to put our AP [Aeria Points] where our mouth is. If any player does not have fun we will refund all their AP purchases for the entire month up to 5000AP." Players who didn't enjoy themselves in April will have a window of opportunity to request a refund from May 1st to May 10th . You can check out the full details in the announcement but we're guessing Aeria has a lot of faith in their titles if they'd even consider making such an offer.
Original iPod nano owners benefit from scratch settlement
The first generation of iPod nano models may have been small and sleek, but they also apparently had an image problem -- mainly, that it rapidly grew difficult to see the screen after the nicks and scratches began to accumulate on the face of the player. As far back as 2005, users expressed their displeasure over the nano's likelihood for damage, including cracks in the screen in some cases.Thanks to a now-settled class action lawsuit, nano owners who experienced the scratchies can apply for a refund of $15 (if the iPod shipped with a slip case, as later ones did) or $25 (for no-case shipments). You can get all the details from the settlement website. Refunds may take up to a year (!) to arrive.[via AppleInsider]
Bright House gives refunds for 8-hour service outage in Florida
With all the price hikes and complaints about quality, it's not often that you find a story tied to a cable company that's positive. And in fairness, it's totally not positive that Bright House Networks' subscribers in Florida had to deal with an eight hour TV outage starting at around 3:00PM Monday, but just bear with us. In an effort to express its "sincerest apologies," the carrier has decided to automatically issue credits to affected customers. Sure, the refund won't be huge, but it's a sentiment that's rare and much appreciated in today's cutthroat business world. The outage was unlike any other outside of times in which a hurricane had struck, and a corrupt database used to deliver programming to cable boxes was blamed for the incident. We know, you're still upset that you missed the series finale of Boston Legal and / or the trouncing of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but hopefully a few pennies back on your next bill will make things easier to get over.
The price of a game time refund
Is it just me or has it been a long time since Blizzard passed out some free game time? Reader Jim T. emailed me about a conversation he recently had with Blizzard's customer service -- he was disappointed with the lag, the queues, and the downtime on his server lately, and checking in about how he might get a refund or credit. The customer rep told him that while they didn't give out individual credit, they occasionally do give out game-wide credit for downtime mistakes.Which is true -- Blizzard will occasionally give out a free day to folks affected by major unexpected downtime or server issues. But while they used to do it fairly often, by my recollection, they seem much less inclined to pull the trigger on a refund lately. On the one hand, sure, Blizzard does a better job than they used to -- last Tuesday's maintenance lasted quite a while, but it wasn't anything compared to the days the servers used to be offline a few years ago. On the other hand, though, there's no question players are being affected -- by queues, by problems logging in, and by lag on the instance servers and elsewhere.Of course, we have no idea if Blizzard has an actual rule for when they give out free gametime and when they don't -- at this point, the criteria for giving players a refund happens to be "when they feel like it." Which is all right, we guess -- it's their company, of course. But it does seem like the criteria has changed -- we used to get refunds all the time, and even with all the problems lately, Blizzard hasn't decided to give customers any game time back.
Blizzard will likely offer free respecs before Wrath
I finally logged in to the Wrath beta for the first time last night, and frankly, was a little disappointed. Like a lot of players, I really enjoy seeing content live, and playing around on the beta feels like I'm somewhere i'm not supposed to be -- things are not done (it's a little unnerving to see a Blizzard game without impeccable amounts of polish on it), and there's no flow yet from the old world to the new -- you're dropped into Northrend and it's like you've jumped forward a few months in game continuity. Something is missing.But having been to the strangely buggy future, I can tell you one thing so far. Blizzard will do something they haven't done for almost two years now: every character will very likely get their talent points back around the Wrath of the Lich King release. Sure, it probably seemed obvious to most, but this is a bigger deal than you might think -- free respecs used to be a pretty common occurence, as almost every patch, Blizzard would refund talent points to at least one or two classes. But that was changed right around the last expansion, as Blizzard has opted for smaller class changes rather than content patch revamps. We haven't seen a talent point refund in a long time.If this release is like last time, we won't necessarily see our talent points refunded upon installation, but rather around a big content patch right beforehand. If you were planning on respeccing for Wrath, you might want to wait a bit -- while respecs still aren't free all the time, we are apparently getting one done for us.
