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Woot, I just hit level 30! To celebrate, I feel that now’s a good time to reflect on the past.

When I first started working in this industry, I was a level 1 storeman. This is going back almost a decade now. I was so bad, infact, that when I began, I was walking around with these:

For the longest time, I wore those fucking boots. I didn’t know how much they sucked, how stupid they made me for putting them on. That’s the thing about items that take from your intellect, you end up too stupid to realise the effect they’re having. I actually believed that hard work was the key to climbing the ladder, if you can believe that shit.

Over time, however, I have gained much experience. The loot drops have been crap, only ever scraps, but still, enough to have provided a roof over my head.

One gets smart over a long period of time though, and about two years ago, I completed a handful of quests in succession. The money rewards were shit, as has always been the case, but I did get lucky looting this:

Epic loot! I put it on, and the difference has been remarkable. My back hurts less at night from all the heavy lifting, and I’m finding I have more energy for my leisure activities.

I’m getting hardcore now though, as a recent quest turn-in awarded me the following piece:

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Wearing this jacket is really helping me out here, especially in the zone that I’m questing in, if you get my drift.

It’s at this point, that I’m looking towards the future. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get it, but I’m striving for the following piece:

I’ve seen some phat loot in my time, but finding that one in the workplace database had me positively drooling in anticipation of ever being able to own that beauty.

Just out of curiosity, however, but I thought I’d do a search on legendary pieces, and I have to admit, this is the one that really caught my eye:

When it comes to that thing, I’m like Wayne from Wayne’s World; “one day, you will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine“.

So yeah, I was thinking about World of Warcraft, about why it’s so successful, and I was also thinking about workplace exploitation, and how much it sucks when you get screwed over IRL.

And then I caught on a connection between the two, which I’ll admit, really made me laugh.

In my experience, commendable traits like integrity don’t amount for much in the real world. They really don’t. Work hard, and use your initiative as much as you like, it doesn’t matter. Any extra money you may make who you work for, the boys at the top will just pocket for themselves. Quietly.

World of Warcraft, on the other hand, is a different story. Demonstrate an eagerness to learn, show up when you say you’re going to show up, and put in the time and effort towards improving your character, and you’ll go places. You’ll see things you’ve never seen before, do things you’ve never done before, and be decked out in gear you’d never have dreamed of owning.

World of Warcraft, my friends, is a better judge of character than the real world. You read it here first.

This is a huge issue, for me. It’s a pretty good bet this kinda thing is happening everywhere around the world.

The company I work for employs me as a lowly picker & packer. My job is essentially to box up customer orders so that they’re ready for dispatch on time. It’s nothing substantial, but then, the pay sucks, so I figure it balances out.

As it happens however, over the years I’d gotten quite a name for myself as someone half-decent with computers. It’s something I was passionate about, and I wasn’t shy about my abilities. On occasion, I took a workmate’s computer home to fix it up, and I even built one or two for a couple of them.

It was strictly a hobby, something that never crossed over into my duties at work, but I’d always hoped that my skills would eventually serve as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. I mean, when you do good things, so shall good things be done to you in return, right?

Oh, what a fairytale.

It all started one Thursday afternoon. The bosses were out having an extended lunch (as they do), and there was a problem with the server machine. None of the orders were coming out, the tech-support chick who was employed in a casual capacity was unavailable, and none of the other women in the office had a clue.

The office manager had a lady on the phone saying all kinds of stuff that she didn’t understand. Before I knew it, I’d been ushered into the office, and was then sat down at the server machine and was talking to her. It was a simple fix, really; their dns name had gone down, so I had to reboot the program with its ini file modified to point straight to the ip address instead. It was a 5-minute job.

I’d estimate I saved the company a good 5 grand that day, if not more. A number of orders left that would have otherwise been delayed another day or two, and none of the staff ended up having to stay back to do overtime.

The bosses eventually showed up just past our normal finish time, but at the office manager’s request I’d stayed back to explain to the general manager exactly what I’d done. He patted me on the back and said thanks, which, as it turns out, was the most I could ever expect from him. The owner of the company, a man who has spent more money in the past five years than I’ll probably make in a lifetime, couldn’t even muster up the integrity to say thanks. He just looked at me, but didn’t say anything.

