Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@Th3solution Ok sounds good, be sure to tag me in your posts about Jedi Survivor as I'd like to hear what you have to say.

I am enjoying Finnegan's Wake, attempting to decipher it with a guide. It's a mysterious and complex book and unraveling those mysteries with the guide (Joseph Campbell) should be rewarding, Campbell's book is definitely necessary.

Thanks for the comments about music, it just takes practice. I used to play with other people who just do straight-ahead jazz but now I just do my own stuff.

Another consumer rights moan from me lol. No need to reply but thought I would have a vent.

My broadband contract with virgin media was up yesterday and I've done the negotiating as guided by Martin Lewis and MSE on their website and got a new price that is only £1 more than my old one for another 18 months. So all good news there.

However, the new contracts have an indeterminate price hike (based on RPI + a 3.9% levy) every April with no fee-free leaving clause for the period when that's announced. Some background on this - this is within Ofcom rules and most other ISPs actually have this written into their contracts but Virgin have only implemented it this year. I'm guessing the reason why they have written it into their contract now is that the RPI was ridiculous this year and they hiked certain customers prices in April but had to give them a fee-free exit because it wasn't in their contract.

I didn't even get a price hike to be honest, I guess it was because my contract was fixed at a price for 18 months. But I've noticed my new 18 month "fixed" price contract has a little * next to the fixed price which says it's now subject to next year's price hike and there will be fees for cancelling.

My problem with this is that the contract is literally just a certain price for 10 months. Followed by an unknown price for 8 months.

Now reasonably, I know the price will still be cheaper than the "standard" price they set and I also know that the hike in '24 probably won't be too bad even if it was bad in 2023. But something about this unknown figure and being contractually obliged to pay it for 8 months really rubs me up the wrong way. To the extent where I think it shouldn't even be lawful.

But despite that, it's industry standard and within Ofcom guidelines.

@ralphdibny Do you know what the cancelation fee is? If so, you do know the "get out" price now if you don't like what the RPI adjustment will be when the time comes. Since they don't control RPI I don't think they can reasonably give you anymore information to make a decision.

@kyleforrester87 I do agree in theory but I think the industry standard and Ofcom approved contract terms are immoral. So it's fine if they can't control RPI and they can hike the price as much as they want (that's another issue entirely) but at the point of the price increase they should at the very least, waive their cancellation fees if you respond within 30 days or so or they shouldn't have fixed price contract lengths that run longer than the month in which the price increases. Or they should just fix the price for the term length like they used to. Those would be the morally correct things to do in my opinion.

I think Ofcom are doing another investigation on this practice now but who knows if they will enforce more consumer friendly rules and even if they did, who knows if those rules would retroactively apply to existing contracts.

Get out fee for virgin media is pretty hefty if I understand it right. It would be better to suck up the price increase for the remaining 8 months. I'm not saying I would get out, I'm saying I would like the option to get out or "negotiate" a better price but frankly I'd rather every contract was at its cheapest price. I hate negotiating and I hate all the hoops you have to jump through. With virgin, it's turn down two offers, cancel your service and wait for a call a couple days later with the "best" price

@ralphdibny it’s not really “as much as they want” as it’s whatever RPI is, plus the percentage they’ve said they’ll add, being one of the measures of purchasing power in theory this RPI increase shouldn’t matter as the “real world” cost to you should be the same when factoring in everything, plus the percentage they have said they will add. Appreciate it is controversial and that might not be the reality, especially in the current climate, but I guess the upshot is any increase won’t be massive as you’ve pointed out? I get your point though, it should be clear and where it isn’t offer a straight forward way out, and it’s funny that they don’t say it’ll decrease should RPI go the other way?

I have a chip on my shoulder at the moment as my home costs are going through the roof (hopefully not literally, can’t afford a new roof). Obviously not the only one right now but it stings!

@kyleforrester87 yeah I only really meant "as much as they want" in so much as it's not really the point that I was miffed by. More that the industry standard contract for broadband has become one where you pay X amount for a set amount of months before an indeterminate price rise occurs which you are obliged to pay for the remainder of your contract, despite not agreeing a figure in advance. It's as good as signing a contract where the price field is left blank.

Real world cost is never the same to me unfortunately, due to the industry I work in, but that's a whole other conversation for another time I think.

