coolasicebaby:As for eaglesfan, let's just pretend that child is not here.
For the record, I'm a 35-year old IT specialist who works in Information Services for a major sports apparel company, so you can show yourself the way out of this conversation if you can't conduct yourself like an adult.
Moving past the name-calling for a moment, the fact still remains that IBM holds a ton of corporate contracts, and anyone who works with their partners gets a Lenovo when they're hired. I have one too. I'm not going to kid myself into believing that thing can do anything well except crunch numbers and show my presentations, and neither should you.
If your company gave you your laptop, Lenovo or not, it most likely won't run this game.
coolasicebaby: Let's get it straight it is not down to people rigs , that's a sure thing.
I am sorry, but this is wrong. This is my profession. I earn my living doing this every day. This is definitely wrong.
I'll be the first to admit that there are more things that I don't
know
than things I do. I can't cook, can't fix a car or an HVAC system, and I can't run a mile
without becoming winded (damn cigarettes, don't start kids, seriously). However, this is not one of those of
things.
Most people are wrong in their assumptions about how computers and the internet work together. Not just a little wrong either; painfully, horribly, "wow I can't believe that's what you really think", wrong. Do you remember that guy who said the internet was a bunch of trucks driving through a series of tubes? Trucks in tubes!? Wow. Do they know or the average joe know the difference between a CDN and an app-server? No. For sure they don't. And that's perfectly ok! But that's just the tip of the iceberg in the story of the many layers of the internet.
But of course, since most everyone has a PC, they think they know how it and everything attached to it works. That's normal human nature. But it's just simply not the case. They know how to work it. They don't know how it works. Therein lies the key difference.
Everyone has a car, but that doesn't mean they KNOW how it works. They know how to press the gas and make it go. They know how to turn the key to make it start, and get from point A to point B. However, even the most fundamental understanding of the inner workings of the internal combustion engine they are sitting on is completely lost on them. I don't know how an internal combustion engine works either, but then again, I'm not yelling at my mechanic calling him a liar when he tells me what's wrong with my engine.
But oddly enough, that's exactly what happens here. I've had the good(?) fortune to have been on both sides (not with WGT per se, but what they do and what I do is the exact same thing executed on a slightly different platform). Every business has their "vocal minority" and it generally, but not always intersects with the "entitled crowd". There are always detractors, sometimes just for the sake of detracting (i.e. Trolls gonna troll). But again, this net does not catch all. There are plenty of upstanding forum members. Here and elsewhere.
I've had people leave comments for my company calling us racists because we feature TOO MANY black models on our sports apparel website. That's pretty damn ignorant, huh? Some stuff I couldn't even post here or I'd be banned. Unfortunately, this is what you usually get from the "vocal minority". The truth of the matter is, only on occasion will someone surprise you with a really good, insightful, well-thought out suggestion that is worth investigating. Most of what you get is ignorant or narcissistic ranting simply because the person has a platform on which to speak. Sorry, I know the truth hurts and that came on kinda quick, but you'll be ok.
Now, getting back on point, I find it funny because when WGT tells you it's you, because it is you, and even tries to give you suggestions to fix the problem the immdiate response, for whatever reason (let's call it internet bravado), you don't believe them. Instead, you call them liars and cheats. Countless threads. Some of the name calling borders on verbal abuse. This is not some faceless entity. These are real people with families and children, and you speak to them with such little or no regard. Some of things I've personally witnessed said to Icon is downright criminal and appalling, and I'm not easily offended (or offended at all, generally). But I sure as hell know the difference between right and wrong.
I've been around WGT longer than you think. From the beginning actually. Much, much longer than most of you, so I've had the ability to watch this play out for quite some time. (Let me throw out some names for my true contemporaries; SmoothSwinger, AvatarLee, marioc, tibbets, Faterson and that Snaike dude. Those two were a riot with their boilerplate nonsense.) Anyone remember the guy who was convinced WGT was putting subliminal messages in the grass, sky and clouds?
For the record, I am here legally and WGT knows exactly who I am, so you can squash the witch hunt before it starts. My previous account was closed at my request, and then this account was created much later. I even told WGT I would not compete until I regained Tour Legend status; a promise of which I honored fully.
I've watched countless GOOD forum moderators leave this place after a short stay, from WGTAlex to WGTniv to WGTwildcat and the myriad of others. You stop paying attention after a while, but I'm certain the full list is quite a roll-call.