Authenticator ordering leads to unexplained refunds
We've already reported that the Blizzard Authenticator is sold out, but here's another twist to the story. WoW Insider reader Ryan told us that he placed his order last Monday, before the sell out was announced. However, instead of getting his Authenticator, he instead got an unexplained refund. With no other word from Blizzard, they simply canceled the order and refunded the money. He talked to a coworker who had also ordered the Authenticator and found that he had the same experience. As of yet, Blizzard has not explained the refund to him. It's likely that Ryan was simply unlucky enough to place his order after they'd sold out but before they'd officially announced it, but there's other somewhat unfortunate implications. If they're refunding his order instead of honoring it, it suggests that they don't expect to have any new Authenticators ready for quite some time.
Customers getting quicker to return flawed HDTVs?
Ever get the feeling most people couldn't tell if their HDTV is working correctly (much less actually watching high definition content)? Apparently that's changing on a massive scale, as DigiTimes cites unnamed industry sources saying the refund on cheap LCDs has risen recently. More discerning customers have higher standards for picture quality -- just ask your cable company -- increasing the refund rate for LCD TVs to 25-30%. Obviously, most of our readers are the kind of people who whip out the calibration tool and start testing as soon as a new TV arrives, but if the masses are picking up on previously unnoticed issues, hopefully standards for quality -- even at the low end of the price scale, will rise to match.
EA-Land to refund in-game ATM transactions
Despite what the bitter naysayers have been claiming about the addition of ATMs to EA-Land just before its complete closure, it appears that Electronic Arts won't be claiming all those last-minute Simoleons after all. In a recent announcement, EA-Land Community Manager Parizad Parav has said that every transaction completed through an in-game ATM will be completely refunded by the company. Remember that these transactions were the conversion from real dollars to virtual.It's nice to see a big company doing right by its former constituents, when they have no real obligation to do so. Of course, it's no skin off of EA's nose either, as their pockets are plenty deep enough to cover this amount. Still, it's a sad affair all around -- at least this will be one less point of angst among the formerly faithful.[Thanks, Sean!]
Wal-mart offers up HD DVD returns
More good news for those left on the short end of the format war, Wal-Mart has quietly decided to offer refunds for anyone who purchased their HD DVD player between November 1, 2007 and now. You won't need the box it came in, but the receipt will be necessary, and get moving because this offer is only open until the 30th. A $50 gift card just 'cause this isn't, but for those looking to erase a red moment in their lives, Wal-mart's doors are open.[Thanks, Tavaris]Read - Wall Street JournalRead - Slickdeals.net
Netflix issuing 10% credit to make amends for downtime?
Netflix junkies the nation over were shot into a tizzy when the outfit's website went down for most of Monday. Apparently the company is looking to make up for any hard feelings created by the downtime by issuing 10-percent credits to customers. We're not certain if it's just users that should have had a title processed Monday or if its customer base at large will benefit, but according to e-mails being sent out to subscribers, 10-percent credits are being applied to accounts for the "inconveniences" caused. So, did you -- loyal Netflix subscriber, you -- get the same notification? If you're not exactly sure what you're looking for in that cesspool of messages called your inbox, click on through to peep the note in full.[Thanks, Kyle]
Activision offering refunds for Wii version of Guitar Hero III
As our bat-eared readers discovered when the game was first released, the Wii edition of Guitar Hero III, though advertised as possessing Dolby Surround Sound capabilities, could only duplicate one channel of audio through multiple speakers (a.k.a. mono sound). Incensed, Nintendo's virtual troubadours demanded action -- Activision responded with a somewhat less-than-timely disc replacement program. Now, four months after the game was released, Activision has announced another method of atonement for their single-channel sins.Instead of replacing your half-mute disc with a standard one (though this option is still available), you can now replace said disc with cold, hard cash (or warm, soft cash, depending on your local climate and the weariness of the bills you receive). While we're sure this policy will be exploited by those who tire of faux rocking and simply want the cash, it's refreshing to see Actie-V face their shortcomings so directly -- if not a tad unpunctually.[Via Evil Avatar]
EA to refund Australian Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for lack of online play
If you purchased an Australian copy of Medal of Honor Heroes 2 for Wii, you may be surprised to find the game devoid of the much-touted online multiplayer. That surprise is likely exacerbated by the mention of online multiplayer both in the game's instruction manual and the official Australian web site. (As of this writing, mentions to multiplayer on the site have been removed.)Looking to retain some, erm, honor in the situation, publisher Electronic Arts is offering a refund. Said the company (via IGN), "We made an error in the documentation and marketing materials. We are very sorry to have caused confusion for our customers. We will provide a refund to anyone in Australia who wishes to return the game to EA because of the lack of online functionality." We couldn't find details on the support page as to how the refund will work, and EA is not giving a reason for the missing 32-player mayhem.%Gallery-8246%[Via NWF]
Medal of No-Online confirmed for Australia, refund available
At least it's good to know we didn't get all angried up for nothing: the online multiplayer functionality has, as rumored last week, been removed from the Australian release of Medal of Honor 2: Heroes. This omission clearly happened late in development, as the manual continues to describe online play. EA had no explanation for the excision of online play, leading us to conjecture that the cause is very personally embarrassing. Maybe someone on staff accidentally saved over the multiplayer code with a copy of some Mr. Belvedere fanfiction, for example.IGN speculated that EA's Australian branch opted not to operate the local servers that would be necessary for online play. That sounds more plausible and less interesting than the Mr. Belvedere thing. If you bought Heroes 2 expecting online, and are now outraged at the incompleteness of your game, you can return it to EA for a full refund.%Gallery-6588%
How will you spend your Apple Store credit?
