Well, sure. But still. Account phishing - regardless what type of account - shoudl be illegal. Theft is theft. So today he steals someone's game account information. Tomorrow their bank information?

Plus, I have known people who had their accounts hacked and did get back anything. I would be curious on that 90% number of people scammed get their items back.

In fact, I just did a google search. There are TONS of pages regarding WoW account hacks and so far, with limited scanning, everyone who speaks from direct experience said that when they did get their account back, they typically lost all their gold and gear. There was a couple mentions where a character was deleted and the GMs un-deleted it, but still with empty pockets.

Besides, like I said, stealing is stealing - regardless of the medium.

This is sooooo marginally useful. On the off occasion that you are only using Silverlight to host a video clip and nothing else. Part of the appeal of Silverlight (as well as Flash) is to have the ability to create rich user experiences.

Also, I never get the Flash haters. These days I never find my computer slowing down because of Flash (granted, it is a fast computer) and there are so many cool sites that I find myself visiting that utilize flash really well. Just take a gander at what can be done:
http://thefwa.com/

Personally, I wish that a true motion graphics engine like Flash became part of every OS, controllable by Javascript. But since HTML5 isn't going to create the awesome sites I am thinking of, Flash and Silverlight are here to stay.

I hope that they do come to the iPhone. There are so many cool user experiences people could create without having to go through the Apple store approval crap.

I agree. They are not horrible. I won't say it is my favorite commercial by a long shot, but they are cute.

Hell, almost anything is better than those smarmy Apple ads these days. I am so tired of smugness mixed with misinformation. Bring on the cute and silly.

Regarding your lag comment - I often wonder if there is confusion around this term. Lag, to my understanding, is a product of slow packet travel times between your computer and the server. Thus, lag is mostly caused by a bad server or crappy internet connections.

What seems to be many people's problems is client framerate issues - which offers a similar feel. So if you are reducing your graphical settings in order to get a better framerate - that won't solve lag. It might allow your graphics to handle more on-screen players without dropping framerate though.

For example, take Left for Dead 2 - to digress, I must say a better multiplayer game than any MMO released in the last few years. I actually WANT to play with my team and PuGs can be quite fun. But back to MMOs - in LFD2 my graphics card can play the game at max settings without a stumble. However, I find that I connect to plenty of servers with crappy lag - worsening my gameplay.

Champions, unfortuntely, is rather hard on graphics (I don't have a problem, but I have monster graphics) but more - when you are in an instance with 100 people, the server does seem to create some lag. Go to instances with less people and it is better. Sad when the game runs best with only 30ish people in your zone. City of Heroes handled way more.

It was almost a super cool game. Funny, when we were all stuck in the lower levels in the beta it was really fun. The problem with WAR is that everything is designed for massive amounts of players in a zone - yet the engine itself didn't like massive players in a zone.

of course, games seem to only beta test the early levels, never the end game. So most MMO end games just suck. Hear that Cryptic? When you release yet another game with a crappy end-level? Champions is already walking the WAR path, and I suspect STO will follow too.

Must have 12 buttons...

With their beta schedule, they are CLEARLY not interested in really testing the game. Some people claim that they have to monitor the servers so that is why they are not up 24/7 - yet the game is going to be running that way in just a couple months and supposedly they have the tech from Champions (so they claim in interviews) to handle massive clients perfectly now.

So, past that bullshit, one has to wonder why Cryptic keeps the content so guarded? Afraid that testers might actually find the suck fast? Or perhaps Cryptic has a chip on their shoulder thinking they are perfect?

I see the same. Critics of Champions where silenced. Many testers gave up not only due to talking to deaf ears, but the lame testing times marred by downtimes just trying to patch the client makes you want to go elsewhere.

Plus, in addition, the holidays are coming up. A few days off for Thanksgiving, more for Christmas and New Years. Really, February is coming fast - work day wise. If they keep up this testing, there will only be like 40ish hours of beta testing information. I predict open beta cluster-fk followed by an attempt to fix things at the last minute with a launch patch that also goes rocky due to late-in-the-game stress testing.

I with developers would realize that in order to balance ganking with fun, there needs to be a toolset to dispense "justice". And I don't mean - oh, police yourselves - because that is proven not to work.

There needs to be some equivalent of jail, or some way to remove an offender from an area once they are caught by someone working for justice.

I always felt that a system of, say, revenge points. Every time someone harms you, steals from you, kills you, loots you, etc... you get revenge points to spend on them. The worse the act they do to you, the more revenge points you can spend. Say they attack you 1pt per damage. They kill you, 1000pts. They loot you - 1000pts x gold value of items taken. They corpse camp you and kill you again within 15 minutes - 5000pts. And so on.

Then, you can spend these points OR transfer them to another player or even a guild. Perhaps transfer them to a town structure too? These points can be spent. Say 10,000pts lets you curse them with a debuff. 50,000 pts curses them so that they cannot fast-travel (summons, steeds, etc...) for a limited time. 100k pts you can instant kill them if you find them. Enough points could even ban a player from an area for a time (a day, a week, whatever).

Oh, points can also be spent by just attacking, killing and looting them. In otherwords, if you have revenge points on someone you sort of spend them instead of them getting revenge to spend on you.

This is just one idea, but it is a TOOL to let players gather together to keep society in order. YET it still allows for the player killer, they just need to keep on the move and spread their targets out. Whatever the tools a developer creates is fine, as long as it allows for a cause effect.

Right now, in a sandbox free PvP game, the effect of ganking = the best loot. There really is no negative incentive. If developers want the "lord of the flies" MMO, great. But don't pretend you are creating a virtual fantasy world with society, economy, etc... and neglect to put in the tools to actually have a viable society.

Working as intended.

Cheer to sandbox MMOs!!!

I only hope they are working on viable systems for player self-justice. For example, a repeat greifer who prays on other players in a certian area might be able to be "banned" from that area. Maybe the ban is that wandering guards kill him on site or maybe he is transported across the world without means to return for a real life week or something. There are many ways to approach it.

My point is - sandbox MMOs can be really awesome. If you want to open them all up, give the players tools to enforce justice. After all, we load up MMOs full of tools to kill one another. Why not ones to protect and administrate consequences that are meaningful to the offender?