Amazon FIIIIIIIRE



  • Continuing the discussion from S^T^A^T^(U^S of America):

    @blakeyrat said:

    Status: Just got my new Fire tablet, yay. The box is too thin to contain a wall plug, huh.

    Edit: Oh, nevermind. Amazon has apparently created the World's Skinniest Wall Plug.

    Edit edit: they made-up space by using the World's Shortest Micro-USB Cable.

    Edit edit edit: the initial system update takes AGES I WANNA PLAY WITH TABLET HURRY UP WHIIIINE

    Edit edit edit edit: it finished that, and now it's "optimizing system storage and applications"! IT MIGHT TAKE UP TO 10 MINUTES!? FOR WHAT IT'S BRAND SPANKING NEW!!!

    Amazon does the same thing they do with Kindle, where the pre-load it with your name and timezone and basic shit already filled-in before they ship it. That's pretty awesome. The update took forever, but the first-run experience is pretty awesome.

    The Amazon hard-buttons (Back and Home) have now turned into soft-buttons, and there's a new one which looks like a task switch button?

    For some reason, Amazon named it my 2nd Fire. I've never owned or purchased a Fire before? Does my Kindle count as the first Fire?

    Updated available for downloaded voices... huh? Is that a text-to-speech feature? That's a... very strange notification.

    Now to figure out how to get my game on here.


  • Garbage Person

    Which model did you get?



  • @Weng said:

    Which model did you get?

    The 7" Amazon Fire, the cheap one.


    Ok I followed the instructions here, and installed the Google Play store. It says to give it a few minutes to auto-update, then you can log into your Google account and install apps.

    Process wasn't too tough but it did involve running a .bat file from a strange website I'm not sure I actually trust. But whatever. HowToGeek is a pretty mainstream site, so I'm sure they've vetted it.


  • Banned

    @blakeyrat said:

    Amazon does the same thing they do with Kindle, where the pre-load it with your name and timezone and basic shit already filled-in before they ship it. That's pretty awesome.

    No it's not. It's creepy.



  • Well if it makes you feel better, they wouldn't have if I'd have checked "gift order". But if Amazon knows it's coming to me, why NOT pre-load it with my account?



  • My Google Appstore game seems to run fine, yay. Playing it now. Now I just have to figure out how to link the Android app to the Steam app, so they're in sync.


  • Garbage Person

    @blakeyrat said:

    The 7" Amazon Fire, the cheap one.

    Heh. I thought about that one. But I own a 6 inch phone and "slightly bigger than that" isn't big enough in my mind.

    I'm stuck at "The HD10 is the right size and the right price but doesn't have enough pixels" and "The HDX8.9 may be a tolerable size and has enough pixels, but it's iPad money"



  • This is enough pixels to play the game I want to play on it.

    I just finished linking my account between the two devices, works fine. Yay. The only thing left is to see if I can do internet connection sharing through by phone via Bluetooth.

    Which isn't a HUGE deal because if it doesn't work I can just use wifi.



  • Ugggh.

    My WinPhone can detect the Fire, but the Fire can't detect the Windows Phone.

    Thankfully I was able to pair using the WinPhone as the driver.

    Hm. Ok Bluetooth is on both devices, both shows the other, ICS it turned on, but Fire tablet has no Internet, and I see no place to say "use Bluetooth access point". :(



  • Welcome to using a neutered Android tablet I guess?



  • Meh. I didn't seriously expect it to work. Just annoyed because wifi on my phone eats so much juice it means I need to change it and also it gets hot in my pocket. But it works, that's the important bit.

    I kind of wonder what the point of pairing a bluetooth phone with a tablet. I guess I could play my phone's MP3s over the excellent tablet speakers? 🚎


  • Java Dev

    I use the phone's mobile hotspot to get wifi on my kobo when I'm out camping, but I practically always have the phone on the charger when I'm doing that.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    hot in my pocket


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    15 minute synthesizer solo followed by

    #FIIIIIIIRE

    Was going to follow up with a hippie joke, but apparently FA has a poop symbol but not ☮ symbol. 👍

    @blakeyrat said:

    Well if it makes you feel better, they wouldn't have if I'd have checked "gift order". But if Amazon knows it's coming to me, why NOT pre-load it with my account?

    What if you got it, decided you didn't want it before even opening it, and gave it away or sold it. Now you have your account compromised.

    Of course you'd be TR:wtf: for selling or giving away a device without wiping it.

    Though you'd be forgiven slightly for not thinking Amazon would put your info into a sealed box.

    And you'd be forgiven more if you didn't want to open the box, because doing so would lower the resale value.

    Of course the 🏤 might have "lost" your package, and thus your personal information.

    I'd say Amazon is about a 38% :wtf: on this one.



  • @Lorne_Kates said:

    What if you got it, decided you didn't want it before even opening it, and gave it away or sold it. Now you have your account compromised.

