January 6, 2010 – MMO Fallout

NCSecurity: Phantom Hacker Steals Aion Account

G_Unit_pictures — G-Unit doesn't handle account theft.

(Important) Continue reading down to the bottom of the article. There is a follow up link at the bottom to a more recent explanation.

So I’ve been following the recent account thefts over at NCsoft (namely Aion and Guild Wars) pretty closely recently, not only because I play City of Heroes and if this account theft issue bleeds to other games it could affect me (gasp), but because the stories just keep getting stranger and stranger.

Case in point: An Aion account that was reportedly stolen, and looted of all of its items. The password was not reportedly changed, but the account was cleared of all items. In itself, this story doesn’t sound very exciting. Hundreds of accounts over a variety of MMOs get the same treatment every month. The account theft took place on December 19th and 21st, but take a good look at the account subscription history:

Analysis after the break…

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Champions Online Unlimited Demo Getting More Unlimited?

screenshot_2009-08-18-13-43-41 — No longer the last thing demo players will see...

Earlier last year, slightly over two weeks ago to be exact, I reported the announcement that Champions Online would be joining the unlimited beta group, releasing the tutorial for free forever. Players have the opportunity to play through the first fifteen levels, fight off the Qulaar invasion, and apparently making me look like a bribed spokesperson, or possibly a fanboy:

“At least with Champions Online, you’re not seeing the best the game has to offer, suckering you into buying the title, followed by immediate disappointment when you realize that you just bought a house based on the mailbox and the garage door, to find the rest of the building had been burned down in a fire.”
-Omali, MMO Fallout, on Champions Online

My apologies to Age of Conan and Warhammer Online fans, and my condolences to the families of the keyboards you broke in the process of writing me hatemail.

But there are more important things afoot! The MMO Fallout super sleuths (myself stalking dev posts on various forums) were able to come up with this quote by Cryptic Studios’ Daeke, showing that the company is giving strong consideration to opening up more of the game for the unlimited demo’ers to play.

That quote, of course, after the break.

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Cryptic Wants Your Feedback on Christmas Event…

screenshot_2009-09-13-13-20-53 — likely won't listen to it...

Part of my job here on MMO Fallout is to point out the flaws in developers, and in today’s case: Cryptic’s major issue is that, for how much they hype up their player communication, they do not listen to players. I said this several months ago (You Have Public Tests, USE THEM) after problems arose concerning easily fixed issues with the Halloween event.

The issues that arose out of the Halloween event were easily fixed, and many of them were fixed that night. The most ridiculous, however, was the two hour countdown that each portal had on it until the next opportunity to participate in the event, meaning players spent more time hopping instances hoping that their portal of choice wasn’t taken. Issues also arose with perks not being handed out correctly; I myself missed half of the Halloween perks, despite several attempts at the undead heroes, because the system simply refused to acknowledge my participation in the fight.

And here comes the Christmas event, after the break.

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