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WildStar bans thousands of botters
Carbine Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney informed the WildStar community last night that the team is waging a serious fight against botters, having suspended 7,300 accounts in the last few days. "Obviously 7,300 is a tiny fraction of the overall player base, but it's a noticeable chunk of the current bots," Gaffney wrote. He pointed out that over half of those accounts were regular players who had their accounts hijacked and urged players to use two-factor authentication as a preventative measure. To aid in the war against bots, the team will be improving the reporting process and tuning its automated bot detection. Gaffney said that the studio will be unrelenting in its prosecution of such accounts: "We're attacking this with a full-spectrum approach as a placeholder until we get to the better tools that should help in the short-medium term. We acknowledge it sucks when you see obvious cheaters, and we're working to eliminate it."
EVE Evolved: Three exploitable game features
If there's one thing EVE Online players are good at, it's finding ways to get an advantage over each other. The hyper-competitive PvP sandbox breeds players with an investigative streak who will constantly figure out ways to bend and abuse new features to make ISK or get an edge over other players in combat. The most obvious cases include abusing bugs, as happened in 2009's starbase exploit that corporations used to generate valuable tech 2 materials out of thin air and 2010's MonkeySphere exploit that let players hide themselves from the local chat channel and sneak up on unsuspecting victims. Most cases of abusing features for profit or advantage aren't as clear-cut as these obvious exploits, as some have negative consequences but still use completely legitimate game mechanics. When players figured out how to abuse Faction Warfare's kill LP rewards to farm five trillion ISK, for example, they did so using in-game mechanics that just hadn't really been thought through. Many more subtle cases of broken game mechanics that undermine EVE's core design ethos still exist, some of which have been recently introduced and others that have managed to remain unchallenged for years because there isn't really a good alternative. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three features in EVE Online that I think fundamentally break the design ethos of the game but don't have very clear solutions.
Breakfast Topic: Share your tales of strange, silly or shocking AFKs
Not all of us have AFK stories as painful as the dad who returned from going AFK to discover that his six-year-old had gone on an auction house spending spree worth nearly half a million gold in the few minutes he'd been away. You know that had to hurt -- way more than your aching bladder during an epic session of "Do I have time to pee before the next boss?" There's an art to going AFK politely, but sometimes you just gotta go. "AFK house on fire" takes the prize, in my opinion, for the most hair-raising AFK message readers have shared on our pages. (As I remember, it was a kitchen fire, and everyone turned out to be okay.) Still, I most enjoy hearing about the truly bizarre AFK incidents involving cats. All the really weird stuff involves cats. It's a law of nature or something. Tell us your tale (your own experience, or something another player did when you were playing) of unusual AFKs. Was it strange? Scary? Hilarious? Did the player in question return to the game session?
Leaderboard: Do you make time for MMOs on your vacation?
This week's Leaderboard comes to you live from the middle of my vacation. OK, it's not actually live, but I am AFK in theory. I say in theory because I still managed to play an MMO this week despite my sabbatical from the cushy confines of the Massively yacht. Anyway, enough wordcount filler. Let's talk about your vacation! More specifically, do you make any time to play MMOs or do you disconnect entirely? Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
Final Fantasy XIV dev talks new servers and access restrictions
It's no secret that the long-awaited re-launch of Final Fantasy XIV hasn't gone very smoothly. In fact, the servers are taking such a beating that Square Enix has temporarily shut down online sales of the game. Despite the game's current woes, the FFIXV team wants fans to know that it is working overtime to get things running smoothly. In a lengthy forum post, producer and director Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P) outlined what steps have been taken to stabilize FFXIV's game world. Yoshida noted that all Final Fantasy XIV servers now have login restrictions to prevent a flood of logs and re-logs from causing them to crash. Login restrictions are most likely to be implemented during peak times, which Yoshida says are between 9:00 p.m. and midnight. Each server can support a theoretical maximum of 5,000 concurrent players.
The Daily Grind: What's the strangest AFK you've experienced?