    Not really? They know my name and time zone. They don't have access to my account in any notable way. They can't buy stuff from my account, they can't access my products without my password, etc.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @blakeyrat said:

    I didn't seriously expect it to work.

    Yeah, back in the day there were some apps that you could install (one on phone, one on tablet) that would kinda work, but then you'd need another app (probably requiring root) to fool the tablet into thniking wifi was connected, and I'm not sure the required app is available on Windows Phone anymore...


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Not really? They know my name and time zone. They don't have access to my account in any notable way. They can't buy stuff from my account, they can't access my products without my password, etc.

    Okay, that isn't too bad. I'm at 28% 📖:wtf: now.



  • Dude, it literally just fills in your name, your timezone, and automatically creates a device name. That's it.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    Process wasn't too tough but it did involve running a .bat file from a strange website I'm not sure I actually trust.

    All the batch file does is use ADB to push out the Google Apps installer and three other ones. One of the things it can do for you--although I guess you probably already found this out--is to disable the ads on the lock screen.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Gaska said:

    No it's not. It's creepy.

    Why? You're just going to do it yourself.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    The only thing left is to see if I can do internet connection sharing through by phone via Bluetooth.

    I wasn't able to get it to do that. Looks like it's wifi only.

    You can pair, but even if you set your phone to share the connection, the Kindle won't use it. Unless there was a setting I missed.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I kind of wonder what the point of pairing a bluetooth phone with a tablet.

    File sharing, probably?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Tsaukpaetra said:

    , and I'm not sure the required app is available on Windows Phone anymore...

    Windows Phone isn't the problem, probably. The Kindle itself won't use the phone's BT for internet. Yesterday I tried this by pairing two phones together and sharing the internet from one to the other, so I would know how to do it. Then I tried to do the same thing with the Kindle and the sharing didn't work.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    Dude, it literally just fills in your name, your timezone, and automatically creates a device name. That's it.

    The more you mention it, the more the 📖:wtf: rating goes up. It's just those three things-- that you know of. (Both the generic "you" and the exact "you 🐁"). There's a fuckton of identifying fields hidden throughout the OS. Maybe there's more.

    Or maybe Amazon accidentally put in more than just those, because sometimes they can be shoe-shittingly stupid.

    Or if that's all they put in, what's the point? It saved you three taps and about 20 characters-- and possibly exposed private information.

    I dunno, just doesn't seem worth the reward for the risk.



  • How about this: if you don't like it, don't buy one.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said:

    How about this: if you don't like it, don't buy one.

    I'm in 🍁 I doubt I could buy one even if I wanted to.



  • Android/FireOS question:

    If I'm playing a full-screen game how do I see the clock and battery? I found out I could get the navigation soft-buttons to show up by swiping up from the bottom, but swiping down from the top doesn't seem to work with the status bar.

    EDIT: haha nevermind, when you swipe from the bottom BOTH the nav buttons AND the status bar appears. Huh. Why not.

    Gems of War apparently just draws its map view over the leftover pixels of the dialogs behind it, so if you scroll the map too far you can see all this garbage behind it:

    Awesome.



  • What about the game? Worth playing?


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @blakeyrat said:

    when you swipe from the bottom BOTH the nav buttons AND the status bar appears.

    Yeah, I never understood why that was. On my phone (which believes it's a Tablet, long story) I set it to show the status bar from a swipe down as well.



  • It's a free-to-play version of Puzzle Quest 2. So if you liked Puzzle Quest 2 (and I played it through twice), it's like that but with like 5 times the content, and collectible card "troops" you "command". It actually has the "conquer kingdoms" mechanic of Puzzle Quest 1, combined with the "story mode" mechanic of Puzzle Quest 2 (minus the navigation), and each kingdom has its own story and when you a finish a kingdom's story you can use the companion character in your army.

    It's free, just try it.

    The amazing thing to me is that it'd been out for over a year, and I hadn't heard of it until recently, and that mostly by accident. They need some marketing support.



  • Oh-uh. Free to play? So what's the business model? Hook you in, then waste more and more of your time until you fork out for smurfberries?



  • You can pay cash-money to unlock "chests" of troops (like buying card packs in Hearthstone), or to buy "gems" which give you different types of armors to wear. I haven't spent a dime and I don't plan to.

    There's like 8 kinds of currency, it's kind of annoying.

    • Gold, which unlocks "Gold Chests"
    • Keys, which also can unlock "Gold Chests"
    • Glory, which unlock more valuable "Glory Chests"
    • Gems, which you can buy with cash-money, unlock "Gem Chests", "Event Chests" and also allow purchase of armors
    • Souls, which allow you to level-up troops
    • You can also combine duplicate troops to "ascend" then to the next rarity tier

    There's also a whole shitload of "traitstones" which allow you to add bonuses to troops.

