Creative Bashing

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The recent 2.2.0 patch to World of Warcraft caused some issues for Creative soundcard users, who immediately posted their displeasure to the WoW Forums. Note that this link is in the 'Mac' Forums and note the time at which the thread was started, 12:53:05 PM PDT. Almost exactly two-hours later there was a post by a Blizzard team member explaining the change and how to alter settings to get the experience that the player yearned for.

Two-hour customer service to a post in a forum. Impressive.

Creative posted the following on their website in response to the issues:

"As many Creative soundcard owners are discovering, Blizzard recently made changes to the WoW client that have impacted the audio experience significantly. Our developer relations group were given minimal advance warning that these changes were about to occur, and our subsequent requests to Blizzard for clarification as to why the changes were made have gone unanswered.

The new audio implementation in WoW uses a 3rd party audio middleware system which offers a generic software mixer with some reverb effects. Creative has worked with the middleware company in question and already implemented a hardware audio path that enables 3D audio mixing and DSP based effects processing on Audigy and X-Fi cards. "Bioshock" uses this system to great effect, and it is relatively straight forward for developers to support. We have offered to help Blizzard enable this hardware audio path but they haven't taken us up on it.

Many Creative soundcard owners are pointing out that their audio experience is nowhere near as compelling as it used to be, which is a great shame. We will continue to seek a better resolution to the current situation with Blizzard. In the interim, we would encourage Creative soundcard owners to let Blizzard know that they would very much like to have their audio experience restored to its former glory."

I'm sure this post, made 15 days earlier which allows non-uber soundcard users to "have their audio experience" improved didn't make Creative happy either.

"Upcoming Sound Engine Update In the upcoming content patch 2.2, the in-game sound engine is being changed to a new, exclusively software-based system. This change is being made to allow for a much greater range of compatibility and should result in improved sound performance for many users. The new sound engine provides all of the same features that have always been available in the game, but now extends those features, such as reverb effects, to players who previously couldnât take advantage of them. This change also allows us greater control and ease in supporting and developing for the wide range of sound hardware, as well as future upgrades and improvements to the in-game sound effects and options.
While the switch to the new unified sound engine should be seamless for most users, we ask that any players experiencing issues with their sound after the release of the patch please contact technical support after following basic troubleshooting steps at the link below.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21080"

So what we have here is either a failure to communicate or Creative upset that players don't need their fancy cards. I'm not sure which it is since any complaint on the WoW Forums has to be taken with three grains of salt, tossed over your shoulder, rolled in nails and chewed until soft. We also have a high-profile hardware manufacturer attacking a high-profile game developer publicly, urging their customers to voice their complaints in a forum other than their own. It has probably happened before, especially in the video card industry, but I don't remember ever seeing it. I was surprised, no I was shocked that Creative would make a public post blasting Blizzard. I wasn't alone.

"Am I the only one who thinks it's irresponsible and immature for a representative from a fortune-500 business to come on their company's office discussion forum and lambast another company for a decision it's made THEN encourage people to do what can only be described as flaming? Personally, I hope this isn't an official corporate policy and I'd hope Creative apologize for this immature and totally ridiculous action on their part. I'm extremely disappointed to see ALL of these anti-Blizzard threads popping up on the official WOW forums lambasting Blizzard at the beheadst of Creative.I assume this post will be deleted so I made a copy of postingby Cat and I'm going to go spread it around a little bit to some Blizzard e-mail addresses as well as Technology publications so they can see how mature and corporately responsible Creative is these days. By the way, you guys feel like fixing the issue with Creative X-Fi cards and more than three gigabytes of memory? It's getting kinda old and I'd like my Vista installation to stop BSOD'ing because of it."

and

"Stay out of my game!!!!!!!

You've screwed up enough stuff out there, I don't want you screwing this up! I waited for over 3 years for a stable Audigy 2zs driver, and mistakenly bought an Audigy 4 hoping to eliminate the problems I had with the Audigy 2zs, only to find out that they are the same controller chip. You wouldn't fix the bugs in that, I don't want you doing the same half-assed job on my favorite game!

Things are working fine on my HT Omega Striker 7.1 now. I want it to stay that way.

Once you fix the Audigy 2zs and Audigy 4, then you can ask Blizzard to help, but I know you won't do that.

Constant missing sounds, static, pops, messed up sounds, and horrible screeching in some games. That is what we would have to look forward to if you mess around with my favorite game.

I will never trust Creative again. ever."

And that folks, is one reason that you don't play the blame game. There is always a customer on the other side of the fence who is going to throw stones at your own inadequacies, in your own house, which is likely made of glass.What's your take?

Comments, questions or naughty pictures? Hit the blog or hit my mailbox. --Boomjack

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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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