Morning Caffeinated! -- Foolish Guild Wars 2 players, Black Ops 2 cache, and a little Hearthfire

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for August 29, 2012. Topics include: Foolish gamers in Guild Wars 2; dropping some cash on Black Ops 2, a nice Hearthfire in Skyrim. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!

John Keefer

August 29, 2012 5:30 AM

It's Wednesday morning, Shack, and a hump day. First off, I want to offer a happy birthday to the gaming industry we know and love. It was around this date 40 years ago that the first home gaming system, the Magnavox Odyssey, was sold. Some good memories there, but I must admit that when I think I used to put things over the TV screen to simulate different venues for a little white square going back and forth, I cringe a little at my naivete. But fun is what we make it, right? Some good topics today, but we'll start with how stupid some gamers can be.

Guild Wars 2 drops the ban hammer

There was a fascinating thread on Reddit yesterday where an ArenaNet team member was nice enough to come in and answer questions from players about three-day account bans and inappropriate behavior in its newly released Guild Wars 2 MMO. Granted, some players were banned because they were unlucky enough to get hacked by a gold seller. But others were totally oblivious to the nature of their offense. One player was banned for the name Adolf Critler, while yet others were totally unaware of some of the highly offensive language they had used it chat, gracefully provided by the ArenaNet developer for everyone to see. The entire thread is pure comedy gold about how people just don't pay attention -- or care -- about others around them in a social gaming experience. It's sad when players find juvenile crude names or language to be clever, so I applaud ArenaNet for not only strongly enforcing their terms, but also allowing the public flogging to the culprits blind enough to question their banning. On a related note, Ozzie has been playing GW2 and he is planning a regular diary on his experience in the game starting later today. Based on the Chatty threads, we have seen how popular the game is with readers, so be sure to check back for Ozzie's impressions. * * * * * OK, show of hands: Who has paid more than $100 for a collector's edition -- any collector's edition? I know that there can be some pretty cool tsotchkes in some of them, but even I'm floored at the $180 price tag on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Prestige edition. It is essentially a footlocker filled with stuff, including a branded remote-controlled Dragonfire drone. I think my limit on paying for "cool" stops around $80, but I'm sure there will be people who have extra throw away income (and even those who don't) that will drop the cash just to have it. What's the most you have ever spent for a collector's edition? I really want to know. * * * * * Anyone surprised how lightweight the Hearthfire DLC is for Skyrim? Is anyone excited at the prospect of being able to adopt kids and have a virtual family in the little virtual house on the prairie? I guess it falls into the player housing requests that a lot of players have in some MMOs, but I just kinda get the feeling that someone from Maxis sneaked on to the Bethesda dev team and started mixing The Sims into my Elder Scrolls. Two great tastes that really don't go together. Granted, the price is relatively cheap, so I guess we'll wait to see the reactions from Xboxers come September 4, while the PC and PS3 folks can monitor the situation. * * * * * Random bits & Quick hits: The FAA is going to look at its PED policy early next year (and no, that is not performance enhancing drugs). Portable Electronic Devices may soon be allowed on planes ... PSOne classics are finally on the PS Vita after the 1.80 firmware upgrade. Very nice, but incredibly late. I suspect forgiveness will come quickly, though ... I get that Ubisoft is excited by Assassin's Creed 3 having ships, but another video focused on naval warfare? Maybe some Dramamine or an acupressure bracelet should be part of that collector's edition, hmmm? Flashback: The anniversary of the Odyssey made me think about my first gaming computer. It was a Commodore Amiga with 512K of RAM. My favorite game was Earl Weaver Baseball, and I'd buy all kinds of baseball books to input the proper player stats. One time, I made a typo and a .210 hitter was suddenly hitting .967 after 30 at bats. What was your favorite game on your first computer? Play well, folks, as we slide toward the weekend. Keef

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John Keefer

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August 29, 2012 5:30 AM

John Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated! -- Foolish Guild Wars 2 players, Black Ops 2 cache, and a little Hearthfire.

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for August 29, 2012. Topics include: Foolish gamers in Guild Wars 2; dropping some cash on Black Ops 2, a nice Hearthfire in Skyrim. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
- Johnny Law
  
   reply
  August 29, 2012 7:30 AM
  
  I'm not sure what the most I've paid for a special edition is... probably not much, relatively speaking, since I never splashed out for the crazy ones. I think the only one that ever came with any physical doodad that is still worth anything to me is BioShock, since I still like my Big Daddy desk buddy.
  - Mecha Tofu Pirate
    
     reply
    August 29, 2012 7:44 AM
    
    Do kickstarters count as special editions because I paid quite a bit for the Double Fine adventure game.
- jeffmoeller
  
   reply
  August 29, 2012 9:23 AM
  
  I paid $150 for the SWTOR CE, for me it was worth it, but that is the only game I've paid that much for. I also got the $100 Diablo 3 CE, but in general CEs are kind of rare for me, they have to have especially cool packaging or feelies to be worth it. Sometimes I wish I had the Skyrim CE for the statue, but I didn't have a job when it came out, so yeah.
- Onumis
  
   reply
  August 29, 2012 12:04 PM
  
  Only lvl 5 and someone is already trying to hack my GW2 account lols
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    August 29, 2012 7:15 PM
    
    Apparently there are a lot of cases of that.
- Ambient80
  
   reply
  August 29, 2012 9:51 PM
  
  The D3 CE was the most I've paid for one. The BO 2 one looks pretty badass, but too rich for my blood. I'll be interested to see what kind of quality the case is, however.