Author: Admin

Frogster Account Security Compromised: 3.5 Million Accounts Hacked


If you understood the term "leet," you'd know I bypassed the firewall!

As a partial webmaster myself (that is, I run a website, not a professional at web services), nothing makes the belly chuckle like an anonymous person who is likely not old enough to drive, writing a comment threatening to hack (hax) the website and ruin my life. Often, such a problem can be fixed by simply adding the IP address to the auto-delete filter, and hoping that the young person isn’t posting from a school where other people might like to comment in the future.

On the other hand, one has to be cautiously apprehensive about website security. For every hundred script kiddies you knock away with your hardware firewalls, dedicated servers, and DDoS protection, there is at least one person out there who can, and will, break into your system if you piss him off enough, and although MMO Fallout is not a business, I can say nothing scares the pants off of business than the thought of having the IT guy come into their office and say “Someone got in, sensitive information has been leaked onto the internet.” So nothing puts a damp in your pants like seeing this message:

“Right now we have more than 3 Million and 5 hundred thousand accounts. 5 hundred thousand of them are already hacked and verified. Your other Games like Bounty Bay Online and Tera are affected too. So you better dont mess with us. Take this serious. Change your mind. Become a valued member of the community and stop abusing them.”

Frogster’s account security system was compromised, and although the number cannot be officially confirmed, the hacker behind the attack has released over two thousand account names and passwords. In a post on the official forums, Frogster Silberfuchs revealed that the two thousand accounts who were revealed have been deactivated, and are able to be reactivated by their owners.

We promptly assembled a task force and are of course making every effort to get to the bottom of this incident. We are utilising every means at our disposal to minimise the damage and to prevent such threats in the future. We have already implemented additional security measures today. As soon as all the necessary steps have been taken with regard to operational and criminal processes, we will inform you of further developments on this matter.

It is yet to be seen whether or not more accounts are going to be revealed, and by the time this story ends there could be a lot of deactivated accounts. The sad part is that, although this whole ordeal started because of something as simple as gripes with a gaming company, this will likely end with the hacker being prosecuted and (depending on his age) going to jail.

This is just a reminder: Breaking the law is not a proper response to your gripes with a company. Do you really want to risk going to jail over your anger that Frogster deletes too many critical forum posts?

Nexon Botches Maplestory Sale: 2x Exp Cards


Forget legalities, goodbye player trust!

As you can see from the top notice, on the 5th of this month, Nexon began a cash shop sale on their game Maplestory in Europe. The details are sketchy, and seem to change slightly depending on who you ask, but it appears that a 90-day double experience card found its way into the same area as the 24-hour double experience cards. Of course, in a world where we are brought up to understand that if a deal feels too good to be true, it probably is, the pricing was a mistake. Nexon fixed the price, and all was alright in the world, right?

Of course not, that would be too easy. After a week, Nexon fixed the cash shop item, and replaced the already purchased cards with 24-hour cards, which sent the forums into an uproar. The opinion appears to be split over whether or not players should be compensated or if they should have been aware that the sale was an “obvious bug” (their words, not mine) in the first place. According to a few members on the forums, this is not the first time Nexon has had such a cash-shop fluke, but apparently this is the first time they had responded by removing the items post-purchase from a user’s account.

Granted, we could yell until our faces are blue about the legality of this change in product, given the many loopholes and issues that would be raised from commerce laws between European countries, to exemptions in place because the product was purchased with Nexon Cash instead of real currency. I see a lot of people using examples of tangible purchases, but the two have separate laws that govern each form of commerce.

Of course, for those of you who did purchase the bugged card, there is still the option of reversing the charges on your credit card, if you are unconcerned with your Nexon account being banned.

The question now, as always, rests in the hands of the Nexon European community. I think it’s safe to say that, despite what the trolls say, players won’t be reeling in fear that their items are going to suddenly start being replaced en masse. You can buy that pack of regularly priced potions without worrying about them being turned into weak potions. I would, however, take great caution when buying something during any sales on the cash shop, as this is not the first time such an error has occurred. Nexon does not appear to be taking as much leniency with those who purchased the bugged item, maliciously or not.

I believe Nexon should have at least refunded the cash shop points back to players, and perhaps next time not take a week to implement a fix that should only take a few minutes.

http://forum.nexoneu.com/NXEU.aspx?g=posts&t=302702

DC Universe Opening Up Two Servers Across PC and PS3


 

Open more servers now!