Sometimes, people go away from the keyboard for normal reasons. Saying that I had to go AFK from World of Warcraft for a phone call wasn't all that abnormal, even if it was a call I had never expected to get from the woman who would eventually marry me. But then there are the more unusual times, like when I had to go AFK because my house was being pelted with rocks. Or the story a friend relayed of a guildmate saying, "BRB, someone is breaking into my house." There's always a story behind these incidents, even if it's just a bluff and you're running to the bathroom. So what's the strangest AFK you've experienced? Was it a case of something weird in your own life like calling animal control to deal with the wolves in your front yard, or was it a friend suddenly leaving the raid to put out a grease fire in the kitchen? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate?
Yesterday whilst playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, I queued for a pickup group flashpoint to try and nudge my Sniper past level 40. Being a DPS class, it literally took an hour to get a group to pop, and then one of my three teammates decided to go AFK shortly after we entered the instance. After about six minutes -- yes, I timed it -- the group leader initiated a vote kick, which passed and sent our AFK mate packing. Right before the system removed him from the group, though, we saw his 'hi guys, I'm finally back' text in the group chat. The moral of today's story is that there is no moral. There is a Daily Grind question, though, and it is this: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Drama Mamas guide to going AFK
Life happens; we all get that. But should your life be happening to the 24 other people in your raid group? We (and your 24 raidmates) think not. After all, if you're here to play World of Warcraft, why do you keep going AFK? The need for and the etiquette of going away from the keyboard (AFK) was stronger in WoW's earlier days. During classic WoW, 5-manning places like Blackrock Depths was an all-night affair. Players were more forgiving of a quick dash to the bathroom, and groups doing longer content tended to schedule natural breaks along the way. Today's WoW is a much more terse affair. Scenarios, group instances, and raids are likely to be over long before your bladder is. It's not so difficult to simply plan ahead or wait for a group to come to a natural conclusion. Yet people don't always do that. Like That Guy who's always texting and checking his Twitter feed instead of looking you in the eye during a conversation, That Guy in game is likely to wander AFK just when you need him the most. Tuning out the people you're with, online or off, simply is not socially acceptable behavior. (You've heard what they're calling those tuned-out types who'll be wearing Google Glass, right? It's not a complimentary term.) The best way to handle going AFK is to avoid it in the first place. For the rest of those moments when something comes while you're grouping that's beyond your control, let's look at the best ways of managing the interruption and getting you back into the game.
WoW Archivist: Patch 2.2, the patch without content
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? New content comes in patches. That's how it has always worked in WoW. Some patches with a multiple decimals, like patch 1.8.2, are just for bug fixes, emergency boss tuning, and the like. They don't really count (although to be fair, some have given us small amounts of new stuff, such as Onyxia's return in patch 3.2.2). A patch with two numbers, like patch 5.2 hitting very soon, is supposed to have shiny new pixels for all of us to enjoy. Patch 2.2, released in September 2007, didn't have any. It was the only time in WoW's history that a major patch did not introduce any new content to the game world. No raids. No dungeons. No battlegrounds or arenas. No daily quests. Not even new items. Instead, patch 2.2 gave us something we didn't particularly want. Something players immediately hated and decried as useless. Something we have never embraced, though most of us haven't thought about it in a long, long time. Most players probably don't even know it exists.
Captain's Log: Apologies and Andorian ships in Star Trek Online
Last week I wrote a little bit about festering anger exhibited in the Star Trek Online forums over the recent removal of fleet marks as a reward for undertaking the Foundry mission wrapper. This week, Star Trek Online's executive producer Daniel Stahl added another post to the ever-lengthening forum thread and outright apologized for the "heavy handed" nature of the move. He also outlined the reasons behind the reward's removal. Also, this week a new three-ship pack has been made available for purchase in the game's Cryptic Store: the long-awaited Andorian Kumari class escort. She appears to be a beast of a ship and well worthy of her Andorian heritage. So let's get to it!
