Category: The Division 2 – Year 1

Support Agent observations in Tom Clancy’s The Division 2; an online RPG from Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment.

Exploits and Mistrust chronicles

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Research stage – cheaters patched

It’s been great wondering around the country shooting wildlife and taking OutPost in FarCry New Dawn.  The game has been good to me, I haven’t achieved the Platinum trophy yet but it’s nearly time to return to DC (90+GB download in progress) especially after the patch.

Today’s official basic notes (no engineering details but enough to observe they had to take down the global servers for 3 hours)

  •     Fixed an issue where the Special Field Research stages would not update properly in certain situations.
  •     Fixed an issue where Specialization ammunition could not be picked up in certain situations.
  •     Fixed an issue of missing gun textures in the inventory.
  •     Fixed an issue causing players to be temporarily invulnerable when replacing an armor plate in cover (An exploit/cheat patched)
Far Cry® New Dawn – Great Off-line environment
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Penalties, traps and cancellation exploits

Consumers are overwhelmed with choices nowadays, so companies routinely use penalties, fees and traps to lock you in.  Backed up by long wait times to customer services, hidden addresses and a “you must call us to cancel” approach, the average customer just gives up and pays the ransom.

So how to avoid the traps?

  1. Before signing up for anything ask how
    1. do I cancel?
    2. How much does it cost to cancel?
    3. What is the postal address? Old school letters are still binding and more effectively than 20 mins waiting on the phone or arguing with 1st line customer services.
  2. Use a dedicated email address for subscriptions to you can ghost (delete the email account) them if things get tricky.
    1. Give only mandotory info about yourself.
  3. Ask for a list of penalty charges.  These are probably published in the terms and conditions that you never read.  So, ask them which clause to look for.

Sounds easy but many “busy” consumers never do this and end up paying over 2000 GBP for a mobile phone.

Exploit successfully executed

Next time you sign a contract
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There’re in my head….

Games as a Service (Gaa) is now the dominant content delivery method on PS4 which means you pretty much rent stuff as opposed to owning it. Dammit, another thing you should add to your digital asset list on your Last Will & Testament.

PS4 Plus is mandatory if you want to play online games but comes with lots of free games every month so long as you maintain membership. So for my own little self-Denial of Service I’ve let my service expire for a few weeks, this kills of Division 2 for a while but I’ll plan to be back in August.

Tom Clancy’s The Division® 2 – offline game-play not an option.
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Binary decisions

Sometimes hard decisions are simply a case of On or Off.

After a Division 2 weekend binge of Level 4 Control Points, Invasion missions and a Hunter mask, I decided to just delete the game from my primary PS4 and jump into the FarCry New Dawn World.  I grabbed the financial bait, a whopping 67% off the list price and the offline, story driven nature of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, deleting the 97+GB of Division 2 was rough especially knowing how much time it will take to re-install but the Raids did not justify the potential time investment. Also, one of my long term fellow gamers became totally obsessed with my skin colour breaking the relatively anonymous nature of online multiplayer games.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – Final mission for now
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My personal Mean time to recovery (MTTR)

Having an episode triggered by a simple argument is horrendous for the average Myasthenia Gravis sufferer.  The spike in stress levels become physically real but invisible to most.  In my case, I tend to implode for fear of becoming a bore to friends or family like the person who constantly catches the common cold.

Recover time is slow but steady without take any medication.

Yesterday’s recover time was around 4 hours from Anger /Rage spike followed by extreme weakness then procrastination, ignoring my status and feelings with wishful thinking.  Eventually, I become self-aware again and simply sleep for 3 hours or so waking up somewhat revived.  Problem is that this can be right in the midst of the working day or week.

For me, conflict avoidance is a successful method but sometimes like the sweet, sweet Honey Bee the price of stinging somebody is pretty high.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – Just leave me alone
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I hate you so much right now

Advanced persistent threats are one of the most draining of attacks.  The fear factor is high and constant, grinding down the target for a prolonged period.

At this moment in time I am resilient, but the emotion burden is heavy and has a really negative impact on other activities triggering procrastination, rage, thoughts of retaliation and ultimately retribution.

I find myself looking for a source of solace. DENIED

One of the most frustrating screens