A once-employed man who may or may not be named (Mark Jakobs) once said

“Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”

DC Universe Online may have only been out for a couple of days, but the team over at Sony Online Entertainment is already adding servers to mitigate the load. Two new North American servers are coming to the fledgling MMO, one for the PC and one for the PS3 versions, named “Cry For Blood” and “Blood Will Run” respectively. If you haven’t picked up from the names, these are player vs player servers.

Granted, it is a bit early to start shouting uplift in population, as most MMOs either deal with server strain or introduce a few temporary servers directly after launch (see Aion’s added servers that were made obsolete by the massive merger the following year). Still, if Sony can keep what they have, and continue to improve the service, then DC Universe may climb to the top!

More on DC Universe as it appears.

Interplay To Bethesda: No, You’re Absurd!


This is an old screenshot.

Back in April I happily announced that the Interplay Vs Bethesda lawsuit was over, after an investor reported to Joystiq that Bethesda had dropped their suit. Of course, as we discovered in our long and incredibly painful interrogation of investor Frymuchan, Bethesda confirmed that they were not dropping the suit, and planned to continue full steam ahead.

Last month, Bethesda made a claim so ridiculously absurd that I did not report on it out of strong suspicious that the report was fake. As we know so far, Interplay has the rights to create a Fallout MMO, which is what spawned the whole lawsuit in the first place (Bethesda wants those rights back). In their latest claim, Bethesda made the statement that they only gave the rights to the name Fallout for the MMO, and that Interplay had no rights to use anything else from the franchise in said MMO. So…Interplay agreed to making a Fallout MMO that has nothing whatsoever to do with Fallout aside from the name? Bethesda may have had a stronger case just having their lawyer shout out “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit,” during trial.

Interplay, of course, fired back yesterday calling the claim “absurd” and “without merit,” surely far more conscious words than many of us would use to describe such statements (I’ll start with juvenile, desperate, pathetic, and you can fill in the rest). For a company that is worried about the Fallout MMO never making it to light, Bethesda sure is spending a lot of time and effort to cripple Interplay through legal fees and wasted time.

Then again, when the genre is continuing to take more serious turns, we can always use two clowns in the corner honking their horns and throwing pies in each other’s faces. For comedic purposes. It’s a good thing Interplay talked about the Fallout MMO being light hearted and humorous, because the game itself is already a running joke, not unlike Duke Nukem Forever. Not the happy funny either, but the depressing funny, like laughing at the crazy homeless guy with the tinfoil hat and the “The end is nigh” cardboard poster.

(Source: Gamasutra, linked above)

Interplay To Bethesda: No, You're Absurd!


This is an old screenshot.

Back in April I happily announced that the Interplay Vs Bethesda lawsuit was over, after an investor reported to Joystiq that Bethesda had dropped their suit. Of course, as we discovered in our long and incredibly painful interrogation of investor Frymuchan, Bethesda confirmed that they were not dropping the suit, and planned to continue full steam ahead.

Last month, Bethesda made a claim so ridiculously absurd that I did not report on it out of strong suspicious that the report was fake. As we know so far, Interplay has the rights to create a Fallout MMO, which is what spawned the whole lawsuit in the first place (Bethesda wants those rights back). In their latest claim, Bethesda made the statement that they only gave the rights to the name Fallout for the MMO, and that Interplay had no rights to use anything else from the franchise in said MMO. So…Interplay agreed to making a Fallout MMO that has nothing whatsoever to do with Fallout aside from the name? Bethesda may have had a stronger case just having their lawyer shout out “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit,” during trial.

Interplay, of course, fired back yesterday calling the claim “absurd” and “without merit,” surely far more conscious words than many of us would use to describe such statements (I’ll start with juvenile, desperate, pathetic, and you can fill in the rest). For a company that is worried about the Fallout MMO never making it to light, Bethesda sure is spending a lot of time and effort to cripple Interplay through legal fees and wasted time.

Then again, when the genre is continuing to take more serious turns, we can always use two clowns in the corner honking their horns and throwing pies in each other’s faces. For comedic purposes. It’s a good thing Interplay talked about the Fallout MMO being light hearted and humorous, because the game itself is already a running joke, not unlike Duke Nukem Forever. Not the happy funny either, but the depressing funny, like laughing at the crazy homeless guy with the tinfoil hat and the “The end is nigh” cardboard poster.

(Source: Gamasutra, linked above)

DC Universe: Hey, My D2D Code Ain’t Working!


Accept my key before I flatten your face!

