So.
After reading the scuttlebutt about 300,000 points on fireworks and 85 ghosts for the green car, I am unimpressed. I get the feeling they will reduce these numbers a bit, but probably something like 250,000. Thanks, VMK. I play on a Mac, and for some reason, fireworks and Haunted Mansion run very poorly on a Mac, even a tricked out G5 like mine (lest any pc boy deigns to show his arrogance about "too bad if your computer is not fast enough," meet me out back, kid. My G5 can beat up your Windows machine)... canadian and CL_Nedakh can attest to my extraordinary speed at vacuuming up ghosts this morning. All that means I will not be getting green car magic, and I really don't care. I've been thinking along the same lines as Chickysmom (who, if anybody needs reminding, is completely wonderful and VMK is going to be much worse off without her kindness)... what does it really matter about the quests? Sure, it's swell to have the car magic, and I can see how the Quest machine would be fun, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it. None of us should, but I am not here to preach, just to bury Caesar. Something like that.
I think Tomorrowland was launched with way too many problems, and if anyone wants to remind me that Disneyland's first day was plagued with problems I cordially invite them to shut up and stop comparing apples to aardvarks. At this point, the people behind the scenes of VMK should expect huge crowds online when they open a new land. They should expect the entire community to want to play the new stuff, and yet VMK went down what, three times on Tuesday? And the speed was insufferable, and the bugs abound. This is sloppy testing, sloppy planning, and sloppy execution. And then the VMK staff gets to hear us complain endlessly because the testers and programmers and logistics managers didn't do their job. All this crap for a free game.
So why do we complain? What right do we have, other than a certain emotional investment, and (at this point) thousands of hours of our time invested, to complain? Sure, it's Disney, but not exactly. It looked cool when it came out, and it got better, but then we started to accept little bits of absurd restrictions, like the wretched dictionary (don't do the dictionary dance, just find a way to say whatever you need to say without violating the terms and agreements!). And then the pin stuff started to get out of control (10,000 for Bat Magic, and now you can't get one of the quests completed if you did not have 10,000 credits to buy that Bat Magic... ridiculous!), and the more people who have joined, the more rude and crass people who have begun to erode the magic away (for the love of everything, who cares if someone is blocking you in the Pirates Game lobby after you complete a game? It's not like you have to go anywhere to play another game, and it's not all that difficult to re-enter the room... and if you want somebody to move, and that somebody is me, you had better learn the word "please" or go ahead and report me for refusing to cater to the ill-mannered "move" that you bleat out because you feel too superior or too busy to precede it with a "please." It's not that difficult to be courteous, and VMK could use a lot more pleasantries, especially now that everyone is so whacked off about the Tomorrowland situations.). But VMK is not quite Disney. It is a marketing tool, moreso than the Direct-To-Video sequels and Ariel's fish sticks t.v. dinners and maybe even more of a marketing tool than the Disney Stores... all of us VMK players want to go to a Disney park, no matter if it is the West coast or the East coast or somewhere in Japan or France (does anyone really want to go to the Hong Kong park? Didn't think so...). VMK is a completely brilliant marketing tool that makes us, more than ever, long to spend a week or two at a place of pure magic, and it makes us want to do this by turning us into addicts, of a sort, to yet another product the Disney corporation has churned out. I don't know if they counted on this strong a community, and I can tell you quite honestly I never thought I would become buddies with anyone I met on an online video game, but here we all are, and I have the sincere privilege of counting many of you as dear friends. Is that Disney magic? Who knows. Maybe. But it came out of us, not out of a game that is currently frustrating most of us, and irritating some of us to the point of wanting to quit because we feel betrayed by this originally-benevolent game, this harmless diversion that has taken over many of our lives. It's a bloody good thing they close VMK every night, or some of you would not sleep at all. Or bathe.
