Exposing "Free" Offers in Business

Of course they're going to try to sell you something!

I'm going off to a Publishing seminar downtown Toronto, in a few hours and I'm curious to see what I can glean from it.

As a newly-published Children's book author, I'm hoping to find subscribers for my list to show off my snazzy audiobook digital flyer to!

Well, getting some good, honest reviews for my new puppy cartoon Prissy Little Chloe: Time of the Year, would be sweet of course!

Networking is one thing. A lot of these "free" seminars that happen at hotels, aren't free. The hotel has to pay the speakers, really mostly out of the attendees pockets - as a lot of them decide to stay for the duration of the conference.

Brilliant.

I won't be one.

Not because I don't love a weekend getaway, but because hotels for me, are a last resort - unless, I'm staying you know, at a resort. I can sleep better in those beds, anyway.

With any sort of training, especially a paid course it's great to evaluate where it can benefit you, but even better to give it a try!

A lot of them have money-back guarantees, but then again it still takes days for a full refund.

But do not unknowingly let them auto-bill you, under any circumstance!

This is what may companies do to suck us in; they know the customers will often times forget they signed-up for that $1 trial that becomes $45 every month.

Then they wonder why they're in overdraft.

Great tactic - don't be a victim.

I was registered for a paid publishing course and they charge monthly - I couldn't even log into it. I waited days to get a response and even longer to get my $50 back.

Tsk, tsk - an otherwise good course, with paltry customer service.

The same thing happened with a video-creation program I purchased.

I spent 3 hours making this nice whiteboard video, complete with music and effects - only not be able to export it.

I thought it was a program bug or my file was corrupt or something, so I restarted the program - losing everything, since it didn't have an autosave; well I mean how could there be without a working control-s save or even regular file > save!

Basic!

So I spent another two hours recreating the entire video, complete with music and effects and - nope, couldn't save it!

When I sent them a less-than-friendly message I never got an email back; it's been four months.

Although, that one could have been my fault.

Easy Tip #1: respond to your customers with 24 hours! It's expected in this day of automated list management and email auto-responders!

Any more tips I run away with from this seminar, I'll post them here, if that's the only real value you get from this post!

The nice part of building a contact base, I can say is getting fan mail - where you guys can tell me what you think of my new book series; which is why I want you guys to be on the lookout this Sunday for my brand new book Prissy Little Chloe: Terrier Trouble!

Level Design in God of War (Part 1)

Becoming the God of War God of War is one of the most-critically acclaimed franchises to ever hit the Playstation market. In this pipeline deconstruction, I will refer to elements of the series as a whole. Dominus the main character in concept, needed to be summed up in a single word -- wrath . Covered in the ash of his wife and child, the character is a demigod who seeks revenge on the gods who betrayed him. Once the artists stripped away his armor and shield, the character’s true raw, animalistic side was exposed. Tall with upper-body musculature, covered in ashes and hunched over with his signature Blades of Chaos, Dominus was a force to be reckoned with. Dominus set the stage for the today’s Playstation mascot -- Kratos. Level Design Mood and exploration is a staple part of level design in God of War . Areas that are more open are also relatively barren; while many objects are placed around smaller areas like rooms. I think this encourages the player’s sense o...

Time Manipulation in Game Design

Time Manipulation in Games Introduction The gameplay mechanic that I wish I had come up with first, is Time Manipulation. This is includes the concept of time dilation and the reversal of time in games. Implementing the Manipulation of Time Time manipulation is a robust mechanic. It involves non-exploitable time manipulation, with the goal of being fast and smooth, while not computationally-taxing on memory or hardware resources. The best way to implement this mechanic can be seen in Braid - an indie platform and puzzle game, developed by Number None, Inc. In this game, the world state is recorded for every frame, where the data is stored and compressed. With the recorded frames, any changing entities are extracted and mixed into the final state, which can be manipulated or rewound by the player. The player’s position is recorded and other properties such as color and rotation are stored as an integer that can be reconstructed, along with time information taken fro...

Most Difficult Parts in Heavy Rain

Under Pressure In my experience, the most difficult button combination sequence in the game is when Norman Jayden must bring in a suspect for questioning, who goes by the name of Mad Jack. Jackson is said to have sold a used car to the Origami Killer and presumably has information on the killer identity or alias. When Jayden finds traces of human blood and orchid pollen, he tries to arrest Jack on the spot. He resists the arrest and goes to Kill Jayden — which he can if the player is not quick enough during the intense fight sequence. If Jayden survives the attack and beats Mad Jack, he concedes and Jayden proceeds with the arrest. It’s then Jayden’s nose begins to bleed, his eyes begin twitching and his hands start shaking uncontrollably in the middle of the arrest. To resist feeding his addiction to a drug called triptocaine, the player must hold down a series of buttons to stop his hands from shaking and the weakness from his symptoms of withdrawal. If the playe...

Prissy Little Chloe

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