Author: Admin

I Love A Good Conspiracy Theory: LOTRO Forums Hacked?


Nothing says loving like a hot conspiracy bun in the oven, I always say. If you use the Lord of the Rings or Dungeons and Dragons forums, you’ve likely noticed that Turbine has taken them down due to an unspecified issue:

We have identified a potential issue in the forum system.  As a precautionary measure we have disabled our forums while we investigate.  We will bring the forums back online when we complete our work.  We thank you for your patience.

In all honesty, and given the unseen amount of people who work to crack forum software, this will likely turn into a vulnerability issue. If my assumption is correct, they wouldn’t be the first forum knocked out today (my favorites list shows three fan sites down due to a breach of security). But the important thing is that Turbine is able to do damage control and get the forums back into a working state. Tweakers.net is reporting that the servers have indeed been breached, via SQL injection, although there has been no confirmation from Turbine. Reportedly this issue stems from some poorly assembled coding used to transition Codemasters customers over to Turbine’s service.

While the Turbine forums are down, why not browse the third party forums and take in the conspiracy theorists?

I found it amusing that just after they added the thread saying they want to hire new developers that the forums mysteriously were brought off line

I love the idea of the ex-employee happening to be a skilled and vengeful hacker. It’s like a murder-revenge story, but suitably nerdy.

Fallen Earth Free to Play Today


About an hour and a half ago, Fallen Earth came down to begin the process if integrating a new patch. On a less relevant note, today also marks the transition of Fallen Earth to free to play. GamersFirst predicts five hours of downtime, although players should anticipate heavy server load once the game comes back online. G1 acknowledges this inevitable issue, and has delayed world events until server stability can be dealt with. You can check out the announcement at Fallen Eath’s website, as well as read the patch notes and get acquainted with the new facets of free playing.

The server went down around 8am PST, or 11am EST, or 4pm GMT. Until then, you can make sure that your Fallen Earth account has been properly merged to GamersFirst service. You can do so by following this page.

Important: Sony Was Not Hacked, 93K Accounts Compromised


A title certain to cause confusion among my readers, but I did so to force the few of you who only read the title to read the article itself as well. Despite how some of my fellow MMO journalists have been wording their writing, the Sony database has not been hacked. Rather, Sony announced on the Everquest forums that they’ve detected an attempt to test username/password combinations for a massive amount of accounts ranging from the Playstation Network (PSN) to Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). RadarX, otherwise known as Sony’s Chief Information Security Officer, posted that

“these attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources. In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks.  We have taken steps to mitigate the activity.”

Approximately 93,000 accounts passed the “test,” and Sony has subsequently locked them down to prevent further intrusion. Players will have been emailed if they are affected, and will need to unlock their accounts and change their passwords. Since now would be the best time to be preachy, one of the most efficient measures you can take to protect your account is to not use the same password on fan sites.

Lineage 2 Heading Free To Play


NCsoft wants you to play Lineage II your way. Coming off the heels of City of Heroes taking the free to play route comes the announcement that NC is pairing up with Innova to bring free to play to Lineage II. The new model is being called “Play Your Way,” and is not being referred to as free to play, but rather a hybrid model, by NCsoft. So far the details are sparse, but user Pocket Medic of the Lineage II forums posted specifics from Innova’s other services:

Anyone can play for free. However, if you pay the monthly subscription, you get permanent 2x Exp, SP, Drops, Spoils.Item store includes items like Buff Milks, 30-day rent-a-Buffpet, 30 day rent-a-Mount, New Hair Accessories, etc.

More on this to come. Lineage II is one of NCsoft’s best performing games, and I think the dip this past quarter may have been the first indication that the west would go free to play or follow in Lineage’s footsteps and simply shut down.

World Of Warcraft Legitimizes Gold Buying, Tradeable Cash Shop Pets


I thought I smelled something burning while on the drive back home today. Games like Eve Online fight gold farming by allowing people to purchase game time and sell it for in-game currency. This serves the purpose of keeping the big players playing (for free) while allowing people who need an influx of cash to do so without dealing with Chinese identity thieves. Games like Hellgate Global allow players to trade items they purchased from the cash shop in-game for currency, offering the same system but with a different virtual currency.

World of Warcraft recently released a new cash shop pet, but with a twist. This pet can be traded in-game for gold, and the function is deliberate:

 While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re OK with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services.

It’s up to the Warcraft community to decide how to take this move, but for all intent and purpose Blizzard has begun selling gold for real money. There isn’t much of a difference between selling something, and selling a coupon to get something for free at the same price as simply buying it outright.

Check out the rest of the page here.

Rift: We Are World of Warcraft’s Top Competition


Does Rift have one million subscribers? I have no idea, only Trion knows that information and the furthest they will move into specific information is the claim that Rift is number two in the market, and still growing. Either way, Trion is not a stranger to trash talking, and in an interview with Industry Gamers, Lars Butler wants Blizzard to know that Rift and its band of Hulkamaniacs are about to put the smack down at this year’s SummerSlam.

“I think nobody can ever predict that there’s another WoW because WoW basically had, for seven years, no competition. There was nobody launching that created an experience that was even remotely comparable – never as deep, never as polished. Now that has changed, obviously. Rift is out there as the most serious competitor they ever had, and now with Rift updating and evolving in the most dramatic way, that is changing everyday. Essentially, with every new update, the landscape is changing. But our goal is not necessarily to create one giant product that everybody has to play, but to give people choice.”

