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Less Massive: Five Years For Swatting

Swatting is a highly dangerous activity by which a person calls the police to a residence under the pretense of a dangerous situation (shooting, hostage, someone with a gun, suicidal, etc). It is a crime that carries stiff penalties, and several people are now finding that out the hard way.

In a report released by the FBI today, the members of a party line organizing swatting calls are either in jail, or on their way.

Jason Allen Neff, 33, pleaded guilty today to federal charges in a “swatting” case, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. Swatting refers to falsely reporting an emergency to a police department to cause a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) response to a physical address, or making a false report to elicit an emergency response by other first responders to a specific physical address.

Neff joins his previously charged and convicted co-conspirators Guadalupe Martinez, Stuart Rosoff, Jason Trowbridge, Chad Ward, Matthew Weigman, Angela Roberson and others, all of whom were sentenced to 30 or 60 months with Weigman receiving the harshest penalty of 135 months. Neff faces five years in prison, 60 months, plus he must pay nearly $80,000 in restitution.

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney C.S Heath.

(Source: US Department of Justice)

Wildstar Details 2015 Updates

Carbine Studios has posted a preview of updates to come in 2015. While Wildstar was recognized last year for its soundtrack and combat system, there is no denying that the game is in need of improvement. Product director Mike Donatelli has detailed plans for the first half of 2015, promising:

We will invest in, enhance, and grow this game.

Donatelli has promised that the team will listen to player feedback to reduce grind, revamp rewards, and introduce new solo and group content. You can find the entire list of updates planned for the first half of the year at the link below.

(Source: Wildstar)

[Column] Retro Gamer Stories

I blame my elementary school for shaping me into the nerd I am today. I am completely serious.

To add some context to this article, I was just recently tuned into this company Man Crates, a company that sells gifts for men packed in crates that must be opened with a crowbar, themed around all kinds of stuff like zombie survival, meat, whiskey, and retro gaming. They wanted to know what stuck out in my memory bank of gaming nostalgia, which took no effort because it’s a thought that comes up every so often while searching my pile of poorly bundled cords and floppy disks for an extra analog aux cable or cat5.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I grew up in a very small town, the kind of place that has one main road and zero franchise presence. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to be in second grade when my elementary school installed its first computer lab, by which I mean they took the foldout tables normally stored until the gymnasium was used for voting and put computers on them in the hallway.

The administration either bought the cheapest boxes they could find or didn’t understand computers (which was common in the mid-90’s), because they ended up buying an IBM rather than ones based on a GUI like Windows or Apple. I can only imagine how painful it was for a teacher, who probably didn’t use a computer or have much experience, trying to explain to a room full of children how to properly insert a 5 1/4 inch floppy, mount the drive, and boot a program. Talk about the blind leading the dumb.

But it was a learning experience for everyone, and after a couple of weeks we managed to get most of the class capable of booting and even running Oregon Trail, Math Blaster, and other educational games in some capacity. What’s important is that I took to the system very quickly, before anyone else in the class and even before the teacher. When you’re a kid younger than ten, there’s not much that boosts the self esteem quite like knowing something that an adult doesn’t, especially when they aren’t playing ignorant to make you feel smart.

So my earliest days of gaming involve sitting in the computer lab during recess with the carton of chocolate milk I’d smuggled out of the cafeteria, plugging away at a keyboard in a dusty, unused hallway behind the gymnasium. I’ve been asked to detail my personal retro gaming crate, which would include a handful of games on big floppy disks, chocolate milk, and an IBM. I don’t think I could bring myself to play it, better to keep the memories as they are, but it would be a nice shrine to show my nonexistent wife and children.

As for the image, the school bought Hero Quest not knowing that it was a Dungeons and Dragons game and subsequently gave it to me to save having to throw it out. I wish it hadn’t been destroyed when our basement flooded, it’s worth quite a bit of money today.

Man Crate offers a retro gaming pack for $99 that includes a bunch of candy, a Retro-Bit NES system, and a random pick of two NES cartridges.

(Disclosure: This is not a sponsored article)

Video: Final Fantasy XIV Patch 2.5 Trailer

Patch 2.5 is set to be the last to drop before the launch of Final Fantasy XIV’s first expansion, Heavensward, and it will be split into three parts to better distribute the content. If you have ten minutes to spare, take a look at the trailer below to see what is coming in the first update on January 20th.

Part one of Patch 2.5 drops on January 20th with the next part coming in February and part three in March.

