NVinNYC

I played a Wii for the first time last week, and I’ve been mulling over my reaction and after much though it could really be summed up rather simply:

“Meh.”

I mean, I only played Wii Sports, but I really don’t understand what the big deal is about. I see Wii like computer solitaire: a complete waste of my time. Are people that hard-up for simple games? (Answer: yes, apparently so, because the casual gaming market is in the middle midst of an explosion.)

Yes, the motion controller is kind of cool. Yes, it does bring some new dimension to the games. But no one seems to realize there is a trade-off that comes from this controller. Designing a game around the motion control means you leave the traditional schemes behind, and with that you sacrifice a lot of depth because the Wiimote is not really a precision input device like a button. Sure it makes a great pointer but so does a mouse (plus, a mouse is hundreds of times more sensitive). So you loose a lot of accuracy from the motion control and this means you have to make your game ‘looser’ to compensate.

It’s akin to the difference between playing Halo with your Xbox controller joystick or playing with the mouse a keyboard: when you play with a joystick the game takes this into account and gives you a margin of error (auto-aim). On the flip side, mice are accurate to the point that an auto-aim feature in a shooter would be considered kiddie mode or outright cheating. The difference between the Wiimote and a joystick works on the same level. The game has to make assumptions that you’re doing the right thing as long as you’re close enough even more so than a the joystick. This makes the experience feel sloppy to me and it ruins the whole illusion that “Wow, it’s like I’m really swinging the bat.”

So yeah, I’m done with the Wii at least until they get the next Super Smash Brothers out (which I’ll be playing with a GameCube controller anyway).

Disclaimer: I’m a mouse and keyboard PC gamer (I’m lumping Macs with PCs here). I was raised on the likes of SimCity, Civilization, and WarCraft. My favorite games are mostly hard RPGs (D&D) and real time or turn based strategy games. I like games where there is a lot of tactical decision making, where you have to think a lot, and where you have to work the math and numbers on your units/characters to succeed against your opponent. I’m exactly the wrong type of gamer for the Wii I think.

But honestly, if I really wanted to bowl, I would go bowl. At least then I would feel like my physical actions were having a strong impact on the outcome of the game.

I decided it was time for a new site theme when I saw iTheme by N.Design Studio. It’s pretty nifty (but not perfect, the search button works but doesn’t look right). I like the main title bar with the Home & Contact links very visible. Another nice effect is that you can move and collapse the right sidebar items to suit your preferences.

I still plan on rolling my own for ‘NVinNYC 2.0: No Longer in NYC’ (if you will) but this should serve me well in the meantime.

I still think you’re better off subscribing to my RSS feed than actually visiting the site though…

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84. See his NY Times profile.

This is the first celebrity (meaning well known artist/musician/author/actor etc.) deaths that have happened in my lifetime that truly saddened me (most celebrities I like are still young and a few have been dead before I liked them).

I, regrettably, have yet to read many of his books. I did see him on The Daily Show back in 2005 and he was definitely edging on senility back then, so maybe it really was his time. Commedy Central has an archive of that appearance (though the list they mention is dead on their site, here is a mirror).

So it goes.

(Via DF Linked List.)

Seven steps to remarkable customer service from Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software is really a great read. It’s particularly interesting for people with customer service experience but it’s pertinent to everyone since dealing with customer service can be such a hassle these days.

Some of these tactics are ones I used regularly working as a Genius. Number 6, ‘Practice puppetry’, was particularly helpful because I always had to remember customers were upset with Apple, not myself, even though they would address their complaints to me directly (“You make these iPods so break right after the warrantee expires!”).

Others are areas that I can see myself improving on if I ever worked a customer service related job again, like number 4, Take the blame’. Apple would do well to take note of several of the tips as well. Number 1, ‘Fix everything two ways’ particularly could use improvement on Apple’s part because it seems like even a technical guy like me has trouble getting through to them to tell them about a problem or bug in their software. I feel like Apple could also take heed of a tidbit number 3, ‘Make customers into fans’ too; it’s really important to reduce wait times to talk to someone about your problem. I can’t tell you how many time I started repair talks on a bitter note because someone was upset at having to wait 3 hours for a Genius Bar appointment or because they spent hours on the phone with Apple Care only to be referred to the Genius Bar to start the repair process over.

Some of these lessons obviously would be difficult to scale to large companies like Apple, any other large company for that matter, but it’s all the more important to consider them because of that. Joel is right, most customer service is so bad that we avoid it: I know that I want to complain to Wells Fargo about how they charged me debit card fees unjustly, but it’s not worth the money or frustration this would cause me to bother. It seems like the same is true at most ISPs, cable providers, cellphone companies, and computer manufacturers (and I include Apple in this category). I don’t know how this became an acceptable business practice (I have some partial theories) but it’s really inexcusable and it needs to be improved.

Now who wants to bust up some Starbucks?

(Via Swiss Miss though I seem to remember seeing this linked elsewhere before.)

The top 5 things I’m looking forward to enjoying after finally graduating, in acceding order:

• Sleeping on a regular schedule.
• Reading books for fun.
• Motoring.
• Having a personal (shared with friends) apartment with a real kitchen & bathroom but without skitzo heaters, poor lighting, cramped spaces, fire alarm evacuations, and douches yelling in the halls & leaving messes all over.
• Not ever worrying about homework.