Attention, reckless fanboys with no will power or self control early iPhone adopters. You've certainly heard by now that your $100US Apple Store credit is available. Now that you've got it, the question is, what will you do with it? We're guessing that most customers will use the credit towards something that costs more that a hundred bucks (softening the financial blow for Apple - if you could even call it that).What's your decision? iPod nano? Slick new keyboard? Maxed out Mac Pro and cinema display? The comments are open.While we're on the subject, remember that the deadline for the full $200 claim is 9/19.
Sony refunding broken PSN games
Eurogamer reports that Sony is refunding gamers who purchased Spyro 2: Gateway of Glimmer and MediEvil following "significant technical issues." In essence, the games were broken. People will have their purchase refunded to them in the next seven days.There's still no word yet on whether Crash Bandicoot 2 will also have a refund following its removal from the PlayStation store. It's not like XBLA has been immune to bug issues, most notable were the Mad Tracks "stuck in demo" bug and Contra's out-of-sync co-op. Just another day in the land of QA. Someone should make a musical about it.
Stubborn ex-customer takes Gateway to court for defective PC
"Me against the world" has taken on a whole new meaning for high school dropout Dennis Sheehan, who has taken Gateway to small claims court in a completely bizarre catch 22-laden case. Apparently, the now 46-year old Sheehan took his stubbornness out on the corporation who sent him a computer that "displayed scattered graphics" fresh out of the box. After the company purportedly refused to remedy the issue, the two have ended up in court where Gateway claimed that clicking through the EULA upon bootup eliminated his right to even sue; au contraire, claimed Sheehan, who explained that the malfunctioning PC wasn't even able to render the text and allow him the opportunity to read it. Interestingly enough, a tentative ruling on May 24th sided with the plantiff and maintained that the case would stay in small claims court, but it looks like finality is still a good ways off for the perturbed ex-customer.[Thanks, Mike]
AT&T refunds up for grabs after BlackBerry outage?
Cash money revenge is at hand dear BlackBerry users. After suffering a 12 to 15 hour e-mail outage last week, Cingular, uh hem, the New AT&T is offering its business subscribers a prorated credit as long as your willing to call and complain. We're talking a mere $1 to $2.50 refund depending upon your plan -- but hey, what were you expecting? If that doesn't slake the retribution jones then perhaps you should up the Methadone.
Xbox 360 warranty extended, repairs refunded
Microsoft is extending the Xbox 360's manufacturer's warranty in North America from a puny (and competitively unimpressive) 90-days to the more reasonable (and competitive) one year. What spurred this holiday generosity? Perhaps it was Sony and Nintendo's one year warranties (don't forget to register to get a free 90-day bonus from Ninty)? Or perhaps old man Gates was visited by three ghosts in the night?Regardless, they're making right by their customers who've already had their console repaired by making the offer retroactive. That's right 'stiqers! If you've forked over $140 to Microsoft to fix your 91-day-old 360 you're entitled to a refund. The best part, you don't have to request a rebate, Microsoft will mail a check out (presumably to the address they mailed your 360 to) in about 10 weeks. Anyone (besides Alexander) expecting a $140 Christmas present from Uncle Bill?Read -- Microsoft Extends Xbox 360 Warranty to One Year press releaseScrutinize -- The NEW Xbox 360 product warranty
