Runescape: Security and Username Purging


 

Bank it!

Here at MMO Fallout, we follow the intuitive systems that various companies use to keep your account secure. So far, the safest systems we’ve seen also happen to be the most cumbersome, such as the authenticator system used by Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft, while others are intuitive and useful, such as the on-screen keyboard that multiple MMOs have made use of.

On Runescape, however, Jagex has decided to take the fight to brute forcing, by disconnecting the login name from the character. In an update today, Jagex has implemented a system that will take effect for new accounts: When registering, players are now required to submit their email address which will be used as the player’s login rather than their toon’s username. As a person’s email address is not displayed in-game, it will be impossible to guess a person’s login information.

In other Runescape account related news, Jagex plans on freeing up millions of account names by implementing a system where names are freed up as certain prerequisites are met. If an account meets all of the below requirements:

  • It hasn’t been logged into in the last year
  • It hasn’t been used to purchase any membership
  • It has no RuneScape skills of level 30 or above

The name will be put up for anyone who wishes to take it. If a player loses their username, they will be required to choose a new one upon logging in.

More Runescape as it appears.

 

All Points Towards Spellborn: APB Will Take Five Years


New pics.

I get something of a twinge in my leg when a company somewhere either says or does something that provokes a potential customer to say “well they just saved me the cash I would have wasted checking this out,” so naturally I carry a House-like limp at all times. So when my femur fractured in three locations last week, I had a good feeling that something was up and after four or five days of investigation I came across an interview between Eurogamer and K2 Networks (also known as GamersFirst), the new owners of All Points Bulletin, to be relaunched as APB: Reloaded next year.

Currently a team of 24 people are installing a free to play, microtransaction model into All Points Bulletin, where players will be able to lease weapons in order to get into the game quicker. The game that was once promised to players by defunct studio Realtime Worlds? That is going to take a lot longer to release, in fact you’ll likely be finished with Left 4 Dead 5 by the time the fully realized APB is out. According to owner Bjorn Book-Larsson;

“Oh no [six months isn’t long enough] – we think it’ll take four or five years,”

Four or five years, so by 2015 the full incarnation of All Points Bulletin should be out. Larsson then goes on to explain that K2 Networks plans on launching APB as close to the notorious unreleased patch as possible, with the addition of leased weaponry, and a few other updates. In other words, APB is going to relaunch small to test the market, and go from there.

“After that, presuming there’s an interest in the game, we expect this to be a multi-year development process where we continue updating the game.”

Key phrase being “presuming there’s an interest.” There is still no guarantee that K2 Networks won’t shut down APB again, gut the code like a fish, and make use of its extensive customization engine. K2 has committed two years to the game, hopefully enough time to bring back old players and flesh in some new players.

It’s a good thing APB: Reloaded is launching as a free to play title. I’d hate to think my subscription money was going towards a five year long beta.

Aion: Server Transfers, Security, and More…


overused.

Given that we are nearing the end of November, and Aion is still running to the best of our knowledge, the jingling of pipe bombs at my doorstep is a good indicator that the Aion producer Chris Hager has put out a new address to the community.

Earlier this year, Aion introduced the free slightly restricted server transfer service with the hopes of one day making such a service paid for all. Hager boasts that the team has transferred over 170,000 characters since July, and that the team has learned enough from the test service to put a full paid version in effect coming next year. After January 5th, 2011, when everyone has no doubt finished clustering into the transfer service while it is still free, server transfers will become paid. Of course there will be restrictions on certain factions transferring to certain servers where they may be unbalanced.

But what would an Aion article be without talking security? In the next week or so, Hager plans to address a new security system going live on December 1st, that will entail a secondary pin system. Security has been a major issue in Aion’s history, from NCsoft account problems to fansites getting hijacked, and everything in between. If this pin system is anything like several other games, it will likely involve the player inputting a pin via a mouse click screen. I can’t really see NCsoft using a dongle system like Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft.

More on Aion as it appears.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: F2P Delayed


Yarrg...

Bugs! Everyone hates them and yet none of us are willing to tell them that they aren’t paying rent and need to either shape up or ship out. Sure we all talk about bugs behind their back, but apparently it’s not enough as they are still with us. Especially considering that they break hearts, delay everything they touch, and generally annoy the hell out of us.

