Bobby. OH Bobby. Bobby Kotick, I’m not gonna yell at you. I can’t blame you. I want to, but I can’t. Like I can’t blame Roy Williams for 14 losses in one season.

Note to Bobby: Do Not Emulate

But like Roy, you’re responsible for what happens on your ship, Bobby. You are. And you just let two of the top boys on your team walk out the door, and you know they’re walking straight to the other team, and there aren’t any transfer regulations, and let me assure you, Mr. West and Mr. Zampella are elligible. And they’ll play, and you’ll be awfully lucky if they don’t make something to break your new “high-margin digital online” COD action-adventure in half.

BTW, They’re going to.

That said, I see where you’re coming from. Picard would thrown ‘em in the brig. Kirk would just beam ‘em into space, but either way, they wouldn’t be coming back.

Look out, sweetheart, because there’s gonna be a nasty new IP in the water.

Just To Clarify: Bobby, you are NOT the guy with the ball.

Just to clarify, for those of you that haven’t been slammed in the face with it today, Jason West and Vince Zampella were two top-end members of the Infinity Ward team that brought you what has been hailed as the best first-person shooter franchise ever. The studio’s resume reads like an annual Game-Of-The-Year list: Call of Duty. Call of Duty 2. Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Call of Duty Modern Warfare II. So not actually like an annual Game-of-The-Year list, but really actually an annual Game-Of-The-Year list.

Good job dropping the ball, Bobby. Or rather catching it, running a few yards, turning back, seeing the defense about 50 yards behind you, celebrating early, running back 20 yards, twirling like a sissy ballerina, napping, and then THROWING THE BALL TO THE DEFENSE AND THROWING THE GAME ON PURPOSE. Good job.

Just To Clarify: This time, Bobby, you're the one with the ball

Love, and sincere regret for your sleepless night you must be having,

James.

Here it comes…..

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who ever was updating this Kelley Blue Book page was trying to work and try to ignore a distraught friend. Hey, who can blame them….

Unfortunately though, Kelley Blue Book caught the error and immediately corrected the paste fail.

But this is what it originally looked like.

Humans, they can be so dramatic. That’s why I would rather be a cylon. =)

[via Reddit and imgur]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sorry to BREAK it to you, girls. But you ain’t no Heidi Klum.

Besides the fact the girl almost cracks her skull open, what I find so ridiculous is how her friend tries to help her by making her lay on the towel. As if that thin piece of cotton would make the hard wood floor any softer or the pain radiating through her skull go away. What a friend….

Lesson learned, Kids: Leave it to the professionals.

I'm Awesome

Here we are again, a day late thanks to some technical issues, but here regardless, to discuss, bash, praise and poop all over some stuff happening in the MMO world.  Two come to the forefront this week.  As you’ll recall from the past week, we’ve been dealing with Blizzard and their lack of follow-through on their Warcraft Twitter contest.  There has been some updates and potential closure on that issue as well as some other things happening in Azeroth.  Warhammer has fallen on tough times, it seems.  I stated previously that I was going to hop into the game, and see what was what with the new patch and if it fixed the glaring issues destroying the core of the game.  Read on after the break!

As we’ve been delving into Blizzard’s failure of their management of their @Warcraft Twitter account’s #Battlecry contest, some rather disturbing news had unfolded.  It seems my case was far from an isolated event, that people from all over Twitter who participated in and won the contest were left out in the cold, waiting without word about what would happen to their winnings.  Well, it seems some applied pressure in a few of the right places and some help by the big dogs at WoW.com themselves has broken this case wide open!  A few days after my article and only hours after WoW.com’s coverage of the issue, I received the following mail in my inbox, as did apparently dozen of other contest winners.

We win!

Thank you to the folks at Blizzard, if it is a bit late.  All we wanted was this, some confirmation that the contest was not in fact some sort of MMO Marathon induced fever dream.  This issue has been closed for the time being, but I will be sure to keep all of our readers updated on exactly what we receive as prizes!

Now, Warhammer.  Poor, dying Warhammer.  Let’s face it folks, the game is done.  This week, it was announced and now confirmed that 80 layoffs have hit the Mythic staff.  Yes, 80.  That is roughly 40% of their entire team.  With Mythic working on Star Wars: The Old Republic alongside Bioware, as well as maintaining two older MMORPGs still… Well, I cannot help but think my prediction of Warhammer’s demise might come true sooner rather than later.  But wait, you say!  They introduced patch 1.3.2, all of the game play issues are fixed!

Not true.  Mythic has, once again and as usual, steered their Failboat of a company into the rocky waters of false promises and half truths.  I re-upped my Warhammer account and logged in, so hopeful that the game would be playable and all of the glaring combat mechanics fixed.  FAIL.  Tier 1 is highly populated right now due to the introduction of their “Endless Trial” (Another admission of MMO Death, in my opinion) so I had no problem getting into fights and testing mechanics.  Still broken, although not as broken as before admittedly.   Melee lag is still present, as is casting animation lag, spell progress bar lag and a host of other issues that make playing with any sort of precision impossible.  But hey, in a game that encourages 40 people to collectively slam their head into 40 other people, I guess precision is a fantasy.  Its Warhammer, not Warscalpel, dammit!

Now for your Weekly Worgen!  Rumors and conjecture about the new Cataclysm race have been flying faster than the fur, but here is a confirmed fact!  It appears Sarah Palin, famous for being a massive asshat and naming her children after NASCAR and other stupid things, will be a quest giving NPC in the Worgen starting area.