DC Universe Online launches today, and like any decent MMO the launch day issues are becoming too numerous to bore you with here on MMO Fallout. Among the problems I can actually help you with comes players who are having issues with their preorder keys from Direct2Drive. According to a few comments in my email box, players are having problems with their keys being accepted, with the majority of them facing the dreaded “this key is already in use” response. So, what is the issue? Hackers with key generators? Superman?

Nope. A little bit of research on my end has come up with a couple of solutions. According to a number of users on the MMORPG.com forums, you should go to SOE.com and set up your account from there. Following that, enter in your key and submit, which should still give you an error, but the key should still apply to the account. If the key was accepted, you will have the option to subscribe without buying the game. The subscription portion apparently can also be set up via the launcher, but don’t quote me on that.

A thank you to all of you who submitted this, and foremost a big thank you to Redcor, and a few others, on the MMORPG.com forums for figuring out a solution. Sony is apparently aware of the issue and is working on a fix, but this will have to do for the time being. If you’re having this issue and the fix above doesn’t work, I suggest using SOE’s customer support line.

DC Universe: Hey, My D2D Code Ain't Working!


Accept my key before I flatten your face!

DC Universe Online launches today, and like any decent MMO the launch day issues are becoming too numerous to bore you with here on MMO Fallout. Among the problems I can actually help you with comes players who are having issues with their preorder keys from Direct2Drive. According to a few comments in my email box, players are having problems with their keys being accepted, with the majority of them facing the dreaded “this key is already in use” response. So, what is the issue? Hackers with key generators? Superman?

Nope. A little bit of research on my end has come up with a couple of solutions. According to a number of users on the MMORPG.com forums, you should go to SOE.com and set up your account from there. Following that, enter in your key and submit, which should still give you an error, but the key should still apply to the account. If the key was accepted, you will have the option to subscribe without buying the game. The subscription portion apparently can also be set up via the launcher, but don’t quote me on that.

A thank you to all of you who submitted this, and foremost a big thank you to Redcor, and a few others, on the MMORPG.com forums for figuring out a solution. Sony is apparently aware of the issue and is working on a fix, but this will have to do for the time being. If you’re having this issue and the fix above doesn’t work, I suggest using SOE’s customer support line.

Direct2Drive: Promo Code “Joker”


Direct to my bank card...

Is there an MMO you’ve been waiting to go on sale on Direct2Drive, but it just doesn’t seem to budge? Then boy do I have good news for you! For just this weekend, you can take 20% off of any MMO on Direct2Drive. All you have to do is take a $100 bill and send it to MMO Fallout, PO Box…

On second thought, my legal department is telling me that the above sale isn’t exactly legal. If you go to Direct2Drive’s website, add any MMO to your cart, and use the promo code “Joker” any time this weekend, you’ll save 20% off of the purchase price. This will work with items on sale, so your 50% off item now becomes 60% off (It’s 20% off of the sale price, not the original).

The sale lasts this weekend only.

Direct2Drive: Promo Code "Joker"


Direct to my bank card...

Is there an MMO you’ve been waiting to go on sale on Direct2Drive, but it just doesn’t seem to budge? Then boy do I have good news for you! For just this weekend, you can take 20% off of any MMO on Direct2Drive. All you have to do is take a $100 bill and send it to MMO Fallout, PO Box…

On second thought, my legal department is telling me that the above sale isn’t exactly legal. If you go to Direct2Drive’s website, add any MMO to your cart, and use the promo code “Joker” any time this weekend, you’ll save 20% off of the purchase price. This will work with items on sale, so your 50% off item now becomes 60% off (It’s 20% off of the sale price, not the original).

The sale lasts this weekend only.

Final Fantasy XIV Back On Shelves in WalMart


Dot com.

Back in November, I reported that Target and WalMart had pulled Final Fantasy XIV from store shelves, opting instead to only sell the game on their respective websites. I didn’t want to get into too much speculation at the time, as regular gaming stores (Best Buy, Gamestop, etc) were still stocking the title. Over the following month, I received a few reports from players who spotted the title on their store shelves, but couldn’t make a concrete statement without confirmation from either store’s corporate overlords (if the website reports that the item is not sold in stores, then the item is not sold in stores.).

Luckily, WalMart is reporting that Final Fantasy XIV is back on store shelves. Still no word from Target, who placed the item on sale back in November and subsequently removed the game from shelves, currently only selling the game online.

I have had a few unconfirmed reports that Game over in the UK is pulling Final Fantasy XIV off of shelves, possibly for a planned reboot in 2011 including the magical life-saving patches Square Enix has planned for the game in the coming months. More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.