Rise and Shiny: Dragon's Call
When I play a game like Dragon's Call by GameDP, I am reminded of a riff on that old meme: "In Russia, game plays you." If you do what I do and explore almost any MMO or MMO-like game you can, you often find yourself joining in to play games that really boggle your mind and challenge your perception of what an MMO should be like. Dragon's Call is one of those games. Now, look, I'm up on all of the latest trends, even the ones that are super-fringe and crazy-bad; these are the trends that really interest me the most because they eventually filter into the West quietly but effectively. One of these trends is putting out games that are essentially nothing more than a button pushing contest. I've talked about the Chinese market before and how it is absolutely filled with browser-based MMOs, some of them lasting for only a few months until they are shut down. The crowd plays as hard as it can, hopes to get ranked highly, and then moves on to the next game. It's so odd. Dragon's Call has to come from this sort of design mindset, if not from China directly. The good news is that many games from the East are phenomenal, and just like the market in the West, the Eastern market offers a smaller percentage of good games versus bad -- but the good titles are really good. Unfortunately, Dragon's Call is not one of the good ones.
WoW Moviewatch: /afk
The movie /afk is something of a community legend at this point. It's been to film festivals, involved huge swaths of the WoW blog and video spheres, and has found its way into nearly every nook and cranny out there. This is the description of /afk from its own YouTube page: This is "/afk", a short film about Piet, a World of Warcraft player whose shrink tells him that he is addicted and should delete his character. Yet, he still wants to fulfill his one big dream: Become a dragonslayer! Take the time to check it out and let us know what you think. I'm curious to see how Moviewatch readers feel about this style of video. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Wings Over Atreia: Support the war effort and reap the spoils in Aion
Ah, the best laid plans of Daevas and men... I am so glad you are the understanding sort! You'll forgive me, right? I know that I'd said that this week's Wings Over Atreia would be covering a guide to all the daily quests in Aion, but that was before NCsoft surprised us with a new event mid-week. And since said event ends on the 20th, I thought waiting until the 18th to fill you in would be downright cruel! Besides, the daily quests aren't going anywhere; we'll catch them next week. You might even thank me later for giving you seven more days of freedom. So what's this event that has preempted the (spectacular, informative, and well-worth-the-wait!) already-penned article? It's called The Spoils of War, though technically it is actually two events bundled together: Provisioning the Front Lines and Besh Temple Blitz. Daevas of any level can participate in the first, whereas only those level 55 and up can do the latter. The next question is why participate? Because of the spoils, of course!
The Daily Grind: Should we be disconnected for idling too long?
Are you one of those MMO players who always seems to idle out while tending to real-life issues? I know I am, and it usually results in my finding something else to do once I discover that I've been logged out. I certainly understand why the developers add that feature, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that idling all day in TERA not only is allowed but also grants me the Full Time Job achievement, which tickled me to no end. So what's your opinion on idling out? Should you be allowed to be AFK as long as you'd like, or should idlers always be disconnected after a certain amount of time? How much time should be allowed? Let us know in the comments! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: How do you handle real-life interruptions?
You just can't take a picture of yourself during Love is in the Air without a heart on your head. I actually don't like the phrase "real life" when describing what happens in the physical world because it implies that the interactions we have in Azeroth aren't real. Captain Obvious says that WoW is not a single-player game. When we are playing Mass Effect, we don't affect anyone else if we get up to take a bio break or comfort a child. But in World of Warcraft, if we are in a group of any size, we affect others every time we AFK. The phrase "real life is more important than WoW" is a mantra we hear all the time, and it is true in that you shouldn't shirk responsibilities in the physical world in order to play. However, if you have committed yourself for a period of time to other players, it is the same thing as committing yourself to any group of people in the physical world. Breaking that commitment falls under the same etiquette umbrella, whether in game or out.
Drama Mamas: The etiquette of AFKing in a group or raid
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. When is it OK to AFK during a boss fight? The answers range from "Never, unless you are about to call 911!" to "Any time you need to. Real life comes first!" This week, we address this common conundrum. Not a specific instance of drama but it definitely causes it often enough. I really love instancing but have been a bit stressed recently about how to deal with interruptions. How do you handle them? Knock on the door, kids waking up, anything really. We're not all college kids where the worst that could happen would be a power-outage or dorm fire alarm. From what I read there is not much help or sympathy out there - although that may just be the minority. They mostly say to not even run instances, which I can sympathize with - they want to run it fast - but I cannot accept that as an answer. What do they do when they have to answer the door during a boss fight? Really.