But anyway, it seems my back is up against the wall with it and I have probably secured myself a reasonable deal despite what the price rise is expected to be so I will probably suck it up, forget about it and move on. I just don't like it and I don't like the lack of choice in the matter. Which of course, is why I came here to vent 😅

I was literally thinking though, that's more or less what a mortgage is in some ways, at least in terms of fluctuating interest rates. So i do sympathise. Wishing you the best with it. Feel free to vent here, it's good to get it all out sometimes!

@Fight_teza_fight Morning friend, I received your message on psn, have you managed to get to bottom of it? Hope all is well 👍

@AgentCooper Yep all good! Won’t go into the ins & outs as that’s probably against the TOU. I had prepared for the worst after I read an another user got hacked last week & they didn’t have enough proof.

You can take me off the list now. Or wouldn’t that be what a hacker would say🤔.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Ah excellent news mate, good to hear Teza, if that is actually your real name? 😉

@ralphdibny I was trying to draw a comparable with mortgages, but it's not really the same since you would generally lock your rate in for a fixed period, during which time you can't leave without paying a penalty, but then when you end the fixed term you're free to leave without exit fees, or can continue paying a rate that's unknown when you initially signed on. But with Virgin you're still within the fixed term when the price changes to an unknown amount, so I can see how that's less fair.

Of course, in reality there are generally costs associated to move onto another fixed term mortgage once the existing one ends, so you could view that as an exit fee I suppose. It does work the other way, too - if rates drop generally during your fixed term, you could pay to exit sooner, with savings on a new cheaper product offsetting (and then some) your exit fee. That's really not happening anytime soon, mind you.

Apparently whatever you do these days you're haemorrhaging money! I'm struggling to see what fair is sometimes, given how bad things have got. The old unfair is the new normal... Hoping we just need to knuckle down for a couple of years and brighter days will be ahead. At least until climate change really begins to bite down on everything....

I OFFICIALLY GOT MY OLD PS3 WORKING AGAIN

nearly 6 years ago, goddamn 0_0

Expect a lot more activity from me here over the next while (thinking about starting off my newly acquired PS portfolio with either the Devil May Cry or Splinter Cell HD Collection), I'm so happy man 🥹

@Fizza Hey, at least it still works! I dread to think what would happen if I booted up my Xbox 360...

@kyleforrester87 wow the world of mortgages sounds like fun fun fun 😅. I'll be dealing with that all at some point in the next few years. Can't wait 🙄

I think my default is that nothing is fair. The goalposts for what's fair to an individual can't move. The only thing that should be negotiable is how much better than the bare minimum you can get is.

I think things are simultaneously worse and better than they used to be in previous generations. As a simplification, I'd say being worse off is probably better than it used to be but being well off is much much harder to achieve. If that makes sense lol

@get2sammyb Hi, quick question about review embargo’s - specifically FF16 in this case, but this is just a general question and I know what you can say may be limited.

Is it a condition that you’re not allowed to say when reviews will go live, exactly? I assume so, as it never seems to get mentioned anywhere, even though people are eager to know. Perhaps this rule changes from publisher to publisher. Or maybe you’re erring on the side of caution, which also makes sense. I’m somewhat surprised this sort of basic info doesn’t seem to “anonymously” leak, too. Maybe it does, and I am not looking hard enough. Cheers!

Dont want to be negative but its intresting how bad job most of the established media does to cover how things are for most people. Guess they are many things they simply dont want the public to know.. Which is kind of unfounate… Or they dont want to cause to much stress which is I guess is the only good about it…

@kyleforrester87 Some publishers allow review embargoes to be disclosed, others forbid it. All depends on the game/publisher.

My favourite thing about review embargoes are the ones that have ludicrously specific things you can say and do. Like some are just like you can put your review up on the 16th! Cool. Others are like, you must not mention that you're playing the game, you must play the game on a profile that has been newly created, has no friends attached to it, isn't connected to the internet, etc.

Like I'm not sure how much damage it could possibly do to know that a person is playing the game but it's interesting seeing how wildly different some review conditions are.

@johncalmc I guess it doesn't hurt them any to impose those conditions, so why not. I have not really given it any thought but if a family or friend saw you playing an early release could they convince you to talk to them about it, or screen share with them, or whatever. I dunno. I also don't really believe that people don't go home and discuss all kinds of confidential work stuff with their partners either haha.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah this is true. Also people can track you through your trophy data and ask you stuff. Back before I just left my trophies hidden I recall someone messaging me on PSN asking how I'd gotten a trophy in a game I was reviewing.

@johncalmc It does seem odd that they would embargo the time that reviews will drop though - you would think this would help build excitement for the release, if anything.