    EDIT: there's also a "treasure hunt" mode where you can win ALL those currencies, even the normally cash-only Gems. You get a treasure map about (exactly?) every 10 levels.



  • Is it strange that I'm actually affraid to even try FTP games?

    It seems like there's no way this experience can end well. Best case scenario, you get sick of all the hoops they force you to jump through as a free player, and quit, leaving all your virtual possesions behind. Worst case, you waste a whole bunch of money, and you still just end up quitting after you get sick of it.

    There's no way to have a satisfying end game and closure, in a reasonable amount of time, like in an offline game.



  • @cartman82 said:

    Is it strange that I'm actually affraid to even try FTP games?

    It's stupid.

    @cartman82 said:

    There's no way to have a satisfying end game and closure, in a reasonable amount of time, like in an offline game.

    Millions of people play MMOs.


    EDIT: actually I take that back. You do have to be cognizant that these games are using EVERY psychological trick in the casino book to get you to spend money. In my experience, being aware of those tricks is enough to prevent you from plonking down cash. (Plus there's always a chance the money you put down is worthwhile-- like the "every character now and future" unlock in SMITE.)

    But if you're even slightly addicted to gambling, you shouldn't be playing a game like Gems of War.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @blakeyrat said:

    MMOs

    SHH! Don't tell him the first M in MMO means "Massive"!!!


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    I'm in 🍁 I doubt I could buy one even if I wanted to.

    Yeah. You might use it to protect yourself.



  • Millions of people are alhocolics, millions of people gamble.....

    If I had absolutely nothing else to do, fine, whatever, I could get what fun I can out of FTPs and hope I don't get hooked and waste all my money. But in a world where my steam account has hundreds of high quality games without these issues, plus all the books I haven't read, tv shows I haven't watched... No thanks.



  • Well fine, the best advice is "know thyself". I don't have a problem spending money on free-to-play games, but if you think you would, then avoid them.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    There is some good cheap chinese tablets out there in 9-10 inch size that don't cost a kidney.

    *edit
    I got a Cube Talk 9x for about €200 including shipping and 32gb microsd card. Not the best thing in the world but it's good for comics, netflix, movies and snes/genesis emulation.


  • Dupa

    @PleegWat said:

    I use the phone's mobile hotspot to get wifi on my kobo when I'm out camping

    I see you love the wilderness.


  • Java Dev

    I've got a smaller version of this: http://www.holtkamper.com/Products/Cocoon-XL.html . I don't strictly need electricity with it, as the fridge will run on gas as well, but electricity tends to be cheaper.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    collectible card "troops" you "command".

    Ugh, there's like a billion of those games already. Used to play this kind of stuff, but it's not so much a money sink as a time sink - worst part about the ones I've played is that they demanded you to systematically play, at certain hours of day, if you wanted to get good at them. Things like "you can only get crafting material X in that dungeon open 12PM-2PM PST on Thursdays".

    It's fun until some point, then it's horribly frustrating when you can't move forward without devoting like half a day each day to it.



  • @DogsB said:

    I got a Cube Talk 9x for about €200 including shipping and 32gb microsd card.

    That seems... actually quite expensive? 200 euro bought me a rather nice 10-inch Win8.1 tablet.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    @DogsB said:
    I got a Cube Talk 9x for about €200 including shipping and 32gb microsd card.

    That seems... actually quite expensive? 200 euro bought me a rather nice 10-inch Win8.1 tablet.

    Not compared to the bullshit prices of android tablets that size this time last year.

    Is that a full win8 or the more useless version?



  • @DogsB said:

    Is that a full win8 or the more useless version?

    Full one. Duh. Do they even make WinRT tablets anymore?

    The Windows appstore sucks balls, but it works as an effective low-end laptop replacement.



  • When I bought a Nexus 10, Google explicitly asked me if I wanted them to pre-load my account in it, so it's not something I could have accidentally missed. I said yes. It worked fine.

    And if you lose it, you can remotely log your session out.



  • There are many games that are just obvious money grabs. But they don't even have to be online games. Try Candy Crush or Cut the rope 2, they're offline single-player games and they're pure shit.

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    Do they even make WinRT tablets anymore?

    No, they only made enough to fuck over the people who bought them. Ha ha, they thought it would be a supported product!



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    Ugh,

    Ugh!!!

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    Things like "you can only get crafting material X in that dungeon open 12PM-2PM PST on Thursdays".

    This one isn't like that at all.

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    It's fun until some point, then it's horribly frustrating when you can't move forward without devoting like half a day each day to it.

    When it stops being fun, I'll stop playing it.



  • Discovery: it's nearly impossible to use a Fire tablet with one hand while sipping coffee in the other hand. I ended up just using my Kindle during this morning's commute.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    You need Smitty Jaeger Werben Manjanssen's hat: then you can use NO hands for your coffee.


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