To be expected, there ended up being nothing in it for me. I got just my regular $17 an hour at the end of that fortnight, like as if it’d never happened.

It did end up being a stepping-stone for me though, but it got me to a place I really didn’t want to be. Because it happened again. And again. The general manager had pretty much gotten into the habit of asking for me on the phone at the first sign of trouble, because he knew he could count on me.

A dozen times later, and I’d had enough. Do good things for others, and good things shall be done to you? Not at this company. I wasn’t even getting thanked for it anymore, it was just “alright put the office manager back on the phone again”. You’re welcome, mate.

I was due to go on holidays, and had fixed the server again just after lunch on Friday. I saw the general manager later that afternoon, he muttered something about the server, and I just said “we need to have a talk about me doing that when I get back from holidays”.

We didn’t have that talk, but he got the idea, because I haven’t been called to help them since. They have a new guy in there now, his job is to “take care of all the money”. He gets twice my pay rate too, so I figure, now it’s his problem. Funny thing is, he’s not even as good at that sort of thing as I am, but I could never be the ass kisser that he is, and ultimately, that’s the bit that’s letting me down.

Anyone who’s actually read all this is probably wondering why the fuck I’m still there. In the past, I did leave a couple of times, but each time I’ve ended up working for people just as bad. More recently, what with the economy on a downer, it proved to be a place I could weather the storm, so to speak.

I’ll get a good boss one day. In my dreams.

Yes I know, it’s been a while. You can blame my returning to World of Warcraft for that one.

For the longest time I’d had enough of MMO’s. Like they said in an episode of Pure Pwnage, the only thing that matters is how long you play the game. Which is, of course, the point to it all.

More recently though, I’ve been able to hear and see my fiancee over the other side of the room enjoying it up. She got into a good guild, really enjoys her Shaman character, and even got into the raiding. Every Sunday evening they hit up 25-man ICC, and then she’s part of a 10-man raid Monday or Wednesday or something. Then there’s dailies, which of course, are things you do every day.

At first it didn’t bother me, I couldn’t see the appeal, but there’s only so much home theatre one can watch. Really good movies are at a minimum, 3 months apart, and as much as I’ve enjoyed working on VQuest in the past, there’s just nothing in it for me anymore.

Over time though, I found myself wanting more and more to be a part of that world of hers. When you’ve had a partner who hasn’t been the least bit into computers and games, it helps you appreciate having one that is, that much more.

So I re-activated my old account a month ago, and decided I’d get my level 31 Warrior to 80 as fast as possible. A month later (yesterday), I finally made it. Not bad, if I do say so myself, for someone who has to work fulltime and can’t generally do much on Tuesdays because of the weekly maintenance.

So yeah, that’s where I’ve been. I’ve booked next Tuesday off; yes, that would be July 27th, and I will likely post my impresssions of Starcraft 2

I have to give a big kudos to Gamespot for providing, as far as I’m concerned, the best e3 coverage this year. Sure, other websites have also been adding their fair share of videos, but as far as I’m concerned, for sheer ease of use and video quality, their coverage has trumped the competition.

Alright, bar a couple of hiccups with Gamespot, I was able to watch Sony’s e3 2010 press conference in full.

First off, I don’t know where they think they’re going with the 3d thing. It’s almost like they’re blissfully unaware of how prohibitively expensive 3d screens are. As has been said, too, a lot of people will have only recently forked out for a hd set, and it’s a good bet they’re not planning another upgrade anytime soon.

I don’t know who’s running the show over at Sony, but until they get their heads outta their arses, they’re going to lose a lot more money if they’re banking on 3d selling Playstations. I see a big shakeup in that company in the months to follow, because sooner or later, they’re going to start running out of money to lose.

That said, their Sorcery demo, utilising the Playstation Move, impressed the hell out of me. I really liked the look of that. I came away more impressed with Move than with Microsoft’s Kinect, to be honest, if just because Microsoft’s demonstration of their adventures game showcased some seriously nasty lag. If I jump IRL, I want to see my avatar in the game jump immediately.

Outside of Sorcery though, Move looks just like what Nintendo introduced with the Wiimote so many years ago. That’s not good.

