The folks over at Blog Azeroth have something called a ’shared topic’; different bloggers respond to a similar theme.
This week’s theme is:
Have you ever been out and about, minding your own business, having a casual conversation with a friend and fellow WoW player about the latest patch or last night’s dungeon, then some random stranger comes up to you and says something like, “Hey, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear, but do you guys play WoW? I’ve got a level XX [race] [class] on [server]“?
The scene described above hasn’t exactly happened with me, but I still giggle when I remember …
I manage ERP software implementation projects in Real Life; my job takes me to customer locations literally around the globe. Usually, I show up at the client site to help people work through usage of the software within their plant / office location. Well, I had been working with this one client (an automotive parts manufacturer in the middle of Tennessee) for several months getting everything ready to go; we were getting ready to run a mock cutover and practice dropping the old way and adopting the new way. So, I arrive at oh-dark-thirty on a Monday morning to get everything rolling (dang factories and their 6:30 am shifts).
The morning passes and we’re nearing a lunch break. Lunch was very specific in it’s start time — precisely 12:00 noon. Now, I wasn’t sure if that was leftover factory regimental time culture or what, but I just moved on and rolled with the flow.
So anyways, the entire team disappears at noon and I fend for myself at lunch (downside to my gig, I eat alot of Quiznos, Subway or fast food). I get back 30 minutes later and wander around looking for the team to regroup on some of the issues from the morning. I find them all in the training room.
The overhead lights are off, and every single person is glued to a PC.
They’re on a conference call, but they’re not talking about business at all.
The eight people I was working with had conferenced in two others from a different plant.
They were raiding Karazhan.
Apparently, they took an hour each day to progress to one or two bosses at a time in Kara (that first day they did Attumen & Midnight and Moroes. The raid team was all co-workers.
And, they were Alliance (at the time I was a Troll Hunter) so I got grief for being the enemy.
It made for an interesting week — I never had to plan around WoW Raids before, certainly not in the ‘office’. It was strange having to schedule meetings and training sessions around a WoW raid. The upside for me was that I got to see Kara — at the time my guild was more for chatting and not able to even form 5m parties let alone raids, so observation was the closest I got. The downside was that I had to hear from the Purchasing Manager (a Night Elf Hunter) how superior Night Elves were than Trolls.
Check out some other views on this topic…
Adhedodit on 
Awesome story, wished I worked in that enviroment! The closest I have gotten to WOW in a work enviroment is having to explain to my colleague (Who has no idea whatsoever about gaming )why I used most of the work’s data cap to install huge patches. Where I live our data is capped
and unlimited data costs a fortune!
[...] Artie from Blade Barrier [...]
First let’s talk about the mobile phone design. The primary concern of a lot of testers and researchers are both the guise and feeling of brand phones. To make these phones look good, they provide plenty of their time and effort, this matches the prices permitted by the executive.
China cell phones almost always skip this step. They typically will download a pre-existing phone case molding and then use their own electronics and components inside. They base their moldings on iPhone or BlackBerry, which are internationally famous brands, therefore China mobile phones look fake. They do this as it’s less expensive to copy the molding of other phones rather than to create their own.
Second we should talk about the mobile phone’s chipset. famus Branded Cell Phones use a variety of different chips for the cell phones they make. Chips with high spead are usually not vital with the latest flasher functions of a phone. Phones marketed to a lower end base can use chip sets that cover a processing rate that is certainly much slower, making the cost much lower in comparison. Chinese cell phones are almost certain to be running off only the MTK chip set. Run of There are two levels in phones with MEDIATEK chip sets. The first generation (MTK6225) will frequently be utilized for lower cost phones, and more than giving a phone normal functions like calling and messaging, also lets the phone contain touchscreen capabilities, WAP internet capabilities, and standard multimedia abilities (akin to a camera/ video camera, MP4 player, MP3 player, etc). On another end is the MTK6235 which is included with faster MHz processing making lager screens possible, higher res cameras, EDGE connection speed, and Internet connection via Wifi. Both aren’t as fast and powered as the branded ones. Nevertheless, to the China cell phones makers, they really are a bonus due to the fewer fee also availability.
it’s the mobile phone’s Operation System.
branded Cell Phones have different operating systems from others. Cutting corners means obtaining the right to use and settle in other companycell phones.
The nucleus OS is used by virtually all China phones manufacturers. They use this OS because it is usually easy with light weight structure, not much processing speed, abundant supply and durability.
Finally we should talk about the cell phone’s UI .
Branded ones use an interface that’s personalized with their OS. This is done to ensure that the phone can have a matchless look and feel which separates them from the set of other cell phones. China phones have the ability to invent a large choice of differing UIs when using the nucleus OS. Many times however, they use this ability not to make new interfaces to separate themselves from competitors, while primarily to simply re-erect better known ones from brand name phones. The Chinese do this likewise to be equal with the phone mold case, or even to imitate a popular one. A hackneyed interface that’s often constructed for phones might be a variation of the icon driven interface that the iPhone made famous. All in all, the manufacturers of the China mobile phones do have the opportunity of putting up several devices that genuinely are different (both in design and in system) from acknowledged brand name phones. A good advice to follow is you take care of any supplier that you have from China. Their directory may well include tons of “Real” cell phones at very low prices, and then the cell phone possibly will even appear just like an actual model, perhaps that they are fake even so. Please keep in mind, when you purchase your phone from this type of China cell phones dealer..