For Pirates of the Burning Sea players, the past few weeks have not been great, and the objective date of November 22nd (according to Flying Lab being the earliest possible date, legally, due to disclosure requirements) for the big transition is not being met, and there were a few issues with players being unable to transfer off of closed servers during the recent merger. In the case of the free to play launch, glitches are being blamed, with the developers noting that they would like to spend Thanksgiving with their families, not at work fixing bugs that would have appeared had they launched today.

The team is looking at the week after Thanksgiving for launch, which you can read more about here: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77188

 

Target/Walmart Pulled Final Fantasy XIV From Shelves


Dot com.

As per my own rules, I try to keep the product sales relegated to digital distribution, mainly because considering retail giants would require me to either include stores from a number of countries, increasing the sources I have to regularly check, or just not include any at all. So, in the effort of fairness, I only include worldwide digital distributors (Direct2Drive, Steam, Impulse, etc). For those of you living in the US, which I know for sure includes some of you, you could find Final Fantasy XIV at Target on a price cut for $39.99. I almost purchased it at the store I work at, but the item has been out of stock for weeks.

While browsing Target.com, I went to see if the website had the same price cut, and found the above image. Although Final Fantasy XIV is available on the Target website, the chain is no longer stocking the item in stores. Now, I’m sure half of you will tell me it was due to poor sales, but (at least at my store) when they reduced the price by $10 the store ran out of stock in the matter of a couple of days.

After checking Target’s website, I went on to check Walmart.com, which also listed both Final Fantasy and its collector’s edition as “not sold in stores.” Other websites I checked including Gamestop and Best Buy all seemed to have the title in stores, so as far as large chains go this appears to be isolated to Target and WalMart, but no doubt two of the largest retail giants in America.

Either way, advertising and promotion is key in MMOs, the lack of which almost killed titles like Dungeons and Dragons Online (and sent Turbine launching a lawsuit against their publisher), and Square Enix just lost a big line of publicity with Final Fantasy XIV no longer on the shelves of two retail giants in a time where what they could really use is some players picking up the game.

More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.

My Battle.net Account Is Locked A Lot


I love me some spam folder.

I started playing World of Warcraft again several months ago (and quit again after playing for a month and a half), and unfortunately I had to contact support over the phone to get some assistance. I found that, even at off-peak hours, the support queue was full enough that it required me to call back for almost a half hour just to get into the line to wait to get support for account assistance. Looking on the forums, I saw a similar glut of people looking for assistance with stolen accounts, unauthorized authenticators, etc.

Then one day I stumbled on to my spam folder, and realized something shocking and somewhat confusing: I receive more Battle.Net account spam than I do Viagra (or V!aGrA as they call it) and other medication spam, and frankly I’m no longer surprised that as many people are having their accounts stolen.

Oddly enough, spammers use the same technique that is commonly found in free to play Asian grinders, where the spam message is sent to millions upon millions of people with the knowledge that the small amount of people stupid enough to say “you mean I can get off-brand Tylenol at half the price of my local pharmacy and double the effectiveness?” will more than make up for the fact that 99.9999% will either not see it or immediately delete it. Essentially, if you’re trying to get a quarter into a cup from ten paces, taking a handful of quarters and throwing them at the cup drastically increases your chances of at least one getting in, as opposed to tossing each quarter one by one.

So don’t feel too bad, Warcraft’ers. If ten thousand of you lose your account this year to this type of email, that’s still only .08% of the game’s population, around the same lines as the 99.9% no-response rate that regular spam receives.

Actually, whenever I write an article on World of Warcraft here, spam bots swarm like pathetic little parasites. “Oh hey, Blizzard is letting me know via third party blog that my battle.net account is locked, I’d better click on this link, it’s safe.”

Well FFXIV Is Free To Play For Now At Least


That extension is adorable!

I know at least one person will eventually reply with “Um, Omali, it’s technically buy to play not free to play, as you’d still need to buy the client.” Final Fantasy XIV players are coming upon November 22nd, when early adopters will start hitting the end of their second free month of game time. Just this week, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIV would receive yet another extension on their free time, giving a total of three free months (two if you don’t count the free month included with purchase).