Do you guys know why you don't see them around very long? It's because the "vocal minority" are usually bastur.d coated bastards with basturd filling. In other words, fresh delivery from the jerk store. I said the JERK store... (someone will get this)
Every game's forum is like this and it's too easy to get sucked in. Go check the forum for Star Trek Online, League of Angels, ANY game. You'll be able to identify the bastards quickly.
Think about this. If you only ever trusted the vocal minority, then literally everything everywhere would always suck. Every piece of anything ever made would be the worst thing anyone ever made. What would be the point in doing anything, ever?
And once again, please allow me to restate that the term "vocal minority" does not apply to all. There are stand-up members of this and any forum, and I believe that most of those folks know who they are. As do the former. I've digressed.
Back to my original point. It's remarkable really. An opportunity for quite a sociological case-study, because you wouldn't call your mechanic a liar. You wouldn't call the produce guy a liar when he tells you which melon is freshest and best to buy. No, instead you would simply accept your ignorance in that particular area of expertise and move on. Yet, people here won't do that. That's kind of an interesting double-standard.
Now I will concede to all of you that Flash isn't exactly the monument to perfectly working software, so a good part of the issues you experience here on WGT (and elsewhere) lie in the underlying flash functionality. Plenty of flash games lag on slower/cheaper (notice I said cheap, not old) PCs, so it boggles me why anyone expects little old WGT to fix what no one else ever has.
Why is it, you suppose, that Android and Apple are trying their damndest to kill off Flash? Is it because they can't get good meters on WGT either? No, of course not. It's because the Flash software itself is a resource pig (technical term), but sooooo many people still use it and depend on it that the big companies can't just jump ship completely. At least, not yet. Hence, "Occupy Flash" and other such "social movement" nonsense.
The analogies presented within are sound and apt. However, most people will not face the music because it's easier to blame the big, bad, (in reality actually really kinda tiny) faceless startup who's out to steal your hard earned monies.
Oh, and my most favorite "gotcha" is when people say "but of course the credits page still works". This perfectly exemplifies everything I've stated herein, and the ignorance that persists to exist. You are unable to even identify the difference between a content server and an application server. In other words, the game and the website live in different places. They are mutually exclusive. It's pretty easy to maintain a website. An application and all its various APIs on the other hand, especially one as enormous as WGT, can be quite a difficult beast to control.
WGT does QA everything they put out there, and I promise you they work hard doing it. Every software development company does. The game would cease to function if they did not. However, it is nearly impossible to replicate your LIVE environment EXACTLY in a testing environment ( i know I just lost a lot of you, but hang on). There are numerous subtle differences that can otherwise hide or obstruct what should be obvious errors. These are called integration defects, and they are fairly commonplace. WGT is not being lazy. All software development companies suffer from this. It is difficult to keep a large website free of integration defects. Let alone an application of this magnitude. You can never be 100% sure what will happen when you throw your code "over the wall" (e.g. send it live to the public).
Lastly, WGT can do nothing to prevent cheating, because nothing can be proactively done to prevent cheating. Hey, anyone who plays Valve games, how good is the VAC? Yeah.
People are hacking banks and supposedly ultra-secure servers. What challenge is WGT going to be, really. Thus, they rely on you to spot and report. Another call-to-action that is frequently met with downright hatred and further chants of "liar" and "scammer" and other such nonsense. There are even those arrogant enough to post player names on the forum, on simply a belief, without a shred of actual evidence, as if they are the sole judge and jury in the court of public opinion. And why is it exactly that can't you just email WGT and report the name that way? Yes, I know you want to let everyone know that you really have no idea if that person is actually cheating or not, but you're just so sure about yourself and your suspicion that you can't possibly be wrong. You feel it's your public duty to name and shame. More often than not you're just harassing someone who's not new to video games, or in this case, golf games. Or you're just harassing someone like myself who has properly gone through an account switch. Or you're harassing someone who's just naturally skilled at any video game. It is not your place to decide.
Persisting in willful ignorance is not a choice here. Become educated or remain ignorant and willingly accept that ignorance. Those are really the only two choices.
¯\(°_o)/¯
p.s. Kudos to those who read this in its entirety and pondered it thoughtfully. I hope you found it entertaining and thought-provoking. It's good to know there are still some folks, like you, with an actual attention span. I hope to hear your thoughts and invite stimulating dialogue. I'm more-so interested in the social part rather than the computer aspect, since there's really not much to discuss in the latter matter.
Definitely not going out on a rhyme.
Have a great day, all of you! And I do mean that.