I must say, when WoW first came out, I really could care less. The hell I was going to pay monthly for a game I may not play that often.

Then I finally, after hearing my 11-year old exclaim about this game for so long, went out and bought a copy. After 20+ years of video gaming, all I can say is "HOLY COW!"

This game embodies so many things I like in a game, despite the steep $15 a month fee, it is totally worth it and like the millions before me, I'm hooked.

-----

After playing a while though, I began to realize how much it would help if there were an option to actually purchase (for real money) gold inside the game. Lo and behold, there are websites out there that do exactly this! I was saved, thank god, because every other level there's just never enough gold to get all the skills I want :P

The next thing you know, Blizzard is going after these sites for offering this great service, because either they don't like it, they feel it is unethical, or they simply don't want others making money off their game (I'll put my money on #3). Whatever the reason, they are systematically shutting down these sites that do these things, when realistically they are attracting and keeping players playing and paying for this game each and every month.

Ok, so Napster went away and a pay service popped up in its place many years later (iTunes). So why doesn't Blizzard follow this same logic?

I mean, they already make over a Billion (with a B) dollars a year on the recurring monthly fees for this game, why not make even more money by offering gold for real currency themselves?

Is it ethics?

Is it control?

Is it something else?

Please tell me because it makes no sense to me why Blizzard would shut these sites down, if they had no plans of offering the service themselves. It isn't an unfair advantage, as some may say. I could say that about all of the immigrants that own homes versus hard working American's that don't. Bottom line is, money talks and bullcrap walks. It has always been the way commerce is, and will be for a long time.

So Blizzard, how about putting up or shutting up?

What do you think?

54 Undead Priest:  Lacksy
Realm:  Uther
Guild: Chosen

For those that live in states that have Fry's Electronic's computer and electronics superstores, you'll understand my rant.

I know computers, I've been dealing with them for over 20 years. I know what I want, and I certainly don't go to a Fry's for advice - I go there for selection and price, thats it.

The biggest problem with Fry's is the fact that they don't completely test items returned by customers before they re-tape em and shove em back on the shelf.

I bought a CDRW/DVD drive recently, that had been returned and restocked. Now normally I NEVER buy items such as this, but it was such a good price I figured maybe the person that returned it didn't know what they were doing. Maybe they aligned the red stripe on pin 40. Who knows? Either way, I was determined to make this drive work.

To make a long story short, I should have stuck with my instincts and not bought something previously returned to Fry's. In this case, it appears the previous customer that sent this drive back to Fry's returned it for a good reason.

The drive appears to work just fine, until you get a "Cannot find file" error while installing an OS on a drive with it. When you search for the cause of the error on Microsoft's website, they tell you the drive cannot spin up quick enough for Windows setup to detect it.

Great, the drive is defective, but not in a way that anyone testing returned equipment at Fry's would ever catch. I'm sure they took it out of the box, plugged it in, booted up a machine with it plugged in, saw the ready light and shut it down. Blammo, its good and user error, back on the shelf it goes!

This is an inherent problem at Fry's and I've been shopping there for many, many years. I wish they paid more attention to the product they place on their shelves, or I may just decide to start spending more money on my computer parts at Best Buy or CompUSA, yeah!

Wait a minute, did I just say spend MORE money on Computer parts? Ok, nevermind, I'm nuts. I guess Fry's has me locked in with their great prices.

I suppose, this is just one of those "prices you pay in order to get the prices you want to pay", eh?

Until next time,

-AdamV