Guild Wars 2 Tournaments Dish Out the Dosh

Do you have what it takes to make it big in Guild Wars 2? If so, there might just be a financial incentive in it for you. With esports becoming bigger every year, the diversity and breadth of tournaments has only gotten bigger. Arenanet has posted an update on the Guild Wars 2 website detailing just a few of these tournaments and how you can get into them.

Most of the tournaments reward players with a heaping helping of gold and gems, but the Go4GuildWars2 cup is doling out one thousand dollars every Sunday to the top players, with the best of the best going on to play for a fifty grand prize pool.

You can find the details for all of the tournaments at the link below.

(Source: Guild Wars 2)

Neverwinter Previews Upcoming Event

Cryptic Studios has detailed the next big event to hit Neverwinter. Currently embroiled in an ongoing war against the Dragon Cult, this week’s event sees Neverwinter under siege yet again by the forces of evil. The event ties into the latest campaign, Tyranny of Dragons.

With this Siege of Neverwinter event will come the chance to obtain Dragon Hoard Coins, Dragon Hoard Coffers, as well as other items used in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. All of these items will aid you in your quest to defeat the Cult of the Dragon once and for all and help prevent them from unleashing Tiamat!

The event runs from January 15th through 22nd.

(Source: Neverwinter)

Reminder: Daewoo Is Not An Official Source

Daewoo Securities, a financial investment group in Korea, have released an earnings forecast for NCSoft that is throwing some of the community into a ruckus. The whole thing stems from the prediction that in Q3 2015, Guild Wars 2 will see a massive rise in sales thanks to an upcoming expansion launch.

Here’s what you should know about the forecast: Daewoo is not an official source for any of NCSoft’s products. They are a third party investment firm that makes predictions based off of speculation and assumptions.

As of this publishing, NCSoft has not announced an expansion to Guild Wars 2, let alone one launching in 2015. For context, this is Daewoo’s full prediction regarding Guild Wars 2:

Also, in 2015, NCsoft is expected to roll out an expansion pack for Guild Wars 2, which has sold more than 3mn copies since its release in 2012 in the US and Europe. We assumed in our 2015 earnings estimates Guild Wars 2 expansion pack sales of around 2mn copies (US$50 per copy), and note that the expansion packs for Guild Wars 1 have sold almost as much as the original game in the year of their release.

A snippet of Daewoo’s disclaimer:

Information and opinions contained herein have been compiled from sources believed to be reliable and in good faith, but such information has not been independently verified and Daewoo makes no guarantee, representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information and opinions contained herein or of any translation into English from the Korean language.

To inject some positivity into this, the rest of Daewoo’s predictions seem pretty solid. The firm predicts high sales from NCSoft’s numerous mobile games being released this year based off of trends from Activision Blizzard, Netease, Changyou, and Electronic Arts.

Arenanet will be hosting a panel at PAX South to discuss the future of Guild Wars 2 later this month.

(Source: Source)

Old School RuneScape Polling Grand Exchange

Does the Old School RuneScape community want a Grand Exchange? We’re about to find out, as Jagex is gearing up to poll the feature in the next week. If it is voted in, the grand exchange will replace the current trading post where players can place offers on items but need to meet up in person in order to complete the trade. Should the grand exchange be implemented, it will also make way for the introduction of coinshare (expensive loot is turned into coins and split between party members) and lootshare (shared loot between party members).

Should the update not be passed, Jagex will poll updates to the trading post, including the ability to initiate a trade through the post, provided players are on the same world. Also set to be polled is the dragon defender, increase in bank slots, as well as numerous other updates.

Updates require 75% approval in order to be implemented.

(Source: RuneScape)

Age of Wushu Merging Servers

Snail Games yesterday performed a server merge on Age of Wushu to address the game’s low population. January 7th marked the mergers of the White Tiger and Golden Kirin servers into the Blue Dragon server. As a result of the merger, all Jianghu rankings were reset as well as school rankings, NPC relationships, and guild territory.

You can read more at the FAQ posted below.

(Source: Snail Games)

Blacklight Retribution Devs Close Doors

Blacklight Retribution dev Zombie Studios has announced that they are shutting down after twenty years of developing video games. The company revealed in a post on the main website that the owners have decided to retire and, rather than pass the studio on to new hands, are allowing the company to retire with them.

Luckily this doesn’t mean the death of Zombie Studios properties, which will live on in the form of Builder Box, who will take over the operation of Blacklight Retribution.

(Source: Destructoid)

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