As Casey Schreiner pointed out on the G4TV MMO Report this past week, as Square Enix has a patch coming that will hopefully fix a lot of the issues, but that patch isn’t set to come until early 2011, players are likely to see a few more free months added to their game time. Until then, Final Fantasy XIV is technically a free to play title. Remember, if you buy Final Fantasy XIV and register your character before…no, that was the 19th. Never mind.

More on Final Fantasy XIV as it shuffles lazily into our path.

Aion: Double Experience and Siege Changes


 

Assuming the GM's don't murder you first.

 

In its 13+ months of existence, the team over at Aion has done a lot to remove issues that plagued the game at launch, from overpopulation (to subsequent underpopulation), lag in large battles, and bugs and glitches. However, one of the biggest issues I still see people having with the game is the immense amount of grind still present, occasionally lessened with a double experience weekend.

Such is the case once again with Aion, where players will enjoy a double experience weekend in December, twice! Between December 3rd and 6th, and again from the 10th to the 13th, players will enjoy double experience on any of their toons. In addition, these weekends will bring 99% discounts to soul healing. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, soul healing is the cost you pay to instantly remove the sickness effect when your character dies.

In other community pleasing news, the announcement came that the siege times will be changed for people who would like to do other things aside from sieging every night. Sieges now happen in a two hour window rather than three, along with an hour block in between to allow players to participate in other activities. Up until now, if you were attacking or defending, that was your job for the night. Forts are now on a single layer, as well, to remove the tactical strategy of bum rushing all three at once.

The double experience times are on the calendar page.

You can read more about the double experience here: http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=434&page=

You can read more about the siege changes here: http://na.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=435&page=

Bought Mortal Online? Have 7 Free Days On Star Vault


Mortals Online

Mortal Online’s launch feels like forever ago, and player reaction is still mixed. Ask a current player and they’ll likely tell you that the game has improved leaps and bounds but still has a long way to go before it is stable, complete, and balanced. Ask an ex-player and you are likely to walk headlong into a Hitler analogy accompanying a rant about how much Star Vault hates making money and just wants to drive their customers away. Either way you look at it, Mortal Online had a rocky launch, not lethally rocky like All Points Bulletin, but heavier than your normal MMO launch. For months, de-synchronization was the biggest issue plaguing the game, among other smaller but numerous problems. Star Vault launched the Epic Patch, promising to fix many of these faults.

Star Vault wants to apologize to their customers, both current an prior, by giving seven free days. In the November Newsletter, Star Vault announced:

Of course actions speak louder than words, so in order to reimburse our customers for the grief the latest patches might have caused we are adding 7 days of additional gametime to each active account today. And in order to give customers who are not subscribed at the moment the chance to check out the new engine build and the new content, we are adding 7 days to every customer who bought any of the game versions earlier and does not have an active subscription at the moment.

In addition, the company is offering free days to those who resubscribe. Five days for one month, twenty days for three months, and fifty days for six months. If your account was inactive, you’ll be able to log into the account section on the Mortal Online website and see:

Your subscription has been cancelled,
but has not expired.

No further payments will or can be processed on your current registered payment method. Your subscription will expire on Fri, 26 Nov 2010. If you want to continue playing after that you need to reactive your subscription.

More on Mortal Online as it appears. Hit more for the entirety of the newsletter.

Continue reading “Bought Mortal Online? Have 7 Free Days On Star Vault”

Everquest 2: Extended Free Gold Weekend


It's like the free trial to a free trial.

Everquest II went free to play just a few months ago, and the folks at Sony Online Entertainment want to spread the wealth…for a few days at least. If you’ve been playing the free version of Everquest II and are interested in what those elite gold members are doing, you’re in luck: Sony is allowing you full access to what the gold members get, and for free. Bronze members will have access to higher level spells, extra bag space, bank space, extra coin and journal quests.

The free trial lasts until the Sunday and started today, so you’re already a day late. Check out more information here: http://everquest2.com/news/read/current/3756.