Nintendo are still well ahead this generation, and all e3 has really proven is that Microsoft and Sony are much more jealous of Nintendo having tapped that casual market than they’d ever admit.

I’m at the arse end of watching Nintendo’s e3 2010 press conference, and I put it like that because, as per the usual, their press conferences bore me to tears. They’ve made so much money, both with the Wii and the DS, that I’d think the least they could do is hire someone who speaks tangible English (and I don’t mean that annoying Reggie fella).

Ok, so in a word, they’re boring.

That said, Nintendo are owning this generation. If there’s anything to be gained from Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Playstation Move, it’s that they want to be Nintendo…. sooo bad. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Their botched Zelda demo made me laugh though; “please, everyone, turn off your wireless devices”. How many fucking devices these days aren’t wireless ones?

Their upcoming 3DS will sell a gazillion copies, but I’m not terribly enthusiastic about it. That’s not to say it’s not a great, great idea, but there’s just no place for it in my life. I work, rest and play. At work, I’m working, at rest, I’m sleeping, and at play, I’m either on the pc, watching a movie in the home theatre, or playing Rock Band on my ps3. That’s pretty much 95% of my life, right there. Sad, I know.

So yeah, much of it sucked, but there was one bit of excellent news; there’s a new NBA Jam coming, and it’s coming for the Wii. In the absence of it also showing up on the 360 or the ps3, you can rest assured I’ll definitely be buying that on release day.

Alright, now it’s time to watch Sony’s conference. Wish me luck.

I just finished watching Microsoft’s 2010 E3 Press Conference (thanks to Gamespot).

There’s no denying that I’m going to buy their new motion-capture peripheral, Kinect, the day it comes out. I will even preorder that sucker.

As always though, I’m concerned about the lag. It was very evident during some of the demos that they played at the show, most noticeably the adventures pack where the guy was jumping over and crouching under barriers, and collecting coins. Compared to how brilliantly Nintendo did table tennis in Wii Sports Resort, it’s positively embarassing.

Still, it all looks smoking hot, and coupled with Rock Band 3, I anticipate actually having some games to play this coming Christmas. There’s a first.

Oh yeah, and for anyone who doesn’t know, at the end of the conference Microsoft announced a new, slimmer 360, and then gave everybody in the audience one. While this was obviously just designed to curry favour with the attending press, I question the need. Really, if you have the money and/or connections to be able to afford to actually be at that conference, it occurs to me you should be among the last on the planet eligible for such a handout.

I’m going to give you a great example of where I’m going with this one.

Among other purchases, one of the titles I recently picked up from Amazon UK was Surrogates on Blu-Ray, and I got it for £8.50. The Aussie dollar is currently fetching £0.57, which means that, in my currency, I paid approximately $14.91AU for it.

The only problem is, Surrogates is still selling for $40.00AU over here, and I put that in italics because that’s pretty much the price it released at.

So yeah, the situation blows over here. I could hit you with a lot more, like how corrupt the banks and the government are, but you get the point.

Out of curiosity, the Aussie dollar would have to drop from buying £0.57 to buying only £0.21 before I would be better off just getting it from a local store. I don’t think it’s ever been that low.

I bought a shiny new third-generation Ipod Touch to replace my ageing old first-generation Touch about a week ago, and iTunes has been nothing but a headache ever since.

My iTunes install on my desktop would refuse to sync across any of my applications. I tried replacing the cable, restoring my device, deleting and redownloading individual apps… nothing worked.

It’s fair to say that my first two hours with it were met with nothing but frustration and purchase regret, and that’s a really bad way to get started.

I ended up installing iTunes on my laptop, and at first, everything was ok. It would actually sync across my purchased games to the device, which was exactly what I wanted.

That lasted a couple of days. Then it would never actually finish sync’ing. Replacing the cable (again) has fixed the problem, but I must admit, I’m starting to find myself wondering just what the next problem with this shit is going to be.

Apple’s hardware is great. Truly, very great. It looks good, it’s well-designed, fast, comfortable… all in all, it’s great to own. Unfortunately, the software team are definitely letting the side down, and it’s made what should’ve been a pleasurable experience a right pain in the arse.