LOL IM A REPUBLILYCAN

Twitter user, wilw, learned the hard way that cutting too close to the product, is sometimes way too close.  wilw, managed to cut the cord when giving birth to his new headset. I say, just cut your loses and buy another. Or how about splitting the cost of buying a brand new one and try to fix the wiring yourself. Or, you can… ok ok. I’ll stop. Sorry for your loss, buddy.

WoW, the 1989 edition!

This week’s post is going to be short and sweet, because I am none too pleased with Blizzard this week.  Yes, me, who usually tows the Blizzard line even if the decisions are questionable.  But these two gaffes are just too much for me to be quiet about.  The first, people know about.  The second is something they seem to be doing to a select few of us.

First off, I’m sure everyone has seen or heard of the new mini-pet microtransactions offered at the “Blizzard Pet Store”.  All arguments aside, this has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen any company do since, well, Age of Failnan was released.  I know they have microtransactions in the game already via character changes, but the difference couldn’t be more vast.  Paying $25 to put one’s self in a better playing situation, be it faction, server or race change is NOT a failure.  It is $25 going to making your MANY gaming hours much better for the future.  But $10 for a MINI-PET?  Get real.  At $2 or $3, this announcement would have raised, I speculate, no negative publicity at all.  But $10?  Let’s not mince words here… Anyone who buys one of these pets is a jackass.

I hate seeing the fact brought up of “Oh, well it’s going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation!”.  No, it isn’t.  Stop being a fanboy.  HALF of ONE of the pets is going to Make-A-Wish.  And only until December 31st.  So if some jackass buys $20 of pets, $5 goes to Make-A-Wish.  That’s a great use of $5, but don’t be an even bigger jackass and say you did it to make the donation.  If that were the case, I can provide a handy link where you can straight donate all of the $20 to Make-A-Wish.  Because only an asshat would justify their mini-pet purchase that way.  Also, to Blizzard?  Shame on you.  I expect more from you guys… Either let 100% of the pet sales until December 31st go to Make-A-Wish OR let the $5 be donated forever, without a time limit.  This just reeks of “We want a quick way to make a ton of cash, and here is our cover for doing so(For now!)”.

The other gaffe is on a more personal level.  Some of you may remember, the @Warcraft Blizzard account on Twitter was doing a #Battlecry contest around Blizzcon time.  It involved tweeting your #battlecry for the Horde or Alliance whenever called for, and customized however you thought best.  Neat little contest.  Too bad nobody ever wins those things.

Turns out I won.  Yup, little ole’ me won the #battlecry contest.  What did I win?  No fucking idea.  As per the screenshot, I was told I won, submitted the required info and have even sent follow-up emails to Blizzard.  Two months later, still not a damn word from them.  I don’t care if it was a freaking “Battlecrier Tzeriel” title in-game.  Something that minor.  Just follow up on shit like that, dammit.

No, I’m not canceling my account.  I’ve put too much time into the damned game to just up and abandon it.  This does put a decent dent in my image of Blizzard, though, which has remained untarnished since the WarCraft: Orcs vs Humans days.

Despite all this, I’ve managed to get my hands on a screenshot of a Worgen in some Tier 12.5 Warrior battlegear.

HEY NED A TNAK???

Dear Evony.  You’ve already tarnished your name enough. Give it up. No one is going to play your game.

Oh, Home Shopping Network.  Every time you fail, there is someone with a DVR and an internet connection to amplify that fail.  In the video above, two sales people are trying to get you to buy a Nintendo Wii with all these included accessories that you don’t need. Why is it unnecessary? Go 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the video to find out.

Not sure if you have heard, but a while ago Microsoft was inviting people to sign-up to be chosen to host a Windows 7 party.  It was a viral marketing campaign full of fail right from the start. I mean, look at the “inviting” video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some people actually opted in for a chance at getting a Windows 7 party pack.  You might be thinking, why would anyone want to do that?! Well, hosts that get chosen actually get a full retail copy of Windows 7 in the pack.  One guy actually managed to convince Microsoft that he’ll be hosting a legitimate Windows 7 party.  After scooping up the free copy, he puts up the rest of the party pack up for sale on eBay.  Below are the excuses to why his “guests” didn’t come to the party:

Pete: I’ve got to work the drive-thru that night.
Reid: I’d love to come but I heard there is going to be Windows there.
Colin: Feeling too antisocial to come to a computer party :(
AJ: FidoNet relay forgot to pay their modem line’s phone bill, evite got delayed
Chris: Found out Windows 7 not available on 5.25″ floppy.
Kevin: I’ll be over as soon as I shut down my laptop. XP still has 72 updates to go.
Bryan: I was going to come to your party, but then I got high. I still have XP and I know why, yeah yeah, because I got high, because I got high, because I got high.
Andy: Didn’t realize you needed to own a computer to use Windows 7.
Mike: I was going to come to your launch party but then a girl called.
Ira: Sorry, my guild has a raid.
Adam: Thunderbird on Ubuntu sent your evite into the spam folder because it said, “windows 7 party.”
Amanda: I was going to come to your launch party but then a girl called.
Charles: Bing gave me the wrong directions.
Rich: MS-BOB not compatible with Windows 7. Not interested.
Mark: Needs more than 640k ram, which is more than I was told I would ever need.

So, if you’re up for paying $50 for a bunch of Windows 7 party swag, hit up his item page.