Celebrate the attempt!

There's a sad tendency I've seen grow in the past few years.  Someone tries to do something positive.  But it isn't perfect.  Immediately, people tear down the attempt by picking on the imperfection.
A few years ago, I tried a low-carb diet.  I was very disappointed with a number of my friends who immediately decried the diet and my attempt at it.  I don't discount the risks inherent in dieting, and ultimately I didn't sustain it.  But was the right approach to attack an attempt I was making to make a positive change in my life?
In another vein, I was discussing the recent theft from the Salvation Army with an acquaintance.  They were citing the theft as a reason not to support the Salvation Army.  Again, I was very disappointed.  The Salvation Army had done a great deal of good over the years.  It's unfortunate that someone within the organization chose to besmirch that reputation, but to decide they are unworthy of support on that basis is absurd.
Is the problem that we've latched on to aphorisms like "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time?"  When someone can't or doesn't teach the man to fish, are we right to chastise them for giving the fish?  They did something good, but it wasn't good enough?
There's nothing wrong with a desire for perfection.  I've always believed we should strive for it.  But I recognize that we strive for perfection, not in the hope of success, but in the hope of achieving excellence.  I also think we need celebrate the attempts as much as we celebrate the victories.

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Jimcon II

We had a great time at Jimcon this year.

First, I want to say how cool it was to play Fleet Admiral with so many different people.  When everyone from kids new to the hobby to the more 'seasoned' gamers have a good time with the game, you know it's great.

Second, participating in the game designer's panel was both scary and flattering.  Part of me felt I had no business being there, as it still doesn't seem like we know half of what we need to.  But I was honoured to share our experiences in the hopes that they helped the participants.  Thanks to all who attended.  You were a rocking audience.

Finally, I'm very pumped (despite the exhaustion) about Space Tub.  I really think this has potential and we need to go full bore on working on it.  Everyone seemed to like it (even when the 'in your face' aspects of the game came out (and maybe even liked it more then)).

Jim, you rock!  Thanks for a great convention.

Next Year -- Fleet Admiral Tournament!

~The David

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Cafe Brit Tour

Well, the rain has finally stopped.

I took the opportunity to go on a Cafe Brit tour.

They offer a few different tour options. I chose the Coffee Lovers tour. It included a pick-up at my hotel, a tour of their nursery and their roasting area, as well as a tour of a nearby wet mill operation.

The guides are great. They bring a bit of humour to things. Some of it's a bit campy, but that seems to be what they're going for. Overall I loved the tour. Two of the guides are in the picture below.


Some Ripe Coffee.


The Coffee Roaster (think of how many cups that would make me :) )


Quality Control is important. Have to check out the beans.


Here's Andrew learning to make Espresso.


And here's a very artistic Cappuccino.

All the tour participants were great. We had a couple of other Canadians (Vancouverites, but what can you do?) There was a couple from Belgium, Russell and his wife who were from Orlando (great people). We also met Claudia from Switzerland and Monica from Italy.

I spent a bit too much at the gift shop, but hey, it's coffee. It was a really great day.

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Yet more Costa Rica Pictures

Andrew (being braver than I) decided to go ziplining. I figured there was a perfectly good sky tram as a way to get down, but he took the 'fast' route.

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More Pictures from Costa Rica

Some shots from the rest of the trip.

We visited a Butterfly sanctuary.

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Resurrection Time

Well, I'm resurrecting the blog to allow me to post some of my pictures from Costa Rica. Andrew Lindeman and I went to the Arenal Volcano over the weekend. It was a fascinating trip, although I must confess to some anxiety as we negotiated the treacherous curving roads from San Jose to La Fortuna.

We stayed at the Arenal Paraiso Hotel. Not bad for the money, but it's not a high end hotel by any means. Good for 1 night when you really just need a bed.

The restaurant wasn't bad, and the view from the room was great (looking out at the volcano)

Andrew went off to use the Hot Springs at the hotel (which he didn't really think a great deal of. If you're looking for hot springs, you probably would do better to stay at the Baldi Resort.) I took some shots of the area, and went to check out the souvenir shop (overpriced and kitschy). I then decompressed for a bit. We went out to dinner at one of the restaurants. Good live music and okay food.

Sunday we got up early and drove to one of the viewing areas for the Volcano. 3 kilometres away from an active volcano is a really cool place to visit, but I don't know if I'd want to live there.