And that's what I have to say. If you've read this far, congratulations! Find me and I'll give you a Ned pin or something.
hagen
After reading the scuttlebutt about 300,000 points on fireworks and 85 ghosts for the green car, I am unimpressed. I get the feeling they will reduce these numbers a bit, but probably something like 250,000. Thanks, VMK. I play on a Mac, and for some reason, fireworks and Haunted Mansion run very poorly on a Mac, even a tricked out G5 like mine (lest any pc boy deigns to show his arrogance about "too bad if your computer is not fast enough," meet me out back, kid. My G5 can beat up your Windows machine)... canadian and CL_Nedakh can attest to my extraordinary speed at vacuuming up ghosts this morning. All that means I will not be getting green car magic, and I really don't care. I've been thinking along the same lines as Chickysmom (who, if anybody needs reminding, is completely wonderful and VMK is going to be much worse off without her kindness)... what does it really matter about the quests? Sure, it's swell to have the car magic, and I can see how the Quest machine would be fun, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it. None of us should, but I am not here to preach, just to bury Caesar. Something like that.
I think Tomorrowland was launched with way too many problems, and if anyone wants to remind me that Disneyland's first day was plagued with problems I cordially invite them to shut up and stop comparing apples to aardvarks. At this point, the people behind the scenes of VMK should expect huge crowds online when they open a new land. They should expect the entire community to want to play the new stuff, and yet VMK went down what, three times on Tuesday? And the speed was insufferable, and the bugs abound. This is sloppy testing, sloppy planning, and sloppy execution. And then the VMK staff gets to hear us complain endlessly because the testers and programmers and logistics managers didn't do their job. All this crap for a free game.
So why do we complain? What right do we have, other than a certain emotional investment, and (at this point) thousands of hours of our time invested, to complain? Sure, it's Disney, but not exactly. It looked cool when it came out, and it got better, but then we started to accept little bits of absurd restrictions, like the wretched dictionary (don't do the dictionary dance, just find a way to say whatever you need to say without violating the terms and agreements!). And then the pin stuff started to get out of control (10,000 for Bat Magic, and now you can't get one of the quests completed if you did not have 10,000 credits to buy that Bat Magic... ridiculous!), and the more people who have joined, the more rude and crass people who have begun to erode the magic away (for the love of everything, who cares if someone is blocking you in the Pirates Game lobby after you complete a game? It's not like you have to go anywhere to play another game, and it's not all that difficult to re-enter the room... and if you want somebody to move, and that somebody is me, you had better learn the word "please" or go ahead and report me for refusing to cater to the ill-mannered "move" that you bleat out because you feel too superior or too busy to precede it with a "please." It's not that difficult to be courteous, and VMK could use a lot more pleasantries, especially now that everyone is so whacked off about the Tomorrowland situations.). But VMK is not quite Disney. It is a marketing tool, moreso than the Direct-To-Video sequels and Ariel's fish sticks t.v. dinners and maybe even more of a marketing tool than the Disney Stores... all of us VMK players want to go to a Disney park, no matter if it is the West coast or the East coast or somewhere in Japan or France (does anyone really want to go to the Hong Kong park? Didn't think so...). VMK is a completely brilliant marketing tool that makes us, more than ever, long to spend a week or two at a place of pure magic, and it makes us want to do this by turning us into addicts, of a sort, to yet another product the Disney corporation has churned out. I don't know if they counted on this strong a community, and I can tell you quite honestly I never thought I would become buddies with anyone I met on an online video game, but here we all are, and I have the sincere privilege of counting many of you as dear friends. Is that Disney magic? Who knows. Maybe. But it came out of us, not out of a game that is currently frustrating most of us, and irritating some of us to the point of wanting to quit because we feel betrayed by this originally-benevolent game, this harmless diversion that has taken over many of our lives. It's a bloody good thing they close VMK every night, or some of you would not sleep at all. Or bathe.
And that's what I have to say. If you've read this far, congratulations! Find me and I'll give you a Ned pin or something.
hagen
oh my I have never heard of that word before.
ruining my magic I've had for Disney ever since I was 18 months old.
Nice Isca.
