I was sold when you said "direct flights from Vancouver". One of the biggest pain points for me is having to get connecting flights in the east coast for most destinations we plan to go to.
I've always enjoyed playing and modding D2, so when D2R launched I bought it and again went into modding and what not, all single player. A while after that i got an email saying i had been banned. I tried hopping on a single player game and it worked so i didn't care too much since i don't play online anyways. However, to my surprise, 30 days after the ban when i tried to play i was greeted by a message saying that i had been offline for too long and needed to log back in to "verify ownership" of the game, which i obviously couldnt since i got banned, so i couldn't even play offline/single player.
Luckily i managed to get in touch with an understanding support rep who unbanned me, but not without a "stop modding if you don't wanna get banned again" message, which is absurd. I paid for the game and i should be able to do whatever i want with it within the confines of my own computer.
It's still your platform, though. "License" is not a contract, you paid them not the other way around. What they are doing is probably illegal nevermind immoral.
I.e. it is a form of slavery, which I guess you are paying for? Which is a type of scam. The mgmt who work at these AAA shops belong in the dumpster bin of humanity.
You hand over rights to your platform which you, not they, bought and paid for, and provide them with lucrative information, and are now bound to do whatever they say? Some hot nonsense, if I ever heard it.
Then why buy the game? It’s not like it’s a new thing for Blizzard/Activision/EA. It’s literally some unholy trifecta that I just do not buy games from any more.
While I agree you "shouldn't" buy the game, we shouldn't even be giving legitimacy to these practices at all. We generally try to prosecute snake-oil salesmen, shutdown hucksters, put con-men out of business, etc..
There are unfortunately many reasons why people might buy the game - false advertising, lack of proper research, peer pressure from a poorly informed populous. You may be tempted to say "you should do your research", and while I agree you generally should, its also true its impractical to research everything. The same way I shouldn't have to go into a grocery store and have to worry about if the peanut butter is poisoned with salmonella, a consumer be able to purchase a product, and have the reasonable expectation that they can do what they want with the product within the confines of their own home.
Finding out after you have purchased a game that it is arbitrarily locked down, and that you have little recourse to get your money back, is a form of fraud.
I had the same experience. Id say they just don't approve most of the reviews.
I would think most (real) people only leave a good review when things go EXTREMELY WELL. Not the same for bad reviews though, which means real people will more often than not leave reviews pointing problems and shortcomings than praising a product. That, at least in my head, would result in less sales and so making the review workflow painful for the user is by design.
I just checked on my account and I have 126 published reviews on Amazon. I can recall around 10 that were denied, about half of which seemed "OK, that's fair in retrospect" and a modest edit and resubmit got them published. The other half of the denies I couldn't really figure out and just ignored (some of which were solid product, 4 or 5 star reviews).
I have several 1-star reviews among the published.
In those situations i do feel stupid but also feel relieved. Fixing a semi-colon is easier than fixing some major logic flaw that could have way deeper and worse ramifications.
I think it happened enough that some newer compilers actually post a warning message when it is encountered. Just like switch statements when you don't have a break; statement for every case: clause. In some cases you want the logic to fall through, but it can cause havoc when you didn't want that and you just forgot the break.
Not gonna lie, im considering moving from BC to a farm in NS. With the mortgage i have on a 2 bdr apartment in the lower mainland i can buy up to 3 farms in NS, which is comically sad.
Side fact, not really criticism: When I see abbreviations for US states, my brain starts inserting anything that comes to mind and is a location. In this case:
"BC? British Columbia? NS? New Jersey, no that's not with an 's' ... Arg, no idea!"
It is not mandatory for me to understand all the abbreviations. Just that sometimes I would like to understand more, without having to guess states.