The Daily Grind: How do you feel about AFK progression?
AFK progression is an accepted part of many MMOs these days. Crafting in Fallen Earth can be set up, started, and done while you're logged out. Come back after a certain amount of time and you've got a new vehicle and a load of XP. The newly-launched Glitch is another example -- you can learn your skills while you're doing other things in game, and learning continues while you're logged out. There are various other methods set up by developers here and there for players to advance while they're afk and logged out. On one hand, it makes quite a bit of sense. If crafting a vehicle in Fallen Earth takes over a full calendar day, for example, it can seem a little unreasonable to expect a player to sit there and work on it the entire time. On the other hand, many players argue that it's unreasonable to reward players for not playing the game. What do you think? Hit the comment button and let us know!
Breakfast Topic: To pee or not to pee?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. It happens to all of us. You've just wiped for the third (or maybe 30th?) time on a boss. The mage decided it would be more fun to jog in circles than to target the adds he was assigned, and your raid leader's crunching numbers and calling out changes to the strategy while everyone makes the graveyard run. You're already back to the boss's room, you're flasked up, and you've eaten your appropriate buff food. You know your job and are anxious for the kill, because your best-in-slot item is just sitting there waiting for you. All you need is the signal to go, and you'll be ready to unleash hell on this beast. It's during this anxious moment when you realize ... You have to pee. Suddenly, this has become your overwhelming priority. You start to stand up, but then, the raid leader sends out a ready check. What do you do? Do you hit Not Ready, make a quick apology, and race for the bathroom? Do you send your raid leader a whisper, begging for a few extra minutes? Do you hold it in, click Ready and fight even harder, knowing that the boss must die so that freedom can flow free? Or do you just call for a clean up in aisle three?
Wings Over Atreia: Rant powers activate!
So there I was, with another topic planned and article well on its way to completion when fate intervened and thrust a new subject upon me. And not in a happy-Fed-Ex-guy-handing-it-over kinda way either, but a growling, grumbling, grit-my-teeth-and-try-not-to-speak-in-asterisks (%#$**!) kind of way. Oh yes, this is a topic of great rantiness for me. I freely admit that I rarely reach the heights of true frustration within Aion (not counting launch queues where I simply chose to stop logging in altogether), especially to the point of actually tossing aside another column to express and share said frustrations with you. But now, you have a second opportunity to witness my small yet developing rant lobe -- placed, I believe, somewhere behind the occipital lobe judging by the fact that when it revs up people tend to see red. And the truth of it is, I am going to derive great pleasure from venting about this topic. So what has me so fired up right now? The venerable AP harvesting grounds of the truly lazy: AFK Dredgions. Queue up then enter past the break for a discourse on the evils of this practice and what NCsoft should do about it.
Choose My Adventure: Time management and the AFK game
Welcome back to Massively's Choose My Adventure. As I'm gearing up for the fifth week of my excursion through Darkfall and the lands of Agon, I've settled into something of a groove based on my own personal playstyle and the schedules of folks that I've met in the game. Aventurine's sandbox is a game that sucks you in in a number of different ways. It's a game that you can (and really should) play a lot, and it's not a game that I'd recommend to folks who are dabblers and game-hoppers or those who have a ton of additional demands on their free time. This isn't solely because of the skill grind, either, but also because of the large degree of freedom a player has to choose his own goals, path, and endgame. Ultimately, Darkfall is a pretty large middle finger in the face of the popular notion that MMORPGs are casual games. In fact, Aventurine said as much several months ago, and this attitude informs just about every aspect of Agon. Though some might consider this a negative, I've thus far found it to be quite a bit of fun as well as a refreshing change from the vast majority of the disposable MMOs I've played over the past half decade. Join me after the cut for a look at time management in Agon as well as my weekly recap. %Gallery-110478%