With Rift launching earlier this year, Trion is looking to expand its presence in the MMO market with the launch of End of Nations early next year, an MMORTS with a free to play model, and Defiance further along the line. Defiance is set as an MMO shooter, coinciding with the Syfy television series.

Still, mincing fighting words with the behemoth known as Blizzard has historically not gone well for the little guy, as Funcom and Mythic could easily tell you. We’ll have to wait and see if Trion has written a check their ass can’t cash.

Rift: We Are World of Warcraft's Top Competition


Does Rift have one million subscribers? I have no idea, only Trion knows that information and the furthest they will move into specific information is the claim that Rift is number two in the market, and still growing. Either way, Trion is not a stranger to trash talking, and in an interview with Industry Gamers, Lars Butler wants Blizzard to know that Rift and its band of Hulkamaniacs are about to put the smack down at this year’s SummerSlam.

“I think nobody can ever predict that there’s another WoW because WoW basically had, for seven years, no competition. There was nobody launching that created an experience that was even remotely comparable – never as deep, never as polished. Now that has changed, obviously. Rift is out there as the most serious competitor they ever had, and now with Rift updating and evolving in the most dramatic way, that is changing everyday. Essentially, with every new update, the landscape is changing. But our goal is not necessarily to create one giant product that everybody has to play, but to give people choice.”

With Rift launching earlier this year, Trion is looking to expand its presence in the MMO market with the launch of End of Nations early next year, an MMORTS with a free to play model, and Defiance further along the line. Defiance is set as an MMO shooter, coinciding with the Syfy television series.

Still, mincing fighting words with the behemoth known as Blizzard has historically not gone well for the little guy, as Funcom and Mythic could easily tell you. We’ll have to wait and see if Trion has written a check their ass can’t cash.

Need a Glitch Invite?


Update [Dec 3, 2011] I have one more invite to give out. The first person to leave a comment below “Saucelaw” will get it. Reminder: You need a VALID email address in the email address slot.

If you haven’t been able to get into glitch, I have some good news. I am handing out my glitch invites. I have three to give out right now, but I’m making an effort to get my hands on more. Just throw a comment below and include your email address in the correct box and I will pass along on a first come, first serve basis.

I won’t be available all day today, so the invites will be sent out at 8pm tonight (7th) EST at the earliest. As usual, anyone who misses out but comments anyway will be added to my list, and if I receive any more invites, you’ll be the first to receive them.

I made a few changes to the comment system, which will hopefully shut out spam, so your comment should approve immediately, regardless of if you’ve had a comment approved previously.

Cryptic Rushed Star Trek Because Of Strict License Deadlines


Good news, fervent defenders of Star Trek Online. The guys over at the STOked podcast managed to snag an interview with Stephen D’angelo, Executive Producer of Star Trek Online at Cryptic Studios. In the interview, which you can view below (it starts at 11:20), D’angelo talks about the deadlines that Cryptic faced when developing the MMO, most notably the fact that when Cryptic acquired the license from Perpetual Entertainment (the previous developer that had gone under), they also inherited the game’s due date for completion. For Cryptic, this meant starting several years behind schedule.

So now when time someone tells you that Star Trek Online was rushed because Bill Roper loves money, you can strike them with facts.

From The Book of Sony: CCP Apologizes For Controversy


A brief recap: Back in June of this year, CCP released the latest expansion for Eve Online, Incarna. Incarna brought a good amount of new content to Eve, but players were chiefly concerned with two aspects of the update: The Noble Exchange and Walking In Stations. Players are now able to buy cosmetic clothing for their characters, at rates some people found rather steep. Considering the factor that players were unable to see one another, CCP went ahead with the now infamous $70 ocular implant. The Captain’s Quarters (or Walking in Stations) was blasted for not having enough content and causing performance issues for players on lower-end machines.

Responding to player outrage, a string of poor PR moves only served to put CCP in an even worse light. At first, the company responded by making the poor comparison to how people pay more money for designer clothing. An internal memo leaked that discussed ships and bullets, but was later shot down by CCP as gathering random thoughts from the staff, and that the memo had no bearing on real company policy. CCP finally released an official statement that they had no intention on selling non-vanity items in the cash shop. Following that announcement, CCP dropped the ball by announcing that the $70 ocular implant wasn’t even the top tier of items, and that Eve would see a $10,000 gold plated Titan ship if they believed the ultra rich portion of the fan base would buy it.

Well CCP has released a couple of new blog posts, chief of which offers an apology by CCP Hilmar relating to his actions over the past few months. In the blog post, Hilmar discusses issues pertinent to the community, from the Walking in Stations portion being little more than a prototype glorified as a full feature, to the poor presentation of the cash shop. After some soul searching, Hilmar is ready to get CCP back on track, returning to the business players once loved.

I’m sharing these revelations with you now because it’s taken this long to transform them into action. From all this self-reflection, a genesis of renewal has taken root, a personal and professional commitment to restore the partnership of trust upon which our success depends, and a plan that sets the foundation for us to sensibly guide EVE to her fullest potential. In the coming days and weeks, the details of this plan and what it means for you will be unveiled. Part of what led us down this path is the fact we have not communicated well. This blog, and those that will follow, will hopefully demonstrate our conviction to transparency.

You can find the entire apology here with a look at future content here