That's all for now. I'll post some of the Sky Tram shots next

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A Blizzard of Customer Service

Well, it's been forever, but I've finally found something about which I can rant without breaking any of my own rules. Let's start with the background.
Recently, JP went and dragged me into World of Warcraft. I had been intentionally avoiding this because I really didn't see the point of paying over and over, every month for a game. Not something I really wanted to do. But he got a number of my friends in on it, and finally I caved.
Now I'm hooked. Blizzard has put together a very compelling game. It has all the right twists to hook people. The gameplay is engaging, the rewards and risks keep things interesting, and it's got such variety that you can always find something new. I've always felt Blizzard was the best game company out there, and this just validates that.
However they have a lot to learn about customer service. Having purchased the game to upgrade my trial account, I also set up a Paypal account to allow me to continue my subscription. Blizzard advertises that you can use Paypal if you live in North America. This works for me as I don't and won't use credit cards.
What Blizzard doesn't say is that even if you use Paypal, you still have to use a credit card. They require Paypal (according to the information provided to me by Paypal) to ask me for a credit card before they will allow me to set up Paypal as a payment method.
But that's not even the true customer service failure. The real failure was achieved when I contacted them to find out why they require this. I've run into one of the classic service failures. The complete failure to pay attention to what the customer is saying. At best Blizzard's responses imply that they haven't even read my email. At worst they are being deliberately obfuscatory. And we'll see if they even keep my business.

I've pasted the Email chain below. I have deleted a fair bit of the header information for readibility. I have not edited either my emails or Blizzard's.

* * *

I was trying to use my PayPal account to continue my subscription to World of Warcraft, however when I got to the PayPal portion of the process, it demanded I put a credit card on my PayPal account to complete the purchase. When my friend JP convinced me to give World of Warcraft a try, one of the only reasons I was willing to do so was that you had started to accept PayPal. I don't use credit cards, and being mobility challenged I don't want to have to get to a store to purchase your game card options.
My first assumption was that this was a PayPal requirement, but their customer service department assures me it is your requirement. I would hope you would reconsider that requirement. As a former Customer Service Analyst (admittedly not in the computer game field), I can see supposed business reasons for making such a decision, but none of them are truly customer friendly reasons.

David Badilotti

* * *

Greetings David,

If you would like to change your account's payment method to use PayPal, please visit the Account Management page (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account). To use PayPal to pay for your subscription, simply select the PayPal option on the subscription setup screen. You will be required to log in to your PayPal account and agree to the Terms of Service.

**PLEASE NOTE: After successfully setting up a PayPal subscription via Account Management, payment validation may take up to 60 minutes before you will be able to login to the game. Once this process is complete, you will be able to start playing again. Thank you for your patience and understanding.**

For more information on PayPal, or to set up an account, please visit http://www.paypal.com/. Please keep in mind that you can *only* process a PayPal payment through our website; due to privacy concerns we are not able to manually add PayPal payments over the phone. Any specific questions about your PayPal account should be directed to PayPal support.

For more information on using PayPal with your World of Warcraft account, please review our FAQ at: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20518

If you have further questions or concerns, Billing representatives are on hand to take your call Monday through Friday between 8am and 8pm PST, at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (800-592-5499). Customers in Australia should call 1-800-041-378. Our Billing team will be happy to assist you with any billing related questions. You may also contact them via email at billing@blizzard.com.


Regards,

Blake R.
Billing and Account Services
Blizzard Entertainment
Blaker.support@blizzard.com
http://worldofwarcraft.com/account

* * *

Blake,

Well that was an amusing use of script. You might want to consider reading the email and responding to the actual issue.

Care to give it another try?

David B.

* * *

Greetings David,

Allow me to point out where your question can be answered. Since Paypal information as well as the use of credit card information is all considered highly volatile, we do not handle these over e-mail.

"For more information on PayPal, or to set up an account, please visit http://www.paypal.com/. Please keep in mind that you can *only* process a PayPal payment through our website; due to privacy concerns we are not able to manually add PayPal payments over the phone. Any specific questions about your PayPal account should be directed to PayPal support."

Which, if you note, specifically gives you our answer to the question, which is, "I can't discuss that."

There are plenty of other methods you can use if you'd like to not have a credit card trail on our servers. The game cards that you mentioned are another viable option. You can also attempt to use the phone subscription method if your phone would allow for it.

Unfortunately, there are no other methods in place for payment outside of this. If you'd like assistance setting up any of the latter ones, I'd be more than willing to help or at least point you in the right direction.

Regards,

Blake R.
Billing and Account Services
Blizzard Entertainment
Blaker.support@blizzard.com
http://worldofwarcraft.com/account

* * *

Blake,

So let me see if I understand your answer.

My question was "Why do you require Paypal to ask me for my credit card information before you will let me use that as a payment method." Your answer is that Paypal and Credit card information are too volatile to discuss in email. That seems to be a bit disingenuous to me. I think a more frank answer would simply be that you do not know why that is required. I'd probably have accepted that and simply asked for you to pass the feedback on.

Ah well, fodder for the mill I guess.

Thank you for responding as best you can.

David B.

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